A Dream

by totallynotabrony

Rating: teen
Tags: Trixie, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Science Fiction, Comedy, Cutie Mark Crusaders, Sunset Shimmer, Profanity, Dark, Alternate Universe, Human, Main 6, Original Character
Length: 522859

A not so standard human-in-Equestria story including but not limited to: democracy, tequila, and robots.

A not so standard human-in-Equestria story including but not limited to: democracy, tequila, and robots.

Things escalate from there.

TV Tropes page

Now translated into Korean

Published 2012-03-02 23:44:02 UTC
Last updated 2019-11-08 00:36:52 UTC

Friendship is Magic

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The Ticket Master

The “Welcome home Princess Luna” party lasted the rest of the day. Having stayed up all night for the Summer Sun Celebration, I was pretty tired. I don’t remember falling asleep, but when I woke up, I was facedown on the library floor surrounded by cake crumbs.

“Good morning Valiant,” said Spike.

“Huh? Oh, hi.” I yawned. Here I was still in Equestria, still dreaming. Strange, I’d never slept in a dream before. Did I dream while I was dreaming?

“Spike, allow me to incept you with an idea.”

“What does that mean?”

“Don’t worry about it, just listen. If you’re just a figment of my subconscious, then you know what I know. Theoretically, that means we share the same mind, and all thoughts.”

“What are you talking about?”

I frowned. “If you know what I know, then you’d know what I’m talking about.”

“Do you know what you’re talking about?”

I actually hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I suppose not.”

“So how would I know what you’re talking about?”

“Fair point.” I got up and stretched. Twilight came down the stairs from where her bed was.

“Oh, I didn’t expect you to still be here.”

“Neither did I. Longest dream I can remember.”

She gave me an odd look, but didn’t press it. “Spike, Applejack asked me to help her out a little at Sweet Apple Acres. I’ll be gone a while. You’ll have to watch the library.”

“Can’t I come, Twilight? I haven’t had any really great apples for a while.”

“I can watch the library,” I offered.

She looked skeptical. “Do you have any experience with books?”

“Sure. They have words in them for you to read. When you’re finished, you put them back on the shelf.”

“Well, all right. I should only be gone a few hours. Come on, Spike.” He climbed on her back and they left.

I was alone in the library. Honestly, I didn’t mind. Reading the books would be a great way to pass the time. I couldn’t wait to see what kind of crazy stuff my sleeping mind would come up with.

After a couple of hours, Fluttershy came in with a whole flock of birds.

“Oh,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to find you here. I was just going to do a little tidying up.”

“Knock yourself out.” I went back to the adventure novel I had found. It was part of a series that started a great hero named Daring Do. I figured that once I got to the climax, I would probably wake up and never find out how it ended. Kind of sad, but it had to happen eventually.

Fluttershy and the birds began cleaning things. They hummed and sang while they worked.

A few minutes later, Twilight came in. “Oh Fluttershy, not you too!”

“Oh, hello Twilight. I hope you don’t mind. We’re all doing a little spring cleaning.”

“It’s summer.”

“Oh, well better late than never, right?”

“You’re not doing this for the ticket, are you?”

“Well, yes.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m not accepting any favors until I’ve made my final decision. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to—”

The door burst open and Pinkie darted in, grabbing Twilight and hauling her outside. I heard some kind of song and dance number. A crowd had gathered, and they seemed as confused as I was.

“What’s going on?” asked one of them.

“Oh, you haven’t heard?" said Pinkie's voice. "Twilight has an extra ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala!”

“THE GRAND GALLOPING GALA!” the crowd roared. It sounded like there was some kind of stampede outside.

“What’s the Grand Galloping Gala?” I wondered.

A few minutes later, Twilight and Spike teleported into the room, looking frazzled.

“Quick, lock the doors!” she said. The two of them covered all the rooms, shutting windows and bolting locks. When it was all done, she breathed a sigh of relief.

“What was all that for?” I asked as we stood in the dark.

“I’ve got an extra ticket to the Grand Galloping Gala, and everypony in town wants it! We have to lock down the library so they’ll leave us alone.”

“Uh, that might be a problem.”

The lights flicked on. Applejack, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie had all managed to slip inside.

Twilight screamed. “I can’t decide! I just can’t decide. I just can’t stand to disappoint any of you.” She dropped to the floor, covering her head with her hooves.

“Twilight, sugar, I didn’t mean to put so much pressure on you,” said Applejack. “If it helps, I don’t want the ticket anymore. You can give it to somepony else. I won’t feel bad, I promise.”

“Me too,” said Fluttershy. “I fell so awful that I made you feel awful.”

“And me too,” said Pinkie. “It’s no fun upsetting your friends.”

“Twilight, it was unfair of me trying to force you as I did,” said Rarity.

“Yes!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. “That means the ticket is mine!” She laughed.

“You know, you’re kind of a bitch,” I said.

The ponies stared at me for a moment in shock, before seeming to agree and glaring at Rainbow.

“Ah, I haven’t perfected my signature moves yet to show off to the Wonderbolts. I guess I don’t need that ticket either.”

“We’re sorry, Twilight,” they all said in unison.

“So what is this Grand Galloping Gala?” I asked.

All six of them began talking at once. I couldn’t pick out any individual comments, but it seemed like they all had their reasons for wanting to go.

“I can’t believe you haven’t heard of the Gala,” said Twilight.

“Hello? Not from Equestria?”

“It sounds like you could use a new experience.”

“Are you gonna take him?” asked Applejack in astonishment.

“No, if I can’t take all of you girls, I’ll just return the tickets. Spike, take a letter.”

I got the feeling that I had just been slighted, somehow. Twilight finished the dictation and Spike sent the letter on its way with a puff of fire.

“I couldn’t enjoy myself without you girls there anyway,” said Twilight. They had a group hug.

Twilight’s stomach growled.

“Allow us to treat you to dinner,” said Rarity.

Spike suddenly spit up a letter. “Hey look, six tickets to the Gala!”

The ponies cheered. Spike coughed up another piece of paper. He read, “And one for a chaperone of your choice.”

“Valiant, would you like to go?”

“Uh, I guess. I still don’t know what it is.”

Spike’s cheeks bulged again and out came another letter. He looked slightly worn out from the activity, but his face brightened when he read what was written. “And one for you, Spike!”

Everyone seemed pleased by this, and they went to dinner. I wasn’t invited.

Whatever. I had a novel to finish.

Griffon the Brush Off

I thought I saw a flash of pink out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look, but there was nothing there. Had something passed by the window? Whatever. I turned back to my book. It was a guide to mechanics and was really quite interesting.

Granted, pony technology was somewhat lacking, but with my knowledge of Earth’s stuff, I was betting I could come up with some really cool steampunk-type equipment. I had my eye on a giant suit of powered armor. I’ve got an Iron Man complex.

This time I was sure I saw something outside the window. Had that been Rainbow Dash? The coloring was about right. I was still thinking about it when I was suddenly sprayed with water.

I jerked my head up and saw a nozzle on the end of a hose hanging from the ceiling. I smacked it away from my face, and the jet of water washed over the table in front of me, drenching a Daring Do novel sitting there.

I ran outside to get away from the water. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were rolling on the ground with laughter.

“That was great!” said Pinkie. “You were all like ‘Ah!’ and ‘Shitfuckdamn’.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“We’re pranking!” said Rainbow. “Everypony in town is getting it.”

“In that case, allow me to get you something.

“Oh come on,” said Pinkie. “You probably needed a bath anyway, right? No harm done?”

“Well, I suppose not, but Twilight won’t be happy about that ruined book. It was one of her favorites.”

“Oops.” Pinkie and Rainbow looked at each other and then ran.

When Twilight came back to the library later, I explained what had happened.

“Yes, they’ve been pulling pranks on everypony.” She sighed. “I guess girls will be girls.”

Speaking of, Pinkie came through the door at that moment.

“Hey guys!”

“Where’s Rainbow?” I asked.

“She’s off playing with her griffon friend. She’s sooo mean. The griffon’s name is Gilda, and I don’t like Dashie hanging out with her.”

“Are you really sure she’s so mean?” asked Twilight.

“Yeah! She keeps stealing Rainbow Dash away, she popped my balloons, and she told me to buzz off. I’ve never met a griffon this mean. Well, actually, I’ve never met a griffon at all, but I bet if I had, she wouldn’t be as mean and grumpy as Gilda.”

“You know what I think, Pinkie? I think you’re jealous,” said Twilight.

“Green with envy, or in your case pink with envy,” said Spike.

“Listen, Pinkie,” said Twilight. “I don't want to upset you, but just because Rainbow Dash has another friend doesn't make Gilda a grump. I mean, perhaps it's you, Pinkie, who needs to improve her attitude.”

“Hang on,” I said. “I’ll admit that sometimes Pinkie has restraint issues, but I’ve never known anyone to go out of their way to be hostile to her.”

“Well…we have to examine all sides of the issue,” said Twilight.

“I think I want to meet Gilda,” I said.

“Yay!” said Pinkie. “We can go together and you can reassure me that she’s not really as bad as I think.”

“Or something.”

“Come on!” She pulled me out the door.

In town, we found a table outside Sugarcube Corner to sit at. It wasn’t long before Gilda came by.

“Wow, what a mug.”

“She’s half eagle and half lion.”

“All ugly.”

As we watched, Gilda pulled a prank on Applejack’s grandmother. “A rattler!” shrieked Granny Smith. “Run for the hills!” She set off at a walk.

“She didn’t know it was a joke!” said Pinkie. “How mean! No, no, I can’t misjudge her.”

Gilda walked by a fruit cart and snatched an apple on the sly.

“I did misjudge her! She’s not only a meanie mean-pants, but she’s also a thief! No no no no, she might give it back. It's just a joke.” Pinkie looked like she was trying hard to make excuses for Gilda’s behavior.

I gave her a look. “Fruit isn’t part of a balanced breakfast for either an eagle or a lion. She stole that just to be mean.”

Fluttershy walked by, leading a family of ducks. She was talking quietly to them. She bumped into Gilda.

“Oh! Please excuse me.”

“I’m walking here!”

“I’m sorry, I was just trying…”

Gilda began to mimic her in a mocking tone.

I clopped my hooves together. “I’ve seen enough. Let’s go kick her ass.”

Gilda finished chewing out Fluttershy, who ran away in tears. “These ponies are lame,” she said, taking off into the sky.

“Pinkie, do you still have that pedal powered helicopter? We have to go after her!”

“No, she wrecked it this morning. I’ve got a plan, though. Nobody messes with my friends and gets away with it. This calls for extreme measures, Pinkie Pie style!”

“So…are we going to hurt her or what?”

“We’re going to have a party!”

I facehoofed.

That afternoon, Sugarcube Corner was decorated and ready to go. Many ponies were invited, and Gilda was the guest of honor.

“What’s the plan?” I asked.

“Dash and I set up all kinds of pranks. We thought it would be funny, but maybe if we can steer Gilda into some of them, she’ll get a taste of her own medicine.”

Gilda walked in. Pinkie greeted her with a warm smile and a hoofshake buzzer. Gilda laughed it off, but I could see that it irked her a little.

True to the plan, we did manage to spring spicy candy and a dribble glass on her. Things had begun to get interesting when Pinkie rolled a huge cake out on a cart. “Cake time everypony.”

“Hey, can I blow out the candles?” asked Spike.

“Why don't we let Gilda blow out the candles,” suggested Twilight. “She is the guest of honor after all.”

“Exactly,” said Gilda, stepping in front of the cake. Suddenly, the cart sprang forward on hidden machinery and smashed the cake into her face with enough force to knock her backwards out the door. The expressions of the ponies in the room showed surprise.

“You’re all lame!” shouted Gilda from outside. She flew off.

“Wow! I’ve never seen a prank like that before!” said Pinkie.

“I’m sure you haven’t,” I said, smiling to myself.

Author note:
Does anyone know why Hasbro decided to spell griffon with an o? The usual spelling is griffin.

Boast Busters

“Valiant! What is that Celestia-awful banging noise?”

“Just doing some metalworking, Twi. Go back to sleep.”

“I would if I could!”

I grinned and swung the hammer again. Beating the steel plates into submission wasn’t the greatest way to shape them, but there were no fabrication shops in Ponyville.

The plans for the powered exoskeletal armor were coming together. Twilight had reviewed my design, and pronounced it “plausible.” That was good enough for me.

Twilight appeared, looking a little tired. “I’m going to be practicing spells today. Could you please take that mess outside?”

The pile of steel, hydraulics, boilers, and electronics was going to be a chore to move. Twilight rolled her eyes and gave me a magic helping hand.

“Thanks.” I went back to beating on the metal outside. Twilight slammed the windows shut. Two younger colts went by as I worked. I heard something in their conversation about a magic show.

I had built up a little bit of a reputation as the village crackpot, although neither of them paid any attention to me as they ran by. I had heard from Applejack’s little sister that the school kids all talked about me. No matter. Like any good mad scientist, I would show ‘em.

I had few other things to do in the dream other than work on this mechanical monstrosity. The dream was getting rather long, and I hoped I would wake up soon. It wasn’t a bad dream, I was just getting bored.

Throughout the morning, flashes and puffs of magic kept coming from inside the library tree. With Spike’s help, Twilight was trying out some new spells. There were no major accidents.

About midday, Twilight’s friends showed up. The five of them wanted to go to a magic show in the town square. Supposedly, the magician was really something to see. It looked like the rest of the town was going, so I didn’t feel bad about leaving the library alone.

A medium-blue unicorn with a cape and a pointed hat was standing in front of the crowd when we showed up.

“Come one, come all! Come and witness the amazing magic of the Great and Powerful Trixie! Watch in awe as the Great and Powerful Trixie performs the most spectacular feats of magic ever witnessed by pony eyes!” She produced some colored lights and fireworks.

I was already losing interest. With a human stage magic act, part of the intrigue is trying to figure out how it works. With unicorns, well, it’s magic. You already know exactly how the tricks are performed.

“Come on, no pony's as magical as Twilight,” said Spike. “Oh hey, Rarity. Um, how do you think I would look with a mustache?”

Rarity ignored him, focusing on Trixie. “My, my, my! What boasting! And that tacky outfit!”

“There's nothing wrong with being talented, is there?” asked Twilight.

“Nothin' at all, 'ceptin' when someone goes around showin' it off like a school filly with fancy new ribbons,” replied Applejack.

“Well, well, well, it seems we have some neigh-sayers in the audience. Who is so ignorant as to challenge the magical ability of the Great and Powerful Trixie? Do they not know that they're in the presence of the most magical unicorn in all of Equestria?”

“Pfft,” said Spike. “We all know that Twilight here is—”

She cut him off. “Did you see the way they reacted to Trixie? I don’t want to look like a showoff, too.”

Rainbow Dash flew over to the stage. “So, Great and Powerful Trixie, what makes you think you’re so awesome anyway?” I sighed. When Rainbow started getting aggressive, things were about to go downhill.

“Why, only the Great and Powerful Trixie has magic strong enough to vanquish the dreaded Ursa Major!”

“What’s that?” I asked Twilight.

“It’s a gigantic space-bear,” said Spike. “There’s no way she could have defeated one of those.”

“Is that true, Twilight?”

“Well, I—”

“Who dares interrupt the Great and Powerful Trixie?” I looked around, realizing she was talking to me.

“Oh, hi. I’m Valiant. This is my roomie Twilight Sparkle. We live in the library slash treehouse over there.” I gestured vaguely with a hoof. “We were just talking about how we don’t believe you.” Twilight cringed.

The pony on stage laughed. “Oh? Is there anything you can do that the Great and Powerful Trixie can't?”

“I'm nothing special,” said Twilight.

“Yes, you are! You're better than her!” encouraged Spike.

“I’m not better than anyone.”

“Ha! Nopony is better than the Great and Powerful Trixie. You think you have more magical talent? Well come on, show Trixie what you've got. Show us all.”

“Who, me? I'm just your run of the mill citizen of Ponyville. No powerful magic here. I uh...I think I hear my laundry calling. Sorry, gotta go.” Twilight dashed away.

Trixie laughed again and walked off stage. The rest of the crowd dispersed. Spike stood with his arms crossed and a stern expression on his face.

“Let it go, man” I said. “Taking flankholes down a peg is satisfying when it works, but you run the risk of it backfiring. Twilight did the right thing.”

“It doesn’t feel right,” he said.

“I know, but planning an operation to sneak up on Trixie at night and knock out some of her teeth sounds hard. Come on, let’s get some lunch.”

From what I could hear, Spike kept trying to convince Twilight to do something about Trixe for the rest of the afternoon. As dusk began to set, I took a break from working on the exoskeleton and decided to take a walk.

As I went up the street, I felt the ground tremble. Something large moved in the distance. It came closer and appeared from behind a row of trees. I thought it looked like…a gigantic space-bear.

“Uh oh,” I said. I could really use some powered armor right about then.

I ran back towards the library, meeting Spike along the way. Judging by the look on his face, we both had the same thing to tell Twilight. Somehow, we managed to communicate the point between our panicked shrieks.

Twilight charged out of the library. A heavy book titled Extraordinary Magical Creatures fell to the floor. Spike and I tried to keep up.

The Ursa had found its way roughly to the center of town. “That’s only an Ursa Minor! Twilight said.

“Only!”

“Right. The Major is larger.”

Up ahead, I could see Trixie doing some magic, but none of it seemed to be very effective. Twilight skidded to a stop, looking nervous, but confident.

By this point, the roaring of the Ursa had woken everypony in town. They were all watching the spectacle unfold.

“Do something!” a bystander said.

“I can’t!” said Trixie. “I’ve never done this before. I made the whole thing up.”

Well, that was a welcome revelation, but we still had a Minor problem. Twilight’s horn lit up. It was brighter than I had ever seen before.

The wind began to blow, soothing tunes drifting from the reeds down by the creek. The town water tower detached from its mounts. The water dumped out, and the tank drifted over to a dairy barn. It came out the other side full of fresh milk.

The Ursa Minor was now swaying on its feet, slowly being lulled to sleep by the music in the wind. It nearly fell over on top of Trixie, but Twilight intervened at the last second.

Her horn was now spitting off showers of sparks as Twilight put forth the effort to levitate the Ursa Minor, along with the former water tower that it sleepily sipped milk from. The Ursa drifted away over the hills and presumably back to its cave.

Twilight shut her magic off and caught her breath. The assembled ponies cheered. She downplayed the event, revealing to the public that it had actually been an Ursa Minor the whole time.

“You may have vanquished an Ursa Minor, but you will never have the amazing, show-stopping ability of the Great and Powerful Trixie!” The blue pony laughed and a puff of smoke briefly hid her hasty retreat before the wind dispersed it.

“GTFO Ponyville!” I shouted after her.

“What’s that mean?” asked Spike.

“Nothing, it just makes me feel better.”

Back at the library several hours later, Spike complained that the mustache Twilight had given him hadn’t worked on Rarity. I thought it looked pretty swell, but being as cleanshaven as a pony could be, I was not one to judge.

I went back to tinkering. Before the next adventure, I wanted armor.

Dragonshy

“Girls, could one of you please hand me that three-quarters box-end wrench?”

A hoof passed me something. It was a half-inch spanner.

I sighed and dragged myself out from inside the machinery. “Look, I understand that you want to help, but if I screw this thing up the whole town could be dead.”

The two fillies gasped. Their names were Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo. Sweetie I knew was Rarity’s little sister. They hung around a lot.

“And stop pressing that!” I snapped. Scootaloo took her hoof off the power button. The powered exoskeletal armor did not yet have a source of energy, but if it did, turning it on could have easily led to me getting pulped by the mechanics.

I grabbed the wrench I needed and slid back inside. “Hey what’s that?” said one of the fillies.

“It’s like a black cloud. Is there a fire?”

Reluctantly, I came back out to see what they were talking about. Sure enough, dark smoke was creeping into the sky over the Ponyville valley. Well, it didn’t look like I was going to get any work done today.

I headed inside the library tree. “Hey Twilight! Have you seen this smoke?”

She walked into the room. “Actually, I just got a letter from Princess Celestia about it.”

“So where’s the fire?”

“It’s a dragon.”

“That would have to be an awfully big dragon.”

“It is. We have to go ask him to move.”

“Doesn’t Equestria have an army? Shouldn’t they be handling this kind of thing rather than six mares?”

“That sounded kind of sexist.”

“It probably was. The point is, doesn’t it seem a little strange that Celestia would send a student and some ponies she only met a little while ago to disturb a sleeping dragon? Just what kind of kangaroo kingdom is she running, anyway?”

“No, the kangaroo kingdom is in the South Sea.”

“Don’t muddle the issue with your fancy geography!”

Twilight shook her head. “Well, we have to go. Someone will need to take care of things while we’re gone. I’ll leave Spike in charge.”

“If we’re going to talk to a dragon, why don’t we take him with?”

“It should be just a simple conversation. I don’t think we’ll need a translator.”

“You’re all going to die.”

“Oh, don’t be so pessimistic, Valiant.”

Twilight called her friends and gave a little motivational speech. I started to hum action-movie music. All of them except Fluttershy seemed eager to go kick dragon ass.

They started out of town. I trotted along with.

“Why are you coming?” Twilight asked.

“If there’s going to be a big fight up on the mountain, I might as well watch. There’s nothing else to do in this dream.”

“We don’t really have time right now, but I want to talk to you about that. These delusions aren’t healthy.”

I brightened. At least we could talk about it. Then I might be able to turn the tables and get some information out of her. Having a candid conversation with your subconscious could reveal so much.

As we approached the mountain, Fluttershy appeared to grow even more timid than she usually was, which was saying something. She hid in the bushes rather then start up the path to the top.

“Ugh, we don’t have time for this!” said Twilight.

Applejack studied the map. “I’ll take her around the mountain another way.”

There was a grumble from the top of the mountain and a puff of black smoke emerged from the cave. Fluttershy dropped to the ground with a squeak.

“Don’t worry Twi, we’ll be there lickety-split,” said Applejack.

“Hey AJ, do you have your rope?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“You'd be better off hog tying her. She’ll be easier to carry.”

Applejack seemed to agree. Since I had made the suggestion, I helped. Fluttershy didn’t put up a struggle, and we got her supported between the two of us.

It turned out to be a long walk, much longer than just going up the freaking mountain. Fluttershy was dead weight. We eventually came dragging her up to the path where the rest were waiting.

Setting off again, we crossed a chasm, that while not very wide was very, very deep. It made me think twice. Fluttershy, of course, needed a lot of help.

After that, we were nearly killed by an avalanche. Fluttershy seemed to be doing everything exactly wrong today. Normally very quiet and reserved, she managed to shriek in surprise when touched by a couple of leaves.

All the ponies seemed to be a little angry with her. Sure, she had screwed up, but they were the ones who wanted her to come against her will. I think we may have been getting close to some kind of heated argument, which I was fully willing to insigate, but then we arrived at the cave.

I sat down on a rock to watch the events unfold. “All right, I’m going in,” said Twilight. “Come on.”

“I…I can't go in the cave,” said the quiet voice of Fluttershy.

“But Fluttershy, you have a wonderful talent dealing with all kinds of animals.”

“Yes, because they’re not dragons.”

“Come on!” said Rainbow. “We’ve seen you walk right up to a horrible manticore like it was nothing!”

“Yes, because he wasn’t a dragon!”

“Spike is a dragon and you’re not scared of him,” Pinkie added.

“Yes. Because he not a huge, gigantic, terrifying, enormous, teeth-gnashing, sharp-scale having, horn-wearing, smoke-snoring, could eat a pony in one bite, totally all grown up dragon!”

I shook my head. "What?"

“But if you’re so scared of dragons, why didn’t you say something before we came all the way up here?” asked Twilight.

“I was afraid to.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. She had been too scared to get out of a situation that led to her being scared more. The irony was delicious. At least I think it was irony. I've heard that's a term that gets misused a lot.

All of them glared at me for my giggles. “Well, I’m going in,” said Twilight. She entered the cave, and I could hear her speaking. She came out a few minutes later covered in soot. "Words didn't work."

Rarity tried charm and Pinkie tried whatever it is Pinkie does. Neither met with any success.

“It's time to stop wasting time! I'm going in!” shouted Rainbow. She sped into the cave. Moments later, she was knocked back out, scattering the other ponies like bowling pins. Some of them ended up over by where I sat.

The dragon came roaring out of the cave. He blew a stream of thick smoke across the area. I drove off the rock and just barely avoided getting blown off the mountain.

The rock I had been sitting on cracked and fell apart. Fluttershy, who had been cowering behind it, was suddenly out in the open.

“How dare you!” she said.

I blinked. That was about the last thing I expected to come out of her mouth. She flew over and landed on the dragon’s nose.

“Listen here, mister. Just because you're big doesn't mean you get to be a bully. You may have huge teeth, and sharp scales, and snore smoke, and breathe fire, but you do not hurt my friends! You got that?”

“Wow, way to be a badass, Fluttershy,” I muttered.

She told him off for a little while longer. The dragon said he was sorry and left the mountain. The ponies cheered. I thought it was a little rude to be celebrating someone's departure right in front of them, but decided not to say anything this time.

Back in Ponyville, Spike appeared to be having problems keeping Fluttershy’s animals in check. He looked relieved to have her back. He took down Twilight’s friendship report to the Princess.

When she was unpacked from the trip, I said, “Let’s talk about how you’re all figments of my imagination.”

“Valiant, I don’t know if you really believe that or not. If you do, it might be signs of a serious mental health issue.”

“Then explain how come I don’t have any memory of this place or of being a pony before I showed up here?”

She gave me a look.

“Okay, I guess I can see how that could also be construed as a mental problem. Hmm. All right, try this argument: Tell me why I know that I’m actually human?”

“That could be the real figment of your imagination.”

“That’s impossible,” I chuckled nervously.

Look Before You Sleep

“What are ya doin’ up there?” shouted Applejack.

“I’m climbing this tree, what does it look like?”

“That ain’t really helpin’!”

“I thought you said we were supposed to get the broken limbs down?”

“Ah can get ‘em with my rope. You get down from there before you get struck by lightning!”

I grumbled and slid out of the tree. I wasn’t worried, but Appjack could be convincing when she wanted to be.

“How does a pony even get in a tree?” Applejack muttered.

Rarity came up, and began an argument about something or other. I think she was concerned that we were making the trees ugly. Applejack told her off. “The weather ponies accidentally skipped a scheduled sprinkle last week, so we need a double doozy of a downpour to make up for it.”

I chuckled at her alliteration. Just then, the raindrops began to fall. I decided to go back to the library.

On my way out of the park, I spotted a single dead branch high up on one of the trees. Applejack was still busy with Rarity, so I figured it shouldn’t be a problem to just climb up and get it.

It was quick work to shinny up the three. I couldn’t believe the ponies didn’t know how to climb. Perhaps I should open a rock climbing tower. I grabbed the limb and broke it off. There was a sudden prickle in the air, and I felt my mane stand on end.

I awoke beneath a pile of blankets on the couch in the library. Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack were looking at me. I was soaking wet, and so were Applejack and Rarity.

I started to get up, but Twilight’s hoof held me down. “Don’t try to move, you’re hurt.”

I frowned. Everything felt all right. “What happened?”

“You got struck by lightning and then fell out of a tree.” Twilight shook her head. “What were you even doing in a tree?”

“I was doing my job. Where were you?”

“This isn’t about me. You need to rest.”

“I feel fine.” I started to get up again. This time, Applejack added her weight to keep me down.

“Listen sugarcube, ah’ve never seen anything like that before. You should be dead.”

“If I die in a dream, do I wake up?”

Twilight facehoofed. “Ugh, this is getting nowhere. Look Valiant, if you don’t calm down, we might have to sedate you.”

I sighed. “Fine. But I don’t feel that there’s anything wrong with me.”

“Lightning is a funny thing. Symptoms could show up at a later time.”

“So let them. I’m good to go now. Put me in, coach.”

“The work’s all done,” said Applejack. “No thanks to Rarity.”

“I’m standing right here,” she said grumpily.

“So, is being inside a tree the best place to wait out a lightning storm?” I asked.

“I’ve got a magical lighting rod,” said Twilight.

“We are most grateful for your invitation,” said Rarity.

“Thank ya kindly for yer hospitality,” added Applejack.

“Well, you're welcome to stay if need be. Spike is away in Canterlot on royal business. I'm home all alone tonight. I know! You two should totally sleep over! We'll have a slumber party! I've always wanted one of those.”

Twilight pulled out a book titled Slumber 101: All You've Ever Wanted to Know About Slumber Parties But Were Afraid to Ask

“I’ll just be leaving,” I said. A glare from Twilight made me stop.

The three of them began doing girly things. I lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling and trying to ignore the giggling.

I honestly didn’t feel bad at all. Well of course I wouldn’t, it was a dream. Trapping me in a sleepover was a hell of a thing for my mind to do, though.

“This is going to be the bestest slumber party ever!” said Twilight. “Yay!”

“Yay,” replied Applejack and Rarity, rather flatly. I had noticed that they had been unpleasant to each other all day. Perhaps a little more trouble would cause Twilight to cancel the party. I could only hope.

The book indicated that they should tell ghost stories. Twilight began. “I've got one! This story is called The Legend of the Headless Horse. It was a dark and stormy night, just like this one. And three ponies were having a slumber party, just like this one...”

What am I, a lump on the couch? I swear, the instant they go to sleep, I’m sneaking out.

After the ghost stories, it was time for s’mores. I didn’t get one.

After that, they played truth or dare. None took my dare to put a sock in it. Applejack and Rarity seemed to playing to win.

Twilight seemed sad that she wasn’t included in their game. She suggested that they move on to pillow fighting. Applejack was happy to oblige, and promptly nailed Rarity, who retaliated in kind.

I watched them cavort around the room. They were certainly naked enough, but not human enough for my tastes. After getting hit hard several times, Twilight suggested that they get some sleep.

At last. I waited until the lights were off and they were all upstairs before I started to move. Unfortunately, I hadn’t counted on my legs being asleep from the long time spent under the pile of blankets. Fortunately, a fight broke out just as I hit the floor.

“Girls, it says right here that the number one thing you're supposed to do at a slumber party is have fun, and thanks to you two I can't check that off!”

“I've been tryin' my darndest to get along.”

“No, it is I who've been trying my best.”

“I hope you're happy, both of you. You've ruined my very first slumber party. The makeover, the s'mores, Truth or Dare, the pillow fight... I mean, is there anything else that could possibly go wrong?”

Just then, lightning smoked a tree right next door. A large piece of it came crashing in through the window.

I got my hooves under me and trotted upstairs. Applejack was arguing with Rarity, and Twilight was searching franticly in the slumber party book for information on how to deal with tree removal.

“Rarity, for pony's sake, stop sweatin' the small stuff and help me get rid of this thing!”

“I’m cleaning up this mess some pony made. Who was that again? Oh, right, that's you.”

They continued to argue. I quietly grabbed the tree and dragged it over the edge of the balcony and down onto the floor. I didn’t think it would go back out the window, so I headed for the door.

I got it outside, and paused to think about where to take it. Deciding to just leave it lay, I turned to go back inside. There was a sudden prickle in the air, and I felt my mane stand on end.

I woke up facedown in the mud. The rain had stopped and the sun was rising. The front door opened, and the three ponies came out, talking and laughing. They apparently had resolved their differences.

“See? We could have been having fun like this all along.”

“If only some pony hadn't been so persnickety.”

“Well, maybe she wouldn't have been if some pony else hadn't been so sloppy.”

“Ah’m sorry for being such a pain in the patootie.”

“Oh, no, I'm sure I was much worse.”

They giggled.

I’m sure their conversation was about a normal slumber party, but if I wanted to I could add some innuendo to it. Such a thing was easier to imagine since I had been out cold next to a broken tree at the time.

Twilight saw them off and turned to me. “What are you doing out here?”

“Got struck by lightning again while I was taking the tree out.”

She looked me up and down. “I’m not sure if you’re lying or just the luckiest pony I’ve ever met. Because it’s you, I could believe either one.”

“Kind of rude, don’t you think? Calling me a liar to my face.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not really.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what it is about you. You’re an enigma, Valiant. As hard as I try, I can’t figure you out, and I can’t stop trying. I don’t know why your mind is so interesting.”

I shrugged. “Just my electric personality.”

Bridle Gossip

I hurried back from the train station with a bucket of coal dangling from my mouth. I hadn’t exactly acquired it honestly, but hopefully they wouldn’t miss just a few chunks.

The armored super-suit was right where I had left it outside the library. I was getting ready to run some tests on my invention, and for that I needed power.

The coal went in a chute at the back. I borrowed some old paper and a burning stick from the library’s fireplace and lit it up.

It took a few minutes for the coal to create a hot fire. The boiler began to heat up, producing steam for the pumps that ran the hydraulic system.

The powered exoskeleton model A1, PEX-1 for short, had taken a surprisingly short time to build, considering it was a freaking powered armor suit that I had only used steampunk technology to assemble. Not to mention that I had to do it with hooves.

The steam level looked good, so I climbed inside and engaged the controls. I pushed the levers forward to take the first step.

I was surprised as a cylinder line broke. I think it surprised Twilight even more, as the broken hose showered her with hydraulic oil, bowling her over and back through the library’s front door that she had just come out of.

With the loss of fluid pressure, the suit collapsed around me. I wriggled out, dousing the fire so it wouldn’t spread to the oil.

“Are you okay, Twilight?”

“No!”

“Sorry.”

She sighed. “I’ll have to go over to Rarity’s and get some shampoo to get this stuff out of my hair. I don’t think I have anything that will take care of it.”

“I do feel kind of bad for doing that to you, so I’ll pay. I also need a new hydraulic line, so I’m going to go to the hardware store.”

We set off, Spike riding on my back to avoid the greasy Twilight. “The streets sure are empty,” he said. “Is it some kind of pony holiday?”

Twilight said, “Not that I know of.”

“Does my breath stink?” asked Spike

“Not more than usual.”

“Is it... zombies?!”

“Uh... not very likely,” answered Twilight.

“Aww.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course, you would be the only pony looking forward to zombies, Valiant.”

“Turning this dream into survival horror would be pretty rad. I just wish I had a boomstick and fingers to use it.”

She was about to retort, when Pinkie called to us from an open door.

“Psst! Come here! Hurry! Before she gets you!” The three of us went inside.

“Pinkie, what are you doing here alone in the dark?”

“I'm not alone in the dark.” The lights came up and I saw that there were half a dozen other ponies there.

“Okay then, what are you all doing here in the dark?”

“We’re hidin’ from her!” said Applejack, pointing out the window.

Outside, there was only one pony visible. She, I think it was a she, wore a cloak that covered all of her.

“Did you see her?” asked Appljack’s little sister. “Did you see Zecora?”

“Apple Bloom! Ah told you never to say that name!”

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

“She’s mysterious.”

“Sinister.”

“Spooky.”

Outside the mysterious visitor lowered her hood. She was strangely colored and wore her mane in a mohawk.

“Just look at those stripe!” said Rarity. “So garish.” She looked at Twilight. "Dear, what is that all over you?"

I jumped in before she could answer. "I think the important thing here is our mysterious visitor."

"Yes, I suppose," said Rarity.

Twilight said, “She’s a zebra."

“A what?” said everyone.

“Yeah,” I said. “A zebra. Just like a pony, but colored funny and from a different part of the world.”

Twilight looked at me. “How did you know that?”

“I thought it was pretty common knowledge, at least on Earth. How come I’ve never seen any more of them around here?”

“Well, they’re not from Equestira. I don’t know how this ‘Zecora’ got here. Where does she live?”

“The Everfree Forest,” said Applejack. “That just ain't a natural place. The plants grow...”

“Animals care for themselves...” said Fluttershy.

“And the clouds move...” added Rainbow Dash.

“All on their own!” they chorused dramatically.

“Yeah, so?” I asked. Everyone glared at me.

“And that wicked enchantress Zecora lives there doing her evil...stuff!” said Pinkie. “Why she's so evil I even wrote a song about her!”

It wasn’t much of a song.

“This is all just a lot of gossip and rumors,” said Twilight. “Now tell me; what exactly have you actually seen Zecora do?”

None of them had very much evidence.

“I know exactly what’s going on here,” I said.

“You do?”

“Yep. You’re all racist.”

All of them gasped. “Wait, is that bad?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Oh, it’s very bad, but it happens a lot. That reminds me of a song. It’s called Everyone's a Little Bit Racist. I’d sing it, but I’d probably be violating some copyright claims. I wish you guys had YouTube here so I could play it for you.”

“You ponies are being ridiculous!” exclaimed Twilight. The conversation devolved into an argument. Apple Bloom and I quietly walked out the door. We watched Zecora leaving town.

“Ah’m gonna follow her,” she said.

“Not a wise plan, but I guess I didn’t have anything else to do today. Lead on.”

We hadn’t made it very far before the other six ponies were running after us.

“Apple Bloom! You get back here right now!”

“Beware, you pony folk! Those leaves of blue are not a joke!” said Zecora. I thought her voice sounded a little hoarse. I didn’t have time to contemplate the punnyness of it, because Applejack galloped up and grabbed her sister.

“You keep your creepy mumbo-jumbo to yerself, ya hear?” She and the rest of the ponies left.

“Sorry about that,” I said. “I’m Valiant, nice to meet you.”

The zebra smiled. “It is good to meet a pony such as you. I am Zecora, how do you do?”

She obviously had a thing for rhymes. We talked a little more before I said that I should probably be getting back.

I collected the hydraulic line from the hardware store and spent a couple of hours getting it installed. It was too late for another test when I finished, so I just went to bed.

A shriek from Twilight woke me up in the morning. Her horn had gone limp and was spotted with blue.

She spent a while tearing the library apart looking for a cure. We thought she might have eaten something to cause it, but then her friends began showing up.

Pinkie’s tongue was swollen and blue. Rainbow couldn’t fly in a straight line. Rarity was having a record-breaking bad hair day, and Applejack had shrunk to smaller than her sister.

“But Fluttershy seems just fine!” said Twilight.

She shook her head. Apparently there was something wrong that we couldn’t see.

“Good gravy, girl! What's wrong with you?” asked Applejack. Her tiny voice was higher pitched than usual.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Fluttershy in a voice that would rival many male blues singers.

“Oh my god, we should totally have a barbershop quartet!” I said. “We’ll call ourselves the Freak Show Band! Fluttershy, you sing bass. I’ll do tenor. Applejack, you’re soprano. Who want to be alto?”

“This is no joke!” said Twilight. “Everypony start looking for more books so I can find a cure!”

“I think we'll find a cure to this curse at Zecora's place!” said Rainbow. There was general agreement.

“This is all my fault,” said Apple Bloom. “If ah hadn't followed Zecora in the first place, none of this would have happened. Ah just gotta fix this.”

“Come on,” I said. “We’ll give the PEX a trial run.”

We went outside and I got the fire going. This time, the controls responded appropriately, and we were soon rumbling away. The machine’s awkward steps probably frightened many of the townsponies, but I was sure that they would get used to it soon enough.

“This is awesome!” shouted Apple Bloom over the noise of the actuators and the sound of the crashing footsteps.

“You’re scarin’ the hay outta me!” peeped Applejack, who had somehow stowed away. “Stop right now!”

“Sorry,” I said. “This thing doesn’t change directions very well.” We crashed into the forest, the PEX just barely fitting down the path. Applejack bailed out.

We eventually found a way to Zecora’s place. It was a hollowed-out tree with all kinds of tribal decorations. She burst out the door, eyes wide. “What in heaven is that? You are stomping the ground flat!”

“Hi Zecora,” I said. “We need some help.”

After a quick conversation, she sent us to get some herbal ingredients. Apparently, everything bad that had happened was caused by a rash that the ponies had gotten from some plants that Zecora had warned them about. Coincidental racism had prevented them from taking her seriously.

Apple Bloom and I went to get what she asked for. There were a few things to find. On our way back, Twilight burst out Zecora’s front door.

“Valiant! I’ve never been so happy to see you or your crazy machine! You have to help us!”

“Uh, yeah, that’s what we’re doing.”

“Ah’ve got all those ingredients for the cure right here,” said Apple Bloom.

Confusion reigned for a few minutes before we got everything sorted out. Zecora was a surprisingly good sport, and agreed to shrug off the ponies’ hostility.

All of them got cured, and lived happily, and slightly less racist, ever after.

Swarm of the Century

“Whatcha don’?” asked Apple Bloom.

“I’m fitting the PEX with manipulators.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Arms.”

“Oh.” She paused and watched me for a little while. “How come?”

“Can’t have a proper robot without ‘em.”

“I reckon.”

The library door opened and Twilight came out. “You clean, Spike. I'll go see how everyone else's preparations are coming.”

“Preparations for what?” I asked.

“You haven’t heard? Princess Celestia is coming.”

“Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to give her a piece of my mind about her tyrannical rule.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Anyway, I’m off to see how the rest of the town is doing.”

“Ah didn’t know Princess Celestia was a tyrant," said Apple Bloom.

I grinned. Educating the little filly was going to be fun.

“Ah mean, she don’t even sell tires.”

My face fell. Maybe not.

Pinkie Pie ran up just then. “Hey, do you know where I can find a trombone?”

“No, sorry. Will a clarinet do?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I’ve got this parasprite invasion to fend off and I really, really need something from the brass section right now.”

“Have you tried…the music shop?”

“That’s a great idea! See you later!” Pinkie ran off.

“What’s a parasprite?” I asked. Apple Bloom shrugged.

By that evening, I had both arms hooked up and decided it was time for a test. I got in the cockpit and slipped my forehooves into the controls. I figured if I could pluck a single flower from the bed near the library, that would be good enough.

I overshot, and the metal fist slammed into the side of the tree, although not hard enough to break anything.

“What was that?” asked Twilight, sticking her head out the window.

“Um, nothing.” I noticed a small, spherical creature with wings hovering around her head. “What’s that thing?”

“I’m not sure what it’s called. Fluttershy had a few, and gave one to me. It’s so cute.” Turning back to me, she said, “Why don’t you come in and get some sleep? It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

For perhaps the first time since I’d begun this stupid dream, I took Twilight’s advice. The idea of sleeping in a dream was kind of silly, but it advanced me to the next day more quickly.

When I woke up, the library was covered with the little insects, including some hovering right in my face. “Gah!” I fell off the couch.

I heard Twilight make a similar noise. The creatures must be everywhere. I swatted at the air frantically, but didn’t manage to hit a single one. Some of them began knocking books off the shelves.

“All my hard work!” said Spike in dismay.

"Where did they all come from?"

“Help me round up these little guys,” said Twilight.

“I’m trying,” I answered.

We managed to get all of them crammed into a pair of saddlebags. “We should take these to Fluttershy,” said Twilight. “She’s good with animals, she’ll know what to do.”

We walked towards Fluttershy’s house, meeting Rarity on the way. Her own saddlebags were writhing with the little creatures.

“I see we’re having the same problem,” she said.

Just then, Rainbow Dash zoomed by with a crowd of the insects following her.

“Good heavens! What are we going to do?”

“You could always take a break and listen to me talk about the new mechanical arms I installed on the PEX,” I said.

Rarity was about to reply, probably in the negative, when Fluttershy’s front door burst open and thousands of the creatures came pouring out.

My eyes went wide. “Oh my God, I knew I should have installed a flamethrower instead.”

Just then, Applejack showed up. “Here's all those apples you wanted, Fluttershy, but ah still can't figure why y'need so many.” A crowd of the insects descended on the apple cart she was pulling and picked it clean within seconds.

“What do we do?” pleaded Fluttershy.

“I’ve got it!” said Twilight. “Nopony can herd like Applejack!”

The farm pony nodded. “Ah'll rustle 'em up, but ah need everypony's help to do it. Twilight, you and Rarity wait over there. Ah'll herd the little critters straight at ya like a funnel. Rainbow Dash, you and Fluttershy stay on top of 'em, don't let 'em fly away. Valiant, stand right there.”

They somehow managed to cram all the little creatures into a giant ball, which they began rolling towards the forest. Pinkie Pie showed up and said something that everybody ignored. It probably wasn’t important.

The ball rolled neatly into the forest and out of sight.

“We did it. Nice work, Applejack.”

“Couldn't a'done it without y'all.”

“Let's get back and clean the mess they made, before the princess arrives,” suggested Twilight. We walked back in the direction of Fluttershy’s house. With a feeling of déjà vu, the door burst open and the creatures came pouring out. I think there were more of them this time.

“Where did they come from?” demanded Twilight. “We don't have time to keep rounding up these things! What do we do with this swarm?”

“The option to kill it with fire is still on the table,” I pointed out.

“Let’s call in the weather patrol,” said Rainbow Dash. “Time to take out the adorable trash.” I wondered slightly at the rhyme, but let it go. There was work to do.

Rainbow spun up a miniature tornado that sucked up all the bugs. It looked like the plan was going to work until Pinkie came along, crashing a pair of cymbals together. The tornado sucked them up, and Rainbow, trying to avoid being decapitated by the flying metal disks, lost control. The creatures escaped and flew off towards Ponyville.

“Come on!” The six of them, well actually five, Pinkie wasn’t present, ran towards town with me following. When we arrived, all the food in the area was under attack.

“I’ve got it!” said Twilight. “I’ll cast a spell to make them stop eating all the food!” Her horn glowed and she put out a burst of magic.

The insects all stopped eating for a moment. Some of them halted in mid-bite. Then they promptly began eating everything that wasn’t food.

“Every pony for herself!” shrieked Rarity.

Twilight’s face twitched and she broke into a smile. I noticed that her eyes weren’t focused on anything. “Okay everyone, we need to build an exact copy of Ponyville right over there. We've got less than a minute before the Princess arrives!”

I put my hoof around her shoulders. “Welcome to my world. Insanity feels good doesn’t it?”

Before she could reply, there came the sound of a polka. What? In my dream? I looked around and saw Pinkie with various instruments strapped to her, walking down the street. Strangely, the insects seemed to be following her.

We ran to the edge of town just as Celestia was arriving. She stepped off her carriage and greeted us.

“I'm terribly honored that you and the good citizens of Ponyville have organized a parade in honor of my visit!” Behind us, Pinkie and the troop of bugs marched by.

“Uh, yes, the parade!” said Twilight.

“Unfortunately, that visit is going to have to wait for another time. I'm afraid an emergency has come up in Fillydelphia. Apparently there's been some sort of infestation. Something about a swarm of bothersome creatures.” She got back in the carriage and flew off.

“Come back here foul dictator! I want to have a word with you!” Celestia did not appear to hear me, and the carriage did not turn around.

I sulked. “Forget the flamethrower, I should have installed missiles.”

All the strange creatures were gone. The five ponies were talking to Pinkie about something. I caught the phrase have tuba, will travel.

I shook my head. That Pinkie.

Winter Wrap-Up

“What the…snow?”

“That’s right,” said Twilight. “It's Winter Wrap Up day!”

“Winter only lasts one day here?”

“Why shouldn’t it? We control the weather.”

I shrugged. “I suppose I’d rather have warm weather.”

“Great. The first day of spring is tomorrow, so every pony in Ponyville needs to clean up winter. Spike! Help me get ready!”

“Clean up winter? Who cleans up winter? Don't they just use magic to change the seasons like they do in Canterlot?” Spike rolled over to go back to bed.

“Ponyville was started by Earth ponies, so for hundreds of years they've never used magic to clean up winter. It's traditional.”

“Wait, so you just let winter happen, and then go to all the hard work of cleaning it up?”

She looked at me strangely. “I thought you earth ponies liked hard work?”

“You’ve known me for how long? I didn’t invent a robot to do my work for me for no reason.”

“But you went to all that work to do it.”

Darn it. Outwitted at my own game. Just for that, I told Twilight that I wouldn’t be participating in the cleanup. “Surely they won’t miss me.”

“You’re just going to sit around while everypony else does all the hard work?”

“Well, when you put it that way…my answer is still yes.”

She left in a huff, carrying Spike, who appeared to be still asleep. I sat down in front of the fire and cracked open another Daring Do book.

In a few minutes, a couple of stallions stopped by looking for Twilight. One of them was “Big” Macintosh Apple, Applejack’s brother. The other was Caramel, who sometimes worked with the Apples.

They were looking for Twilight for some reason. I told them that she had left early. Big Mac shrugged and went out without a word. Caramel walked after him, saying something about planting.

I noticed a small package on the floor. I didn’t know where it had come from, maybe one of the ponies had dropped it. It contained grass seeds.

Twilight and Spike came in along with the smell of skunk.

“Hibernation accident,” Spike explained. He grabbed a large bath tub.

“What have you got there?” Twilight asked me.

“Grass seeds."

“Oh, a wheatgrass smoothie sounds so good right now.”

“You don’t have a blender and you certainly don’t have an icemaker in this tree.”

She sighed. “Bring me a mortar and pestle, I’ll handle it.”

I helped Spike fetch the tomato juice to get the stink off Twilight. After that, I retreated to the furthest corner of the library. That smell was really something else.

I heard the two of them arguing about something. Spike apparently wanted Twilight to use magic to help the winter cleanup. For some reason, she was still against the idea.

When she was cleaned up, Twilight and Spike left. The smell still lingered a little. I decided to go outside.

A lot of the snow had been cleared, but there was still signs of winter everywhere. I started the fire in the PEX boiler and sat there warming my hooves. Across the street, I saw Twilight talking to a crowd of ponies about something. It looked like they’d put her in charge.

I decided to go for a little drive, or with the PEX I guess it would be a walk, to see how things were going. Ponies were pushing snow, planting seeds, making bird nests. Everything was looking almost clean. I stopped at the edge of a stream.

I watched a group of weather ponies form a flying V formation and penetrate the cloud bank, carrying most of the weather with them. I hadn’t expected the wind they caused to be so gusty. The PEX rattled a little and as I got it balanced, the stream bank gave way, tumbling me into the water.

The runoff from melting snow had increased the flow of the stream quite a bit. I rolled over and over inside the open cockpit of the machine, occasionally able to grab half a breath. The fire had to be out by now, and power would go soon. There was nothing to grab onto and no reference points to tell which way was up.

The ride suddenly smoothed out, but the water came flooding in. I kicked loose of the controls and swam to the surface. I was in the middle of the lake.

Looking down through the water, I couldn’t see the bottom. I began swimming to shore. When I pulled myself out on dry land, I was in a killer mood.

“I am going to find out who did this,” I muttered. “I will do bad things to them and break their possessions.” That was the general gist, anyway. The actual words were so horrifically violent that I don’t remember them.

Fluttershy did not seem to be at fault. After all, the animals had nothing to do with flash floods. Applejack was tending the fields. Rarity was making nests.

Pinkie had cut the ice on the lake. Rainbow had let the charge that blew away the clouds. Twilight had organized everything. Yes, those three would pay.

I walked back towards town. Everything was pretty much clean by now. The sun was shining and the birds were singing—

“No, can’t get distracted from vengeance mission.” I looked around, hoping to see one of the ponies I was looking for.

“Howdy,” said Applejack, walking up. “We’re gonna have a party to celebrate spring getting’ here early. The whole town’s gonna be there.”

“Good. The perfect place for…revenge.”

She looked at me. “Is this about that robot? Why don’t ya just build a new one?”

I thought about it for a moment. “It sure would make the slaughtering of my enemies easier.”

“Sugarcube, I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, but could you keep it to yerself? Ponies already think you’re crazy enough.”

A fair point. I decided to just hate in silence. That is, until I could get the replacement for PEX up and running.

“Thank you very much, my dear Applejack. You’d better run along and play with your friends now. It might be the last time you get the chance.” I began to chuckle, and let it escalate into a full fledged crazy-laugh.

“Somethin’ ain’t right with that pony,” muttered Applejack as she walked away.

That evening at the library, Twilight didn’t notice me staring at her. I didn’t know what I would say if she caught me. Probably something creepy that she would just write off as mental illness. The benefit of being considered crazy is that nobody ever expects you to go more crazy. Oh, this was going to be good.

It was too bad that I woke up the next morning with some kind of paralyzing illness.

Call of the Cutie

I couldn’t move. It wasn’t enforced, I just didn’t have the ability. I lay on Twilight’s couch unable to do anything but stare at the ceiling.

“Oh good, he’s awake,” said a voice.

“Who’s there?”

Six ponies came into my sight. “Help,” I said. “I think there’s something wrong with me.”

“No, you’re just temporarily stunned,” said Twilight. “We’re giving you an intervention whether you like it or not.”

Okay, so the paralysis was enforced.

“I don’t need an intervention.”

“Should’ve stunned his mouth too,” said Rainbow, rolling her eyes.

“Valiant, you need to be a better pony. You’ve been so unpredictable since you showed up here.”

“What can I say? I’m chaotic neutral.” I thought for a moment. “Wait, so you aren’t still worried that you’re a character in my dream?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Look, I understand that you might still have some issues there, but even if you are dreaming, doesn’t it make you feel bad to know that you’re causing so much trouble?”

“I…I never really thought about it.”

“Look here,” said Applejack. “Ah know that this is all real, but for the sake of argument, can you think about someone other than yerself for once? Stop bein’ a nuisance.”

“Well, when you put it that way, I do feel kind of like a dick.” Darn it, now I’m going to feel guilty about planning the deaths of those who wronged me.

“All right, I’m going to let you up,” said Twilight. She released the spell that held me.

“Look at the time,” said Rarity. “I have to get back to my shop.”

“It’s time for the animals’ afternoon feeding,” said Fluttershy.

“I’ve got clouds to move,” announced Rainbow.

“The Cakes want me back at the bakery,” said Pinkie.

“There’s a whole orchard of apples to buck,” said Applejack. “Dang it, I have to go pick up Apple Bloom from school.”

“I can do that,” I said.

“No way—”

“Come on Applejack,” interjected Twilight. “If he’s going to turn over a new leaf, you’ve got to give him a chance.”

“All right, but no funny business, y’hear?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Applejack left for her farm. I trotted over to the school to see if I could find her sister.

I could have picked something worse to start off my new period of being good. Apple Bloom seemed to tolerate me. I doubted that they had pedophiles in Equestria. Nobody seemed to mind an older male hanging around the school.

When I found Apple Bloom, she and another filly were arguing with two others. Something about cutie marks.

The two antagonizing fillies spotted me, and made some excuse to leave. “Howdy Valiant,” said Apple Bloom. She introduced me to her friend, Twist.

“You’re the pony with that strange machine, right?” said Twist.

“Used to be. It’s at the bottom of the lake now.”

“Were you running hydraulic or mechanical connections?” asked Twist eagerly. She pushed her glasses up her nose.

“It was hydraulic.”

“Was it a magic power source or windup?”

“Steam, actually.”

“Ooh! Did it have superheaters on the boiler?”

“The boiler was the thing with the fire, right?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Right.”

“Actually, the actual boiler is the place where the water gets—”

“Shut up, Twist. Nobody likes a nerd.”

I regretted the statement because I had recently said that I would try to be nicer, although I wasn’t sure if it really counted because Apple Bloom laughed.

“You’re funny, Valiant. Anyway, what’re you doin’ at the school?”

“Your sister’s busy and wanted me to take you to the farm.”

“All right. Goodbye, Twist.”

As we walked, Apple Bloom asked me when the new exoskeleton would be ready.

“I don’t know. Can you keep a secret?”

“Sure.”

“Once the new one is built, I’m going to use it to kill Twilight, Rainbow, and Pinkie.”

She gasped. “What in tarnation for?”

“They’re responsible for the old one sinking in the lake.”

“It don’t seem like they deserve that, though.”

“Once you take away a man’s giant robot, he has nothing left to live for but revenge.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence. At the gate of Sweet Apple Acres, she turned to me, her mood seemed to have improved.

“How did you get your cutie mark?”

“No idea.”

“Well, what does it mean?”

“No idea, why?”

“Well, ah’m last in my class at school to get one, and ah feel like ah don’t know what my special talent in life is.”

“I’m not really who you should be talking to about this. I’m new to the idea, myself.”

She walked through the gate and I turned around to head for town.

Twilight was not in the library when I got there. It was getting on towards dinner time and so I decided to try making some. There were many foods that I missed. I mean, it had been such a long freaking dream that I was actually hungry for some old favorites.

After taking stock of the ingredients available, I realized what I could make. I set to work. Not to brag, but I’m a decent cook when I can be bothered.

Twilight walked in when everything was almost ready. I had somewhat misjudged the portions, and as it turned out there was plenty for her, too.

I figured my purposes were three-fold. One, I would get fed. Two, I would seem like a nice guy for feeding Twilight. Three, it would lull her into a false sense of security.

“This is interesting,” she said looking at the dish. “Diced vegetables with some kind of white sauce. It smells great. What is it?”

“It’s human food. They call it Alfredo.”

She took a bite. “This is really good! Where did you get the recipe?”

“It was just knocking around in my head. Just call me the sauce boss.”

“It was nice of you to make dinner.”

“It’s good stuff. Oh, I know what would make this better. Bacon.”

“What’s that?”

I facehoofed. “I shouldn’t have said that. You don’t want to know.”

“Come on, tell me.”

“It’s pig flesh that’s been smoked and cured to give it flavor.”

“I…don’t think I’m hungry anymore.”

“Sorry.”

She eyed the Alfredo. “What was in this stuff again?”

“Butter, cream, garlic, cheese.”

Twilight relaxed a little, but pushed the plate away. “It’s okay. I got plenty to eat at Diamond Tiara’s cute-ceañera party.”

“Who, what?”

“A filly celebrating her cutie mark. She invited half the town.”

“Apple Bloom was asking about my cutie mark today.” I made a mental note to come up with a less un-manly term for cutie marks. Also, a more grammatically correct term than un-manly.

Twilight cocked her head. “What is yours, anyway?”

“It’s a hood ornament.” I quickly added, “A decoration on some cars, which are these mechanical transportation devices that move on wheels.”

Twilight looked like she couldn’t think of anything else the mark resembled. “What does it mean?”

“Well considering that there are no cars in Equestria, I haven’t a clue. I don’t think it has anything to do with me being a bad pony or an epic chef.”

“Oh, you aren’t a bad pony.”

“Do you believe that? After all the trouble I’ve caused?”

“Yes. I think you made some bad choices, but you’re good at heart.”

I stared at her for several seconds. I really must be chaotic neutral, because I felt the urge to stir things up just to see what would happen.

“What if I told you that I want you dead?”

She laughed. It was interesting to hear her tone shift from amused, to awkward, to nervous, and finally stop.

“Why would you say something like that?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know, but I did.”

We sat there awkwardly for a little while. “You need help, Valiant,” she said.

I sighed. “Yeah. The conversation we had this morning made me realize that I truly don’t want to be bad. I just like watching things burn, so to speak.”

“You need to channel that into something creative,” she said nervously.

“What do you think I’ve been building a robot for? Now it’s gone.” I stared at her a little more intently.

“I promise to help you work through this. I know that there’s something not right about you, and I want to fix it. I know you may think that everything’s fine and resent someone trying to change you, but I’m only trying to do what I believe is right.”

“I understand.” She looked a little surprised. I continued. “Unfortunately, it looks like neither of us is going to budge in our opinions.”

“You’re going to fight me every step of the way?”

“That’s correct. I’m doing what I believe is right.” I nodded to her. “I accept your challenge as a worthy opponent.”

She squirmed nervously. “Why don’t we talk about this again in the morning?”

I grinned toothily. “Sleep tight.”

Fall Weather Friends

“What are you two doing?” asked Twilight.

“It’s an Iron Pony competition,” answered Rainbow Dash. She and Applejack were busy doing calisthenics to warm up.

Applejack said, “See, we've set up a bunch of events to decide which one of us is—”

“The most athletic pony ever!” Rainbow broke in.

Twilight nodded. “And I'm here too...?”

“I don't know,” said Rainbow. “Why is she here?

“To be our judge and keep score,” answered Applejack.

“Oh yeah, somepony's got to record my awesomeness for the history books.”

“And why am I here?” I asked.

“Because you wanted to come,” reminded Twilight.

“I regret it. Watching two sweaty fillies grunt and moan while they try to beat each other up is not my cup of tea. Now if they were human—”

“Hey,” said Spike. “There’s a crowd here to watch.” And so there was. It seemed like half of Ponyville had come to see who would be the Iron Pony.

“Hello and welcome to the first annual Iron Pony Competition!” said Spike, slipping into announcer mode. “Let the games begin!”

The event was set up as best-of-twenty. If there was betting available, I would have put five bits on Applejack. I decided to leave before the end of the competition, though. The hardware store wouldn’t be open all day.

Rusty Nail ran the place. I couldn’t say that I was encouraged by his name, but he seemed to have everything I needed.

“Buildin’ another one of them contraptions?” he asked.

“That’s right.”

“I got somethin’ here you might be interested in.” He pulled out a small generator. “This little baby here is what you need. Just drive it with a belt, and it’ll make electricity.”

“Shut up and take my money!”

I gleefully carried my purchases back to the library. The next robot was going to be awesome. Definitely more than 20% cooler than the last one. I grabbed my trusty hammer and got to work.

Later in the day, I heard that Rainbow won the Iron Pony competition by a score of fifteen to five. Too bad for Applejack. I would have liked to see the pegasus taken down a notch.

As the sun was going down, Twilight yelled at me to stop hammering on things so she could get some sleep.

“Why are you going to bed so early?”

“The Running of the Leaves hoofrace is tomorrow. Applejack challenged Rainbow to a rematch. Plus, I’m going to be running. Are you going?”

“I don’t know anything about running on four legs.”

“Well…I have some books you can borrow.”

“Sounds good.” I went inside the library and found the rulebook for the race, as well as a help book called Your First Race.

I scanned the rulebook. It was very thin, as there were only three rules: racers may only complete the race by using their hooves, racers must stick to the marked path, and racers must have fun.

I supposed that meant that Spike was disqualified, as he didn’t have hooves. It also made it very difficult for me to use some kind of mechanical advantage.

I decided to enter anyway. If nothing else, it would give me a chance to see Twilight in action so I wouldn’t be surprised by her speed when it came time to end her.

In the morning, Pinkie came by to borrow Twilight’s hot air balloon to call the race from. Spike managed to convince her to let him be the co-announcer.

Twilight and I trotted to the starting line. Applejack and Rainbow where there giving each other dirty looks. Both of them seemed a little surprised to see us.

“Twilight? What in tarnation are you doin' up here?”

“I'm racing,” Twilight answered.

Rainbow laughed. “Good one, Twilight. What about you Valiant?”

“No silly contraption to give you an advantage,” chuckled Applejack.

“If you ever insult my robots again, you’re going on my hit list,” I said.

Suddenly, the race started. Applejack and Rainbow ran way out front.

I cantered along with Twilight. “Shouldn’t we be going faster?” I asked.

“The rules didn’t say anything about winning, but they did tell us to have fun,” she said. “Did you read Your First Race? It advised to go at a comfortable speed.”

“Whatever.” We went along in silence for a while. Surprisingly, we caught back up to the two competing ponies. Applejack was in the dirt head over heels.

“Rainbow Dash just tripped me!” she hollered.

“She did not,” said Twilight, “and if you slowed down and looked where you're going, like me, you'd see that you tripped over a rock.” I hadn’t seen that, as Applejack and Rainbow had been too far ahead when it happened.

Applejack muttered something and ran off towards the front of the pack. Soon after, we caught up to Rainbow in a similar situation.

“Applejack tripped me!”

“Don't you ponies ever look where you're going?” said Twilight, annoyed. “You tripped on a stump, see?” I hadn’t seen that, either. Maybe my eyes were going.

“Oh, I see. A big cheater is what I see,” said Rainbow.

“ Rainbow, Applejack would never cheat. It was an accident. Remember, this is just a game.”

“Yes, but the rules have changed, and two can play at that game!”

“Dun dun dun!” I said. Rainbow gave me a dirty look and sped up to catch Applejack.

We began passing a few exhausted racers. Apparently, Twilight’s pacing was paying off. She looked a little winded, but pushed on. Despite our progress, I didn’t think we were anywhere near the front. Also, we passed Applejack and Rainbow fighting in a pile on the ground.

The finish line came into view. I stepped up the pace a little. Twilight was panting now, and barely able to keep up with me. That made me slightly proud.

“Hey look, the hardware store’s open,” I said, leaving the racecourse. Twilight gave me a strange look, but shrugged and went on.

“Hey there Valiant,” said Rusty Nail as I came in. “Look at these beauties that just arrived.”

“Double area cylinders!” I said happily. “Twice the force, half the size. Nice.” We quickly worked out a deal, and I took them off his hooves.

I got to work integrating the new actuators into the design. In a small static test, they kicked hard enough for the machine to actually hop off the ground a few inches. I grinned. The pressure wasn’t even all the way up.

Twilight arrived back at the tree and asked what was so important that I left the race early. I explained that Mr. Nail had some cool new stuff.

“Valiant, I got fifth place. If you had stayed in, you would have easily beaten me.” She showed me a medal that she had won.

“Oh, uh, I do regret that now, I guess.” I had never won anything in my life, and it looked like I had just thrown away my chance.

“Oh, and Princess Celestia showed up earlier. She says that she loves the season of fall.”

My disappointment quickly turned into rage. “I missed her? Figures, she only shows up when I don’t have a weapon ready to go.” I kicked part of the robot.

“You know, I think you could be charged with treason for remarks like that.”

“That’s because this is a dictatorship where the concept of personal liberties is unheard of. And no, I’m not a traitor. I was never loyal to Equestria to begin with.”

“Who are you loyal to?”

“The United States of America. It’s not a perfect country, but at least you feel like a citizen, rather than a subject. Make no mistake about it, Celetia’s rule will eventually end. If you don’t come to democracy, democracy will come to you.”

“Uh, I’m going to go inside now,” she said.

“Freedom isn’t free!” I called after her.

Suited for Success

The Ponyville optometric clinic was not busy. Bright Eyes, the doctor, was happy to have me.

“I’m a little worried that I need some kind of vision correction,” I told her. During the Running of the Leaves, Twilight had been much more aware of the things going on around us than I was. I chalked it up to being nearsighted, and I wasn’t afraid to admit it.

Bright Eyes plugged me into her testing equipment and figured out my prescription. It wasn’t actually as bad as I had thought.

“You’ve got a couple of choices for frames,” she said. She showed me my options.

“How much are these?”

“Four hundred bits.”

“Haha, oh wow. I’ll just go blind, thanks.” I spotted a pair of cool-looking sunglasses sitting there. “How about those?”

“Five bits.”

“Sold.”

I walked out of the clinic wearing my new shades. It was a sunny day, too. I instantly felt a few percent cooler.

Back at the library tree, Twilight was fretting about something. I took off the sunglasses once I got inside and set them on the table.

“This is a terrible time for me to lose a button.”

“What do you need a dress for?”

“The Grand Galloping Gala is coming up. We have tickets, remember?”

“Right. I guess you’ll just have to—” I turned to grab the sunglasses. I slipped them on and turned back. Twilight had gone out the door.

“—deal with it,” I finished lamely. That was no fun without someone to say it to.

I hung around the library for a while. I couldn’t work on the robot because I was waiting on some parts that Rusty Nail over at the hardware store had ordered for me.

I was thinking of a smart acronym for the machine. With high pressure in the lines, the powerful actuators could actually cause the robot to jump off the ground a short distance. Since I technically still had the other robot, even if it was at the bottom of the lake, this new one would be auxiliary to my needs.

I eventually settled on Advanced Jumping Auxiliary eXperiment For Freedom. AJAX-FF sounded easy enough to pronounce. Soon it would be finished. Soon…

Twilight came back and said that Rarity wanted to make everyone clothes for the Gala.

“So we’re all normally naked, but get dressed up for special events?”

“I wish you wouldn’t put it that way. Anyway, Rarity wants to see you.”

I trotted over to the boutique. The dressmaker was…making dresses. I guess what else would she be doing?

“You wanted to see me?”

“Yes, I need to get your measurements.” She began running the tape measure all over my body using her magic.

“I was thinking of something simple. You don’t seem to like the spotlight, do you?”

“I can go with that.” Truthfully, I didn’t get the chance to get dressed up that often. With a tuxedo and sunglasses, it would be even more awesome.

“With your coloring and cutie mark, I’m thinking a basic black and white.”

“It’s like you’re reading my mind.”

“At least you’re letting me do my job,” she grumbled. “The rest all wanted to design their own outfits. None of them have any fashion sense!”

“The nerve.”

“At least they had one good idea. Once the dresses are finished, we’ll have a fashion show! You can participate too!”

“Uh, I don’t know…”

“Oh, don’t worry, it’ll just be a small little thing among friends.”

“Well, all right.”

“Thank you. Now run along, I’ll be done soon.”

I left, wondering what I had just gotten myself into. Rarity was a charmer when she wanted to be, which was all the time. I would just have to deal with it.

Darn it. That didn’t sound cool when I said it in my head.

Rarity was finished with the dresses rather quickly. I was a little skeptical when I saw them. My tux looked great, though.

The rest of the ponies seemed a little uncomfortable telling Rarity that they didn’t like the dresses. She said that she would redo them.

Rusty Nail had gotten a new shipment in, so I went over to see if he had what I wanted. Sure enough, there were the high-powered spotlights I had asked for.

I went to install them. The electrical generator I had found would provide plenty of power. The lights would make night operations possible.

I coaled the firebox and began to build steam pressure. The turbine drove the generator and the hydraulic pumps. AJAX was more maneuverable than PEX, the old robot. I went for a little trial run, testing the jumping ability. I didn’t know what I would do with that, but it was nice to have.

Rarity was finished retrofitting everybody’s clothes, and brought the ponies to see. I thought they looked worse than before, but they seemed to like them. After all, it was what they asked for.

“Oh yeah,” said Spike. “I heard that Hoity Toity was coming.”

“Isn’t that the famous fashion designer?” asked Twilight.

“Only the best!” exclaimed Rarity. Her expression changed. “He’s coming here? To see these clothes?”

“They’re ugly?” I said quietly as the other ponies were talking amongst themselves.

“I…well, yes, they’re not what I wanted to exhibit,” she said. “I’m going to need all the help presenting that I can get.”

I grinned. “I can get you spotlights.” And so the fashion show started…with a giant robot standing by the stage.

Hoity Toity wasn’t impressed. Rarity was crushed. I wasn’t surprised. She retreated into her shop and began packing for exile.

“We’ve got to do somethin’. We can't just leave Rarity like this,” said Applejack.

“She'll become a crazy cat lady!” said Pinkie.

Twilight looked skeptical. “She only has one cat.”

“Give her time.”

“We’ve got to do something,” said Applejack.

“Why don’t we remake the dresses for her?” suggested Twilight

“I can sew really well,” said Fluttershy.

“Let’s do this!” said Rainbow.

“I’ll start the montage music,” I said.

Shortly, the seven of us had Rarity’s original designs remade and managed to catch her before she left for parts unknown.

“You ponies did an amazing job. It's exactly the way I imagined!” While that was good, I was actually somewhat disappointed that she liked the results. If she hadn’t, I could have told her to deal with it.

“But my whole career is still ruined!” she said. I whipped my sunglasses off in preparation for putting them back on.

“Is the show going to start soon?” asked Hoity Toity, interrupting me. “I haven’t got all day.”

“We invited him back,” said Twilight as the ponies got ready. My clothes were back at the library because they hadn’t needed modification, so I stood with the two fashion ponies as they watched the show.

“Is this the same designer?” asked Hoity Toity. “Everything is simply magnificent!” He turned to Rarity. “Are you responsible?”

“Well, they are my designs.”

The fashionable stallion removed his mirrored glasses dramatically. “My dear, I hope I could trouble you for some of these dresses. Would you do me the great honor of allowing me to feature your couture in my best-of-the-best boutique in Canterlot?”

Rarity swooned. Hoity Toity went on. “Now, I’d like to place an order for you to make a dozen of each dress for me by next Tuesday. I hope you can—” he slipped his sunglasses on “—deal with it.”

“No!” I screamed. “That was my line! Get out of here, and if I ever see you in Ponyville again, I’m going to stomp you flat with a giant freaking robot!”

Hoity Toity backed up a few steps. “Ms. Rarity, I suppose I won’t be coming to pick up the order. You’ll have to deliver them to my place in Canterlot.”

“I’d love to!” she said.

“I’ll be going now.” He ducked out the door.

“Oh Valiant, thank you! I never dreamed that I would be invited to Hoity Toity’s boutique! I feel terrible because I don’t know how to repay you.”

“Just deal with it,” I grumbled.

Author note:
To introduce awkwardness and awesomeness, I'm going to make Valiant an unwilling secret keeper for most of the residents of Ponyville in future chapters. If you've got a good idea for an embarassing secret for the Mane 6 or another pony, let me know in the comments.

Feeling Pinkie Keen

For some strange reason, Rarity had neglected to make Spike an outfit for the Grand Galloping Gala. Twilight offered to help.

She had me stand with my awesome tuxedo to act as a model as she attempted transfigure some random objects into a smart-looking suit for Spike.

I was somewhat distracted by the sight of Pinkie Pie dashing around from one piece of cover to the other. She was wearing her strange umbrella hat.

“Pinkie Pie? What in the wide-wide-world of Equestria are you up to?” Twilight asked.

“Oh! It's my tail! It's my tail! It's a-twitch a-twitchin'! And you know what that means!”

“Actually, Pinkie, I haven't the slightest idea.”

“The twichin' means my Pinkie Sense is telling me that stuff's gonna start falling! You should better duck for cover.”

Twilight laughed. “Oh, Pinkie, it's not gonna rain. Why there's barely even a cloud in the—” she was interrupted by a frog to the face.

“Oh, I'm so, so sorry,” said Fluttershy from overhead. “Are you okay, Twilight?”

“Why are you carrying a basket of frogs?” I asked.

“The pond’s getting overpopulated, and I’m flying some of these frogs over to Froggy Bottom Bog.”

“Wow! That was amazing!” said Spike. “Pinkie Pie predicted something would fall, and it did!”

“Oh, come on. She said that something would fall, and a frog just happened to fall right around the same time. A coincidence, nothing else to it,” said Twilight. We began walking away.

“My tail! My tail!” shrieked Pinkie. “Twitch-a-twitch! Twitch-a-twitch! Somethin' else is gonna fall!”

“Oh, Pinkie, please.”

“Uh, Twilight?” I said.

“What, Val-aaah!” She turned to look at me and missed a step, tumbling into a ditch.

Applejack came walking up. “Twilight, what are you doin’ in that ditch?”

“Pinkie predicted it,” said Spike.

“Come on, I don’t think a twitchy tail has anything to do with this.”

“Uh, twitchy tail? Pinkie Sense?” said Applejack, looking worried. She started to run.

“Don’t worry, it’s safe,” said Spike. “The prediction already came true.”

“Whew.”

“Don’t tell me you actually believe that,” said Twilight.

“Ah know it don't make much sense, but those of us who have been in Ponyville a while, have learned over time that, if Pinkie's-a-twichin', you better listen.”

Just then, Pinkie came bouncing back up. “My ears are flopping!”

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll start a bath for you, Twilight.”

“This is ridicu—”

A hay wagon went by, showering her with mud. I think I was more shocked than Twilight. If I was going to eliminate Pinkie like I planned, things might be more difficult than I thought. This “Pinkie Sense” was something I needed to know more about.

While Twilight took a bath, I worked on AJAX-FF. The robot was almost ready to kick some ass, but now I was worried. Perhaps I had set a larger task for myself than I had originally planned. Twilight was arguably the most powerful unicorn in the area, Rainbow would not be easy to catch, and now Pinkie was psychic. I would need some serious firepower.

Twilight and Pinkie came walking back, discussing her Pinkie Sense. Twilight wanted to hook her up to some scientific equipment and observe. I decided that I should be there.

Nothing happened for a while. Twilight got frustrated and let Pinkie go. With no results from the machine, she decided to observe Pinkie from a distance.

I helped her make a ghillie suit to better blend into the bushes. We crept around in the bushes for a while but got no data. Well, perhaps Twilight learned that “itchy nose” means “attack by bees.” I got bored and left before then, heading back to the library tree.

I wondered how I could kill Pinkie. No dropping things on her, obviously. I hoped I could get my hooves on whatever information that Twilight managed to collect.

Spike ran in while I was drawing up plans for a Tesla coil weapon. It would take a lot of electricity, but I doubted Pinkie had a twitch for that.

“Pinkie predicted ‘a doozy’. It’s happening at Froggy Bottom Bog!”

“Isn’t that where Fluttershy went?”

“Right!”

“Well, I guess we better go.”

Spike climbed into the AJAX with me and we set off as quickly as possible.

“I hope Fluttershy is okay,” said Spike.

“So you don’t have any idea what ‘a doozy’ means?”

“No. What if…” his eyes went wide “…she exploded!”

“I don’t think that’s likely.”

We made it to the Bog at the same time the other ponies did. Fluttershy seemed to be okay.

“I’m so glad everything’s all right,” said Pinkie.

“Sorry, I know it's not nice to gloat but I told you there was nothing to worry about and I was right. Pinkie Pie said—”

“Uh, Twilght?” I broke in. A large, exceedingly ugly creature with four heads had reared up out of the swamp.

“Not now, Valiant. As I was saying…”

“Spike, press that big red button.”

He looked at me, surprised. Not as surprised as he was by the hydra that had just showed up, but he clearly hadn’t been expecting me to tell him to press the red button.

“I thought you warned me not to do that last week.”

“Yes, but that was under normal operating conditions. Shit is about to get really real, so for the love of God press that button right now.”

Spike slammed his fist down on it. Ordinarily, the hydraulic system was downgraded in pressure so it would hold up. With the safeties disabled, everything went to full power.

Slapping my sunglasses on for extra cool, I kicked off and the AJAX flew into the air. I punched the hydra in one of its faces, crushing the skull in. As gravity carried the machine back down, I managed to grab one of the other necks with the robot’s steel appendages. It tore up the skin and crushed the windpipe, also slowing down our fall so we landed in the bog with a light splash.

I punched forward again at the base of the third neck and heard two cracks. It took me a moment to realize that one of them was AJAX’s arm.

The fourth head glared down at us. Spike fainted. Then the main hydraulics failed and the machine tumbled backwards into the bog.

The water came rushing in. I grabbed Spike and threw him onto shore. I hoped he wasn’t hurt, but at least he wouldn’t drown.

After that, this big toothy mouth swallowed me whole. It was dark inside, but I happily remained unchewed. After a quick trip down the esophagus, I ended up in what I figured what the stomach. Somewhere along the way, my sunglasses got broken.

“This is bad, this is so bad.” I felt around, finding what seemed to be the remains of a couple of animals. I also came up with half my sunglasses, a broken lens still clinging to the frame.

Suddenly, an idea struck, and I scratched the sharp glass across the wall of the stomach. I felt liquid gushing out, so I must be heading in the right direction. A few more swipes, and I felt the thick scaly hide from the inside. Scratching desperately, the skin suddenly parted and I pushed through into the light, my tuxedo covered in blood, parts of dead animals, and stomach acid.

Luckily, the bog was right there, and I fell into it. The murky water was not my first choice for a bath, but it would do. I surfaced, breathing hard. The Hydra was screeching and bleeding to death.

Twilight, Applejack, Pinkie, and Fluttershy stood there with their mouths hanging open. I stumbled out of the bog and fell to my knees, still gulping air. My mouth was scraped from holding the broken sunglasses, but other than that I seemed to be fine.

Applejack was the first to recover. “Valiant…what…”

“Did you see that shit?” I shouted. “I don’t even believe it. Some doozy, huh?”

Twilight managed to put together a complete thought. “Well, I definitely believe in the Pinkie Sense now. I don’t know how, but it obviously works.”

“Oh, that was actually the doozy!” said Pinkie brightly. “I knew it was something that you’d never expect to happen, and that was it! You believe! Oh what a doozy of a doozy it was!”

“Are you kidding me?” I said.

Sonic Rainboom

Working in a swamp to recover a busted robot while the dead carcass of a hydra lay nearby was not a pleasant task. Throw in the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and it became a real headache.

“You really ripped your way out of the stomach?” asked Scootaloo.

I nodded. My mouth had been bandaged shut to heal from the shards of glass from broken sunglasses that I had used to get out.

“That’s amazing!” said Apple Bloom. I struggled to lift part of AJAX-FF so she could slip a block under it. I had to find the hydraulic leak, fix it, and then get the boiler system drained so it would hold a fire and build steam.

Working slowly, the three fillies helped me get the robot out of the water. “Didn’t you say that the other robot is sunk in the lake?” Sweetie Belle asked. I nodded.

“Cutie Mark Crusaders Deep Water Salvage!” they cried. They ran to the edge of the bog, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle piling into a wagon pulled by Scootaloo on her scooter. They zoomed off.

I shrugged. I had tried everything to get the old PEX robot out. I couldn’t hold my breath sufficiently long to even get deep enough to see it. I had given up hope of getting it back. I still remembered who was responsible, though, and I decided that as soon as AJAX was back in working order, I was going to do something about them.

With a couple more hours of work, the fire was finally relit, and I was able to drive the robot back to the library. I’d also taken time to extract one of the hydra’s teeth. I was going to make a sweet-awesome necklace out of it.

The robot was covered in bog silt, various bits of plant material, and scum. It would take a while to get it cleaned up, and I decided that it was too late in the day. I was hungry.

My food intake had been restricted since cutting my mouth. Everything had to be soft and in small pieces. It sucked.

I did wonder how this could still be a dream I was having. It seemed rather like real pain that I felt. Of course, that crazy stuff I did to kill the hydra couldn’t have actually happened in real life. This had to be a dream.

“Hey Valiant,” said Twilight as I came in. “Would you like to go to the Best Young Fliers Competition? Rainbow’s entering.”

I nodded. Finally, a chance to see the pegasus in action so I would know what I was up against.

“Oh, and don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve already figured out a spell to let us walk on the clouds.”

Rarity swooped in through the open window. I fell over backwards in surprise. She had a giant pair of butterfly wings!

“Sorry to startle you, darling. I just came to return your outfit for the Gala. I don’t understand how you managed to get it so soiled. I don’t even know what that red stuff was.”

Seeing my surprise, Twilight explained, “I tried a spell on Rarity to let ponies fly, but it was too difficult to do more than once.”

I nodded. Rarity and Twilight made some plans for the next day. We would all be going up to Cloudsdale to watch the competition.

I got all the bog stuff cleaned off me and sat down to a bowl of soup. Not what I had in mind, but it was all I could handle. Stupid sliced lips. After that, I went to bed on the couch.

Twilight roused me early and I got in her hot air balloon with the other ponies. I wasn’t completely sure I trusted the spell she had put on us all, but luckily I didn’t have to be the first one to step out of the balloon and test it.

Walking on clouds was rather strange. Almost like snow, except you didn’t sink in unless you tried. Rainbow and Fluttershy showed us around Cloudsdale. We visited the weather factory, but didn’t have time for anything else because Rarity was being such an attention hog with her wings. The pegasus stallions were drooling over her.

When it was time for the competition, we went to the stadium. It was made of clouds, just like everything else in the city. Rarity had decided to enter the competition too. She and Rainbow disappeared.

Quite a few ponies performed, showing off tricks or some other act. Rainbow and Rarity came out together at the very end.

Rainbow was clearly having problems and not putting on a great performance. Rarity was wearing what appeared to be pounds of makeup and show sequins. She was being all glamorous and stuff. Boring.

For her final act, she flew up above the arena, letting the sun filter through her wings and bathing the whole area in colored light. Then she went all Icarus and the wings burned.

“Oh no! Her wings evaporated into thin air!” shouted Twilight.

The Wonderbolts, a local acrobatic team, were judging the competition. As Rarity started to fall, they leapt from their perch and went after her. She somehow managed to kick all three of them in the face while they tried to save her, knocking all unconscious.

Rainbow had climbed above the stadium in preparation for her next trick. She spotted the four ponies falling and dove after them.

“Oh, I can’t look!” squeaked Fluttershy.

I leaned over the edge of the stadium seating. Was that a Mach cone building up around Rainbow’s front hooves? Good God, that pony’s going transonic!

With a burst of rainbow, Rainbow went through the sound barrier, grabbed the falling ponies and somehow managed to avoid hitting the ground.

“A sonic rainboom! She did it! She did it! WOOO!” screamed Fluttershy, hurting my ears.

Rainbow brought her passengers back up to the stadium. The Wonderbolts seemed pleased that they hadn’t died. Rarity apologized for causing the problem.

Princess Celestia showed up and pretty much decided that Rainbow was the winner of the competition. I thought that there should have been some kind of selection process even if what Rainbow had done was win-worthy, but she was a dictator and her word was law. I couldn’t even mouth off about it.

After we returned to Ponyville later in the day, I stopped by the hardware store to see if Rusty Nail had gotten the improved generators that I would need to power a Tesla coil. I had to hold a pencil awkwardly between my hooves and write the message out. He told me they weren’t in yet.

“Strange thing, though. A couple ‘a fillies stopped by earlier and got some industrial grade winching equipment. Said somethin’ about the lake.”

If I could have, I would have laughed. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were going fishing, and I seriously doubted that they would pull anything out.

I walked back to the library to begin scrubbing the robot clean. I was going to have to wait on the new generator set. Rainbow was way faster than I had thought, and there was no way I would be able to do anything to her with slow mechanical means.

Also, I had to get new sunglasses. If the Tesla coil was going to put out pegasus-zapping levels of energy, I would need eye protection.

Stare Master

I walked over to Rarity’s place. If I had to wear this stupid bandage on my face for much longer, I might as well have it look cool, like a ninja mask or something. I wanted to see if she could whip something up.

I’d already written out what I wanted to ask on a piece of paper. Rarity read it, her brows knitting together. Heh, knitting. She was a seamstress. Okay, not a great pun.

“I’m free right now,” she said. “Sweetie Belle and her friends are usually underhoof, so I managed to finish my work early today. Do you know where they might be?”

I mimed throwing out a line and reeling it in.

“Fishing? Dear Celestia, why?”

I shrugged. The Cutie Mark Crusaders seemed exceptionally interested in getting at the robot on the bottom of the lake. I supposed as long as it kept them out of trouble.

Fluttershy came in with Rarity’s cat, Opalescence. She had been grooming the cat because apparently Fluttershy was the only pony Opal didn’t hate.

“Did you use...The Stare on her?” asked Rarity.

“Oh, no! I wouldn't! I couldn't! I-I don't really have any control over when that happens. I-It just does.”

I wanted to ask what ‘The Stare’ was. Rarity saw my questioning look.

“It’s Fluttershy’s special ability,” she explained. “She can influence anypony or anything with it.”

“I don’t try,” said Fluttershy meekly.

Just then, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle burst in. Both of them looked scared and were out of breath.

“Scootaloo…the lake…not coming up…” they managed to communicate.

Rarity, Fluttershy, and I looked at each other and then took off at a mad dash for the lake. On the way, we ran past Twilight coming from one direction and Applejack coming from the other. We didn’t have time to explain, but they saw how worried we looked and ran after us.

Pinkie looked out the window at Sugarcube Corner and watched us go by. “Ooh! A race!” I heard her say. She came out and joined the pack.

“Where is everypony going?” asked Rainbow Dash, floating down from the sky.

“The lake!” Rarity shouted. “Come on!” Rainbow shrugged and came with us.

We skidded to a stop at the shore of the lake. Several tow lines and pieces of hoisting equipment were scattered around.

“We found the robot!” said Apple Bloom.

“Scootaloo swam out to attach the winch to it, but she didn’t come back!” explained Sweetie Belle.

“Stand back!” shouted Twilight. Her horn flashed with purple light, and the water of the lake began to boil. The long-lost robot rose out of the depths, the limp form of Scootaloo tangled in the wreckage.

Twilight hovered the machine over to shore and laid it down. The nine of us pulled Scootaloo out. She wasn’t breathing.

There was a moment of silence. None of them seemed to know what to do next. It struck me then. Equestria didn’t know anything about drowning rescue. That meant…

Stand aside, ponies. This is a job for a man. I put my front hooves on Scootaloo’s chest and pushed down. Some water came bubbling out of her mouth. I pushed a few more times and heard a faint crackling noise. That was probably her ribs breaking. Oops.

After a couple more compressions, I lowered my head and performed the rescue breaths. I was completely weirded out by it. I was a pony who was actually a human who was currently kissing an underage female pony.

“What in tarnation—” began Applejack.

Scootaloo coughed. There was a collective gasp from the crowd. I laid off the compressions. Slowly, the filly began to move.

“Scootaloo!” said the other Cutie Mark Crusaders, rushing forward. I stopped them gently.

“Don’t touch her,” said Twilight. “She’s probably in a lot of pain right now.” …from injuries I had caused. Oh well, I figured Scoots would forgive me.

Once it seemed like she would live, we got her to the Ponyville hospital. The doctor decided to treat her for drowning and crushing wounds.

No need to thank me, guys, I thought as we walked out. Getting the robot back was payment enough.

Fluttershy, displaying a side of her I had never seen before, whirled on me with a glare.

“How dare you! If you hadn’t told them to go looking for that stupid machine, this never would have happened!”

I took a step back, surprised. Now wait a minute, I never told them…

“Valiant! How could you?” said Twilight.

“Yeah!” shouted Rainbow. “This is all your fault!”

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” said Fluttershy, fixing me with a stare that I never would have thought that she could have mustered. I thought her eyes were going to bore right through me. My knees began to shake.

“You’re a terrible pony,” she said.

I took another couple of steps backwards, and then just kept going. I turned and ran. I honestly didn’t think that I had done anything wrong, but clearly this was not a simple misunderstanding.

I was honestly scared by Fluttershy’s look, and I didn’t know where I was going. That wasn’t the first thing on my mind, though. I was pretty sure that I was pony non grata now, and that meant there wasn’t anywhere that I could go. I was going to have to leave town.

I found myself in the Everfree Forest first, though. Hmm. Maybe I could go to Zecora’s place. She didn’t know what had happened yet. I found my way to the path that led to her house.

She wasn’t home. A note was tacked to her door explaining that she was on vacation. I had no idea where a zebra would go to get away from things, but it sure worked out to my benefit.

The door wasn’t locked and I walked in. The note said Zecora would be back in a few days. I supposed I could stay until then.

I tried to take a nap. I should have known that wasn’t going to work. As I lay on the floor, I began to realize a few things. Maybe if I had been able to talk, I could have gotten things sorted out. The other Cutie Mark Crusaders didn’t seem to blame me, unlike the older ponies. Regardless, I still felt sorry.

Looking around, I spotted Zecora’s quill and supply of paper. I managed to write a note expressing my feelings. Borrowing a cloak from a hook on the wall, I put the note into a pocket and set off for town.

The cloak was a little too small, so I would have to be careful that no part of me would show. My coloring was pretty distinctive.

I found my way to Scootaloo’s room in the hospital. She was awake when I came in. I passed her the note.

I’m sorry for what happened. I should never have given you the idea to try and salvage the robot from the lake. I want to donate it to the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“What are you apologizing for?” she said. “We did that on our own.”

My eyebrows went up.

“Anyway, I’m gonna forgive you even if you did do something wrong. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom said you saved my life.”

I hope I could smile with my eyes convincingly enough, as my mouth was still bandaged. I borrowed a pencil and wrote out six notes.

“Thanks for the robot!” said Scootaloo. I nodded to her and went back outside, pulling up the hood on the cloak.

I had a plan. After covertly leaving six notes in six mailboxes, I went over to the school. It was getting late in the day, and it was closed. With luck, Cheerilee wouldn’t notice that I had borrowed some things.

Back at the library, I set up the projector and screen. After preparing the slides, I sat down to wait.

Twilight and her friends showed up right on time.

“What are you doing here?” said Twilight sourly.

I pointed them to chairs that I had pulled into position. I indicated that I wanted to give them a show. They settled down and I turned on the projector.

The first slide read, Scootaloo has forgiven me, and none of her friends believe that I am at fault.

The second slide read, Thanks for getting my robot back, Twilight. I don’t want to kill you anymore. Rainbow and Pinkie are downgraded as well, to a probationary status.

“Wait, what?” said Rainbow. I quickly advanced to the next slide.

Also, I slew a hydra to save your freaking lives, so you owe me.

“Killing is wrong,” said Fluttershy meekly.

I had planned on that, and had a slide prepared. Tell that to the hydra. It ate me first.

“Okay, I guess it’s clear that there’s been some kind of misunderstanding,” said Twilight. “I’m sorry that I jumped to conclusions.”

“I’m sorry I used The Stare on you,” said Fluttershy.

While waiting for the rest of them to apologize, my hoof slipped and I accidentally advanced to the last slide. I had only been planning to show it if the situation got rough.

Furthermore, I’m giving the Cutie Mark Crusaders the old robot!

The six of them gaped at me in horrified silence.

The Show Stoppers

I rolled over and worked a lump out of the couch. Twilight had let me back into the library after deciding that I was only a victim of circumstances.

Scootaloo had gotten out of the hospital with orders to take it easy for a while. She wasn’t going to be able to pull her friends around on her scooter, so it was good that they had something else to do.

The PEX robot had been at the bottom of the lake for a while and would need refurbishment. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were happy to take up the job. The rest of the town was worried about what the outcome might be. Three young fillies with a giant robot was a recipe for disaster.

The morning sun was coming in the window, and I eventually decided to get up. I realized that today was the day that the doctor told me I could remove the bandages I had earned while fighting the hydra.

Unfortunately, the first thing I uttered after triumphantly ripping off the tape was a pained scream as the adhesive carried away a fair bit of fur.

Okay, seriously, since when do dreams hurt? Was I actually sleepwalking while carrying out my usual morning routine, standing in my bathroom and cutting my face shaving? Did that make any sense at all? No. Neither did the idea that I was actually a pony in some strange land. Or was I just insane? No, if you’re crazy you won’t know it, right?

“Are you okay?” asked Twilight, leaning over the rail from the upper floor.

“Uh, yeah, fine. I just like to scream in the mornings. It’s a new thing.”

She rolled her eyes and pulled back from the railing. I heard a clattering outside and went to the door. The Cutie Mark Crusaders came along in the robot. Some of the parts were loose, and it still looked like that it had been submerged for a while, but they had gotten it working in a shorter amount of time than I thought possible.

“We didn’t get our cutie marks by fixing the PEX,” said Scootaloo. She took shallow breaths to avoid stretching the bandages wrapped around her midsection. I still felt a little guilty for overcompressing during CPR and cracking her ribs.

“We’re here to try being librarians!” exclaimed Sweetie Belle.

Twilight came down the stairs. “What’s going on?”

“I had nothing to do with this.”

The three fillies had already managed to make a mess. I had just turned my back for a couple of seconds, and it just appeared out of nowhere.

“Well, we sure ain’t getting’ our cutie marks bein’ librarians,” said Apple Bloom.

I saw Cheerilee approaching from outside, and I began to move away from the door. I thought I had returned the things that I, uh, borrowed from the school without being seen, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Girls, I think you're going about this the wrong way,” said Twilight. “Instead of trying to do things in areas you're not familiar with, why not try doing things in areas that you already like?”

“I have the perfect place to start,” said Cheerilee, stepping in. She had a flyer for the annual Ponyville talent show. “There'll be all sorts of awards. Best dramatic performance, best comedy act, best magic act. Surely you can find your talent.”

The Crusaders seemed excited by the idea and ran outside. I heard the PEX clanking away. They came back shortly.

“Hey Valiant,” said Scootaloo. “We’re about to start a project. What was that you were saying about passing time quickly while doing stuff?”

“Ah yes,” I said. “You need a montage. Let me help.” I got them set up with music and sent them off to do whatever it was they were working on.

I was helping Spike clean up the mess in the library when Applejack came in.

“Ah gave mah old treehouse to the girls to use. Do you know anything about what they’re doin’ in there?”

“Something about the talent show.” I showed her the flyer.

“Land sakes, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

I shrugged. “They’ll live and they’ll learn.”

Applejack said goodbye and said that she would be at the show that night. With a couple of hours on my hands, uh hooves, I decided to reevaluate my position in Equestria.

I had forgiven Twilight for her part in the loss of my robot. She’d gotten it back, after all. Besides, it was kind of overkill for me to overkill her just because she accidentally played a small part in letting the PEX sink in the lake.

Rainbow and Pinkie, the other two I held responsible, I had decided to take off of the “murder on sight” list, if not formally pardon. It wouldn’t have been easy to do anyway.

With Twilight’s magic, Rainbow’s speed, and Pinkie’s Pinkie Sense, it would have been very difficult to kill of one of them, let alone all three. The reactions their friends would have displayed also make me think twice. Rarity would nag me, Fluttershy would Stare me, and Applejack would buck me up.

I sighed, feeling depressed. I back off of three little murders, and suddenly I felt like a failure. I guess I wasn’t cut out for this kind of thing.

Now wait a minute, who says I have to go after the difficult targets? What if…what if I found other, easier, ponies who needed a good murdering? How about criminals? I could be like some kind of Pony Punisher.

I still hadn’t gotten a new pair of sunglasses, but now that was going to first on my list of priorities. This was going to be awesome.

I got pulled away from my planning to go to the talent show that night. The Crusaders debuted a new and improved robot. It was painted bright red with an evil toothy mouth. They themselves were painted like demons. Loud music blasted from a sound system they had installed.

It looked like they were trying to sing a song while cavorting about the stage in the robot, but none of the crowd stuck around to see it. I think all of them were afraid of being crushed.

Luckily, Cheerilee was a little braver and hung around to the end.

“We’ll be handing out the awards now,” she said. “Snips and Snails won the magic act category. Great job, colts. Sweetie Bell, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom won the dramatic performance category. That was very realistic, you three. I honestly thought I was going to die!”

“Can you believe it? We won!” said Apple Bloom. The three of them quickly checked their flanks, but no cutie marks had appeared.

“Maybe we weren’t doing it right?” said Scootaloo.

“We should make the PEX even more awesome!” exclaimed Sweetie Belle.

Twilight shot me a look. One that said Get this stopped right now or you’re sleeping outside.

“Um, girls?” I said. “How about you actually tone it down? Perhaps subtlety is your special talent.”

“Hmm, paint it dull grey and install all the cool stuff on the inside?” wondered Apple Bloom

“Hey,” said Scootaloo, “It could be a robot for secret agents!”

“Cutie Mark Crusader Spies!” shouted Sweetie Belle.

“Ah, but first you need to perfect your simple fieldcraft before you can step up to spy robots,” I suggested.

“You’re right! To the treehouse!” They rumbled away in the PEX.

“Well, crisis averted. For now.”

Twilight gave me a look. “Why did you give them that robot?”

“Well, they found it. As much as they’re rushing around, I figured that they could use some transportation.”

“Did you ever consider something safer, like…a balloon?”

“You think that falling out of the sky is safer?”

“No, what I mean is there’s nothing to hit up in the air!”

“Fair point.” I thought about it for a moment. “You know, I kind of want to build an airship now. Do you have helium in Equestria?”

She gave me a blank look.

“Well, hydrogen it’ll have to be, then. Oh, this is difficult. Blimp or Punisher? I can’t decide what I should do next.”

Twilight shook her head. “At least you like to think things through before doing something foolish anyway.”

“Hey, we fools are very ingenious. Sometimes it just takes just a little less sanity to pull off something completely awesome."

A Dog and Pony Show

“Check this out, Spike.”

“What have you got there?”

“Flint. See how it naturally tapers down to a sharp point?”

“Um, that looks kind of dangerous, Valiant.”

“Thank you, but it gets better. I managed to attach a handle to it. Watch what happens when I strike it on this piece of metal.” I brought the makeshift knife down on a scrap left over from the robot construction process. The result was a shower of sparks.

“That’s pretty cool,” said Spike. “Wouldn’t it be easier to have a little piece of flint and hit that with the metal?”

“Well, maybe. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. Those of us who can’t spit fire have to improvise.”

Rarity burst into the library just then. “Saphire Shores just visited my shop! She wants to buy outfits from me!”

“Oh my gosh,” said Spike. “The pony of pop?”

Rarity nodded. “I need to find more jewels than ever before to decorate her costumes. Can you help me, Spike?”

“Sure, I’d love to.”

“Ugh,” I muttered. I still wasn’t comfortable being a man in a pony body and dealing with interpony relations. Watching a dragon lusting after a pony was a bit much.

The two of them left. Apparently, Rarity was good at finding jewels and Spike was good at digging them up. He had fingers, the lucky bastard.

Now that I thought about it, the very definition of that word was “illegitimate child”. I had heard that Twilight had hatched him from an egg. Did Spike have parents? Did he know them? For that matter, how come none of the ponies ever talked about their parents?

I was still pondering it when Twilight came in. “Want to see a trick?” I said. I struck the flint again, getting another few sparks.

“It’s interesting, but what purpose does it serve?”

“Well, once you miniaturize the technology and add some fuel, you can carry it around as a portable fire starting device. Call it a lighter.”

“Who needs that?”

“The same people who buy these things called cigarettes which are basically cancer in stick form.”

She shook her head. “Why would anypony want something like that?

“They ways of humans are mysterious indeed.”

“You still believe that you’re not a pony?”

“We’ve had this discussion before. Do you have any idea what else I might be?”

“I’ll admit that you’re the most unique pony I’ve ever met, but I still don’t believe that you’re from a different planet.”

“One of these days I’ll do something to convince you. Just give me time.” I left the library to go buy new sunglasses. After that conversation, I was in serious need of a cool boost.

Bright Eyes the optometrist was alone, again. I wondered if she ever got any business other than me. I picked up a new pair of shades.

“Do you have a minute?” she asked.

“What did you have in mind?”

“I just…need someone to talk to.”

Against my better judgment, I sat down. “I’m feeling depressed,” she said. “Once a pony gets their glasses from me, they never come back. I feel like I’m a terrible doctor.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I guess.”

“I feel silly talking to you about it. This isn’t about me, it’s supposed to be about you, the customer.”

“As long as you’re being civil about it, I don’t mind.”

“Thanks. Say, can you keep a secret?”

“Um, I guess.”

She leaned closer. “I don’t want to be an optometrist.”

“Well, I suppose neither do I.”

She laughed. “I always wanted to be a prostitute.”

“I’m…sure you’d be great.” What else was I supposed to say?

“But you can’t tell anyone.”

“I won’t.”

“Thanks. Here, take the sunglasses free of charge.”

I left the clinic feeling pretty good. I had just taken on a secret in exchange for free stuff. I could do that. If there was one thing I was good at, it was obscuring the truth.

Walking back towards the library, I passed by Sugarcube Corner. Glancing in the window, I saw Rainbow and Pinkie. They appeared to be getting some tongue action on each other. Good Lord, I didn’t even know pony mouths could move that way.

I turned my back to the building and stood in front of the window. I’d rather not get caught peeping, and figured it would look good if I blocked anyone else from doing the same.

I heard a set of pots and pans get knocked to the floor as they noticed me. The door slammed open and Rainbow came out, looking flushed.

“How long have you been out here?”

“Not very. Just long enough to see what it was all about.”

“Pinkie dared me to! She said she wanted to see what it was like. I’m secure enough in my own sexuality to be okay with doing it as a favor to a friend.”

“I don’t really care.”

“You’ve got to keep this secret.”

“Okay. You owe me, though.”

“Sure, just keep your mouth shut.” Rainbow scuffed the dirt a little with her hoof. “She tasted like stale chocolate.”

I laughed. She gave me a dirty look and flew away.

I walked into Sugarcube Corner. “Oh,” said Pinkie. “I didn’t really mean for anypony to see that. I was just curious and Dashie was here, and one thing led to another…”

“She told me about it.”

“Yeah, Rainbow is completely straight. Well, maybe not. I mean, she did kiss me back. Anyway, Mr. and Mrs. Cake are homophobic. You can’t tell anyone what you saw.”

“I won’t.”

She grinned. “Let me make you some cupcakes.”

I left happy and stuffed with sugar. If all the residents of Ponyville were willing to let me keep their secrets in exchange for goodies, I could do that. Strangest business plan I had ever heard of, but it worked.

When I got back to the library, Spike was there babbling something about Rarity getting kidnapped by dogs.

“We have to go rescue her!” he said.

“All right,” I said, rubbing my hooves together. “Whose ass do we get to kick this time?”

Twilight gave me a look, but apparently decided that the situation was serious enough to let me go without reprimand. We gathered up her friends and Spike lead us to where Rarity had disappeared.

“Holy Moly, that's a lot of holeys,” said Pinkie. And there were. The entire area looked like a minefield.

The ponies began trying to get down some of the holes, but the dogs filled them in faster from the inside than the ponies could dig. We would need some serious earthmoving capacity.

Good thing that I had brought along my trusty AJAX-FF. “Watch this,” I said casually as I engaged the hydraulic manipulators.

The digging went slightly faster than the dogs could fill the hole in. I heard a startled yelp as I dug through to the bottom and dropped into a system of tunnels that connected all the holes.

A couple of dogs scattered as the AJAX fell into the tunnel. The ponies and Spike dropped down the hole behind me. I switched on the robot’s lights.

“These dogs aren’t so tough,” I said. “It looks like—” I slipped on the sunglasses “—their bark was worse than their bite.” Yeaaahhhhhhh

“All these tunnels... How are we ever going to find Rarity?” wondered Twilight, completely missing my awesome one-liner.

“I know!” said Spike. “I bet they've taken Rarity down the tunnel with the most gems.”

Within a few minutes, Twilight had figured out how to copy Rarity’s gem-finding spell and we set off. All the ponies seemed confident, although I couldn’t tell if the reason for that was because they were backed by a giant robot or if they just weren’t scared of dogs.

In not very long, we began hearing Rarity whining about something. “Let’s go!” shouted Rainbow, charging in.

Rarity was hooked to a cart full of jewels and surrounded by dogs, who were all strangely bipedal and wearing clothes.

They attacked, but it was a very short fight. I slammed a couple of dogs into the rock walls, and Rainbow and Applejack each knocked one out. The rest of the dogs ran, leaving us with a pile of jewels and Rarity.

We carted all the swag back to the holes that led to the surface, and there we discovered a problem. Even with the jump ability, AJAX wouldn’t be able to get out.

The ponies managed to scramble up out of the holes carrying some jewels with them. The robot, for all its awesomeness, wasn’t going anywhere.

“You’ve got to leave it,” said Twilight. “I’ll admit that it did come in handy, but there’s no way to get it out.”

I sighed. “All right, but there’s no way I’m going to let this thing fall into anyone else’s hands.” I ripped a couple of hydraulic lines loose and spread the oil over everything. Some of the reserve coal I added to the mix. Now I just had to light it up.

The flint knife did not work as advertized. The sparks weren’t hot enough to catch the thick oil on fire.

“Spike,” I called. “A little help?” With a puff of his fire, the whole robot went up in flames. We climbed out of the hole ahead of a column of smoke.

“Wait a minute,” I said. I looked at Twilight. “If you could lift a robot out of a lake with your magic, then how come you couldn’t get one out of a hole in the ground?”

“Um, whoops,” she said.

Twilight Sparkle was suddenly back on the hit list.

Over a Barrel

The train to Appleoosa was running on time for the first time in a long time. Time was important to us time-minded travelers, and timely travels that got us to our destination on time saved money. As we all know, money is time.

The reason for the more reliable train was because the engineers had decided to consult yours truly on their steam engine problem. For the past few weeks, the train crew had had to pull the thing themselves because of a problem with the engine’s boiler. After a quick fix, the train was running again. Also, they let me drive.

We were all going to Appleoosa to help Applejack transport a tree to her relatives. I was up for a vacation, although I wished that I could have gotten the airship finished in time so we could have taken that instead.

As the train rumbled on, I hobnobbed with the engine crew. A stallion named Iron Horse was the lead engineer.

“Thanks to you, we’ll be right on schedule. We shouldn’t even have to deal with those silly buffalo.”

“Who?”

“Oh, the buffalo that live out here think they have some claim to this country. They’ve been protesting the orchards that the settlers have been planting. We heard that they might try to stop this train because we’re carrying an apple tree.”

“Were they here first?”

“Well, yes. I guess they were.” We rode in silence for a while. I glanced out the side of the train.

“Hey, what’s that dust cloud out there?”

“That’s got to be them.” Iron Horse grinned. “There’s no chance that they’ll catch us now.” He cranked on some more steam pressure and the train began to move faster.

The herd of buffalo seemed to be on a collision course with the train, but apparently they hadn’t been expecting the train to be in working order and fell behind. I leaned out of the cab of the engine, looking back.

The train hit a rough rail joint, and I lost my grip. Luckily, I fell away from the tracks and I didn’t get run over. Unluckily, I didn’t hear the train’s brakes coming on. They weren’t stopping.

I sat up and rubbed my head. I hadn’t been hurt, just a little stunned. I realized that I was sitting in the middle of a circle of buffalo.

“Oh, hey,” I said. “I don’t think they’re coming back for me. Can you tell me how to get to Appleoosa?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” said one of them.

“Uh…I’m sorry, I don’t really understand.”

“You’re a hostage now.”

“Oh no, that’s not how this works. I’m going to use my smooth talking and quick wits to just get out of captivity, so why don’t you just make things easier and tell me which way to go?”

I got kicked in the back of the head and woke up in their camp a while later. A little buffalo was watching me.

“What in the world am I doing here?”

“The settler ponies have overtaken the land and have planted an orchard all over it! Because of their thoughtlessness, we can no longer run over our traditional stampeding grounds. We have tried negotiation, but they will not listen. Now we have a bargaining chip. You.”

“Well that sucks.”

“You should meet Chief Thunderhooves. Get up.”

I stood from where I had woken up. I was a little shaky from the pain in my head. The thought that I might actually be a pony prisoner of terrorist buffalo was too ridiculous to be anything but a dream. I must just have a headache.

The Chief basically said what the little buffalo had said, but more complicatedly. Was that a word, complicatedly? I wished I had spell-check for speech. I nodded when it felt appropriate, and let the Chief finish.

“The problem,” I said when he let me speak, “is that I’m not from Appleoosa, have no opinion about the stupid trees, and am not well-liked enough to be a valuable hostage. You’d be better off with some other pony.”

The Chief shrugged. “We’ll deal with that when we come to it. We’ve sent an envoy to the town. Soon, we will know.”

I may have been a bit nearsighted, but I thought I saw a rainbow-colored flash far out on the landscape. Without alerting the buffalo, I surreptitiously watched the skyline. Shortly, I saw a pink flash.

Okay, so Rainbow and Pinkie were probably out there. I had to convince them that I was in trouble so maybe a rescue effort would be mounted.

For a while, I played the part of victim. I didn’t do anything willingly, and occasionally the buffalo would give me a nudge to get me moving. I hoped it looked bad enough that Rainbow and Pinkie would go get some help.

Of course, I should have known not to count on those two. They, too, were captured after not very long.

“I told you that you were going to blow my cover,” said Rainbow.

“But look at all these new friends we have to party with!” said Pinkie.

“They’re not friendly,” I informed her. “And now they have three hostages.”

Rainbow suddenly shot into the air. “I’ll go get help, ponies! They can’t catch me!” She zoomed away.

“Some Element of Loyalty,” I grumbled.

“Oh, don’t worry,” said Pinkie. “I’m sure she’ll bring the whole town. Then we can have a great party!”

“If you think so.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a plan,” she whispered, winking at me. “How long has it been since we’ve been intimate?” she asked loudly.

“Uh, I thought you weren’t into stallions—”

“Shut up and kiss me, you fool.” She planted her lips on mine. She tasted like stale chocolate.

The little buffalo turned away. “Gross. Get a room.”

“Kind of hard when you’re out here,” said Pinkie.

“Go behind that rock. Just make it quick.”

Pinkie and I dashed away and then kept going. It was almost too easy. “Pinkie,” I said, “That was great thinking, but I really don’t want to do that again.”

Her eyes widened. “Wait, you aren’t into mares?”

Good thing I have an orange coat so she didn’t see me blush. “No! I mean yes! Wait, I’m not into mares or stallions. I’m into human women. What I meant to say was that I don’t want to kiss a pony of any gender. No offense.”

“None taken!” she sang. “Come on, let’s get to Appleoosa.”

When we showed up in town, all the ponies were gearing up for a rescue mission. Rainbow had come through for us, even though it turned out that we had freed ourselves. I decided to take her and Pinkie off their probationary “no-murder” status to a more permanant "definitely-no-murder" one. They had earned it.

After hearing both sides of the story, Twilight made a little speech to the townsponies. “Look everypony, both you and the buffalo have good reasons to use this land. There must be something we can do.”

Pinkie put on a little song and dance that was mostly unheard by everyone else. I’m not even sure which side she was endorsing.

“The buffalo envoy said that they would start their stampede at noon tomorrow,” announced the Sherriff of Appleoosa. “We have until then to come to some kind of agreement with them.” There was a general murmur in the crowd. None of them seemed to know what to do.

“They’d better be ready, because we will be!” shouted one of them.

“Yeah! We’ll fight!”

“That wasn't the message of my song at all,” said Pinkie, dissapointed.

Applejack sighed. “Ah want my kin to have what they need to live, but a storm's a-brewin' here and ah don't like the look of it.”

“The train’s ready to go,” I pointed out. “The engineer ponies didn’t pull it here so they don’t need to rest before a return trip.”

“We can’t leave with this conflict going on,” said Twilight.

“Think about it. A couple of us were hostages. Our presence here will only breed anger.”

“I guess you’re right. We’ll leave it to the more experienced ponies to negotiate.”

I rode back to Ponyville in the coach this time. No way was I going to take the chance of falling off again.

I walked towards the Ponyville market a couple of days later. I saw a newspaper lying forgotten on the ground. The headline read APPLEOOSA MASSACRE.

Just then, Applejack came along. I covered up the headline with a hoof.

“Howdy Valiant. What’s that you’ve got there?”

“Just a newspaper.” The bit of headline that was showing read APPLEOOSA MASS-RE

Applejack cocked her head. “What’s that mean?”

“Oh, RE is short for ‘relationship evolution’. The buffalo and the ponies took their relationship to the next level. There was a ‘mass’ive amount of participation.”

“Well, I’m mighty glad to hear that. I’ll have to write to cousin Braeburn and congratulate him.” She walked off with a smile.

I sighed. As the Element of Honesty, Applejack should have been able to spot a lie. Good thing that I was technically telling the truth. The ponies and buffalo had taken things to a new level, all right. A level down.

I threw the newspaper in a trash can and went on my way, humming a little tune.

A Bird in the Hoof

“I might be a sociopath,” I said.

Twilight looked up from her reading. “Well, I didn’t want to say anything but…you are kind of self-serving. Also not very moral.”

“So do you think it’s a bad idea for me to go over to Sugarcube Corner to meet Princess Celestia?”

“Yes. Don’t even think about it. There’s no way the guards will let you in.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“No way.

“Way.”

I sighed. “I just…feel this burning need for democracy, you know?”

“No, I don’t.”

“I’m going over there.” I turned to walk out the door. A heavy textbook knocked me flat.

I woke up on the couch. It was dark outside. Celestia must be long gone by now. Sitting up, I wondered exactly how much damage my skull could take. Thinking back on it, the only kind of injuries I had suffered in this dream had been to the head. I should tell Twilight that. She’d probably say that it explained so much.

Speaking of Twilight… Oh, it was on now. There wasn’t any way to double-murder somebody, but I could at least add “with extreme prejudice”.

Speaking of Twilight, she walked through the door. “I see you’re awake. I’m so sorry that I had to do that. I’ve never hurt anypony before, but I couldn’t let you talk to the Princess like you were going to.” She paused, putting on a noble air. “I mean, I feel that it was my duty as Celestia’s best student, Twilight Sparkle.”

“Speaking of Twilight, and the Princess,” said Spike, coming out of the back room. “I’ve got a letter here for Twilight from the Princess. She’s looking for her bird.”

I quietly slipped out the door before I got stuck in an endless loop. It was getting late, but I saw the lights were on at Rarity’s place, so I went over to see if she’d gotten my airship sewn up yet.

She hadn’t, but the material was there. She sadly informed me that it would be an extremely long process. The fabric hadn’t come with the special gas-proof coating on it, so it would need to be applied and given time to dry.

With a couple days to kill, I decided to build another robot. This one would be smaller, closer to my original goal of exoskeletal armor. I’d figured out how to miniaturize some of the components.

To save weight on non-structural items, I decided to use wood. I headed over to Fluttershy’s to see if I could enlist the aid of her beaver.

I had only seen said beaver once or twice when she had showed it to me. It had teeth, big sharp ones. Also, she did not enjoy the sexual double entendres I made about it.

When I got to Fluttershy’s house, she was having problems with an ugly bird that was missing most of its feathers. It was apparently the Princess’s bird, Philomeena.

Having recent experience with hostage situations, I immediately concocted a plan to get myself a discussion with the Princess. I’ll give you the bird when you give me five minutes with Celestia!

Fluttershy was saying something about caring for the sick animal. I was dreaming about using the bird’s health problems as leverage.

Twilight came in. “Hi, Fluttershy! I just wanted to drop by and say thank you so very much for making such a good impression on the princess today...” She gasped. “What is Celestia's pet doing here?!”

“All right, now we’ve got another accomplice,” I said. I glanced at Twilight. “Unwilling, to be sure, but you’re in on the conspiracy now whether you like it or not.”

“But... but... she doesn't belong to you!” Twilight stammered.

“I had to do something,” said Fluttershy.

“You were behind this?”

“She was,” I said. “But now I’m running the show. I’m going to get some of Celestia’s time one way or another, and the bird is going to be a bargaining point.”

“This is crazy.”

“Actually, it’s Equestria. I’m crazy.”

There came a knocking on the door. Twilight opened it to reveal two Royal Guards. They were looking for the bird.

“Really? You don't say!” answered Twilight. “Thank you ever so much for keeping me in the loop. Bye!”

She slammed the door shut.

I slow-clopped. “Nice. Very nice. I knew you’d come through for us.”

“I…I don’t know why I did that.”

“Because you’re a great friend, but a terrible pony. You didn’t want us to get into trouble, and you were willing to lie to protect us. More importantly, though, you could have gotten in trouble just for being here. You also were protecting yourself.”

“I…” She began to cry.

I facehoofed. “Just calm down, okay? Aren’t you supposed to be more mentally resilient? I can’t believe I was able to drag you down to my level so easily.”

Twilight’s expression instantly changed. “You did that on purpose? You…you terrible pony!” It wasn’t much of an insult, but she screamed it at the top of her lungs.

“All right, I feel guilty. Are you happy now? Why don’t you take the bird back, oh wait, you can’t because you lied to the Royal Guards.”

“I made a mistake, I was trying—”

“Um,” Fluttershy’s tiny voice somehow broke in. “Philomeena escaped.”

We looked around. The bird was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, the three of us organized to search the area.

After a long chase, we eventually cornered the bird on top the fountain statue in Ponyville Square. The Royal Guards showed up at about the same time.

“Philomeena, come down from there! You'll hurt yourself!” pleaded Fluttershy.

Instead, the bird keeled over and died. Fluttershy ran to catch the body as it fell off the statue, only to have it burst into flames mid-air. A small pile of ash landed in her hooves.

“Oh,” I said dismissively. “It’s just a phoenix.” At least I learned something from all those fantasy children’s books.

Princess Celestia came walking up. “What is going on here?”

“I was going to help Fluttershy and Twilight kidnap your sick bird in order to bargain for a minute of your time, but then she spontaneously combusted so there went our plan.” I shrugged.

“Well, at least you’re honest,” said Celestia. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Your monarchial rule has no place in the modern world! The citizens want change, they want—”

Celestia laughed. “No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. My sister and I rule together. It’s not a monarchy, it’s a diarchy.”

Just then, Philomeena came back to life and all the ponies promptly forgot about what I had to say. I guess it beat getting thrown in the Royal Jail. Celestia left Ponyville shortly after.

Later that night, Twilight was still glaring daggers at me. "I'm honestly not sorry," I said. "Call it mental illness, call it burning desire for political change, but this is how I feel."

She sighed. "Look, I know this is something you're very passionate about, but frankly I can't understand why."

"You haven't taken the time to listen. I thought you were all about learning."

"Are you trying to indoctrinate me?"

I shrugged. "If you know that's why I'm trying to do, won't that make you immune?"

"I guess. What did you have in mind?"

"How about this: I tell you what I envision for Equestria's future. You can embrace it, deny it, or whatever. Maybe if I can demonstrate that I'm not just making this up as I go along, you'll finally believe what I have to say." This would be a little difficult. I was totally making it up as I went along.

"What will you be talking about?"

"I want to tell you how I think a government and a country should be run."

She sighed, long and deep. "All right. Start talking."

The Cutie Mark Chronicles

“This is…amazing,” said Twilight. The two of us had stayed up all night talking. She’d filled a notebook in the past few hours. Her eyes were red and strained, but she was still writing. “So the system of checks and balances is designed to keep any branch of the government from obtaining too much power?”

“That’s right. Congress writes the laws, the President approves them, and the Supreme Court decides whether they are good ones.” I grinned. "Join us, Twilight. We have elections."

“I admit I was wrong about you. This is far too complicated to be some crackpot idea that you came up with. So has this government been effective in other places?”

“Yes, American-style democracy has managed to spread to several other countries. It has an enemy, though.” I lowered my voice. “Communism.”

Twilight leaned forward, “Is that bad?”

I didn’t get the chance to tell her, though, because the Cutie Mark Crusaders came in. I noticed that Scootaloo had finally gotten her bandages off.

“Twilight, how did you get your cutie mark?”

Taken away from our conversation, she began to tell the story. I listened, too. I still needed all the information I could get about her.

Twilight had wanted to do magic from a young age. It turned out that she was good enough at it that Celestia took her as a student in a special school, like some kind of evil ponified Professor X.

“What about you, Valiant?” asked Sweetie Belle.

“I’m afraid that it’s a rather short story. I woke up one day in Equestria with no idea how I got here. I already had the mark.”

The three of them looked confused. “Ah know you told me that already,” said Apple Bloom. She’d asked me about it a while back. “But you never found out more about it?”

“Well, I can tell you what it is, but not how it signifies my special talent.” I pointed to my hip. “This is the advertising symbol of a product called Plymouth made by the Chrysler Corporation, a long-dead company from Detroit.”

“What’s that?” asked Scootaloo.

“Where’s that?” added Sweetie Belle.

“I think that’s enough questions for today.”

Unperturbed, the Crusaders announced, “We’re going to go ask Rainbow Dash how she got her cutie mark!” They left.

“Where were we?” asked Twilight. “Oh right, United States government.” She sighed. “As interesting as all this is, I only see two possibilities. One, you’re a genius political thinker, if a bit crazy. Two, you really are from ‘America’ but are still a bit crazy.”

“No possibility that you’re a figment of my imagination?”

“Think about it from my perspective. What if somepony was telling you that you didn’t really exist. You wouldn’t agree, because you’ve got all these thoughts and emotions of your own.”

I nodded. “Okay, fair point. I just need to take charge of my subconscious and start bending this dream to my will.”

“Um, well, if you want to sit in the corner and try to alter the universe with your mind, I guess I won’t stop you.”

“Thanks.” I sat down and tried to force Twilight out of existence. It didn’t work. Clearly I wasn’t thinking hard enough. It would probably be easier if I had something symbolic to focus on, like a unicorn horn. I tried to grow one. No dice.

Twilight was still sitting there when I opened my eyes. She almost looked smug. “No luck?”

I stood up and walked to the door. I still thought that with enough effort, I could alter my subconscious and take charge of things, but now I was a little more cautious. I admit that doubt had begun to creep in.

Twilight Smuggle didn’t try to stop me from leaving. I needed something to distract myself. The newest robot needed only a little more work before it was ready to go. I hoped I had calculated the airship size correctly and it would actually lift me, armor and all. Orbital Drop Shock Pony, coming right up.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders came clanking up in their robot. It was covered in dirt and had a few branches hanging out of the machinery. It looked like they had been crusading for cutie marks again.

“Rainbow’s story about going fast was boring,” said Sweetie Belle. “I mean, we’ve already seen a sonic rainboom.”

“I thought it was pretty cool,” said Scootaloo.

“We want to help you find out what your cutie mark means!” Apple Bloom told me.

“Well, I don’t know if I have time,” I said.

“Come on! We can help you finish up your work and then we can get started.”

“All right, I’ll need some tools.”

They helped me get the exoskeletal armor working. I had decided to simply call it EXAR. It was nearly form-fitting, and ran on batteries. It had limitations, but it was light enough to carry even if the power was dead. I wasn’t going to leave a robot behind ever again.

After the powerpacks were charged from the base station, the Crusaders went with me over to Rarity’s shop. Between the two robots, it was easy to carry the yards and yards of heavy airship material back to the library.

I didn’t trust the three fillies with fire, which was exactly why I trusted them with hydrogen. I knew they couldn’t set off an explosion. Still, I was nervous as we filled the airship.

I figured that it was full enough when we had to strain to hold it down. I had yet to install the air compressor that would be used to vary the gas density.

With the installation of the hanging basket, it began to look like an airship. Steampunky, but effective. It was just a few weapons short of being awesome.

We broke for lunch, and I agreed to tell the Crusaders my story. They interrupted with questions more than once, but I got through it.

Rarity poked her head in the window. “Photo Finish is looking for you. I thought I could give you a warning.”

“Thanks, Rarity. Girls, do you think you could distract her? She’s trying to take my picture.”

The Crusaders agreed to help. The only time I caught a glimpse of the photographer that day was when she was being chased out of town by a robot.

The free time away from the crusaders gave me an opportunity to go back to work on the airship. I had decided to reserve the rockets for emergency power and pursue an internal combustion engine. It would require a redesign, but at least the fuel would be cheap. Oil was not in demand on the Equestrian stock exchange, and with some careful agreements I was on my way to cornering the market. All it would take was time and just a few more bits invested.

They say you have to have money to make money, and I didn’t. If it weren’t for the charity of the ponies, I would have been completely broke. I figured I could pay them back someday. First I had to make smart investments.

Rusty Nail at the hardware store was able to get me a basic piston-type pump. I honestly don’t know how ponies had steam power and mechanical pumps, but not internal combustion engines. Oh well, it wouldn’t be too terribly difficult to convert.

“You’ve been my best customer. Can I tell you a secret?” he asked.

“Sure.”

“Sometimes when I’m alone I like to dress up like Sapphire Shores and whip myself like a little filly.”

“I wish I’d said that you couldn’t tell me a secret, but I guess it’s too late for that.”

“Here, take this pump. No charge.”

I guess that made it worth the unpleasant mental images.

A few days passed, and the small engine was almost ready. I’d had to figure out a way to get a fuel inside and combust it. There would have to be some changes to the airship in order to compensate for the weight, but it was manageable.

Rarity came over with a new copy of some fashion magazine. I was somewhat surprised to see the Cutie Mark Crusaders on the cover. Magnificient machines! was splashed across the title bar.

“I hope you realize what this means,” said Rarity. “You are now fashionable.”

I facehoofed. “What should I do?”

“Well, you can either become a recluse or you can become a public figure. I’ll be your agent.”

“I think I’ll take the first option. I like being the only pony with a robot.”

“There will probably be other ponies making knockoffs.”

I grinned. “I wonder if the girls would be interested in Cutie Mark Crusader Copyright Enforcement?”

Owl's Well That Ends Well

I reluctantly agreed to go along with Twilight and Spike to view the meteor shower. I had lain low over the past few days to avoid Photo Finish.

The photographer had been nothing if not persistent. My ears had learned to pick out the sound of a camera shutter from a hundred yards. I had begun only testing my stuff after dark.

“I've got a telescope, apples, bananas, fruit punch and my freshly baked home-made triple-decker nut-crazy vanilla cream cookies!” said Spike, counting off on a checklist.

Twilight giggled. “That’s why you’re my number one assistant, Spike.”

“Then what am I?”

“You’re my number one creepy roommate, Valiant.”

“Damn straight.”

The other ponies were waiting for us under the stars. They seemed impressed by all the cool swag Spike had brought.

We sat there for a while while the meteors did their thing for a while. While I didn’t mind the triple-decker nut-crazy vanilla cream cookies for a little while, after a while they began to cause me trouble. While the rest of the ponies stayed to watch the show, I went back to the library to while away my time being sick.

Twilight and Spike came back later. My windpipe had just about sealed shut. “I think I have a nut allergy,” I croaked.

“Good thing you’re straight,” said Spike. Twilight spun him around with her magic and made him walk up the stairs to bed. “Watch your mouth, little dragon.”

“I guess he’s been hanging out with me too long.”

She shot me a look. “Right.”

“Oh,” she added. “I meant to tell you earlier, but I sent a letter to Princess Celestia outlining some of your political theories. I think that maybe we can use a few ideas from ‘democracy’ to renovate Equestria’s political system. Maybe get some more ponies involved on a local level.”

Oh great, now Celestia knew that I wanted to topple her regime. “What was her reply?”

“She said she would get back to me. It’s strange, she’s usually so decisive.”

Well, I might as well surrender to the Royal Guards now. The pony was out of the bag, so to speak. The revolution would most certainly not be televised. I wish I’d spent my time inventing TV just so that it could be.

Nothing else to do. Either I would be arrested shortly or eventually. I went to sleep, despite my swollen throat making things difficult.

I woke up in the morning, surprisingly not in chains. I hacked a little, but my breathing was easier. Not imprisoned and not dead - it already looked like a good day.

There was an owl sitting on Twilight’s desk and staring at me.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Who.”

“No, Who’s on first.”

He cocked his head at me.

“You walked right into that one, buddy.”

“This is Owloysius,” said Twilight, walking in. “He’s my new junior assistant.”

I introduced myself to the bird. He seemed indifferent. A few other ponies dropped by to meet him. They all seemed to think he was cool.

I left to get a bucket of fuel for the airship. I was just about ready to make a test flight. Everything seemed to be in working order.

I walked downtown, passing the the blacksmith’s, the fireworks shop, and the kitten factory. An unused well stood near the public water well. It had accidentally hit oil while drilling. Since it was worthless to the ponies, I had been able to buy the mineral rights for a song. Pinkie had been happy to sing it as a favor to me.

With careful distillation, one bucket of oil would yield about half a bucket of useable fuel, and a quarter bucket of tar. The rest was lost as vapor, but I was working on a system to collect it.

The resulting fuel was somewhere between diesel and gasoline. The crappy engine I had cobbled together couldn’t tell the difference.

I filled the bucket with the noxious hydrocarbon and started on my way back. An older stallion stepped into my path. “Valiant, is that you?”

I stopped. The handle of the bucket kept me from speaking, but I nodded.

He broke into a wide grin. “It’s so nice to have finally found you, son.”

I waited to see what he would say next. “Your mother and I—”

Wait, he literally meant son? I dropped the bucket in surprise “WHAT!”

The oil spread out over the ground. The blacksmith, standing nearby, was startled by my outburst and dropped a hot coal into the puddle. The quick fire spread to the fireworks shop. When it exploded, it took out the building next door. The sky rained angry little cats.

“Not the kitten factory!” somebody shouted.

“That’s right,” said the pony who was speaking to me. He brushed a tabby off his shoulder before it could dig its claws in. “I’m your father.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“Plymouth. Plymouth Barracuda.”

“No,” I said. “No way.” I fell to my rump, shaking my head. “This is impossible.”

“Sure, I know that it looked like I died in that rabid rabbit stampede back in eighty-eight, but here I am.”

“I…no. I can’t believe this. I shouldn’t even have a father in Equestria. I’m not a pony!”

“Come on, you’re just in shock.” He put his hoof around my shoulders. “I heard that you were a little loco in the head. I’m here to help.”

I brushed off his touch, standing up. “I’ve got to get out of here.” I took off at a gallop for the library.

I ran into Spike coming out of Quills and Sofas, the quill and sofa store. “Spike, come on! We don’t have much time.” I tossed him onto my back.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“This pony claiming to be my father showed up. Also, the kitten factory exploded.”

“No! They were just about finished with my order!”

“What did you get?”

“A pair of Calicos and a Sphinx.”

“They’re gone, man. Just forget about it, we’ve got bigger problems.”

I skidded to a stop in front of the library and kicked the door open. “Where’s Twilight?” I asked Owloysius.

“Who, who.”

I facehoofed. “Nevermind.” I found her in the back.

“There’s a pony in town that says he’s my dad.”

“That’s great news!”

“Are you kidding me? I have no idea who he is.”

“Valiant, I think we need to face the very real possibility that you’re mentally ill. Who’s to say that you haven’t simply forgotten who he is?”

Dang, she had a good point. But I thought that I was right. Right? Did I really have amnesia? If I did, I wouldn’t know it. Right?

Instead of letting my head spin, I said, “Tell me what I need to do.”

She brightened. “I’m glad that you’re finally asking for help.”

“Actually, I just want to know what you want so I can do the opposite. Please continue.”

She frowned, but said, “You need to go talk to him. If he truly is your father, you’ll know it.”

“What if he isn’t?”

“Why would somepony claim to be your father if he wasn’t?”

“I have no idea.”

“Just go.” I nodded and reluctantly walked out of the library.

“Can I come?” asked Spike. “I was going to set up Owloysius for terrible crimes that he didn’t commit, but this sounds a lot more interesting.”

“While I acknowledge the genius in framing someone who can’t defend himself other than to say ‘who’ I think I’m going to go alone.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks Spike. I get the feeling that I’m going to need it.”

This was just great. I was either in a coma-dream, had been transported to Equestria and turned into a pony, or was just a pony the whole time and was completely insane. None of those were great options.

I walked back in the direction that I had met the pony. I had no idea what I would say, what I would do. I'll admit, I was curious, but also scared to death. What if it ended badly? What if it didn't?

Well, I knew one thing, at least. Daddy had better have a darn good story. If I wasn’t convinced that he was actually my father, then he was going to go straight up to the top of the list. Move over, Twilight.

Party of One

Pinkie sure knew how to throw a party. I hated to admit it, but my time in Equestria had really helped me loosen up and become more social.

It was a birthday party for Gummy, Pinkie’s pet alligator. While I didn’t know him personally, we got along. He didn’t bite. Hard.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” said Twilight. “How did meeting your father go?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”

“What?” She knew about my secret-keeping business. “But why did he want it to be a secret?”

“He works in mysterious ways.”

“So you’ve accepted him as your real father?”

I smiled and said nothing.

Twilight smiled in return. “You look happy. I’m happy for you.” She moved away into the crowd of ponies on the dance floor.

As the party wound down, ponies began leaving. As I headed out the door, Twilight caught up with me. “We’re planning a party for Pinkie tomorrow. It’s her birthday.”

“A party for Pinkie? She might not be impressed. She’s the expert, after all.”

“It’s going to be a surprise party. Don’t tell her.”

“All right.”

“I think the rest of us have everything set up just right. We’ll meet at Applejack’s barn in the afternoon. Pinkie might get suspicious, so do anything you have to in order to keep the secret.”

“Anything?”

She frowned. “Coming from you, no, not anything. Just use your head.”

I supposed I could do that. I had something else to use it for at the moment, though. The airship was still in testing phase, but it had completed a few circuits of Ponyville successfully. I was still trying to think of something to christen it.

Pinkie showed up the next morning with invitations to a party that she was hosting that afternoon, the same time as the party that was being planned in her honor.

“Not going to work,” I said. “Sorry.”

She looked a little hurt, but said that she was sure the rest of her friends would come. I went back to distilling more fuel for the airship.

Later that day, I went over to Sugarcube Corner searching for something sweet. Mrs. Cake asked me if I would be a dear and check on Pinkie. She had apparently locked herself in the room upstairs since no pony had accepted her party invitation.

I knocked on the door. “Hey Pinkie?”

She answered. Her mane appeared to have gone limp. As I watched, one of her eyes twitched.

I was somewhat taken aback. “Um, are you all right?”

“I’m spending time with my real friends. Isn’t that right, Madame LeFlour?” She spoke to a bag of flour that was wearing a party hat. Also sitting around the table in the center of the room was a bucket of turnips, a pile of rocks, and a large piece of lint.

Ask any pony and they would tell you that Pinkie Pie was weird. Still, this was just a little out of the ordinary, even for her. Luckily, I knew what to do. When faced with a strange thing, cause some sting.

Her back was turned, so I grabbed a potted plant from the corner and broke it over her head. She fell limp on the floor.

“What was that, dearie?” asked Mrs. Cake as I came down the stairs with Pinkie lying on my back.

“I’m, ah, taking her to a cake convention,” I said. “She wanted to sleep on the way.”

Could nobody showing up at her party have caused her to snap? I had no idea what went on in Pinkie’s mind, but I concluded that it was possible. I had to remove her from the situation, while at the same time hiding from her the surprise party that had been planned.

So, I loaded up the airship and set sail for Trottingham.

“Woooo!” cried Pinkie. “Did you see that flank on her? Did you, Valiant?”

“Ugh,” I muttered. “I can’t believe I thought of this.” Pinkie had insisted that we sit right beside the stage. She tossed a hooffull of bits at the dancer.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said between acts. “How did meeting your daddy go?”

“Well…” I had a flashback.

“I want answers, old man.”

“Naturally.”

“Why don’t I know who you are?”

“You’ve got amnesia.”

“How come you know so much about me?”

“Well, I am your father.”

I shook my head. “I can’t believe it. I literally can’t.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. It will take time. Come on, let me get you some candy and we’ll talk.”

“I like candy,” I admitted. We went into a café and he ordered for me a chocolately treat called a Turtle. I munched on it quietly as he told me about what he had been up to since he’d disappeared. It could have all been tall tales, as far as I knew. I didn’t remember him.

I began to notice that something was wrong with me. I wasn’t feeling quite right. I glanced at the half-eaten Turtle. Walnuts? Pecans?

“You tried to kill me!” I roared as loudly as I was able. Already, my voice was being cut off by my swelling throat. “Any father of mine would know that I’m allergic to nuts!”

“Good thing you’re straight,” remarked the waiter. I shot him a look that said you’re next.

The pony who claimed to be my father ran. I collapsed into a twitching heap on the floor. The wait staff worked around me for an hour or two until I had recovered. I begrudgingly paid the bill and left.

I caught up with the imposter on the other side of town. He didn’t see me coming, and I dragged him behind a building before he could fight back. I pinned him on his back.

“Please don’t hurt me!” he said.

“Muph wu.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

I spit out the flint knife I had been holding in my mouth. Stupid lack of fingers.

“You obviously went to a lot of trouble to learn about me. Why?”

“I can’t help it. Whenever I move to a new place, I have to impersonate someone. I thought that if I could be a father figure to a local nutcase, nopony would be the wiser.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Just Anne Actor.”

“That's quite a middle name for a stallion.”

“I actually don’t have a middle name. I was…just acting.”

“Why don’t you tell the truth once in a while?”

“I am! Valiant, I am your father!”

I stared at him.

“Okay, fine, I’m actually your son!”

I let him up. “Look, you clearly have even more issues than I do. I recommend that you seek professional help.”

“I’m sorry I lied to you. I was hoping I could finally find some place to belong. Some place where I could settle for a while.”

“You’ve got two options,” I said. “Get yourself to the local mental hospital, or get out of town. If I see you again, insane or not, things won’t end well.” I picked up the knife and put it in its sheath as I turned to walk away.

“Who gave you the right to decide that? Aren’t you just as crazy as I?”

I stopped. He had a point. Why wasn’t I locked up? I had clearly been doing things to deserve it.

Without turning around, I said, “The difference between you and me is that I can tell right from wrong. I don’t always follow that, but at least I know where the line is.”

“But…but…I’m your father!”

I started walking.

"Please," it sounded like he was crying. "You can't tell anyone this secret."

From one lunatic to another, I supposed I owed him that.

“Wow, are you all right?” said Pinkie. We were walking back to where I had parked the airship. It would be time for the surprise party soon.

"Wha...how did we get here?"

"You spaced out there for a second. It's like you were reliving something that happened to you."

"As it happens, that guess was right on the money."

"I like money! So what was it about?"

"I can't tell you. I did some stuff, but I don’t know if I made the right decision,” I said.

“Do you feel bad about it?”

“Yes.”

“Would you do something different if given a do-over?”

“No.”

“You made the right choice! Congratulations!” she said, throwing a handful of confetti into the air. I had no idea where she’d gotten it.

“Thanks.”

“Glad to help. I guess we really should be getting back to Ponyville now. I’m so excited to ride on your airship!”

“You rode on it coming here.”

“Yeah, but that was back when I was unconscious. How did I get that way, anyhow?”

“Uh, blood sugar swings caused by diabetic reaction to all the sugar you eat.”

“Oooh, sounds serious. I hope it doesn’t happen again and I miss the ride back! It’s a really cool looking airship.”

“Thanks. I'm still trying to think of a name for it.” We strode onboard and I began getting the engine fired up.

“I’m sure you’ll come up with one.” Pinkie suddenly checked herself. “That dirty hooker took my money!”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” I said.

Best Night Ever

They said that the opening ceremony of the Grand Galloping Gala was pretty sweet. I wouldn’t know. I spent most of it locked in the dungeon beneath Canterlot Castle.

Security was tight. The Royal Guard ponies had confiscated my hydra-tooth necklace, my flint knife, and my pack of gum, for some reason. I bitterly regretted my decision to talk about overthrowing Celestia while I waited in line.

Once they got rid of the weapons and the gum, the guards had evidentially decided that I had nothing else of interest on me. I was marched downstairs and thrown into a cell.

They had missed a small piece of metal hidden in my mane, though. I had planned to use it to create sparks by striking the flint on it. I hoped I could burn stuff with it. Now, I used it to force the lock on the door.

Equestria’s technology level was very inconsistent and it sometimes drove me nuts. They had complicated brain scanners, but skeleton key padlocks. Even with hooves, it didn’t take me more than a few minutes to get free.

I slipped my sunglasses on. Just as I suspected, combined with the tuxedo I was wearing, they made me look amazing. Also, they gave me the added bonus of anonymity. The guards would never pick up on it.

Heading upstairs, I made my way to the Gala. I had missed the beginning of the party. It looked like everything was going full-swing now.

The six ponies and Spike had agreed to ride with me to Canterlot. I had made sure everything aboard was clean and sanitary so they wouldn’t complain. Dirty Hooker Took My Money was a respectable airship, after all. We couldn’t have the guests mistreated.

While we flew, all of them spoke excitedly about the things they would do at the Gala. Fluttershy wanted to see the animals in the Royal Gardens. Applejack wanted to sell junk food. Rarity wanted to pick up a stallion. Rainbow wanted to hang out with The Wonderbolts. Twilight wanted to have a nice intellectual conversation with the Princess. Pinky just wanted to party.

Spike wanted to visit his favorite donut shop, and while that sounded like a great idea to me, I had some things I wanted to get done first. Namely, anarchy. It was disappointing to have my plans fail so quickly thanks to the guards.

I slipped back into the ballroom. With my sunglasses on, nobody noticed. I saw Twilight standing with Celestia while the Princess greeted a long line of visitors. She didn’t look happy to be so close yet so far from her mentor.

Pinkie was dancing, but all the fancy ponies were giving her disapproving looks. Rainbow appeared to be trying to insert herself unsuccessfully into The Wonderbolts’ conversation. Applejack looked glum while sitting at her booth, a mound of unsold food piled up. Rarity seemed to be having problems getting one particular stallion to treat her like she wanted to be treated. From outside, I heard a scream of anger that sounded like Fluttershy.

Oh boy. It looked like my work was cut out for me. I didn’t have to give any of them help, but I’d rather see my associates happy than see Celestia’s party go smoothly.

I trotted over to the dance floor. Sideling up to a fashionable-looking stallion, I said, “Simply amazing, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure amazing is the right word,” he said, glaring at Pinkie’s antics.

“You’re right. This new dance is simply the talk of Manehattan. So much energy! You can’t help but feel good. It’s also so simple to learn. You just put your right hoof in, your right hoof out…well, I’m sure a trendy pony like you knows all the steps.”

“Uh, yes indeed. Of course I do. Come on, my dear.” He led his wife out onto the floor. Soon, more and more of them were joining Pinkie.

I ambled over to where Rainbow was having problems. Soarin’, The Wonderbolts team leader, was distracted by the strange dancing going on, and I was able to slip up behind and collar him. He was a pretty big pony, but I had a leverage advantage and was able to put a little pain into the gesture while still making it look like a hug between friends.

“Hey buddy, Rainbow saved your ungrateful life. The least you could do is fall to your knees and worship her like she deserves.” It hurt me to say nice things about a bitch like Rainbow, but I figured I could stand it.

“Who are you?” he groaned.

“I’m the guy who’s going to kill you all if you don’t do exactly what I say.”

Soarin’s eyes widened. I ruffled his mane a little and let him go. I also snatched his wallet.

Over at Applejack’s stand, I bought everything.

“Wow,” she said happily. “What do you need all this for?”

“I’ve got a plan.” I wheeled the cart outside, snacking on an apple fritter. Fluttershy appeared to be having problems with the garden animals.

“They don’t like me,” she said. “I think I might be trying too hard.”

I shrugged. “Well, my original plan of eating all these snacks myself was kind of stupid. Maybe you can use them to lure the animals in.”

“Oh, that would be lovely!”

I left the cart with her. On my way back inside I encountered Rarity.

“Prince Blueblood is simply horrid!” I thought that he was probably the pony I had seen her with earlier.

“He looked like the stallion of my dreams, but he’s so snooty,” she said. “He refuses to eat commoner food or cross puddles of water without assistance.”

“Wait a moment,” I said. “His name is Blueblood, he’s really good-looking, doesn’t eat, can’t cross water, and acts all better than you? Uh, Rarity, I think I know why you don’t get along with him.”

“Why’s that?”

“He’s a vampire.”

“Good heavens! What should we do?”

“We have to stake him. Unfortunately, I don’t have a stake available. However…” I looked at her horn.

“What? You can’t be serious!”

“It has to be done. I would help you, but I’d probably only get in the way. You know how clumsy I am. Besides, isn’t it beauty that overcomes the beast?”

“Yes, I suppose.” She drew herself up. “I shall do my best. For Equestria.”

“For Equestria,” I agreed. She walked away to find the Prince.

I burst out laughing. She actually believed me. Oh, and I was doing so well helping everybody, too. It’s okay, can’t win ‘em all.

Now, how to get Twilight and the Princess separated from the crowd. Ideally, I would be able to kill at least one of them.

I stepped up to the head of the line. “I'm from the security team. Everypony has to leave now. There’s a plot to overthrow Princesses Celestia and Luna.”

I turned. “Princess, Ms. Sparkle, please come with me.” I whisked them out the door into a bare hallway.

“What is the meaning of this?” asked the Princess.

“Who are you?” said Twilight.

I took off the sunglasses and menaced them with a sharp stick that I picked up out in the garden.

“Celestia, I’m holding you for crimes against freedom. Twilight, you’ve wronged me, so I guess that makes this a personal vendetta.”

Celestia began to laugh. “This is the most amusing thing that has ever happened at the Grand Galloping Gala.”

“Maybe you don’t understand. I’m threatening your life, here.”

“Oh, I understand. I also watched you cause all that trouble earlier. I don’t think I’ve ever seen the fops and dandies ever look so silly dancing, or The Wonderbolts begging for forgiveness, or all the garden animals on a sugar high. It’s all really quite entertaining, even if your purpose here is rather grim.”

I hadn’t expected her to react that way. Most leaders are reluctant to lose their power, but Celestia seemed content to watch things burn.

“Valiant, what are you doing? Stop this!” said Twilight.

“Quiet, my little pony,” said Celestia. “The grownups are talking.”

It hit me, then. “You troll! You’ve been doing all this for teh lulz!”

Celestia smiled. “While I’m not familiar with your words, I will admit that I enjoy a good laugh at another’s expense.”

“You’re…you’re my new best friend.”

“Come, let us join Spike at the donut shop and ditch this drag of a party.”

We all arrived back in Ponyville quite late that night, or perhaps it was early morning. I’d talked and laughed with Celestia while she told me about some of her greatest moments of trolling. Twilight was still on my shit list, but I could deal with her later.

All the ponies seemed to have had a good time at the Gala. Spike overdosed on donuts while waiting for us, and was still in the hospital in Canterlot. It looked like he would be okay, though.

I had noticed that Rarity was very quiet on the ride back. Her horn also displayed a suspicious lack of gore.

When I parked the airship, she was the last to leave. “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.

“Prince Blueblood’s charm overcame your good sense and you slept with him, right?”

“No, Valiant. He’s a vampire.”

I laughed. “Yeah, I was just screwing with you.”

She hissed at me, showing off two very real fangs.

I fell over. “Jesus M. F. Christ! What the fracking hell?”

She broke down crying. “I’m so sorry. I tried my best to stake him, but he was just too strong. He...he bit me.”

So, vampires actually did exist in Equestria and I had fingered one completely by accident. Hoofed one. Whatever.

“I’ll do whatever I can to help,” I said. “I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

She smiled, keeping her mouth closed. “You’re a great friend, Valiant.”

I sat down in the cockpit of the airship as Rarity walked away. It was at that moment that I realized that I really did have friends here. Rarity had confirmed this, but even if she hadn’t, why would I have done what I did at the Gala to keep them happy?

The rest of the event hadn’t really been bad, either. I almost couldn’t blame Spike for the situation he had gotten into. The donuts afterwards were amazing.

Sure, there had been downs as well as ups, but I suppose it really was the best night ever. I didn’t believe that friendship was exactly magic, but it sure was awesome.

After the first season, before the second

Friendship sucked. I don’t know why I agreed to be friends with these ponies and do things for them.

“It burns!” said Rarity from the front of the airship.

“Didn’t you put on sunscreen this morning?” I shouted over the noise of the engine.

“I’m talking about my eyes!”

“Don’t you have sunglasses?”

“None fashionable enough to be seen in Canterlot!”

We here headed there to pick up Spike from the hospital. Thanks to his ironclad dragon stomach, eating too many donuts had only caused him to be sick enough for an overnight stay.

“Since we’re going to Canterlot,” I said, “why don’t we pay Blueblood a visit and kill him? Maybe getting rid of him will de-vampirize you.”

“But what if it doesn’t? I don’t think I could live with the disappointment.”

“I don’t think I could live with you sucking blood.”

“It’s a problem, isn’t it?”

That morning, she’d asked for my help. “I remember you talking about meat before,” she’d said. “I’ve got this strange…hunger.”

I took her to the Everfree Forest before the sun rose. She’d nailed a sleepy rabbit.

“Oh, it tastes simply divine!”

“Doesn’t the whole ‘Oh Celestia, I killed a cute bunny’ thing give you pause?” I asked.

She frowned and pushed the limp body away. “I think I’ve lost my appetite.” Her eyes widened. “Why did I even have an appetite? This is wrong!”

I was glad to see that she was resisting turning into a monster. Made my job easier.

“Anyway,” she said, sitting in the front of the airship, “perhaps Twilight knows something about this.”

“I thought you wanted it kept secret.”

“You live in a library, dear. It shouldn’t be hard to find something without arousing suspicion.”

I landed the airship in the courtyard of the castle. Celestia had given me permission to do so, as it was the only large flat space close to the center of the city.

“Don’t scratch it,” I said, tossing keys to a guard. “It’s worth more than your life.” Rarity and I walked to the castle gate.

“You go get Spike. Please try not to nibble on any hospital patients while you’re there. I’m going to go look for Blueblood.”

“Do be careful, Valiant, please.” She donned a large hat.

“Don’t worry.” I showed her the stake I’d carved.

We parted ways. I went up to where I thought Blueblood lived. I asked a couple of guards where he might be found.

“He’s not here,” said one of them.

“Where did he go?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Obviously I’m not important, and you can tell me with no trouble. I’m good at keeping secrets.”

“Well, since you put it that way…no.”

I whapped him across the nose with my hoof. “Listen maggot—”

He and the other guard charged me. I jumped out of the way and began running.

If the Royal Guards had not been wearing their heavy armor, I’m sure they would have caught me easily. As it was, we circled the castle a couple of times before I found a door that led to the courtyard. Rarity and Spike were just coming in.

“Quick! Get in the Dirty Hooker!” I slipped the knots that held it to the ground and slammed my hoof down on the emergency power button.

The rockets fired and the airship sped out of the courtyard. We were safe.

“I thought you left the keys with that guard?” said Rarity.

“No, those were the keys to your boutique. I just wanted to look cool, so I had to toss him something and say a one-liner.”

She sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to get another set made.”

Back in Ponyville, I took Spike aside.

“I know you have a crush on Rarity, but you need to stay away from her for a while. She’s got some big changes going on in her life right now and she might bite your head off.”

His eyes widened. “Menopause?”

“Um. Yes, that’s right.”

“Maybe Twilight has a book about it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find it. I need to look for another book anyway.”

After searching around the library, I discovered what I was looking for: Mythical Creatures Not Myth, a Reference Guide. I opened to the “Vampire” page and began reading.

Twilight came in and glanced at the book. “Interesting subject.”

“You have no idea.”

“I wanted to talk with you about your problems.”

“Which ones?”

“I heard that you didn’t meet your real father.”

“What? Who told you that?”

“One of the waiters at the restaurant. I’m sorry for you.”

“I’m still not sure whether I wanted my 'dad' to be legit or not.”

“Well, we’re back to square one. You’re either insane or human.”

“From my perspective, you’re either a dream or a skeptic.”

“Do you still want to kill me?”

“Yes.”

“Why? Is it that important to you? Will you feel better?”

“I…don’t know.”

“I consider you a friend, Valiant. Not a very good friend, to be sure, but I don’t want you to think that way. It can’t be good for you.” She turned to go upstairs.

Darn it, she was trying to guilt me into not killing her. Worse, she didn't believe I would do it. I had to move fast, I decided. I would prepare tonight, and put all my effort into the job tomorrow. Then we could finally be done with this. I’m sure Celestia and I could have a good laugh over it later.

Author note
You wanted a divergence from the actual storyline? How's that grab ya?

Up next: Discord!

The Return of Harmony

Twilight Sparkle was dead. We’d gone for a little airship ride and I’d knocked her in the head and tipped the body over the side into the Everfree Forest.

I wasn’t about to half-ass something like that, though, so I’d landed and made sure not a single tiny breath escaped from her lungs.

First I was happy. The thing was finally done. Then I was sad. I’d murdered someone. Then I was happy. My plan had worked! Then I was sad. I would have to pay rent on the library all alone. I cycled back and forth between the two emotions for a while longer before I got back in the airship and went back to Ponyville.

When I got there, pink fluffy clouds were showering the town with brown rain.

“Cotton candy clouds!” shouted Rainbow. “I’ve never seen anything like it! It’s chocolate rain!”

“Some stay dry while others feel the pain,” I mused. “What’s causing it?”

“I have no idea!” Working with the other four ponies, we got everything sorted out. Rarity looked somewhat sad to see the sun come back, although I think I’m the only one who noticed.

Spike burped out a letter. “The Princesss wants us to come to Canterlot. She has an important message.”

“Let’s go!” said Applejack. She looked around. “Hey, where’s Twilight?”

“The Forest.”

“What’s she doing there?” asked Rainbow.

I shrugged. “Biodegrading?”

“We don’t have time for this!” said Applejack. “I’m sure she’ll notice what's going on eventually and come a' runnin’.”

Spike, the five ponies, and I got into the airship and sped off for Canterlot. When we arrived, Celestia was not in a good mood.

“Follow me,” she ordered simply.

We trooped after her as she spoke. “I've called you here for a matter of great importance. It seems an old foe of mine, someone I thought I had defeated long ago, has returned. His name is Discord.”

Fluttershy made a small squeaky noise. Celestia continued. “Discord is the mischievous spirit of disharmony. Before my sister and I stood up to him, he ruled Equestria in an eternal state of unrest and unhappiness. Luna and I saw how miserable life was for earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns alike, so after discovering the Elements of Harmony, we combined our powers and rose up against him, turning him to stone.”

“So let’s kick his ass,” I said.

Celestia looked at the group of us. “That will be very difficult. Without the Elements of Harmony, I don’t know how we can do that.”

“We have to find Twilight!” said Rarity.

“Too late now,” I said quickly. “We’ll just have to make do. She was the Element of Magic, right? How about it Celestia, you’ve got magic, right? Maybe we don’t need Twilight at all.”

She nodded. “If I must.” She turned and opened the box where the Elements of Harmony were contained.

Or were supposed to be, anyway.

“Where are they?” cried Celestia. “This doesn’t make sense!”

“What’s the fun in making sense?” I looked around. “That’s weird. It’s almost like there was an echo in here.”

“That was me,” said a voice. “And I must complement you on your not-making-sense skills, Mr. Valiant.”

A…thing came into the room. He resembled a Frankenstein-esque creature with parts from a bunch of sources.

“Damn you’re ugly,” I said.

He laughed. “No, I’m Discord.” He turned. “Did you miss me, Celestia? I missed you. It's quite lonely being encased in stone.”

“Enough! Where are the Elements of Harmony?”

“Oh, so boring, Celestia. Really? Fine, I'll tell you, but I'll only tell you my way. To retrieve your missing Elements just make sense of this change of events. Twists and turns are my master plan. Then find the Elements back where you began.”

“Do you think he meant the palace labyrinth?” I asked. There was a maze of hedges planted out back. None of the ponies offered a better idea, so we went.

“W-we have to go in there?” whimpered Fluttershy.

“Nope!” said Rainbow. “Dopey Discord forgot about wings! I'll just do a quick flyover and we'll have the Elements in no time.” She took off but promptly crashed, wings suddenly missing.

All of them were suddenly earth ponies, well, except for Applejack and Pinkie. They all went through various shocked reactions.

“Give us our wings and horns back!” shouted Celestia.

“You'll get them back in good time. I simply took them to ensure there's no cheating. You see, this is the first rule of our game: no flying, and no magic.”

“The first rule?” questioned Rainbow.

“The second rule is everypony has to play or the game is over, and I win. Good luck!” Discord giggled.

I giggled too. The absurdity of the situation was getting to me.

“Valiant, what are you doing?”

“Haven’t you always wanted a little chaos?” I said. “Just something to break the monotony?”

The ponies gaped at me. “I’m going to sit right here,” I said, “and have a talk with Discord.” I walked over to a couch where he sat with a bag of popcorn. He made room for me.

“Well, it’s certainly nice to see a pony with a sense of disharmony,” he said. The other ponies ran off into the maze of hedges.

I shrugged. “I’m just chaotic neutral.”

“Ah, I fall more towards chaotic evil myself. I just can’t help it, it’s so entertaining!”

He pulled up a TV and we watched Rainbow running through the labyrinth without wings. I thought it was hilarious.

“Wait,” I said. “Where did you even get a television? Those don’t exist in Equestria.”

“What, I can’t draw ideas out of your head? I simply love picking human brains.”

“You know I’m not really a pony?”

“My dear boy, this is the most fun I’ve had in ages, and I’m not going to let a technicality of the laws of the universe spoil it. Speaking of…” he checked a watch that appeared to be running backwards “…the game is up.” The labyrinth suddenly disappeared and all the ponies that had gone in were suddenly right back in front of us.

“What happened?” asked a dazed Celestia.

“The game has ended. Somepony broke a rule.”

“What? Who?”

“Valiant here. I said that everypony had to play, and he didn’t.”

“How could you?” shrieked Rarity. I noticed that she was carrying a huge rock.

“That’s totally not cool,” said Pinkie, sulking.

“Valiant, you moron!” shouted Fluttershy.

“I still like him,” said Applejack.

“Actually,” I said, “I’m not a pony. You said everypony had to play.”

“Oooh, fair point,” said Discord. “That’s it, the game’s back on!”

“I can’t stand it anymore!” said Rainbow. Her wings reappeared and she flew away.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” I muttered.

“I’d like to thank you all for coming out today,” said Discord. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go mess with things. Mess with ‘em good.” He disappeared and the landscape around us began to get weirder by the second.

“ ‘Find the Elements back where you began’,” muttered Celestia. “Well, all of you came from Ponyville. Let’s try there.”

There was clearly something wrong with the other ponies. It’s like they were the opposite of usual. Applejack lied, Rarity was grabby, Pinkie was sullen, Fluttershy was mean, and Rainbow didn’t give a flap.

I couldn’t tell whether I had been affected or not. I didn’t know if I would notice. Then I saw what had happened to the airship and knew that there was nothing wrong with me.

It was pink and had been renamed Frou-Frou Wiggly Good Times. Despite sounding like a badly-translated advertisement for Swedish sex toys, that was the moment that I decided that Discord was going to die.

We piled into the airship and I got the engine running. It made the cutest little puttering noise. Almost made me sick. Luckily, we were able to get back to Ponyville without any further incidents.

The citizenry was in a panic when we got there. The roads had turned into soap and all the buildings looked like Salvador Dali had a hand in the design. The sun and moon took turns bouncing up and down in the sky.

The library was still standing, somehow. We all went inside. Rarity was still lugging around the boulder and appeared to have named it Tom. I shrugged it off. We had a job to do.

“I definitely sense the Elements around here somewhere,” said Celestia. She concentrated and a book rose out of the stack.

Spike appeared. “Where’s Twilight? And what’s going on!”

“Ever heard of Discord?” I asked.

“No.”

“Go look out the window. That’s his work.”

Meanwhile, Fluttershy was busy breaking things in the library. Applejack continued to spin untruths. Rarity jealously guarded her stupid rock. Pinkie watched, not having fun.

“This is the book we need,” said Celestia. It was a reference guide to the Elements of Harmony. Fluttershy grabbed it. “Keep away!”

I hoofed her in the face. She fell on the floor, making whimpering noises that were more like her usual. “Sorry, but you’ll thank me later.”

Celestia popped open the book, and sure enough there were the Elements of Harmony inside. I'd always wanted a book that was hollow to keep stuff covertly.

“Great!” said Spike, considerably happier than earlier. “But we still don’t know where Twilight or Rainbow are.”

It was a problem. Celestia could take over for Twilight, but we still needed an Element of Loyalty.

“Well,” I said, “you’re pretty loyal, aren’t you Spike? I mean, it’s a forced loyalty since you’re basically Twilight’s indentured servant, but that should count, right?” I passed him one of the necklaces.

“I don’t know about this.”

“Well, we don’t have a better plan. Get your war face on, you’re going to need it.”

Celestia took off her crown to put on the Element of Magic tiara. “Here Valiant, hold this.” I slapped on the gold crown. It was surprisingly heavy.

The other ponies did not seem terribly happy to be required to do stuff to save their country, but between Celestia’s cool, calm words and my threats of violence, we got them outside for a showdown.

“Well, well, well,” said Discord. “I see you've found the Elements of Harmony. How terrifying!” He did not actually seem terrified.

“Valiant, could you please prepare everypony?” Celestia asked.

I saluted. “Yes, ma’am. All right all of you shit-poor excuses for ponies, form up! I don’t want to see a single one of you out of line, not even you, Tom! Rarity, you’re responsible for him, too!”

I inhaled for another round of shouting. “I don’t care what any of you think! You will stand here beside us and you will do your duty under threat of death! That’s right, you aren’t fighting for your morals here, you’re fighting because it’s in your best interest! Forget about the rest of us, just do your own thing! Don’t make us proud!”

Celestia cocked an eyebrow at me, but said nothing. I continued with my drill sergeant attitude.

“Oh, Fluttershy, is that bloody nose hurting? Are you looking for some kindness? Suck it up! Applejack, do you always lie?”

“Erm, yes I always lie. Ah mean, wait, what?”

“I’m asking the questions here! Get your sorry flank back in line!” I marched up to Pinkie.

“You’d better not laugh, Pinks.” I went nose to nose with her. “Don’t…laugh.”

She shifted uncomfortably. “That’s what I thought,” I said. I looked at Rarity. “Feeling generous? How about no? I swear, if you give me anything, I’m going to buck your ass all the way back to Canterlot.”

I turned back to Celestia, standing tall. “Chaos Corps ready, ma’am.”

“I…don’t even know what I just saw,” said Discord. “I mean, I was expecting disharmony, sure, but a united front of it? What is this, I don’t even…”

He shook his head. “Never mind, I know how to deal with this. It hurts me to do it, but I’ll introduce a little calming influence to the situation. Hey, Twilight!”

The purple pony came trotting up. “Oh, hi, everypony!”

“Wait,” I said. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“Silly, she’s the main character!” said Discord. “She can’t die!”

Celestia looked at me. “We could use Twilight to restore the other ponies and get the Elements of Harmony working correctly.”

“Screw that,” I said. “We’re living in the here and now.”

Celestia nodded and turned to face Discord. “For teh lulz,” she said.

“Dem lulz,” I agreed.

Her horn began to glow, but stopped abruptly. “Something’s wrong! We don’t have the right Elements!”

“What do you mean?”

“One of the Element bearers isn’t right! We can’t do this!”

I quickly scanned the group. They were still quivering in fear from my speech. “I’ve got it!” I grabbed the Element of Loyalty from around Spike’s neck and placed it on Tom Rock.

Celestia looked surprised. “That works.”

I shrugged. “What’s more loyal than a rock? You always know that a boulder will be there for you.”

The Princess turned back to face Discord. “And now, back to stone with you!” She blasted him with a grey, ugly rainbow. He shrieked and turned into a statue with a horrified look on its face.

“What just happened?” asked Twilight.

“You were dead for a while, then an ancient evil broke loose, but we corrupted the Elements of Harmony and managed to defeat it without you.”

Celestia nodded. “I guess we really don’t need Twilight. You were right, Valiant.”

I heard a groan behind us. The other element bearers had been knocked out in the burst of magic and were just now waking up. They all seemed to be back to normal, except for Tom who still looked exactly like a rock.

The town around us had been turned back to normal. I handed Celestia back her crown and we gathered up the Elements of Harmony to lock them away again. The Princess flew them back to Canterlot.

“Ah’m sorry about all that,” said Applejack. “Ah couldn’t help it.”

“It’s okay,” said Fluttershy. “We were all affected.” Applejack helped her bandage her face.

“I’m dreadfully sorry, my dear,” said Rarity to Tom. “Let us never speak of this again.” The rock did not reply and seemed content to sit in the middle of the street where he had been dropped.

“I know!” said Pinkie. “Let’s have a party!”

“Hey guys, what did I miss?” asked Rainbow, coming down from the clouds.

All of us glared at her. “Sorry,” she said meekly.

“Well, that was weird,” said Spike. “Twilight, what did it mean when Valiant said that you were dead for a while?”

“I’m not really sure. Let’s ask him”

“Um, Discord mentioned that you were the main character and you can’t die. So…I guess you’re immortal?” I said, neatly deflecting the question.

She thought for a moment. “I guess I’m okay with that, but what did he mean about being a character?”

I sighed. “If you’re the main character, maybe this is actually your dream.”

“I—I don’t believe this," she said, shocked. "Listen Valiant, why don’t we talk about this later?” She walked off towards the library, shaking her head.

“Well, it’s all over now,” said Applejack. “Ah hate to say this, but ah’m actually going to miss bein’ able to lie once in a while.”

“I know, right?” said Pinkie. “I miss Discord. Do you know how hard it is to keep this happy for so long without drugs?”

“Same thing with kindness,” said Fluttershy. “If that’s okay…”

“Do you know how cool it was to just chill for a while?” asked Rainbow. “No duties, no worries.”

“Screw you all,” I said. “You’re terrible friends.”

They all looked sorry and said so. The four of them went off to plan the party, leaving me with Rarity.

“Back in Canterlot when Discord took our wings and horns, he also took my, ah, condition,” she said. “I was hoping that we might work out some kind of deal with him.”

“I read up on vampirism,” I said. “We just have to kill Prince Blueblood and you’ll be back to normal.”

“You make it sound easy.”

“Well, maybe we should practice up. Then it will be."

“Are you suggesting that we become vampire hunters?”

“Yes, because that has the side effect of us becoming awesome.”

“I don’t know…”

“You want to keep eating woodland creatures? Be my guest.” I turned away, heading for the airship.

Discord had been turned into stone. He wasn’t a threat—temporarily. The way magic worked, some stupid pony would probably find a way to release him again. I was going to do something about that.

After the airship had been corrupted, I no longer wanted to look at it again, even after things were back to normal. I felt that Dirty Hooker Took My Money should die just the way it had lived: doing things that were crazy and dangerous.

Once airborne, I headed back to Canterlot and made a few circles around the city, judging the wind and calculating my angles. The Discord statue had been transported to the Royal Garden roughly where it had been before. I got the airship lined up on an attack profile. Just before I jumped out into the top of a nearby tree, I hit the rocket button.

I scrambled down out of the branches and landed on the ground as the hydrogen-filled airship shot towards the target. I just barely had time to put my sunglasses on and turn around.

There was a massive explosion behind me as I walked away.

Lesson Zero

I slipped out of the library before the sun rose. I wasn’t sure why I was going to the Forest, but I felt that I had to. Twilight’s sudden, unharmed appearance after being thrown out of an airship was more than a little suspicious.

There were other problems with that, too, but I wasn’t ready to think about them. At the moment, I just wanted to see the place where she’d fallen.

The Everfree Forest was avoided by most ponies for some reason. Other than the giant monsters, unpredictable weather, and dangerous landscape, I didn’t see a problem with it. I entered the treeline and began making my way towards where I knew Twilight had come down.

I heard a small noise and stopped to listen. It was kind of like a slurp or a suck. Deciding that I had a few minutes, I turned towards the sound and began walking.

A pair of white-coated hindquarters came into view. The tail was blue-purple and styled. I cleared my throat.

Rarity’s head shot up. There was blood on her mouth and a dead squirrel in front of her.

“Catch you at a bad time?” I asked.

“You nearly startled me to death!”

“Weren’t super senses part of the whole vampire deal? Didn’t you hear me coming? Also, aren't you technically undead anyway?”

“Well, I must admit in the throes of bloodlust, my mind does tune out a bit.” She primly wiped her lips. “Ah, that was an excellent meal. I’ve finally found a good use for rodents!”

“I think it’s even creepier when you talk about it like it’s no big deal,” I said.

She gave me a dirty look. “You aren’t the one who has to pretend that it’s no big deal.”

“Fair point. Let me walk you back to town.” I didn’t really want to go further into the Forest anyway.

Twilight was freaking out about something when I got back to the library.

“I'm supposed to send Princess Celestia a letter every week telling her about a lesson I've learned about friendship! Not every other week, not every 10 days, every single week!”

“You last sent one on Tuesday,” said Spike.

“What’s today?”

“Tuesday.”

“I thought it was Saturday,” I said, frowning.

Twilight looked at me. “Some of us have schedules to keep! If I don’t send her a letter about friendship by sundown, I’ll be tardy!”

“Oh, please!” said Spike. “You're the most studious student ever! I'm sure the princess will forgive you if you miss one little deadline.”

“I'm afraid to take that chance, Spike. This is the ruler of all of Equestria we're talking about. The pony who holds my fate in her hooves! What if she doesn't forgive me?”

“Boom, to the moon,” I said.

Twilight nodded, completely serious. “Or worse, I'll fail! The Princess is my teacher. Do you know what teachers do to students who don't pass? They send them back a grade! But she won't just send me back a grade. She'll send me back to... magic kindergarten!”

I fell on the floor laughing. I had literally never heard anything so funny. Now that I thought about it, I had never literally ROFL’ed before, either.

Twilight ran off to find problems to solve. I decided to stay and work on a new design.

The airship had served well in the brief time that it had existed. While awesomely dangerous hydrogen was useful, I wanted to go a different route.

The oil well in Ponyville had begun to produce a little more since I had fixed it up. It was never intended to even pump oil in the first place, but with a few modifications I had it going. With the sudden supply of crude, there were all kinds of things I could do.

Rusty Nail at the hardware store had been kept busy finding parts for me. With a little help from Pinkie, who for some reason knew how to build helicopters, I was assembling a heavier-than-air flying machine. It was going to be epic.

That afternoon, I was startled by an explosion coming from the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. Looking out the window, I saw a rainbow-colored mushroom cloud rising above the trees.

Galloping as fast as I could, I reached the farm just as Twilight was departing. She’d apparently been witness to the events that had transpired and somehow they weren't quite the problems she was looking to solve.

“How did you like that?” said Rainbow. “I call it the sonic rainbomb!”

“It’s mighty useful,” said Applejack.

“Wow…” was all I managed to say. There was a crater where an old barn used to stand. It made me glad that Rainbow wasn’t still on the list of ponies that I wanted dead.

Trotting back to Ponyville, I thought about the problems that I still had with Twilight. Discord had called her “the main character.” Could this really be her dream instead of mine? But then, how was I thinking for myself? Also, what did her inability to stay dead have to do with it? It was all very frustrating to think about, and until Twilight calmed down I couldn't talk to her about it either.

Even worse, Twilight couldn’t seem to stick to any particular pattern. Why, right now she was grinning like crazy and watching the townsponies fight over something in a giant dog pile. I couldn’t see what it was.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“I needed a friendship problem to solve, and now I have one!”

“That’s nice.” I went back to the library.

A couple of minutes later, Pricess Celestia and Twilight came in. Twilight looked considerably saner than before. I checked out the window and found the pile of ponies was gone, too.

Twilight gave a brief rundown of the problem. She’d been looking for a crisis to solve, and had enchanted a doll so that every pony who looked at it would want it.

Celestia told Twilight that she didn’t actually need a letter about friendship every week. Just then, Twilight’s friends came bursting in and tried to stop Celestia from handing down punishment.

“She’s not actually in trouble, guys,” I said. “Well, maybe for cursing all the ponies in town, but not for missing a letter.”

They all apologized for not seeing the real issue that Twilight was having.

“Looks like you all learned a pretty valuable lesson today,” said Celestia. “Very well. I'll forget Twilight's "punishment" on one condition. From this day forward, I want you all to report on friendship lessons.”

“Suckers,” I laughed.

“That means you too, Valiant.”

I grumbled. “Fine.”

The Princess left and the other ponies wrote some feel-good crap about friendship. I left to go back to the Forest. I thought I was finally ready this time.

As I approached the site, I began to have doubts again, but pressed onward. I tripped over something and looked back. It was a dead rabbit with fangmarks on its neck. I sighed. Rarity would have to start cleaning up after herself a little better.

After a while longer, and I was getting close. The sun had set, but there was just barely enough light to get by on. I stopped, staring at a body on the ground.

The pony had a purple coat and mane. Her horn had been broken in the fall, and the skin was ripped open. Underneath, a silvery metal skeleton gleamed.

“I don’t believe this,” I said aloud. “Twilight was a Terminator?”

Luna Eclipsed

“Are you completely sure about this?” whispered Rarity.

“I think the question is, are you completely sure?” I said. “I’m ready to stake a vampire.” I nodded to the building we were hiding outside of.

“Did we have to be so dramatic about it? I mean, it’s Nightmare Night.”

“No, it’s vampire-staking-night. It just happens to also be Nightmare Night.”

“I don’t know…”

“I think you’re just scared.”

“How dare you!” she said.

“You haven’t proved me wrong.”

She glared at me. “Fine. I’m going in.” She leaped through the nearby window.

I don’t know if she expected it to be closed or not, but the resulting shower of glass rained down on me. I kept my eyes closed and somehow escaped injury.

I heard a scuffle from inside. Rarity said, “Well, I never…!” There was a faint shriek and then the noises stopped.

She came back out, covered head to hoof in blood. She looked rather cross. “Valiant, do you know what happens when a vampire gets staked?”

“No, what?”

“He blows up.”

“Oh. Um, let me get you a tissue.”

We’d come to Baltimare for the staking practice. I led Rarity out of town while she attempted to clean herself up. Our transportation was waiting.

The Cargo Helicopter Of Pony Assembly was my latest gadget. It was rough around the edges and barely flew, but you can’t just build a high tech aircraft and expect it to work right the first time.

Unfortunately, the acronym was CHOPA. I couldn’t think of any way to insert an extra P so that the phrase “Get to the CHOPPA!” would make sense. Schwarzenegger had a screenwriter for problems like this.

We made it back to Ponyville without any problems. I set the helicopter down beside the library rather roughly. Choppers are hard enough to fly even when you do have fingers.

“You’re back just in time!” said Twilght. She was wearing a robe with a matching hat and a fake beard.

“Are you a wizard?” I asked.

“Well, kind of. I’m Star Swirl the Bearded.”

“Ponies can have beards?”

“Obviously. Did you even read that book I gave you about obscure unicorn history?”

“No.” I had been too busy trying to figure out why I had found a robot clone of Twilight in the Everfree Forest.

“Nightmare Night! What a fright! Give us something sweet to bite!” sang a group of school kids.

“Oh my, what great costumes!” said Twilight.

“Enough chitchat! Time is candy!” said Pinkie. She was dressed as a chicken.

“Aren't you a little old for this?” asked Twilight. I wanted to point out that she was in costume, too.

“Too old for free candy?” snorted Pinkie. “Never. Great costume, Twilight! You make a fantastic weirdo clown!” She grabbed her ration of candy and bounced away.

Twilight mumbled something about how much unappreciated work she had put in to her Star Swirl the Bearded outfit. She turned to Rarity.

“Oh, that’s a fantastic vampire costume! You must have spent so much time on it.”

“Um, yes. Quite a lot.”

“Come on,” I said, changing the subject. “Let’s take a look at the town.”

Nightmare Night was suspiciously like Halloween. I didn’t bother trying to tell the ponies about it. Despite the Twi-minator I had found, I was beginning to lose hope that anything I said or did made a difference. Regardless of whose dream it was, it was kind of a downer.

All the buildings were decorated and festivities were being held. Tom Rock, still sitting in the middle of the street, was dressed as a ghost. I wondered where a boulder would get a sheet.

Unscheduled lightning flashed, and a black chariot dropped out of the sky.

“Ohmygosh, Nightmare Moon!” shouted Pinkie Pie. She and some other ponies standing nearby seemed rather frightened by this turn of events.

“Well, I would suggest getting to the CHOPA, but it’s so slow that I doubt it would make much difference. It doesn’t even have guns.” I clopped my hoof to my forehead. “Ohmygosh, I should totally build a gunship! Don’t know what for, but it would be totally awesome!”

I looked around. The carriage had landed, and all the ponies in town were bowing to the passenger, who now stepped out.

She threw her hood back. It was Princess Luna.

“Citizens of Ponyville! We have graced your tiny village with our presence, so that you might behold the real princess of the night! A creature of nightmare is no longer, but instead a pony who desires your love and admiration! Together we shall change this dreadful celebration into a bright and glorious feast!” She shouted it all, and darned near blew a couple of the smaller ponies away with the force. Lighting crashed behind her to punctuate her statement.

"Did you hear that, everypony? Night Mare Moon says she's gonna feast on us all!” shrieked Pinkie. She and the rest of the ponies fled, leaving me, Twilight, Spike, and Princess Luna behind.

“Some entrance,” I said. “You’ve got to work on the ‘say it, don’t spray it’ part, though.”

“Who art thou?”

“I’m Valiant, seventh fiddle to the Elements of Harmony. Mostly, I show up and crack wise while everyone else does stuff. Sometimes I save the day, though.”

“Name one time when you’ve saved the day,” said Twilight.

“I beat Discord.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Well, I provided the proper motivation necessary for said beating. I certainly contributed to it more than you did.”

“That’s not fair! I was…”

“Where were you?” Finally, we would get to the bottom of this.

“I don’t—”

Twilight was saved by Luna butting in.

“We have heard many tales of you, subject Valiant.”

I cut her off. “No, not ‘subject.’ I am a citizen, and not of your country.”

She nodded. “Word of your unusual political views also gets around. Pray tell, of what country do you hail?”

“The United States of America. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Get any visitors up on the moon? Yeah, that was us.”

“I do not believe anypony other than myself has ever traveled to the moon.”

“The last person who said they didn’t believe in the moon landing got Buzz Aldrin’s fist up his nose. I ought to—owowowowow.”

Twilight dragged me back to the library. I didn’t want to go, but I also didn’t want her to rip my ear off, either. She pulled me inside and let go.

“What are you thinking, talking to the Princess like that?”

“What was she thinking acting all high and mighty like that?”

“She is high and mighty.”

“So?”

Twilight gritted her teeth and looked serious. It would have been more impressive if she hadn’t still been wearing the beard.

“Stay right here. I’m going to go talk to the Princess.”

I glanced out the window. “You missed your chance. She’s leaving. Looks sad.”

“Ugh! This is all your fault.”

“While I don’t concede that it was all my fault, I did play a significant part, yes.”

“Why do you keep doing this? Don’t you have any decency?”

“Well yes, but I think you aren’t taking into account the different standards of decency that you and I have. I refuse to be a victim and won’t let anyone, Princess or no, infringe on my God-given rights. Just like how Buzz Aldrin showed that he didn’t take crap from anybody when he hit that guy. You ponies are too passive.”

“You don’t have to be so mean about it, though!”

I sighed. “I suppose not. I know that I once said that I would try to be nicer. Maybe this whole Discord thing made me forget.”

She sighed. “Everypony makes mistakes sometimes.” She glanced out the window, where the moon showed through a gap in the clouds. “So, you say humans have been to the moon? How is that possible?”

I grinned. “Once upon a time, a man named John Kennedy decided to get into a pissing contest with the Communists…”

In the morning, Twilight had filled four notebooks and hadn’t stopped writing yet. It had been another all-night study session.

“And with that, Eugene Cernan hopped back in the Lunar Module. Space-hookers still had not been found, but at least they got a whole bunch of interesting rocks. The end.”

Twilight put her pencil down. “Wow. Just wow. Do you…do you think it would be possible to build a rocket?”

“Sure. As a matter of fact, if you agree to only use Valiantco® fossil fuels, I’ll agree to get stinking rich on the profits.”

She stared at me. “So…all it takes is money?”

“And now you finally understand! The only way to beat Communism is to outspend them!”

“Wait, you just spent all night telling me made-up stories about moon landings just to prove a point that you made the last time you spent all night telling me made-up stories about democracy?”

I glowered at her. “We went to the moon. We beat the Soviets. Somewhere along the way Buzz Aldrin punched some guy in the face for calling him a liar. Don’t you see how the American Way works?”

“Honestly, no.”

I walked out the door in a huff. “Don’t come looking for me. I’m going to the CHOPA.”

Author note:
Oh, nobody likes Luna? I've always wanted to get an emo pony in this...

These days, Buzz Aldrin is hanging out with Snoop Dogg. I wish I was joking.

Sisterhooves Social

I knocked on the door of the boutique. “Oi! Get up, Rarity! We’ve got a vampire to stake!”

Sweetie Belle opened the door. “Hello Valiant. Rarity’s asleep right now.” She cocked her head. “What was that about vampires?”

“Nothing, forget I said it.”

“I can’t.”

I sighed. “Sometimes grownups say things that don’t make sense.”

“That’s why my parents say.” She smiled. “My parents are actually here right now. Would you like to meet them?”

“I really need to get Rarity moving.”

“I’ll get her for you.”

There was some rummaging around and the sound of voices. Eventually two ponies dressed for vacation came out the door. The parents, I assumed.

“Well, you must be Rarity’s friend!” said the stallion.

“No, she’s just my partner in crime.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” He clapped me on the back. “Have a good time.”

Shortly after, Rarity came out. “I can’t go with you today. Sweetie Belle is staying with me while father and mother are on a trip.”

“You don’t understand. This bloodsucking mofo needs a stake.”

“Well, we certainly can’t take her with us.”

“I agree, but can’t you dump her with someone else?”

“It will take a while to find somepony who’s willing.”

“No it won’t!” shouted Sweetie Belle, who had apparently been listening. “If you want me gone, I’m going!” She marched out the door and went down the road.

“You’re letting me down, Rarity,” I said. “Either Sweetie Belle is a ninja or you’re the deafest vampire ever.”

She grumbled. “I wasn’t expecting her to be listening.”

“Well, either way, we need to get going.” We walked over to the CHOPA.

After the engine was spun up, I advanced the blades and the machine lifted off. It seemed sluggish, like there was extra weight on board. Probably just the Cutie Mark Crusaders stowing away. Rarity should probably know. Nah, I need a laugh.

We headed south towards Pensafoala, on the coast. There was a big navy base down there. Not sure why the ponies needed a navy. I wondered if they had the same perceived sexual preferences as human sailors. I shook my head to get rid of the thought. I did not want to think about gay ponies.

I flared the helicopter outside the city and gently hovered down for a landing. I saw a small shape separate from the helicopter’s shadow. Hmm, only one? Maybe it wasn’t the Crusaders after all.

“Where are we going?” complained Rarity. “The salt air is terrible for my mane!”

She hadn’t made the transition to whining yet, so I ignored her. I found my way to an apartment building where I’d discovered a vampire living.

“Got your raincoat?” I asked.

“After what happened last time? Absolutely.”

I knocked on the door. A pony answered.

“Hi there. We’re the blood ‘n guts inspectors. We’d like to see yours.”

The great thing about lines like that is nobody is ever sure if you’re serious. As the pony tried to work out what I meant, Rarity stabbed him with her horn. He blew up.

“Whew,” I said, peeling off the raincoat and dropping it on the floor. “Not bad for a day’s work. Let’s take his stuff.”

“I’m only just barely justifying killing by telling myself it’s for the greater good. I’m not comfortable with theft.”

“It’s not like he needs it anymore,” I said.

“Oh, but I do,” said a voice. Another pony stepped into the room. He had fangs.

“You didn’t tell me he had a roommate!” said Rarity.

“I didn’t know!”

“Well this is just fine and dandy. Now he’s got the drop on us.”

“Well if you weren’t the world’s worst vampire, we wouldn’t have this problem!”

“Take that back!”

“No. And furthermore…hey wait, where did he go?” The other pony was nowhere to be seen.

We cautiously walked forward. In the back room of the apartment, we found the other pony tied up and hanging from the ceiling. Somehow, that had happened while we were arguing.

“Huh,” I said. “That’s weird. Anyway, I guess I should stake him.”

The pony struggled to get free. “What do you mean?” asked Rarity. “Are you going to take care of this one just because it’s easy?”

“Are you accusing me of handing you the difficult jobs?”

“Yes. You only want to do this one because he can’t fight back.”

“That’s not true. You’ve handled all of the stakings so far. I almost feel left out.”

“If you would only step up and be a stallion!”

“Oh no you didn’t! Listen here—”

A stake flew in though the window and pierced the vampire’s heart. In the resulting shower of blood, I suddenly regretted taking my raincoat off.

Rarity giggled. “Oh, you look simply marvelous! Good enough to eat.”

I didn’t reply, but glared daggers at her. Then my expression changed and I threw up.

Several minutes later, and one digested meal lighter, we left. On the way out, I decided not to steal their valuables. I had no idea whether ponies knew what CSI was, but decided not to take the chance. There was DNA spread everywhere.

I had wiped off what blood I could, but it was going to be a long sticky ride back to Ponyville. I was going to have a very hot bath when I got back and then probably go to sleep and have nightmares. At least said nighmares would probably be about gore, rather than stallions making out like we had witnessed before leaving Pensafoala. I debated shoving a handful of cashews down my throat and praying that the allergy would kill me. There are worse things to suffocate on.

I was honestly sorry about what I had said earlier. Clearly, Rarity was not the worst vampire ever if she was also a successful vampire hunter. I did wonder, however, who had supplied the help that we had received.

Some sporting event called the Sisterhooves Social was that afternoon, but I declined to go. PTSD, not normally a laughing matter, was hitting me hard. Instead, I decided to work on the killer robot that I had recovered from the Everfree Forest.

Twilight was out of the library, which was good. She didn’t need to see this. The robot appeared to be a good replica of her. I had somehow, luckily, smashed the processor when I’d conked it on the head prior to dumping it in the forest.

I debated trying to get it working, but didn’t think I needed two Twilights any more than I needed two holes in my head. Instead, I delved deeper into the mechanics, trying to see if there was anything I could learn.

The eyes contained advanced optics. The movements were controlled by high-tech electromechanical systems. The processor, while broken, was like nothing I had ever seen before in Equestria.

So where did it come from? It was possible that someone, the Princess perhaps, had been keeping this technology from the general public. It was also possible that it was from the future. Once you believe in magic, time travel doesn’t seem so farfetched.

Could it also have come from a different world? I shook my head. No, this was a dream, darn it. But was it Twilight’s dream, or mine? Why would she have created a mechanical doppelganger of herself? Why would I?

I shook my head. Too many questions, not enough answers. More science, less speculation.

I checked back through the robot again, looking for any serial numbers or data plates. I spotted a small metal tag and leaned forward to read it. Property of—

Suddenly, I saw something moving along the rooftops out of the corner of my eye.. I looked up, out the window. It was a small pony clad in black. I saw them go in an open window on the upper floors of the boutique.

A filly pulled off the black mask.

Well wasn’t that something? Sweetie Belle was a ninja. She apparently hadn't attended the Social. Once you've got vampire slaughter down, your sisterly relationship is probably good enough.

I shrugged and went back to my work.

The Cutie Pox

Pony technology. Somehow they had bowling alleys but not internal combustion engines. I shook my head. Where was Henry Ford when you needed him?

The Cutie Mark Crusaders had dragged me along on their little outing. I think their friends and relatives were glad to see someone supervising them, but even I knew I was a terrible role model.

A pony named Kingpin ran the place. I drifted over to the concession stand where he was working. Somehow, the other bowlers managed to do their thing, but I couldn’t seem to manage it with my hooves.

I ordered a lemonade. Kingpin pushed a bowl of mixed nuts forward. “Free with a drink.”

“I’m allergic to nuts.”

“Good thing you’re straight.”

“Shut up. You play with balls all day.”

“That was a cheap shot.”

“Sorry, I’m just getting tired of that joke. You’re probably the only pony in town with an occupation that lets me come up with a good retort.”

He looked over my shoulder. “Did you come here with those three fillies?”

“Maybe.”

“They suck at bowling.”

I nodded. “Yup.” I turned around. The three of them looked like they were just about ready to leave.

Outside, the fillies parted ways. “Sweetie Belle, a word?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Since when did you take to cavorting around in the shadows like a ninja?”

“I’m not like a ninja,” she said seriously. “I am one, and if you tell anypony, I’ll slit your throat.”

“Well, I’ve kept my mouth shut so far. How long have you known about the vampire hunting?”

“Not very. That was the first time I followed you and Rarity. How did you two even get started doing something like that?”

“Long story.” I guessed that she didn’t know about her sister’s condition. “How did you get started being a ninja?”

“Long story.”

I nodded. “Well then. I’ve got some stuff to do.”

“Remember, don’t tell anyone!” she sang, skipping away.

I went back to the library to fetch the helicopter. I had to see a man about a horse. Well, actually a pony about a horse. Well, actually a pony about a robot pony that looked like another pony. Or something like that.

Hidden deep inside the Twi-minator was a small metal tag that identified it as a product of Hoofnmouth Industries, 16 Forelock Way, Las Pegasus. I had no idea who or what they might be, but I wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery.

I thought it odd that the tag looked old and battered while the rest of the robot was nice and new. It had been floating in the stomach area. I decided to take it with me.

“Hey Spike,” I said. “Want to go to Las Pegasus?”

“The city of sin?”

“Maybe.”

“The den of deceit?”

“Perhaps.”

“The host of harems?”

“I have no idea.”

He smiled. “Sure, let’s go.”

A long CHOPA ride later, and we were there. I figured that it would be the pony equivalent of Las Vegas, and based on Spike’s descriptions, it seemed to be. He wandered off to do something, probably not too legal. I picked up a map and went looking for a particular address.

There was no record of Hoofnmouth Industries. Further, there was no number 16 on Forelock Way. The street only went to 14.

There was, however, construction going on next door. I stared at the building that would become number 16.

I spotted a small metal plate affixed to a post in front of the construction. It was an exact copy of the tag I had found, but much newer. I wondered if Hoofnmouth Industries had something to do with things, or if the robot had simply eaten the tag and then traveled back in time. At this point, nothing made sense.

Spike was not easy to find. Too many gems eaten and far too many bits spent had changed his attitude considerably. I managed to drag him back to the CHOPA.

“Where were you all afternoon?” asked Twilight.

“What happens in Las Las Pegasus stays in Las Pegasus,” said Spike.

“Does that mean something happened?”

“Um,” said Spike, clearly guilty of something.

I felt charitable, so I helped him out by changing the subject. “Twilight, have you ever heard of Hoofnmouth Industries?”

“No, not that I can think of.”

I was still operating under the assumption that she was simply a replacement robot. I made a mental note to get a big magnet and check her.

A couple members of the Apple family came in. Apple Bloom was spinning a hoop, balancing plates and tap dancing all at the same time. Applejack looked worried. The filly had gotten her cutie mark, no, three cutie marks.

“I’ve never seen anything like this!” said Twilight as Applejack explained her sister’s situation.

A fourth cutie mark suddenly appeared.

Applebloom gasped. “Sacrebleu! Plus de marques de cutie! Qu'est-ce c'est? Je parle Français!”

“Être calme,” I replied. “Écouter le nerd. Elle va les aider à.” I looked at Twilight. “You’d better do something. I told her you would. Also, you’re a nerd.”

“You speak French?”

I sighed. “I once dated a girl from eastern Canada, okay? Can we talk about something else?”

It turned out that Apple Bloom had screwed up a potion while visiting Zecora. By the time the zebra got to town to help out, cutie marks were spreading all over the filly’s body. She was pumping iron and sweeping chimneys, taming lions and playing chess. I thought it was hilarious to watch.

Zecora had to be a buzzkill and made her eat a flower to get cured or something. A large group of ponies had come to watch Apple Bloom get cutiefied. Apparently, they thought it was contaigous. I wandered away, somewhat surprised to see ponies wearing hazard suits with the radioactive symbol thingy on them. I shook my head. Somehow the ponies had radiation protection but no telephones. Where was Alexander Graham Bell when you needed him?

I walked back to the library thinking about stuff. Cutie mark overdoses, ninjas, my Québécois ex, freaking robots from the future… You know, just stuff.

I happened across Kingpin. “Hey there,” he said. “Why so glum? You look like you could use a game of bowling.”

“I can’t figure out how to hold the balls.”

“Good thing you’re straight.”

I glared at him. He laughed. “Just kidding. I’ve got to get back now. The Hoofnmouth Company just sent us some new stock.”

I tackled him. “Tell me what you know!”

“They make bowling balls.” he said.

“No robots?”

“No. “ He thought for a moment. “Now, Hoofnmouth Industries makes robots. Nice company. They’re right here in Ponyville, as a matter of fact.”

I let him up. “Sorry. Sometimes I get a little nuts.”

“Good thing you—” His sentence got cut off in the middle. Funny how a bloody nose can do that to a guy.

Author Note:
Want something a little more serious? Try my story, As the Sun Rises, So Do We. It's got ponies in outer space.

May the Best Pet Win

“We’re having a party and you aren’t invited,” said Twilight.

I shrugged. “Okay.”

“You don’t want to come? I would have thought you would.”

“Nope.”

“Don’t you even what to know why you weren’t invited?”

“Fine. Why?”

“It’s a Pony Pet Playdate Party, and you don’t have a pet.”

“I don’t want a pet.”

“Arg!” Twilight rolled her eyes. “I can’t even antagonize you correctly! Why are you always such a problem, Valiant?”

I grinned. “I can spot trolls a mile off. You failed before you even started.”

“I was just trying to show you what a pain you can be sometimes.”

I shrugged. “I know what I pain I can be sometimes. What you need to do is show my why I shouldn’t be." Changing the subject, I said, "Here, stand still.”

I ran a large magnet over her body. It didn’t pick up anything.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh nothing. Robot check.”

“You think I’m a robot?”

“Let's just say that I had my suspicions.”

“Well, I’m going to the party now. Come on, Owloysius.”

She and the owl departed. Having nothing better to do, I decided to follow up on Hoofnmouth Industries. I went across town to their place. As it turned out, they made clockwork. Not even clocks, just the works. I figured that in time they could eventually grow into a robot company, but it might take a while. More evidence that the Twi-bot was from the distant future.

I asked about their new construction in Las Pegasus, and was told that they would be moving there soon.

“If you’re moving, can I buy your building?” I asked. I didn’t have the bits to purchase it outright, but for some reason the bank was willing to give me some help. A contract was quickly drawn up, and suddenly I found myself with a mortgage.

I didn’t tell anyone that I was taking over the office. My master plan of cornering the Equestrian petroleum market had to proceed in secret. Hopefully the money would start rolling in soon.

Walking back, I found Rainbow doing the drill sergeant thing on a group of animals lined up in front of her. The other ponies were nearby.

“So, you all think you've got what it takes to be my pet, do you? Well, we'll just see about that! There's only room on Team Dash for one of you, and my future pet needs to be able to take it to the extreme! Any questions?”

“Ah got one,” said Applejack quietly to Twilight. “Does she understand what a pet really needs?”

“Yeah, like care and attention, love and affection.”

“Ferocious claws wouldn’t hurt,” I said. “Guard pets are cool.”

“What are you afraid of?” said Twilight.

“If I had a badass pet, nothing.” I walked into the library to get some lunch. Rainbow continued to grill the animals. I wished she would literally grill them. The only thing in Twilight’s refrigerator was salad.

A little later, Rainbow had narrowed down the field. Her final test was a race, against her, through Ghastly Gorge. With nothing better to do, I decided to go along. I gave the other ponies a ride out there in the helicopter.

Rainbow got the animals ready to race. “I've flown through there like a million times myself, so, obviously I'll be at the front of the pack. But whichever of you make it across the finish line with me will get to be my pet!”

The other ponies wanted to wait at the finish line, so I dropped them off and went back in the helicopter to watch the race from up close. I had to admit, even with me in the machine, Rainbow was hard to keep up with, and I don’t even think she was flying as fast as she could.

Suddenly, hideous snake-like things burst out of holes in the quarry walls. I was probably flying closer to the action than I should have been, and when I saw giant gaping mouths snapping at the helicopter I jerked the control stick hard to get out of the way.

“Damn what an ugly—”

One of them smacked face-first into the tail rotor. The helicopter spun out of control, and I added power, trying to climb out of the gorge before something terrible happened.

Of course, I was too late. There was a chinkchinkchink noise as the tips of the rotor blades scraped the rock walls. One of them sheared off and the helicopter plunged to the bottom of the gorge.

“Ugh…” It took several seconds to determine that I was unharmed. Not sure how, but I wasn’t complaining. Oh wait, yes I was. My helicopter was ruined.

I crawled out of the wreckage. Actually, it didn’t look too badly damaged. Maybe with just a couple of parts I could get it going again.

“Avalanche!” called Rainbow.

I looked up to see giant rocks incoming. My eyes bugged out and I ran as hard as I could. I kept going until I couldn’t hear crashing noises behind me. Somehow, I’d gotten lucky twice.

Walking back, I saw that the chopper had been buried by the pile of rocks. I sighed. My life saved, but my machine destroyed. Karma’s a bitch.

Faintly, I heard, “Somepony! Anypony! Help me!” It sounded like Rainbow. I climbed over the pile of rocks looking for her.

One of her wings was pinned under a boulder. At first I thought it was Tom, but remembered that he was probably still back in Ponyville.

“Are you all right?”

“No I’m not all right! I’m stuck here!”

I moved forward to help push the rock off. I didn’t see the animal until I tripped over it.

“Stupid turtle.”

“Tortoise,” said Rainbow.

“Whatever.” I shoved on the rock and she managed to wiggle free. Rainbow jumped on my back as I started towards where the finish line was. I tripped over the turtle again.

“Stupid turtle!”

Rainbow fell off. “As for you,” I said, “There’s nothing wrong with your legs is there?”

She fell in step beside me as we headed for where the rest of the ponies were waiting.

We walked in silence for a few minutes. “Can I tell you a secret?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“I have a thing for Prince Blueblood.”

Well, that didn't have much to do with the current situation. I said, “Don’t we all. I encourage you to forget it, though.”

She looked at me. “Why?”

“You know how Rarity was all over him at the Gala. Apparently he’s not so nice a guy.” And a vampire “If someone as charming as her can’t get him, you’re doomed.”

“Thanks,” she huffed. “And I was all set to meet him at Shining Armor’s wedding.”

“Who?”

“Twilight’s brother.”

“I didn’t know he was getting married.”

Rainbow winked. “She doesn’t either. I’ve got insider information”

Hmm. Maybe I could use Rainbow to get at Blueblood.

“I’ll tell you what. If you can get me into the event, I’ll help you as much as I can.” I grinned. "I'll make sure it'll be a marriage to remember."

totallynotabrony sat back from the computer, idly puffing on a cigarette. “That’s what you call foreshadowing, folks. Valiant’s totally going to ruin that wedding in chapter fifty-one.”

We came walking up to the finish line. The ponies were a little surprised, but Rainbow shrugged off her injuries. Applejack presented the winner of the race.

“That falcon sure does looks cool,” said Rainbow. “He's absolutely everything I wanted in a pet.”

“But you said whichever one crosses the finish line with you gets to be your pet,” Twilight pointed out.

Pinkie gasped. “Oh my gosh, Valiant’s your new pet?”

“Uh…” said Rainbow.

“Screw that,” I said.

“You’re right,” said the pegasus, hanging her head. “I don’t deserve a pet.” She began walking back to town.

“What are we gonna do about this falcon?” asked Applejack.

“I’ll take him,” I said. The bird squawked happily and flew over to land on my shoulder.

“I’m going to name him Captain, and we will have adventures together,” I said. “Very awesome adventures. Spike take a letter, I made a new friend.”

I cleared my throat. “Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that sometimes you find friends unexpectedly. Rainbow wanted a new pet, but instead I randomly got one. I’m cool with that. “

“That’s it?” asked Spike.

“You can’t end a letter like that,” said Twilight.

“You’re right. Sign it, ‘Your bro, F.M. Valiant’ and then put ‘P.S. “F.M.” stands for “Falcon Master”.’.”

“I don’t even know how to do an emphasizing quotation within a quote within a statement,” said Spike.

“With all that punctuation I bet it looks really weird.”

“It sure does ,” agreed totallynotabrony.

“Oh well,” I said. “She probably doesn’t read the friendship letters anyway.”

Twilight started to say something about how hard the Princess worked answering all her mail, but I ignored her. Falcon Masters don’t take crap off anyone.

The Mysterious Mare Do Well

“What are you working on?” asked Sweetie Belle, quite unexpectedly.

I slammed my head against the underside of the vehicle in surprise. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.” I crawled out, rubbing my injury. “It’s an experimental crew-served VTOL.”

She nodded, either understanding or just not caring.

“Where’s your friends?”

“Apple Bloom is in detention for goofing off, and Scootaloo is at the Rainbow Dash Fan Club meeting.”

“Rainbow has a fan club? I’m disgusted, yet not surprised.”

“Well anyway, I should be getting back. Rarity will start looking for me soon.” She ambled away.

I glanced up at Captain Falcon sitting above me. “You were supposed to warn me.”

He shrugged.

“That filly’s a ninja, you know.” The bird turned away, preening the feathers of one wing.

I went back to working on the new aircraft. In the interest of indestructibility, I had made sure that it was built like a tank. A flying tank. In fact, even with twin rotors and improved engines, I was unsure whether it would even get off the ground.

I was still debating what to call the machine. Perhaps something would come to me after the first flight.

I went for a walk down to the hardware store to pick up a few things. On the way, I saw a balcony full of senior citizens nearly fall to their death. Rainbow saved them or something. I approached the scene to check out what had happened. The balcony support structure had failed. I shook my head. Some pony designer was about to get fired.

Thinking about it more, the civil engineers around here were terrible. That steep downhill road leading out of town ended at a cliff, for God’s sake. Things were always rolling down there only to be saved in the nick of time.

Rainbow was signing autographs in the town square when I came back. I skirted the line and kept walking. “Help, help!” somebody cried.

Looking around, I didn’t see anything. There had been a hot air balloon passing overhead earlier, but I didn’t see it now. Must have gone behind a building or something.

What I did see was a pony in a purple outfit with a cape and a hat. It was not Nightmare Night, so I saw no reason for anyone to be dressed up and hiding their face. The pony jumped away over the rooftops.

There had been screaming for help and a masked pony was spotted. I put two and two together.

“What’s this?” I said. “A villain? Sounds like a job for…”

Failing to come up with anything cool, I lamely finished “…me.” I smiled, though. I had been slacking on my vengeance and justice duties lately. It was time to be awesome.

No, not awesome. That sounded like something Rainbow would say. I would have to come up with a better catchphrase than that. I shook my head. Actions now, words later. I ran for the library.

“Captain! There’s a mysterious pony in town who is up to no good! Come on!” The bird joined me in the cockpit of the aircraft. I fired up the engines and got the rotors spinning. I buckled my seat belt (safety first) and jammed the throttles to the stops.

The vehicle shot into the air much faster than I had planned. It was apparently higher performance than I thought. Struggling to put my sunglasses on and fly at the same time, all the while without fingers, I lost control and crashed into the school.

Cheerilee emerged from the wreckage, coughing. "“What’s the meaning of this!”

“Sorry, I had a little accident. I’m currently in pursuit of ponies unknown who are up to no good.”

“That sounds cool,” said Apple Bloom, who had been serving her punishment for goofing off. She clambered aboard the aircraft.

“Apple Bloom! What about your detention?”

“Sorry Ms. Cheerilee. Ah have’ta go save Ponyville.” She picked up my sunglasses from where they had come to rest and put them on. “Deal with it.”

I gave her a brohoof and fed the engines more power, somehow disentangling the machine from the building. It looked like it had received only superficial damage. The aircraft, that is. The school was going to need a new roof.

We roared away. “What does this pony look like?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Well…kind of like that.” I pointed to a faraway purple-clad speck that was currently saving a group of tourists in a cart from falling to their deaths. “But evil,” I added.

“They should really put a barricade on that hill or somethin’,” said Apple Bloom. Captain nodded in agreement.

“Yeah. Anyway, I don’t know who that was that stopped the wagon, but I’m sure we’ll find our pony soon.”

A cloud of dust was rising from the center of town, so I pointed the aircraft that way. When we got there, a construction site of a new building had collapsed, and cloaked figure was running away.

“Aha! Our villain strikes again!” I discounted the idea that it could have been the same pony that stopped the cart. It was impossible to be in two places at once, right?

First the balcony and now the building. Equestrian civil engineering really was terrible. I shrugged it off. We had a pony to find.

A few minutes later, Apple Bloom said, “Hey, do you see that?” She pointed at a flow of water seeping from a crack in the nearby dam. Christ, was this pony some kind of anti-engineer?

I flew in closer. There, standing next to the destruction, was the mysterious pony.

Landing the helicopter, I jumped out. “Hey you! I don’t know what your game is, but if the dam is your target, go right ahead. I’m in the petroleum business myself, and eliminating competition from hydroelectric sources would be a big help.” What can I say? I know an opportunity when I see one. Something big and heavy hit me from behind and I blacked out.

Apple Bloom was prodding me when I woke up. “Are you all right?”

Judging from the reflection of myself in the sunglasses she wore, probably not. “What happened?”

“That mystery pony was a unicorn and used magic to hit you in the back of the head with a rock.”

“All right,” I said struggling to stand up. “He’s going down.”

“She,” Apple Bloom corrected. “No way is a stallion that slim, even with an outfit like that.”

“You calling me fat?”

She laughed. I didn’t think it was funny.

On the way back to Ponyville, I contemplated my game plan. After several minutes of thinking, I couldn’t come up with anything more specific than “kick her ass.” Oh well, that would be good enough.

Down below, I spotted Rainbow chasing the very pony I was looking for. Excellent. “Apple Bloom, take the controls! Get me in close!”

As the machine roared overhead, I dove out the door with the intention of tackling the mysterious mare. She jumped aside at the last moment as if she knew I was coming, and I faceplanted into the dirt.

“That looked painful,” said Rainbow, skidding to a stop.

“Uuughhhhhh. Mom was right. I think I actually did break my neck doing that.” Everything hurt too much to move, and I lay facedown on the ground.

“Wiggle your hooves,” she said. I tried.

“We have to stop this before things get out of hand,” I heard Twilight say.

“They already are,” I muttered.

“You’re Mare Do Well?” shouted Rainbow.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“You too, Applejack? Pinkie?”

I was clearly missing something important, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. The other ponies talked among themselves for a while before the remembered me. There was some conspiratorial whispering before they rolled me over.

I blinked in the sun. “Come on,” said Rarity. The rest of the ponies had gone. “I’ll take you home. Can you walk?”

“Let me see. No.” At least I could wiggle my hooves, so I suppose my spine wasn’t broken.

She sighed. “Let me help.” Her horn glowed and she dragged me through the street back to the library. Rarity was good with finesse, but didn’t have quite the strength that Twilight had, and couldn’t get me off the ground.

I ended up back on the couch. I was covered in dirt, and Rarity said that she would be by the next day to clean things up, assuming I felt better. I hoped I did. I had a mare to kill.

“What do you know about this mysterious masked pony?” I asked Twilight.

“Huh? Oh. We took turns dressing up and saving the day in order to make fun of Rainbow and teach her some humility.” She explained how everything I thought I had seen was incorrect.

“So you guys were actually heroes instead of villains.”

“That’s right.”

"You could have at least let me in on the secret. I wanted to make a fool out of Rainbow, too."

Twilight laughed. "Knowing you, it probably would have devolved into violence and crude humor."

"Eh."

Later, Twilight went somewhere, maybe to one of Pinkie’s forced parties. I managed to sit up. There was still a Charlie Foxtrot of pain banging around in my body, but I was improving. I stumbled off the couch and went to find something to drink. I wondered if Twilight had left a pot of tea upstairs in her bedroom.

I didn’t find the teapot, but I did spot something else. Folded neatly on her bed was a purple cape and a matching hat. Cold realization hit me.

It had probably been her that had chunked me in the head with a rock. Twilight could have killed me.

I laughed, suddenly. Strange as it sounded, I understood. If I’d been her, I probably would have done the same thing. It was at that moment that I forgave her for all the harm she’d done me. I had been a terrible pony, and probably deserved it all.

Either that, or I had suffered more brain damage than I thought.

Sweet and Elite

I was engaged in a starting contest with Rarity’s cat, Opal. Fortunately, she couldn’t tell if I was blinking or not. I love sunglasses.

We were at a small restaurant in Canterlot. Rarity had wanted to make a special trip to get some fabric. We hadn’t yet managed to figure out a way of getting at Prince Blueblood, which was a disappointment. I could even see the castle from where I sat.

A well-to-do pair of ponies came walking over.

“Please excuse our interruption. I'm Jet Set and this is my wife Upper Crust. We saw you from across the café.”

“Where did you get that simply marvelous chapeau?” asked the other pony. Both of them spoke like they were trying to sound haughty. Up until that moment, I didn’t know there was anyone who did it better than Rarity.

“Oh, this old thing? It's just something I—”

“Hey Rarity! It's me, Hayseed Turniptruck! We met at the big hoedown in Ponyville last month.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said, standing up. “No mother would name their kid something stupid like that. Furthermore, you’re ugly.” I turned him around and gave a shove.

“Oh my, a mare with her own security detail?” said Jet Set. “You must be very important.”

“You’re about to find out how important,” I said. “Back off.”

“Oh no, Valiant, don’t…”

“I’m terribly sorry to have disturbed you, miss.” said Jet Set. “If there’s any way I can make it up to you, please don’t hesitate to ask.” He laid his card on the table and departed with his wife.

Rarity shook her head. “I don’t understand how you intimidating ponies always seems to work out in the end.”

We walked back to the castle, where we were staying. Despite being on good terms with Celestia, I doubted that she would be okay with me trying to stake her nephew, so I kept it to myself. I planned to sneak out at night and see what I could find.

“Twilight’s birthday is coming up,” said Rarity. “I’m going to make her a fabulous outfit.” She made a few quick sketches. It looked a little too fabulous to me, but then what did I know about fashion?

Rarity made a list of things she would need and then dragged me back out of the castle to go shopping. Sequins, lace, and bolts of fabric. She got me to help carry it back.

“I have to get started right away. This new design is very ambitious, and I've already written to Twilight to let her know she'll have something beyond fabulous to wear—” Not paying attention, she ran into a stallion walking down the street and dropped everything she was carrying.

“Oh, I’m so sorry…Fancypants!” He was apparently important if Rarity knew him on sight.

The stallion appeared to have money. From his clothes to the sharp monocle he wore, everything about him said “rich bastard.”

There was a thin mare with him who looked very made-up. She helped him dust his jacket off.

“I say, that’s one way to make an introduction,” remarked Fancypants.

“Oh goodness, I am so sorry. I didn't see you there, I've just got so many bags and I was trying to get back to my suite at the castle and—”

“You’re staying at the castle?” he interrupted.

“The Princess invited me to stay in one of the suites.”

“You know the princess?” I could already see where this was going.

“That’s about enough,” I said. “Shove off, moneybags.”

“No, Valiant, it’s quite all right,” said Rarity. She smiled apologetically. “My security is very tight.”

“Well, you are obviously somepony worth bumping into!” said Fancypants. He and Rarity began talking, and neither appeared to care that I was still there.

I was left alone with Fancypant’s companion. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Fleur de Lis.”

“That’s nice.” Something about her style and appearance suggested to me that she was some kind of model.

“So you do security work?”

“I also build robots.”

She laughed, daintily. “That’s fascinating. I saw that picture of the three fillies from Ponyville with their robot.”

“Allow me to monologue.” I cleared my throat. “I’m an engineer. That means I solve problems. Not problems like 'what is beauty?' because that would fall between the purview of your conundrums of philosophy. I solve practical problems. For instance, how am I going to stop some big mean motherhubbard from tearing me a structurally superfluous new behind? The answer: robots. That one you saw a picture of was designed by me, built by me, and you best hope not pointed at you.”

After an appropriate pause, she said, “Wow. So that was your robot?”

“That’s right. Photo Finish only took a picture of it because I wouldn’t let her take one of me.”

Fleur smiled. “I think I’d like to get to know you better.”

“Sorry, I don’t do bestiality.”

She frowned so hard I thought her face was going to come loose of her skull.

“See you there, Rarity!” called Fancypants. He dragged the stunned Fleur away.

“Oh, that was wonderful!” exclaimed Rarity as we walked on. “He invited me to the Wonderbolts Derby.”

“Sounds fun. Have fun. I’m not going.”

“Why not? I owe you.”

“I hate rich people.”

“Rich ponies?”

“Same difference.” I went back to the castle to plot. Plotting made me feel better. Sometimes I plotted how I was going to kill Blueblood. Sometimes I plotted how I was going to become an oil baron. Mostly I just plotted. Dat plot.

I was a little surprised to see a couple of familiar faces from Ponyville show up. Twilight’s birthday party had been moved to the castle.

“Where did you find the time to put up all these decorations?” asked Rarity, staring at the ballroom.

“Oh, I never leave home without my party cannon,” said Pinkie.

“What? Have you been holding out on me? You mean to say that you had a cannon this whole time?” I stammered.

“Duh.” She fired it, spraying confetti and streamers everywhere. “Tada!”

Twilight’s party started. The dress that Rarity had made for her displayed a significant lack of the fabulosity I had seen on the initial sketch.

I noticed Rarity ducking back and forth between the ballroom and a garden party that had been setup next door. I recognized a few high-class ponies there.

As the evening wore on, Rarity appeared to be loosing her cool. Not only was the stress of two parties getting to her, but I hadn’t seen her eat any small creatures lately.

When she came back to Twilight’s party with a croquet mallet in her mouth, her friends finally noticed something was up. Through creative truth-telling, Rarity managed to convince them that it was a business deal.

“Cool, we should teach them how to party Ponyville-style!” said Rainbow.

Rarity looked horrified. I coughed. “Even I can see that this is a bad idea.”

“Ah’m sure it’ll be a good time,” said Applejack.

“Well, all right. But only if Pinkie brings the cannon.”

“Why wouldn’t I bring the cannon?” She rolled it out the door and the other ponies formed up behind her like some kind of artillery train.

“Oh my,” said Rarity, despondently. “Can’t you do something, Valiant?”

“I think the important thing here is that your friends are crashing a fancy party and you aren’t helping them.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“I’ve got an idea.”

Several minutes later, Rarity shouted “This is madness!”

“Actually, this is a human who looks like a pony flying a badass VTOL aircraft with a bird for a copilot getting ready to fast-rope you into a party.”

Captain Falcon, sitting in the seat next to me, nodded in agreement.

“I don’t even understand how this gear works!”

“Simple. Hang on to the rope and don’t die."

“I can’t believe you made me make this clothing just so you could make me wear it!”

“In all fairness, you look awesome.”

“Oh, you really think so?" she gushed. "Well, I suppose—”

“Drop zone,” I said. “Goodbye.” I rolled the aircraft on its side and Rarity fell out the open door. Luckily, she actually did catch the rope dangling in front of her and slid to a stop before hitting the ground. Realizing that all the fancy ponies were looking at her, she dusted herself off primly.

“Just thought I’d drop in.”

The rest of the ponies laughed. “You simply must tell me what you’re wearing,” said one.

“Oh, this is a tactical vest with built-in shock plates and webbing accessory loops. Everything is made to work as well as it looks. All of the fabric is triple-stitched and double-layered. The gloves and boots aren’t just for looks, either.”

At least that’s how I imagined the conversation went. I was too busy trying not to crash into one of the castle’s towers to worry about it. I had spotted a pony that might have been Prince Blueblood, and had spent too much time not looking where I was going.

When I got back to the ground, both parties were winding down. Even after the near-crash, I thought it was a pretty good time overall. I flew everyone home.

All of them seemed to be in good spirits. Applejack described some of the ponies’ reaction to seeing the aircraft almost smash into the castle.

“They called it a flyin’ monstrosity,” she laughed.

“Monstrosity,” I repeated. “I think we have a name.” I resolved to paint it on the VTOL as soon as we got back to Ponyville.

Sometime after I had bedded down on the couch in the library, something woke me up. Things were dark, so I knew it couldn’t be morning yet.

I sat up and my head swam. Was I intoxicated? I stared at my…fingers?

“Oh my God,” I whispered. I shouted, “Yes! I’m awake!”

“Shut up,” said my roommate through the thin walls of the apartment.

“Dude, I just had the strangest dream.”

“I would have thought you were drunk enough to stay asleep until morning.”

“I guess not.”

“Oh, somebody must have slipped a rock into your pocket. You were really excited when you found it.”

I couldn't remember the night before. “What rock?”

“Some ugly chunk of Basalt.” My roommate was both a geologist and a discerning aesthetics snob. “It might be still in your pants,” he added.

I had been wondering what that strange lump was. I dug in my hip pocket and pulled a small stone out. It was wrapped in a note.

Enjoy the multiverse, sucker!

“Do you know anything about this note?”

“No, now shut up. It’s four in the morning.”

My dream felt like weeks if not months had passed, yet it had taken place in just a few hours. Nice.

Well, my head still ached and the sun wasn’t up yet. Better go back to sleep. I wondered what I would dream about next.

As it turned out, ponies. I woke up back on Twilight’s couch.

Secret of My Excess

I certainly hadn’t expected to be back in Ponyville so soon. That was all right. I had unfinished business.

I got off the couch and stepped on something, twisting my ankle and falling to the floor.

“What’s wrong with you?” asked Twilight. She was eating breakfast.

I mumbled something under my breath and got up. I had tripped on the ugly piece of Basalt. Figures that it would be here.

“Nothing’s wrong at all,” I said. “I went home last night.”

“What do you mean? You visited Earth?” her voice was skeptical.

“When I went to sleep here, I woke up in my own bed. My roommate yelled at me for being a drunk and then I went back to sleep. Here I am again.”

“Some dream.”

“You’re right. I’m dreaming.”

“I think you’re dreaming the so-called ‘real world’.”

“Then how do you explain this?” I showed her the rock.

“It’s a rock.”

“Yes, but it was there in the real world. There was a crypic message on the note that came with it. ‘Enjoy the multiverse, sucker!’ It must have given me this strange dream.”

“Anyway,” I said, changing the subject. “I’m going to go jump off a cliff now. The falling sensation in a dream isn’t unusual.”

“Are you serious? No Valiant, I can’t let you do that.”

“You want to take away my free will? You and I are going to have a serious talk about unalienable rights when I get back, missy.” I headed for the door. Twilight beaned me with the rock.

“Ouch!” I rubbed the back of my head. “What did you do that for?”

“It hurt, didn’t it?”

I nodded.

“How are you feeling pain if this is a dream?”

“I’ve given up trying to explain.”

“But you’ve refused to accept that maybe this isn’t a dream?”

“Right.”

“You’ve given no thought to other alternatives?”

“No.” Well, maybe a little bit.

“And for some reason you think you’re dreaming because of this ordinary-looking rock?”

“Hey now, what did he ever do to you? You don’t have to hurt his feelings by calling him ordinary.”

She stared at me. I shrugged. “Sorry, just a joke. I guess there’s only room for one pet rock in town.”

“At least Tom is useful. The other day, I saw him holding down some balloons for Pinkie’s party.”

“Whatever. I’m going to go be awesome now, or something.”

I left the library tree. Despite my boast, I was not actually capable of being awesome on command. Luckily, a situation soon presented itself.

I ran into Lyra and Bon-Bon. A lot of ponies around town suspected them of being lovers, but I knew the truth.

Lyra pretended to have terrible scoliosis, which is why she could often be seen slumping on a park bench. She would tell anyone who asked that it was the only way she could get comfortable with her poor, crooked spine. The fraudulent medical insurance money was laundered through Bon-Bon’s candy shop. They also did contract killings.

Remembering that I had asked them for a favor, I said, “You got the stuff?”

“You got the bits?” Bon-Bon shot back.

“Right here.” I handed over a small pouch. Lyra gave me a crate, which she had been lugging around with her for some reason. Luckily I had showed up to take it off her hooves.

“I knew I was lugging that crate around for some reason,” she said. “Luckily you showed up to take it off my hooves.”

“My thoughts exactly. Anyway, I’ll see you later, ladies.”

I awkwardly carried the box back to the library. Twilight was studying, so I could basically do anything short of dropping a drum set down the stairs and it wouldn’t faze her.

The box contained a small metal tank and some tubing. I could have acquired these things without resorting to Lyra and Bon-Bon, but I wanted it kept secret. I might as well have the only one in town.

I slowly assembled the pieces. Spike walked in. “Hey Valiant. What are you doing?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“It’s not for my birthday is it?”

“When’s your birthday?”

“Next week.”

“Maybe. Just maybe.”

Later that day I went over to Sweet Apple Acres to get some fresh produce. Big Macintosh helped me out. After that, I stopped by Sugarcube Corner to get some baking supplies from Pinkie. I got the device set up outside the library and built a fire.

The next couple of days in Ponyville went slowly. I figured I had a week or two before I would wake up again, so I just sort of chilled out.

Twilight had been working hard studying something for several days, and finally came to me about it.

“Why are you tormenting me with this rock!?” she demanded.

“Sorry, what?”

“It’s an ordinary, ugly lump of Basalt like you said. Except something’s wrong with it.”

“You say that like it’s my fault.”

“I can’t figure out why it’s different, but something irks me about it.”

“It’s probably just a macguffin.”

“A what?”

“Don’t you know your fiction plot devices? A macguffin is a thing that by itself isn’t important, but causes the plot to move forward.”

Twilight considered that. “Go on.”

“We could probably just throw the rock away right now. As long as we’re talking about what it could mean, we don’t need it anymore.”

Twilight glanced at the stone where it lay on the table. “All right. What does it mean?”

“No clue.”

“That’s not helpful at all!”

“Just because I know what it is doesn’t mean I know what to do about it. Anyway, do you know why I saw Spike wearing a pimp hat earlier?”

“Somepony must have given it to him. It’s his birthday.”

“Oh, is he getting the traditional Pinkie party?”

“That’s already happened.”

“I’ll have to find him later, then.” I went outside, with Twilight following curiously. The parts that Lyra and Bon-Bon had gotten me had created something that no resident of Equestria had ever seen before.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said. “What’s that?”

“It’s called a still.”

“It’s still what?”

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just say parties around here are going to be at least 40% cooler from now on.”

The grain Big Mac had given me, combined with yeast I had gotten from Pinkie had transformed into ethanol. I didn’t know how pure it was, but we could worry about that later.

I went inside to get a couple of glasses. I figured there was no time like the present to sample the product.

Twilight watched nervously as I took a sip. It was like fire, and didn’t have much flavor. I gagged. It was higher proof than I had expected.

Spike walked up just then, carrying a load of swag.

“Where did you get all that stuff?” Twilight asked suspiciously.

“Um, they were gifts.”

“Hey birthday boy. I’ve got something for you.” I stopped. “Wait, how old are you?”

“Dragon years or pony years?”

“Or human years,” I mused. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. This isn’t illegal here.” I filled a glass and handed it to him.

“What is it?”

“Moonshine.”

“I didn’t know this stuff came in liquid form.” He gulped it like it was water and held out the glass. “Can I have more?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” We still didn’t know how potent the stuff was.

“Please?”

Twilight said, “Spike, it could be dangerous. Just wait until we figure it out, okay?”

“All right.” He went inside.

“Spike’s been kind of…grabby lately. I don’t know why he’s being so greedy.”

I shrugged. “Maybe he’s going through a phase.”

Later that day, Twilight showed me something that she’d been working on. The ugly rock was now encased in a small electronic device with blinking lights.

“It’s a relativity condenser,” she said.

“That’s weird. You never struck me as a Beatles fan.”

“No, I don’t like insects, especially not after the parasprite incident.”

“So what does it do?”

“I’ve added some extra functionality and modified the specifications a little. Hopefully, it will monitor the rock and tell us more about it.”

We watched for a few seconds.

“It’s not doing anything,” I said. “It’s a rock.”

She threw up her hooves. “Look, I know there’s something strange about it, I just can’t figure out what! I’m doing everything I can to find the answer.”

Suddenly, the damaged robot that looked like Twilight burst out of the closet where I had been keeping it. It had mostly been skinned at this point, and the resemblance was not great. I didn’t know how it had become active, but we suddenly had a serious problem.

“Run!”

Twilight and I slammed open the door of the library. Spike was passed out next to the still. That’s where greed gets you, little guy, I thought.

We didn’t go very far before realizing that the robot wasn’t chasing. It had taken a different course and gone into the Everfree Forest.

“What,” Twilight said between gasps for breath, “was that?”

“I’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

Back at the library, Twilight was taking notes. “So you just found this thing in the forest? Do you know why it was pony shaped?”

“Nope. No idea on the purple scraps of stuff hanging off the frame, either. When the whole Discord thing happened, I just kind of forgot about it. Until now, anyway.” I was getting good at this lying thing.

“A robot from the future,” Twilight mused. “I think I’m going to have to write a letter to the princess about this.”

“All right with me. I’m going to go make sure Spike is okay.” I went out. Spike was still breathing, so I figured he was fine. I sat down next to his comatose body to think.

Something was clearly amiss here. That wasn’t the closet that I had hid the robot in. Furthermore, how had it activated? The processor had been broken.

Now that I thought about it, I had gotten a brief glimpse at the back of the robot’s head and it had looked undamaged. Not like it had been repaired, like it had never been smashed in the first place.

While I was mulling it over, Applejack came walking up. “Hello there, Valiant. Nice day, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

“Well, I’m off to the market. I hope you have a good day.”

“You too.” She walked away.

I turned back to the robot problem. Why were things different? Suddenly I realized that Applejack's accent was missing. This couldn't be the same Equestria I remembered.

“Oh my God, I’m in a parallel universe!”

Hearth's Warming Eve

Note: This chapter contains sex jokes. Well, more than usual.

While I appreciated the short winters that Equestria had, I didn’t like how they came so suddenly. The day before had been nice and warm.

I’d have to suspend my search for truth and justice for a while, though. I couldn’t even think about the ugly stone that for some reason was important. I still wasn't sure what part it played in the grand scheme of things. I'd left it back in Ponyville in the library.

We were all on our way to Canterlot. Princess Celestia had asked the ponies to put on a play. I figured it would be a good opportunity to see how things had changed from the other universe. Since realizing that I wasn’t in the same version of Equestria that I’d started out in, I’d been on the lookout for what else might have changed.

So far, the only things that I'd noticed was the Twi-bot somehow being undamaged and that Applejack didn’t talk like a hick anymore. I’d seen Pinkie making a lot more brownies lately, but didn’t know whether that was notable or not. They were delicious.

The train ride was nice and scenic. The ponies were passing around the script of the play. It was a history of Equestira, and had something to do with Hearth’s Warming Eve. The holiday was like pony winter break, because ponies are too politically correct, and I suppose too Celestia-worshipping, to have Christmas.

I got bored of thinking about ways to stick blades to my hooves and parade around as Santa Claws. With nothing else to do, I glanced at the script for the play. It looked boring.

I’d coordinated with Sweetie Belle to run an assassination mission on Prince Blueblood while we were in Canterlot. Unfortunately, Rarity found out and threw a fit.

“Do you know what this means?” she said while we stood in another compartment of the train. She didn’t want her friends to hear, so it was a very quiet fit that she was throwing.

“No, what?”

“I can’t just let my little sister go do this!”

“I’ll be with her.”

She gave me a look. “I’m so reassured.”

“Well, this could be our best chance to get Blueblood.”

“What do you two have against him?” said Sweetie Belle. “I mean, I know he’s a vampire, but why him specifically?”

“Let me answer that with a riddle,” I said. “What bleeds for seven days but doesn’t die?”

Sweetie Belle thought for a moment. “I don’t know.”

“Good. That means you’re not old enough for us to tell you about it.”

I gave Rarity a look that said, You do still want to keep you being a vampire a secret, right?

She shrugged as if to say, Sure, why not?

I nodded, telling her, I concur. She doesn’t need to know.

“I’m a vampire, Sweetie Belle. Blueblood turned me.”

I facehoofed. “Didn’t you get my mental message?”

“You were trying to think something at me? Sorry, I thought you were feeling constipated.”

Facehoof, facehoof. “Never mind. I’m leaving.”

“Wait a moment Valiant, what if Sweetie Belle and I were to work together on this?”

“That could be okay. Don’t you have to be in the play, though?”

“I’m sure they’ll find someone to fill in.” That sounded good to me. Rarity stopped by the compartment of the other ponies to tell them that she had an emergency to take care of.

I sat back down with them. “Gosh,” said Fluttershy. “What will we do now? We need another pony.”

“Yeah,” agreed Rainbow. “It’s a six-way job.”

“That’s what she said,” I muttered.

“What was that, Valiant?”

“Nothing.”

Twilight’s eyes lit up. “I know! You can take over for Rarity.”

“Uh…”

“Come on, you’ve seen the script. That puts you ahead of any other pony in Equestria.”

“Well, what part would I be playing?”

“Princess Platinum.”

Facehoof.

Backstage at the theater, I had my nose in the script book. If I had to look like a fool, at least I didn’t have to act like one. The other ponies were getting ready.

Twilight came up with a load of costume things.

“I’ve got this stuff for you. I’m afraid that you’ll have to wear a strap-on.”

“What!?”

She gave me a fake unicorn horn. “What did you think I meant?”

“Nevermind.”

I couldn’t fit into any dresses that the prop department had, which was good because I would have refused to wear them. They managed to come up with something that was basically androgynous.

They refused to let me be Prince Platinum, though.

“This is how it really was!” insisted Twilight. “It’s a historical play.”

“Sometimes history needs to be changed for the sake of the audience.” I pointed to Pinkie, who was playing Chancellor Puddinghead. “Like that, for example. Between Hitler and Palpatine, it’s pretty much a given that anyone with the title ‘Chancellor’ is automatically a bad guy.”

“Chancellor Puddinghead is one of the antagonists, yes.”

“Oh, no problem then. Well, if you aren't going to change that, then maybe—”

“You’re still a Princess, Valiant.”

Despite my initial hesitation, things worked out as well as could be expected. I certainly was not fooling the audience, but they at least had the good grace to laugh at me.

At least the crowd left me alone at the afterparty. Rarity and Sweetie Belle showed up, looking dissapointed. The rest of the ponies mingled while I attacked the refreshments table.

“Would you like some turtle candies?” asked the table attendant.

“No thanks. I’m allergic to nuts.”

“What?”

“You know, walnuts, pecans, almonds.”

He gave me a blank look. “I’ve never heard of any of those.”

I tentatively took one of the turtles and bit into it. No nuts.

“I love this parallel universe!” I said.

Of course, I didn’t get to stay there. When I went to bed back in Ponyville that night, I woke up again in my apartment on Earth.

The clock read a few minutes after five in the morning. I stumbled out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

“Good thing I’m not allergic to you guys,” I said, looking down.

I shuddered. That sounded way more creepy than I thought it would.

I stumbled back to bed didn’t I just stumble out of it? and lay down. Maybe, just maybe, I could get back to dream-Equestria-sans-nuts.

My eyes snapped back open and I stared at the bedside table. The ugly rock sat there, wrapped in the electronics that Twilight had applied to it.

“Oh no. Oh hell no!”

“Shut up!” called my roommate.

I picked the thing up. It looked exactly as I remembered. This unlocked a whole bunch of new possibilities that I hadn’t considered.

Option one, this was a dream within a dream. I looked around. Nothing looked different, but my head was still pounding from the hangover. Screw you, Leo DiCaprio.

Option two, the parallel universe idea was right on the money and the stone was the key. When I’d gone to sleep the second time, I’d traveled to a second version of Equestria.

Well, the only thing I could do was try to return to dreamland. Hopefully I wouldn’t end up someplace that was too weird.

“Please no nuts, please no nuts,” I whispered as I lay back in bed.

“Hey Valiant, are you going to get up or what?” It was a female voice I didn’t recognize.

I opened my eyes. A purple dragon was standing in front of me. I thought it was Spike. I blinked a couple of times. No, it looked like a different dragon.

“Are you finally awake?” said a pony, walking over to the couch. He was a purple unicorn with a star-shaped cutie mark.

“Who are—” I stopped, putting a hoof to my mouth. Something was wrong with my voice.

“Come on, get up. I swear, you’re the laziest mare I’ve ever met.”

I looked down at my body. While it wasn’t what I meant, it looked like I’d gotten what I'd asked for.

No nuts.

Baby Cakes

I read the note I had received carefully, trying to decide if it was a trick. Mr. and Mrs. Cake wanted me to babysit for them.

Their twins had been born recently, and up until this point the Cakes had had no problems taking care of them. Today they had a big catering order to take care of, and apparently I was on the list of potential babysitters.

I really couldn’t imagine how that had happened. I would have picked me last for the job. In addition, this whole gender-getting-flipped thing made me suspicious of everything. I thought that was just a subconscious reaction instead of anything having to do with being female, but then I’d never been female before.

Still, I did feel responsible enough to at least go tell them no. As I crossed the street, the Cutie Mark Crusaders came stomping up in their robot.

“Hey Valiant!” called Scootaloo. “We wanted to talk to you about retrofitting this thing with a quicker-response hydraulics system.”

“And adding nitrous!” exclaimed Apple Bloom.

“Are you just repeating things you read in some book?” I asked.

Sweetie Belle rolled his eyes. “Yes they are.”

I laughed. “It’s okay. Give me a minute, and I’ll be back.”

I walked in to Sugarcube Corner. Pinkie greeted me.

“Did the Cakes ask you to babysit?” he asked.

“Yeah. How come you weren’t first in line?”

He thought for a moment. “You know, they never really said. Hey Mr. and Mrs. Cake, Valiant is here and wants to talk about the babysitting!”

“Just a moment,” replied a voice from the back room.

As we waited, the door opened and Caramel came in. “Just came for some cupcakes,” she said. Pinkie helped her with an order.

“There you are,” said Mr. Cake, walking into the room.

“We want to talk to you about the babysitting,” said his wife.

“I kind of wanted to know why you think I’m capable.”

“Well dear, you were the first mare we thought of.”

It was true that Ponyville was kind of a sausage fest in this universe. My first brush with sexisim was not at all what I thought it would be like. You lied to me, Don Draper.

“But that makes you trust me more than, say, Pinkie?”

“Do you want the job or not?” asked Mr. Cake.

Well, if he was going to be mean about it, the least I could do was horrify him. I grabbed Caramel and planted my lips on hers.

“Heathen!” shrieked Mrs. Cake.

“Get out of here!” roared her husband.

“I’m freeeee!” I said as I ran out. Lucky for me, the Cakes were homophobic in this universe, too.

“Hey guys,” I said the Crusaders, who were still waiting for me outside. “Think I could get a ride?”

“Hop on,” said Scootaloo. “We were just going to go over to Rarity’s.” I climbed up and surfed the robot down the street.

“In response to your earlier questions,” I called, “quicker-response hydraulics and nitrous would be awesome. Not sure exactly how you plan to do that since this thing is steam-powered, but I wish you the best.”

They parked the ‘bot in front of the boutique. Tactical supplies available here said a sign in the window. Rarity’s fast-roping into the Canterlot Garden Party a while back had made the demand for such things skyrocket among fancy ponies. Like most “tactical” things in the human world, 99% of the stuff would be used to look cool instead of seeing the action it was designed for. Tacticool.

I said hello to Rarity and asked when he would be ready to do the thing at the place. Sweetie Belle knew what I was talking about, and managed to keep his friends from taking an interest in the conversation.

Rarity told me that he needed a little while longer. I nodded and went back to the library.

Twilight had a sample of alcohol from the still and was testing it with various scientific processes.

“Have you tried any?” I asked.

“Well, after the reaction that Spike had, and the look on your face when you tasted it, I thought I should be sure of what I was getting into.”

“What did you learn?”

“Well, it was really contaminated. I managed to extract all kinds of impurities.”

“Awesome. Let’s make cocktails.”

“Are you sure?” He looked at me, clearly disapproving.

“I’ll drink if you drink.” I got a couple of bottles of fruit juice out of the fridge.

I mixed up a blend and took an experimental sip. The pure ethanol probably wouldn’t add much flavor. What was missing? I tried a little cinnamon and vanilla, with a little malt thrown in. Oh yeah.

I set one of the glasses down in front of Twilight. He stared at it.

“Nothing to it,” I said. Gulp.

Twilight’s eyes widened, watching me highball my drink in one pull. “I thought this was supposed to be really potent.”

It was. I had to be careful, as not only was my body weight lower than normal, but my poor pony liver didn’t know how to handle alcohol.

“Try it. You might like it.”

He took an experimental sip, and then a larger one. “This is better than I expected.”

“Want another?”

Twilight hesitated, but apparently didn’t feel any ill effects. “Sure.” He finished the rest of the first glass. When I made two more drinks, I kicked up the alcohol content a little.

In not very long, we were lit. Everything was considerably more funny. That is, until Twilight scooted a little closer to me on the couch.

“What are you doing?” I asked. I may have been too drunk to walk, but I could see that something very bad was about to happen.

“Oh, nothing.” He smiled.

There was a sudden flash of light and an orange pony appeared out of thin air. She bucked Twilight in the head and he fell over, out cold.

“You must be the Valiant that’s supposed to be in this universe,” I said.

“That’s right. I came to protect your virginity.”

“For the record: yuck. But thank you. How did you get here?”

“Oh, I just discovered the secrets of time and space. No big deal.” Wow, I hoped I didn’t actually sound that condescending.

“So did you find out who's been screwing with me? Us?” I struggled to get off the couch. “You want something to drink?”

“No time, this is important. I discovered who’s behind all this.”

Before she could tell me who, I stumbled and had an unpleasant meeting with the floor.

It was now six-thirty in the morning on Earth. Daylight was starting to creep in around the window shade. My hangover was slightly better than it used to be. Probably better than pony-me was about to have, in fact.

I tried to remember what had happened on Earth the night before, when this whole adventure started. It had been a Friday. There had been alcohol, obviously. Knowing me, probably tequila. The Mexican Monster always seemed to play a part in my escapades.

There had been a girl I’d hit on, although she seemed rather cold. Never even took off her sunglasses.

I shifted a little and felt something brush my arm. Beside me in bed was a girl. I honestly didn't know if she'd been there the whole time and I'd missed her in my drunkeness, or this was something new.

I poked her in the arm. "Hey," I whispered. "What was your name again?"

She stirred a little. "Twilight."

Author note:
I've got some big news. A Dream has had 500 unique viewers! I'm so excited.

More importantly, I've got a new story about Valiant. It's called More Dreams. It doesn't follow the show, so we don't have to put up with things like plot. I'd appreciate if you take a look and maybe spam your friends with a link to it. Thanks.

The Last Roundup

I slipped out of bed and went looking for a Bible. Something troubled me about finding a human Twilight Sparkle in my bed. Okay, actually a lot of somethings.

Having found the book and turned to the correct page, I cleared my throat loudly while standing over the bed. Twilight jerked awake and sat up, looking confused and wary of the dark room.

I read from the book, just barely making out the print with a sliver of daylight that came in around the window screen.

“Then their eyes were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from Him among the trees to conceal their nakedness. But the Lord called out, “Where are you?” The man replied, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked.” The Lord said, “Who told you that you were naked?” The man said, “We ate the forbidden fruit and it revealed to us many things, namely the fact that we were buck-ass naked all along.”

“Um, what?” said Twilight.

“In case I wasn't clear enough, you're naked. Cover up before you catch a chill." I reached for the light switch. "Watch your eyes.”

She squinted, looking around rapidly. It was the first time I’d gotten a good look at her. As a human, she wasn’t bad looking, in a trim-but-not-quite-sexy-librarian kind of way. Her hair was a medium brown color and her eyes were blue. I guess just like me in Equestria, the whole jumping-to-different-universes thing made you look like one of the locals.

She was also still naked, having completely ignored what I’d said earlier. I flushed a little and pretended to read the book.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“You know me as Valiant. You want exact location, or just generals?”

“Um, just generally.”

“I’m over here, you’re over there and naked.”

“Is this the human world?”

“Bingo! I always knew you were smart.” I clapped a little. “Now cover up.”

Twilight stared at her hand, appearing to have no trouble flexing the fingers. Since I had intuitive control over four legs in Equestria, that made sense, or as much sense as it could in the multiverse.

“My ex girlfriend left some clothes here, so you can use them.” I dug in the bottom of my dresser. I had been nice and washed them on the off chance that she ever came back.

“Is this your French-speaking ex?”

“No, this is my lawyer ex.” Twilight stared at me. “I have a lot of exes, okay?” I tossed her most of the pieces of a business suit, the shirt, jacket, and slacks. I apologized if they didn’t fit and had gotten rumpled in the drawer.

I had no idea how long Twilight might be here, but decided that we would only breach the uncomfortable subject of underwear if it turned out to be longer than a day.

“I understand the clothing for heat purposes,” she said. “Obviously, there’s no full-body coverage of hair. It’s warm enough for me in here, though.”

“That’s not the point. We have cultural taboos on nudity, and unless you want to get thrown in jail for public indecency, suit up."

Twilight flushed red once she realized what I was saying. It took a bit for her to work out the mechanics of sleeves and buttons.

When she was presentable, I opened the bedroom door. My roommate happened to be passing by at that moment.

“Oh, I didn’t realize you had company last night.” He grinned. “What’s your name, cutie?”

“Twilight Sparkle.”

“Twilight Sparkle…” He took in her bedhead and bedraggled clothing. He laughed. “How much did she cost, bro?”

Calmly, I said, “Have you had breakfast yet?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I was going to punch you in the stomach, but I didn’t want to get puke on me. Guess it’ll have to be the groin, then.”

He took a step back. An ass he may be, but my roommate is no idiot. “I’m just going to go.”

After the front door had closed behind him, Twilight asked, “What did he mean by that?”

“There’s an encyclopedia set over there,” I said, pointing to the book shelf. It may have been from 1985, but I thought the set added a touch of class to the apartment. “Look up ‘streetwalker’. I’m going to neaten up.” I stepped into the bathroom.

I would have suggested that she use the internet instead of the encyclopedia, but I could only imagine what horrors that might cause.

A few minutes later I came out with fresh clothes and breath. Twilight was quickly flipping through the encyclopedia to subjects that didn’t involve prostitution.

“Are you hungry?” I asked. “I’m going to make breakfast.”

“What do you have?”

“To go with the eggs? Bacon, sausage, turkey sausage, hamburger, steakburger, and maybe some veal.”

Twilight flipped through the books, looking up those words. After the first couple, she looked ill.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her into the bathroom. “Look in the mirror. Open your mouth. Incisors and canine teeth, see? You’re an omnivore now.”

“I’m not sure I like this.”

“It’s pretty cool. You can eat anything that you can kill.” I thought for a moment. “Actually, I suppose you can eat some things while they’re still alive, if you’re into that.”

We had pancakes for breakfast.

“I hope nopony wonders where we are,” Twilight said.

“Did you notice me missing when I was in the other versions of Equestira?” We’d talked about my universe-skipping.

“No, honestly. I’ll have to do some more research on how the rock works. It must use reality dilation principles.” She launched into some technical stuff that I didn’t understand.

“In other words, whoever is affected by the rock slips by unnoticed in the fabric of time and space," she finished.

“Stupid ugly rock.”

“What are you talking about? This is an amazing discovery!”

“I told you about the note, the one that said ‘Enjoy the multiverse, sucker’. Somebody has this thing, and then decides to troll me with it? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s too bad you got drunk and didn’t get to hear yourself tell you who is behind it,” she said tersely.

“But at least Twilight the stallion didn’t get to put the moves on me.”

Twilight’s face went bright red. “Can we talk about something else?”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Well, I’d really like to know more about your world. Can we go outside?”

We went outside. About eighteen hours later, we came back.

“I don’t want to know any more about your world,” said Twilight.

“Come on, you have to admit that was pretty amazing.”

“It sure was,” said totallynotabrony. “I wish you readers could see the mental imagery I’ve got going on right now. I may even write a story about it next week.”

“Regardless,” said Twilight, “I just want to go home.”

“Well, it’s late. With any luck, you’ll end up back there and I’ll stay here.”

“I hope so.”

I gave her my bed, and left the rock sitting on the bedside table. I took the couch. It seemed so familiar…

…because I woke up back in Equestria.

“Well, doesn’t that just take the muffin,” I muttered.

“We’ve got a lot to do today, Valiant,” said Twilight, walking down the stairs.

“Wait,” I said, “you did visit Earth, right? I didn’t dream that?”

“Um, I thought I was dreaming.”

“You dreamed that you went to Earth, and I dreamed that you went to Earth, so maybe it wasn’t a dream at all and there really is something to this multiverse idea.”

She sighed. “It looks that way.”

“Congratulations! You owe me an apology!”

“For what?”

“Here let me help. ‘I’m sorry I doubted you and thought you were crazy.’ Just like that.”

Suddenly, Pinkie came in. “Hey guys, Applejack is about to come home! We need to go get her surprise party ready!”

Distracted, Twilight went with her. I sulked, unapologized to.

I had breakfast with Spike. At least he seemed interested in Earth. While he didn’t agree with my plan to get Twilight drunk and take her back again, he didn’t say he was going to stop me, either.

I eventually ambled off towards Sweet Apple Acres. I encountered a sad-looking mail pony on the way.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Well, it’s my birthday and I thought those ponies were throwing me a surprise party, but it turns out they weren’t and now I’m all depressed.”

“Oh really? Come on, I’ll help you crash it.”

We walked back towards the barn. The pony’s name turned out to be Post Haste. I was just telling him how funny it was that he delivered mail when Applejack’s friends went running by.

The food had been left behind, though, so we had a nice little birthday for Post. I figured that since I wasn’t crazy, was actually just a visitor here, and this wasn’t a dream, I could try being a little nicer to everyone.

I went back to the library late in the day. Twilight was busy organizing a trip to Dodge Junction to go after Applejack. The farm pony apparently hadn’t come back on the train.

“Could you fly us there, Valiant?”

“Maybe.”

There were several seconds of silence.

Twilight sighed. “Fine. I’m sorry.”

“Cool. Spike, take a letter.”

The dragon grabbed a piece of parchment and looked up expectantly.

“Well, what did you learn, Twilight?”

Twilight gritted her teeth. “Dear Princess Celestia, today I learned that you should never make an assumption about somepony unless you’re absolutely sure. Instead of being crazy, they might instead turn out to be an alien from another universe.”

“Sounds good. Let’s go get Applejack. Oh, and this is my friend Post Haste.”

“It’s my birthday!” said Post.

“Yeah, I was going to take him for a ride in the Monstrosity anyway. He might as well come along if we’re going somewhere.”

We flew out to Dodge Junction. I hung out with Post in the saloon while the other ponies looked for Applejack. All that was on tap was sarsaparilla, but I worked on setting up a deal with the bartender to start selling something a little harder. I was cautiously optimistic that it could happen.

We met up with the others later. Apparently, Applejack didn’t want to go back.

“Well, girls, we seem to be striking out,” said Twilight.

Rainbow said, “That's 'cause we're playing too nice.”

“Yes,” Rarity agreed. “Desperate times do call for desperate measures.”

Rainbow nodded. “It's time to call in the big guns.”

“Oh boy!” I said.

Twilight nodded. “Pinkie’s mouth.”

“Awww.”

“It’s okay,” said Post. “I still believe in you.”

“Thanks, man. It means a lot.”

After that, we got Pinkie to talk Applejack into submission. She promised to reveal what had being going on at breakfast the next day.

Instead of actually coming to breakfast, Applejack ran off. Pinkie said something about a broken promise. I wasn’t paying attention, because overnight a rattlesnake had gotten into the VTOL and I spent several agonizing seconds airborne before plowing through the local cherry factory and managing to shake the snake off.

“Isn’t pest control your job?” I said to Captain Falcon.

He shrugged as if to say, Everything but the poisonous snakes, bub.

Luckily, there was no damage to the aircraft and I took off again. By the time I caught up with the rest of the ponies, they had already concluded an epic chase. They’d even managed to force out Applejack’s terrible secret: she hadn’t won the rodeo.

“Seriously?” I said. “That was what all this trouble was for? We ruined Post’s birthday because you wouldn’t quit bothering your friend about something she was ashamed of?”

Needless to say, the ride back to Ponyville was spent in uncomfortable silence. It got even worse when we realized that we’d left Pinkie and Rarity out in the desert somewhere.

Author note:
In the last chapter, I commented on reaching 500 unique views. Well, in the last 24 hours, the total chapter views took a huge spike and are now OVER 9000. Thanks, FIMFiction!

The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000

“Would you like to go get some apple cider?” asked Twilight.

“Would you like my hoof in your ass?” I muttered. “The sun isn’t up yet.”

“We have to get there before the crowds.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s the opening day of Cider Season.” She sounded excited.

“We have a season for cider?”

“Why sure. Applejack’s only been talking about it for the last month.”

“Weird. I don’t remember that.”

“Won’t you come?”

“Well, if it’ll make you happy, I’ll go.” I pushed myself off the couch.

“Weee!” said Spike. “The opening day of Cider Season means that it’s only thirty days to Sapphire season.”

“Who likes rocks?” I asked. “Besides you.”

“Well, technically they’re minerals.” Spike shrugged.

“Whatever.”

We left and went over to Sweet Apple acres. There were lots of ponies already in line.

“Wow!” said Twilight. “I hope they don’t run out.”

“Well howdy Twilight, Spike, Valiant,” said Applejack. Loudly she said, “Attention! Cider season is open!”

Walking away from the crowd, Applejack began helping her family collect bits and dole out mugs of cider.

When our turn came, we paid for some of the special cider. I wasn’t really sure how to tell the difference.

“What makes this different from regular cider that we can buy anytime?” I asked.

“Well-kept family recipe,” answered Granny Smith.

Well, down the hatch, I suppose. I took a gulp.

“Walnuts!” I screamed, falling to the ground.

They took me to the Ponyville clinic. Not really necessary, but required for insurance reasons. Applejack showed up to apologize.

“Shouldn’t you be helping to sell cider?” I asked.

“We ran out.”

“Does that happen a lot?”

“Every year. We’ll make more tomorrow.”

“Couldn’t you have told me that you flavor it with nuts?”

“Sorry sugarcube. I was a little distracted. I just got a letter from cousin Braeburn.”

“I thought he got trampled by a buffalo.”

“Well, he did, but I just found out that it didn’t kill ‘im!”

“That’s great to hear. Took a while, though.”

“Well, he just got out of a coma.”

“In a coma for that long?” It seemed like it had been months since the Appaloosa Massacre. “Just how badly was he hurt?”

“Three legs, an ear, and an eye.”

“Three legs, an ear, and an eye, what?”

“Had to be amputated.” Her ears dipped.

Ouch. “But hey, at least he’s alive!”

She nodded, face brightening. “He’s comin’ for a visit soon. Said somethin’ about stickin’ around for a while.”

Oh God, the guilt was going to kill me. If you wanted to be really technical about it and play the blame game, I may have sorta maybe had something to do with the massacre.

The next day, I was back at Sweet Apple Acres trying to sell ponies shots of liquor to put in their cider. It wasn’t working very well.

A strange machine came rolling up to the cider stand. Two smartly-attired ponies stepped out, smiling and clearly trying to sell us something. I can spot traveling peddlers a mile off.

They were brothers named Flim and Flam, and they were exactly the slick operators I had expected. Something about their names set me on edge, but for some reason none of the other ponies noticed it.

After a nice little song, they tried to make a business partnership with the Apple family. It wasn’t going to work out.

“No deal,” said Big Macintosh firmly. I realized that two words were the most I’d ever heard him string together.

“Very well,” said Flim. “If you refuse our generous offer to be partners, then we'll just have to be competitors. How about a competition to see who can make the most cider?”

“You wouldn't dare,” said Applejack.

“Actually,” I put in, “It’s really easy. It’s called Capitalism. Competing companies succeed or fail based on how good of a job they do. It’s as American as apple pie.”

“That does sound pretty American,” said Apple Bloom. “But what’s that mean?”

“In time, young one.”

I turned to Flim and Flam. “Gentlemen, I encourage you to make your product better, cheaper, faster. Innovation drives quality of life.”

“Are you kiddin’ me?” shouted Applejack.

“Oh don’t worry,” I told her. “It’s also the American way to be skeptical of outsiders.”

Turning back to the brothers, I said, “So, you two show up for the contest tomorrow and bring your A-game. If you lose, we’ll run you out of town on a rail.”

The two of them laughed nervously and rolled away in their machine.

Cousin Braeburn showed up that afternoon. I helped Applejack fetch him from the train station.

“Howdy cousin.” Braeburn was wrapped in bandages. One side of his head was misshapen, and his three stump legs gave me the creeps.

“It’s good to see you,” said Applejack. I heard the strain in her voice. It was technically true that she wanted to see him, but he looked anything but good.

I helped Applejack push his wheelchair back to the farm where he would be staying and then I went back to the library.

After seeing Braeburn, I felt even more guilty about what had happened. Luckily, I could do something about it.

This was the kind of thing that Twilight didn’t need to know about. She’d tentatively accepted the idea that I was actually human, but I wasn’t ready to share all my secrets just yet.

A couple of hours after the sun had set, Pinkie and I snuck over to the farm and kidnapped Braeburn right out of his bed. It was rather easy, as his wheelchair was sitting right there and he was a heavy sleeper.

Admittedly, we probably shouldn’t have strapped him to a table in the basement of Sugarcube Corner. He freaked the hell out when he woke up.

“Oh Celestia! What are you doing with me?”

“Whoa, relax,” I told him. “We’re here to help. Pinkie, do you have the knife?” She gave me a meat cleaver.

“What the—where did you even get this?”

Pinkie shrugged. “Just something I had around.”

“This is not what I asked for, Pinkie! I wanted a small precise scalpel, not a freaking cleaver! This is for chopping stuff. He’s already been chopped!”

“Please don’t kill me,” squeaked Braeburn.

“Shut up.” I jammed a bottle of alcohol from my still into his mouth and held it there for a few seconds.

He sputtered once I let him take a breath. “What is that stuff?”

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.” I took a big swig of my own. Tossing the bottle away, I started cutting.

The next morning was bright and clear. The perfect day for a Capitalism demonstration. Take that, Commie ponies.

The Mayor kicked off the event. “The teams have one hour to produce as much cider as they can, after which the barrels will be counted, and the winner will be named the sole cider provider for all of Ponyville! The teams are the Flim Flam Brothers, and the Apple Family!”

I saw the brothers lounging on their machine. Walking over, I said, “So this is open to any member of the Apple Family?”

“That’s right,” said Flim placidly.

“Cool. Hey Braeburn!”

A startled gasp came from the crowd. The group of ponies parted and a stallion came walking up, clanking slightly with every step.

Three of his legs were made of metal, with exposed gears and actuators visible. Half his skull had been capped with metal, one eye and one ear replaced with electronics.

The parts didn’t fit very well, as they had been scavenged from a mare-sized robot that had been sitting around gathering dust for a while. After getting Braeburn drunk enough not to feel pain and using the rest of the alcohol to sterilize the tools, Pinkie and I had spent all night getting everything attached.

Having never seen a cyborg before, the residents of Ponyville freaked out and ran away screaming.

“Uh, Flim?” said Flam.

“Yes, brother?”

“I don’t want to compete against the Apple Family anymore.” They zoomed away on their machine.

“Braeburn, what in tarnation happened to you?” said Applejack.

“Dr. Valiant here got me walking again.” He smiled lopsidedly, because half his face was missing.

“Valiant ain’t a doctor,” said Apple Bloom.

“You aren’t?” shouted Braeburn.

“Yeah, you would never agreed to let me do that to you if I confessed that I didn’t know anything about anatomy.”

“I didn’t agree to let you do it anyway!”

“Dude, you’re the six-million-bit pony.” I got in his face. “Six million bits in debt to me. That stuff wasn’t cheap.”

“Uh, can we make you some cider?” said Applejack. “No nuts.”

I shrugged. “Or that.”

Author note:
I'm thinking about writing a Dukes of Hazzard crossover. If this isn't a good idea, say so. I don't want to spend my time writing something nobody will read. Be honest and tell me exactly what you think. Remember, I can't downvote you.

Read It and Weep

I heard about Rainbow’s accident secondhand. Post Haste stopped by to deliver a package and told me that he’d seen her over at the hospital while making the rounds delivering mail.

I examined the box and asked if he knew what it was.

“No idea,” said Post. “No return address, either.”

“Hmm. Well, thanks.” I went inside the library to open it, but was interrupted by a knock on the door.

Two unicorns in sunglasses and dark clothes were waiting for me.

“Mr. Valiant, we need you to come with us.”

“Who are you?”

“We’re the Mares in Black.”

I looked them up and down. “So you are. Why do you need me?”

“We can’t discus that here,” said one.

“You have to give me some reason to go.”

“Have you ever heard of the Magic Migraine?” asked the one on the left.

“No.”

“It’s where two unicorns fry your brains with magic if you don’t cooperate,” said the other one.

“I see. Would you give me a minute before we go?”

They wouldn’t.

“When I hear ‘MIB’ I think comedy-action. Couldn’t you at least crack a joke or something to lighten the mood a little?”

They couldn’t.

Sulking, I followed them away from the library. “Will Smith would not be jiggy with this.”

They took me to an isolated spot outside Ponyville. One of them opened a rip in the air with a burst of magic. It looked like a freaking dimensional gate or something.

“Go through,” one of them told me.

“Ha ha…no.”

I was told that I had two options. I could either go through the portal or I could be subjected to another method of fast-travel that involved bondage and rectal insertion.

A quick portal trip later, I found myself in a government building in Canterlot. I was told to sit and wait for the boss.

The lobby was bare. Zero decoration of any kind. Some sort of secretary sat near the door, probably to keep me from walking out.

I tried to walk out. Yep, that’s exactly what she was there for.

Several minutes later, Princess Luna came in. It seemed that she was the boss I had been waiting for.

“I like you Luna,” I said, “but if you don’t start explaining what’s going on right now, things are going to get ugly. Even uglier than what happened the last time I was kidnapped.”

“Are you saying that you were brought here against your will?”

“Abso-freaking-lutely. Anyone who threatens to probe me is considered hostile until proven otherwise.”

Luna smiled. “I think you’ll change your mind when I tell you why you’re here.”

“Okay…”

“The Mares in Black are a secret research and development group in Equestira. I act as the head of the organization and coordinate them with the rest of the government and military.”

“It’s all very interesting,” I said, “but I’m still waiting to find out what I want to know.”

Luna nodded. “We recently came into some information that predicted a rather unsavory event in the future. Celestia authorized me to do whatever I deemed necessary. I’d like you to build us robots.”

I dropped to my knees, front legs raised in a manly victory pose. “Yes! Oh my God, I can’t believe it! My first government defense contract!”

“Contract?” said Luna. “Oh no, we’re still in the prototyping phase. If we decide that your designs are worthy of acceptance, then we’ll throw some bits your way.”

“Wha…but…how am I going to finagle money out of the government? It’s supposed to slip by unnoticed in the bureaucracy.”

“One advantage of Royal rule,” said Luna. She winked. “Small government.”

Well, I certainly wasn’t going to vote Libertarian now. Screw you, Ron Paul.

I turned to leave. “Oh,” said Luna. “You mentioned ‘the last time you were kidnapped.’ What happened?”

“I had to make out with Pinkie Pie.” I grimaced, thinking about my escape from the Buffalo.

“She tastes like stale chocolate,” said Luna, shuddering.

I was escorted back to Ponyville rather more cordially than I had been brought. I gave the two ponies a friendly wave as they departed. They hadn’t even erased my memory. Or would I have remembered that?

Anyway, I went back to the library. The whole gang was there. Of course I meant that figuratively. Twilight would make a terrible gang leader.

“Howdy Valiant,” said Applejack. “You’re just in time. We all got these strange boxes in the mail.”

“That’s weird.” All the deliveries had been mailed to each of us, Rainbow’s finding her in the hospital.

“I don’t know what it could be,” said the pegasus, shaking her box a little. Something inside thumped around. With her wings bound, she had problems keeping her balance on two legs, nearly dropping the parcel. I noticed that a lot of the feathers on one side of her back were still wrapped in bandages, so the doctors must have released her on a “take it easy” basis.

“Why don’t we open them together?” suggested Twilight. They gathered in a circle.

I grabbed my box and joined them. For some reason, mine was the biggest.

“I’ve got the largest package,” I said.

“…ladies,” said totallynotabrony.

All of them began opening their boxes. One by one, they let out startled little shrieks.

Rainbow and Fluttershy had each been mailed a severed pegasus wing, rolled up neatly and stuffed inside the box. The rest had each received a hoof, which judging by the coloring came from the same victim.

I got the head. “Is somebody trying to make us an offer we can’t refuse?” I asked, trying for casual.

Fluttershy fainted and the rest looked horrified. Blood began to seep from the boxes to the floor.

I noticed Rarity paying quite a bit of attention to the puddle. “Hey,” I said to her. “Go get something to clean this up.” Her attention diverted, she nodded and ran off to get her OCD sterilization kit.

I turned to Rainbow. “Do you know who this pegasus is? Er, was?”

She glanced at the face and then quickly away. “I think it’s Merry May. Remember Twilight? She was part of that moving crew that dropped the stuff on you.”

“Well gang,” I said, “it looks like we’ve got a mystery to solve. Pardon me just a moment.” I went out behind the library and was violently ill.

The next morning, Rainbow came by to borrow a book. I hadn’t figured her for a reader, but gave her what she wanted. We had to work our way around the police investigators who were battering Twilight with questions, most of which had nothing to do with the mysterious packages. I suppose I couldn’t blame them for being terrible at their job. Ponyville PD didn’t get many murder/dismemberment cases.

Boy, I sure had a lot of things on my mind lately. The murder, obviously, was in the forefront, but a lot of other stuff was jockeying for position.

Twilight had basically accepted my humanity, although our conversation after that had stalled. Maybe with these new robots I could get that dialogue reopened.

I went to work on the design, glancing at the letter of requested specifications that Luna had sent. It took my mind off my other thoughts.

Where had the ugly rock come from? Who was screwing with me? Why? For what purpose? How come? To what end?

What was the deal with the murder? Had Merry May done something wrong, or merely been at the wrong place at the wrong time? What message was someone trying to send the seven of us?

What was the unpleasant future event that the Princesses were preparing for? How could it be bad enough that they’d ask me of all ponies to whip up some experimental technology for them? Also, when had Luna made out with Pinkie?

I kept working and kept thinking. I was honestly a little freaked out, and getting slightly paranoid. More motivation to build a new robot. Until it was complete, I had no idea how I would cope or who I could trust.

One thing was for sure, though. I was going to change my mailing address.

Author note:
Please feel free to speculate wildly about any of the questions in Valiant's head. While I do have answers for all of them and a plan for how I'm going to end this season, maybe you'll come up with something I hadn't thought of.

Hearts and Hooves Day

“Valiant, could I show you something?”

“Sure.” I waited. Twilight didn’t show me anything.

“It’s in the forest," she said. "Would you mind…driving?”

“Sure.” We went out to the prototype robot. It lacked all the way-cool stuff that I was planning, but it moved. I figured Twilight was feeling nervous about something if she wanted the extra protection.

As we got going, I asked, “So…what’s going on?”

“I was walking to Zecora’s the other day and I found a dead animal.”

“I don’t find that unusual. Stuff dies all the time.”

“It was murdered.”

“Stuff kills other stuff all the time. It’s a stuff-eat-stuff world, you know.”

She sighed. “I understand that some forest creatures are carnivorous, but something was wrong.”

We’d reached the trees and I maneuvered to stay on the path. “Well?”

She shook her head. “You should see this.”

A few minutes later, we stopped at a spot of Twilight’s choosing. Getting out of the robot, she pointed me to a rabbit that had fang marks on it. I didn’t think Ponyville had a CSI team, because if they did I would totally call them out there just so we could swap one-liners.

“That’s not all,” Twilight said, looking worried. “I’ve found other small animals that had been attacked the same way.”

“You dragged me all the way out here for a vampire?” I waved a hoof dismissively.

“Wait, you knew about this?”

“Well yeah, and as a matter of fact I take credit for it.”

She looked at me, terrified.

“Wait, that came out wrong. Let me clarify. I take credit for asking the vampire to eat forest creatures instead of ponies.”

“How long have you known about this? When did you find out?”

I thought. “It was about the same time as the Grand Galloping Gala.”

“There’s been a vampire running around out here for that long and you didn’t tell anypony?”

“Nope.”

“Is this one of your secrets that you keep?”

“You got it.”

“So you know who the vampire is, but you’re not going to tell me because you promised you wouldn’t.”

“That’s right. I may be a man without principles, but at least I'm stubborn.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this, one way or another.” She looked around. “Now let’s get going before the vampire comes back.”

Sweet Apple Acres was on the way, and I asked if Twilight was comfortable walking back from there. I said that I had to talk to the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

Twilight got out and I stopped at the Crusader Clubhouse. When I walked in, they were putting the finishing touches on a heart-shaped piece of artwork.

“Damn, that is a big Valentine,” I said. It was taller than I was.

“What’s a Valentine?” asked Apple Bloom. “This is for Hearts and Hooves Day. We’re makin’ it for Ms. Cheerilee.”

I nodded. “It looks like a lot of effort went into it. Sweetie Belle, can I speak to you alone?”

The two of us walked out. “Twilight found some of the carcasses in the woods,” I said in a low voice.

“You want me to take care of her?” Her horn glowed and a ninja shuriken levitated out of her saddlebag.

“No. You’d be wasting your time anyway. She’s supposedly unkillable.” I looked at the ground. “Unfortunately.”

Sweetie Belle shook her head. “Well, all right then. She’s still a liability, though.”

“I understand. I just wish the animals had been cleaned up a little better.”

“For as obsessively clean as Rarity is, she goes a little nuts with bloodlust.” Sweetie Belle’s expression changed. “I think it’s getting worse, actually. She told me that she’s worried that one day she’ll slip and bite a pony.”

“Sure hope it’s someone I hate. It’s been a while since I’ve done any work with a stake.”

She turned her head. “Did you just rhyme?”

“Maybe I did. You’ve got good ears, kid.”

“Is something wrong? Are you turning into a zebra?”

“No, I’m just screwing with you. A zebra? Really?”

“But I thought—”

“No, Zecora’s just weird like that.” She once told me that some problems had developed in her brain from sniffing all those herbs.

“Anyway,” I said, “I should be going. Tell Rarity to clean up after herself a little better.” I got in the robot and went back to the library.

I was somewhat not surprised to see Twilight pulling out books that might help her with a vampire hunting quest.

“So obsessed with vampires,” I said. “You remind me of my ex.”

“The Canadian or the lawyer?”

“Neither. The fangirl.”

“She…was a fan of vampires?”

“And how. Started thinking she was one. I decided we were through the instant I felt plastic fangs on my neck one morning.”

Twilight sighed. “You obviously know something about the subject. Could you help me find more information?”

“Sorry, but I feel guilty that I might have said too much while we were talking in the forest.” I didn’t actually. I just felt like skipping out of the work she would likely have me doing.

“I’m going for a walk,” I said, heading for the door.

Outside, I encountered Rainbow on her way into the library with a load of books.

“I’m really going through all these Daring Do novels,” she said. “I’m the fastest reader I know!”

“Doubtful. Twilight does it like it’s her job. I’m even quicker than she is because I don’t stop and think along the way.”

“That sounds about like you.”

“You’d better believe it. I can do a sonic rainboom with my eyes.” I said goodbye to her and walked on.

Over at the boutique, I confirmed that Sweetie Belle had told Rarity about Twilight’s investigation.

“I suggest you get out of town for a little while,” I said. “There’s a nice juicy target waiting over in Fillydelphia. It’d be a good sisterly bonding activity.”

“Maybe you’re right, Valiant,” said Rarity. That was a phrase I didn’t hear often. Ponies usually had very firm opinions about whether I was right or not, no maybe about it.

“Anyway,” I said, “just be a little more careful. We can’t let Blueblood know we’re coming for him.” I watched the three ponies struggling on the floor. “Um, can I do anything to help?”

“No, we’re fine,” said Sweetie Belle.

I wondered why Rarity and her sister were trying to restrain Cheerilee and why she was so adamant about getting a wedding dress and leaving. I wasn’t concerned that she had overheard any of our secret conversation because she was delirious about something.

I shrugged. Not my problem.

I left the building and spotted Scootaloo and Apple Bloom digging a hole in the center of the street.

“What’s going on?”

“We accidentally made a love potion that turned out to be a love poison and now Big Macintosh and Ms. Cheerilee are falling in love!” said Scootaloo quickly.

“What’s a tiger pit have to do with it?”

“If we keep ‘em from seein’ each other for one hour, the spell will be broken,” said Apple Bloom.

“Well, here comes Big Mac.”

Apple Bloom ran to throw a rope around him. He was skipping along, disconcertingly like Pinkie often did.

The filly got the rope tight and wrapped it around a nearby house. I think Mac noticed the load, but dragged it along anyway. The whole house, that is.

“It’s not working!” shouted Apple Bloom.

“Daaaaaaaaang,” I said, rather unhelpfully.

Luckily, the pit they dug caught him and also Cheerilee, who had managed to break out of the boutique. Rarity and Sweetie Belle had come out the door after her. They shrugged and went to begin packing for their trip.

“Girls!” shouted Cheerilee. “Can you explain why I look like I'm getting married at the bottom of a pit?”

“We gave you two some love potion that went a little overboard,” admitted Scootaloo.

“But we only did it because we thought you and Big Mac would be really happy if you could be each other’s very special someponies on Hearts and Hooves Day,” added Apple Bloom.

“Girls,” I said, resting my hooves on their shoulders, “My ex girlfriends all agree: It’s rarely a good thing to force love on someone.”

They apologized to Cheerilee and Mac. The two ponies in the bottom of the pit began to discuss punishment.

“Don’t worry,” I called to them. “I got this.”

“Remember what I said about not forcing love on someone?” I asked the two fillies.

“Yeah?” said Scootaloo.

I nodded. “Now kiss.” I pushed their faces together.

Author note:
I got you guys a new story. I hope you like it. It’s about Stephen Colbert interviewing Celestia.

A Friend in Deed

Pinkie came to me looking for a wig.

“I don’t even know where you’d get one in this town. Who makes those, anyway? A wigger?” I frowned. “Wiggist? Wig maker?”

“I think it was that last one,” said Pinkie. “Anyway, thanks, bye!” She left the library.

Hmm. I hadn’t even thought about wigs since my ex girlfriend the hairstylist had gotten one to practice on. Why would a pony need a wig, anyway? I finished filing the card catalog and sat down to relax.

The Dewey Decimal System was nonexistent in Equestria, so they used the “well, it looks like it belongs here,” system, and then made the cards around it. I couldn’t believe that Twilight would let such disorganization stand.

Rarity and Sweetie Belle came in.

“Rainbow was looking for you earlier,” I said. “I thought you were still in Fillydelphia.”

“We came back early. She had a little accident,” explained Sweetie Belle.

“What happened?” I asked Rarity.

“I…nearly bit an innocent bystander. He just looked so succulent…” She shook her head. “We need to take care of Blueblood as soon as possible. I have a problem, Valiant.”

“And the first step is admitting it. Welcome of Vampires Anonymous. As for staking Blueblood, amen to that. I’m working on a plan. Do you know who Shining Armor is?”

“He’s Twilight’s brother. Isn’t he getting married soon?”

“Oh, so you know about it too? Good. Anyway, I figure that will be a good excuse to get into the castle and get a shot at Blueblood.”

“I don’t know if I can control myself that long.” She looked forlorn.

“Just do your thing. Make a dress for the bride or something.”

Rarity nodded. “Yes, I suppose that would occupy me. A dress fit for a Princess.”

“Huh? Princess?”

“You knew about the wedding but you didn’t know who Shining was marrying? Yes, Princess Cadence, Princess Celestia’s niece.”

I shook my head. “This country is weird. There’s no King or Queen, and there are several Princesses and Princes that are completely redundant.”

Rarity shrugged. “There’s no better system.”

“Fool! You just bought yourself a Democracy lecture!”

Two hours later, Twilight came in, looking a little frazzled.

“Still looking for the vampire?” I asked.

“Yes. I get the feeling that I’m missing something right under my nose, but I can’t figure out what it is. Oh, hi Rarity.”

The white unicorn stood up. “Hello, Twilight. Sorry to leave so soon, but I just realized what time it is. Come along, Sweetie Belle.” The two of them left.

“Darn it, they escaped! I was just getting to the good part!”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “We have more important things to worry about than political theory, Valiant.”

“Nothing is more important than freedom. Liberty or death, Ms. Sparkle.”

“Speaking of death, I found a fang-marked pig in the forest. Do you know what this means?”

I scratched my head. “Does somepony have a taste for pork and is willing to kidnap it from Sweet Apple Acres? Why does Applejack even keep pigs, anyway?”

Ignoring my questions, she said, “It means that the vampire is going after bigger animals. It may be only a matter of time before ponies are attacked!”

She had a point. I’d promised to keep Rarity’s secret, but could I ignore the danger to the residents of Ponyville? I’d been putting off reevaluating my ethical priorities since I’d discovered that I was actually a dimensional traveler, rather than dreaming or crazy. Maybe it was time to do some soul searching.

Ha ha ha, disregard that. I had robots to build.

Outside, the weather was warm, bordering on hot. The weather ponies allowed it to happen every so often to help the plants grow. Even still, it kind of sucked. I knew I wasn’t the only one who was sweating.

I endured the sun, however, because I’d nearly completed the first prototype. The specifications ordered me to build six of them. I wondered if that was a coincidence, or if ol’ Celestia was taking my advice to weaponize the Elements of Harmony. Of course, I was planning to build a seventh for personal use.

It did make me wonder if Rainbow Dash could be reinstated as the Element of Loyalty, or if we would have to figure out how to teach a rock to drive a robot. I glanced across the street at Tom, who sat in his usual place. Now there was a boulder you could depend on.

The specifications given to me were vague on what capabilities I should include. I figured that I might as well build them as awesomely as possible, and perhaps integrate a few additional tricks to the one I would be keeping.

The sun was directly above, and my throat was dry. I kept working, though. I had already planned what would come next. Basically, there would be a lot of rockets attached. Flying robots. Oh yeah!

I looked around. I could really use a tall glass of Kool-Aid right now.

I saw Rainbow come out of the boutique as I was getting just about ready to get out of the sun. Apparently she’d caught up with Rarity.

I went back inside the library. Twilight wrinkled her nose.

“You stink.”

“Vampire repellant.”

Not finding my joke funny, she said, “We have to take care of this problem."

"We could start a support group: Vampires Anonymous."

She shook her head. "I really hope you make the right decision and tell me what is going on, Valiant.”

“The ‘right’ decision? Just where do you get off choosing what is and isn’t right?”

“What do you mean? You could be saving lives!”

“But I would also be going back on a promise I made. I’d be lying when I said I would never tell who it was.”

“You lie all the time.”

“Not the point. What I’m saying is, you and I have different views of ethics. In the ‘greater good’ argument, yes, breaking a promise would make sense to save lives. In the either-bad-or-good-with-no-middle-ground argument, it’s immoral to break a promise for any reason.”

Twilight shook her head. “At least promise that you’ll think about it a little.”

Clever girl, getting me to promise. “Fine. I promise to think about it.”

Then I left to go sulk. She’d beaten me in another mind game. I was a little surprised to find Rainbow outside, shading herself under the branches of the tree.

“Hey, what’s up?” I said.

“Oh, um, nothing.” She didn’t meet my gaze and seemed uncomfortable. Well, that was something I hadn’t seen from her before.

I was just about to ask what was wrong, when Pinkie came walking up.

“Oh my gosh, hardest friendship making ever!”

“That’s what she said,” I commented.

“I just spent all day trying my best to get two donkeys to reunite, and then they just give me the brush off like I didn't just give them the most amazing gift ever,” Pinkie grumbled. She looked at me. “I could really use a trip to the Gentlecolts’ Club.”

I sighed. “And I bet you want me to take you there.”

Pinkie grinned like a maniac. “I’ll bring cupcakes for the trip.”

“All right, fine, but no more hookers.”

Putting Your Hoof Down

Pinkie, Rarity, and I were watching Fluttershy get pwnzored by other ponies cutting her in line. I started forward to intervene, but Rarity held me back.

“This is something she needs to do on her own.” I was proud of her for being able to get a complete sentence strung together without looking like she was lusting after my neck. Rarity’s control over her vampirism had visibly gotten worse recently.

“Can’t I at least bust some heads?”

“No. Now Fluttershy, pay attention. I’m going to teach you how to get what you want.” Rarity went over to a nerdy pony and began talking him up. Manipulative bitch.

I was just turning away when I realized that the pony had a robot cutie mark. As he walked away, I fell in step with him.

“What’s your name?”

“Oh, um, I’m Gizmo.”

“That’s a real interesting cutie mark you got there.”

“Look Mr. Valiant, I don’t want any trouble.” He seemed to be edging away from me.

“Just tell me about the robots.”

“Well, uh, I just got my cutie mark. I don’t know what it means yet.”

“It means that I’m going to offer you the Bill Gates deal.”

“Who? What?”

“You can either accept my buyout offer, or I’ll crush you with overwhelming sales competition.”

“Uh, I, um…okay?”

I gave him ten bits. “Pleasure doing business with you. Now in accordance with the contract, you are required to turn over to me any technology that you possess or will produce in the future.”

“Wait, that doesn’t sound fair!”

“Well, tell your lawyers to talk to my lawyers…oh wait, you probably don’t have any.”

I left him standing there, feeling rather smug about my hostile takeover. Truthfully, I didn’t have lawyers either, but he didn’t know that.

I saw that Pinkie and Fluttershy were still with Rarity, but I decided to go to the library instead of back to the market.

“Did you hear?” Twilight asked me. “An assertiveness seminar is coming to town.”

“Why do I care?”

She thought for a moment. “Yes, I suppose you don’t need any help with that. Maybe you’re a little too assertive.”

“We all have our problems. Hey, is that the newest book of the Daring Do series?” I settled down to read it.

Later in the day after I finished the book, I went over to Sugarcube Corner to get a snack. It was rather crowded. Rarity and Pinkie were hanging around the serving counter. Pinkie appeared to be somewhat ill.

I heard a screech of painful rebuttal and the crowd parted to let Fluttershy come skipping to the head of the line.

“Did you just do that?” I asked her.

She smiled. “Yes! Iron Will taught me how to be assertive.”

It seemed like too much of a good thing to me, especially when Fluttershy knocked over a mare on her way out.

“What in the world happened to her?” I asked.

“She may have overdone it a bit,” said Rarity. “I’m going to go talk to her.” She went out after Fluttershy.

I turned to Pinkie. “You don’t look well. Did something happen to you?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.” She didn’t appear to want to meet my gaze.

Strange, but whatever. “Well, if you say so.” I left. I thought I would go see Mr. Iron Will.

Well, he turned out to be about the ugliest son of a buck I’d ever laid eyes on.

“You lookin’ at something?” he asked.

“Your face.”

“As much as Iron Will would like to hang around and have you admire him, there is a debt to collect from a little pony named Fluttershy.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Well, Iron Will doesn’t have all day. If you want to talk, you’ve got to walk.” He lumbered away and I followed him.

Iron Will didn’t seem to be able to coordinate his thoughts and his legs at the same time, so conversing with him didn’t do much good. He also walked fast. I figured I’d just have to wait until we got to Fluttershy’s place.

Out route took us past Sweet Apple Acres. I saw Big Macintosh out bucking trees. Usually, his sister would be with him.

“Where’s Applejack today?” I called.

“Not feelin’ well. Rarity was here earlier to see her.”

“Well, I suppose that sucks to be her. Tell her to get well soon.”

“Eeyup.”

Wow, it seemed like several ponies lately had come down with something. I’d have to make sure I didn’t catch whatever it was.

Pinkie and Rarity were already at Fluttershy’s house when Iron Will and I got there.

“Iron Will is here to collect Iron Will's fee,” he announced.

“And maybe learn how to use first-person pronouns,” I added.

He glared at me and then knocked on Fluttershy’s door. “Your payment is overdue, Fluttershy!”

Pinkie and Rarity tried to distract him, but eventually Fluttershy opened the door.

“I’m not paying,” she said.

“What the hell!” I said. “He did you a service and should be justly compensated!”

“Shut up, Valiant.”

Wow, Flutterbitch.

In a more calm tone of voice, the yellow pegasus explained that Iron Will’s assertiveness training deal was “one hundred percent satisfaction guaranteed, or you pay nothing,” and she wasn’t satisfied.

“Oh, well then, I suppose you might as well exploit that loophole,” I said. “Good for you.”

“No means no, Mr. Iron Will.”

“Huh, Iron Will will have to remember that catchphrase for his next seminar.” He walked away, muttering to himself.

“You're amazing, Fluttershy!” said Pinkie. “You totally stood up to that monster!”

“Actually,” said Fluttershy, “I was the one acting like a monster.”

“Yeah,” I added. “Just what kind of drugs did they give you to get your personality to do a one-eighty like that?”

“Valiant, if you ever insinuate that I’m on drugs again, I’m going to hurt you.” She glared at me.

Well, Flutterbitch was back. I walked off towards Ponyville humming an Elton John song. It reminded me of the time when one of my ex girlfriends dumped me for listening to classic rock. She was a bitch, too.

Back at the library, Twilight was reorganizing the stacks.

“Can I bounce a few ideas off of you?” I asked.

“What did you have in mind?”

“Well, love is hard to find, right?”

“Just because you have so many exes, Valiant, you shouldn’t make that assumption for everyone.”

“Well, there have to be at least a few out there with the same problem as me. What if I were to manufacture mechanical lovers?”

“You mean…” Twilight looked around to check if Spike was out of earshot. “…sex bots?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think you were capable of building anything without weapons.”

“Well, I could use that in the marketing. How does ‘Built for love and equipped to take it by force’ sound?”

Twilight sighed. “You may not be crazy, Valiant, but there’s still something wrong with you.”

“Yeah, maybe it’s not such a great idea.”

I glanced out the window, noticing some approaching ponies. “Hey, your five friends are on their way here. Is it lunch time? They look hungry.”

Author note:
Yes cliffhanger.

Also, who wants to read The Adventures of Cyborg Braeburn? I think I can get 7000-10,000 words out of it.

It's About Time

I opened the library door for the approaching ponies. “Hey everyone. You look hungry.”

“I reckon,” said Applejack. “That hay fever really takes it outta ya.”

“It was terrible!” moaned Pinkie.

“I was so sick I couldn’t eat anything for a whole day,” admitted Rainbow.

“Really?” said Twilight, coming to the door. “Well come inside, I’m sure we can find something for you to eat.”

“I’m quite sure,” said Rarity.

“I’m going out,” I said, walking past the incoming ponies. I had to get away from Twilight and her crazy search for the local vampire. If nothing else, I would giggle too much and give the secret away.

I wasn’t sure how Rarity would react to being found out. Worst case, we might have to start a local chapter of Vampires Anonymous after all.

I took a look at the prototype robot that was being readied for delivery to the Mares in Black research team. It still needed some work, but that could wait. It had enough systems online that it was useable.

I got everything fired up and lumbered down to Sweet Apple Acres. I was experimenting with my still, and needed some apples. Hard cider, anyone?

I found Big Macintosh and Braeburn bucking in the orchard.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” I asked.

“We’re applebuckin’,” said Braeburn.

“It’s funny because you’re both in the Apple family.”

“Is that one of them double entendres?” asked Mac.

“Maybe. Anyway, I could use a bushel, if you’d be so kind. How’s the mechanics, Braeburn?”

“About like usual,” he replied, flexing his metal joints. “Sleeping is still difficult, though.”

His electronic eye couldn’t be shut off, and his electronic ear was extra-sensitive. His bed had to be in a very dark, very quiet place. The upside was that he was basically superpony.

“Break any trees lately?” I asked.

“No, not since last week.”

“Well, that’s good.” I gave Mac a couple of bits for the apples and headed back to town.

The still was set up outside the library. I got the apples added to the mix. While I was there, I checked the miniature petroleum refinery I had set up. I was doing my best to obtain passable rocket fuel. Yes, it was going to be used in the robot.

Setting up the refining process was remarkably difficult. Sure, you could separate the crude with just a little heat, but creating high quality products required advanced chemistry…or magic.

I’d had to promise Twilight a sizable chunk of Valiantco® stock to get her to help. Luckily, the company was still basically worthless. At least I’d managed to bargain her down from a position on the board of directors, which is what she originally wanted from me.

Satisfied that the crude was bubbling like in The Beverly Hillbillies, I decided to go over to Sugarcube Corner for a slice of cake. I was met in the middle of the street by Twilight.

“I thought you were back at the library,” I said.

“You have to listen to me, Valiant. I came from the future to prevent something terrible from happening!”

“So…you are back at the library and here?”

“Well, basically, I guess. You know, it’s really nice to have someone to talk to who doesn’t get all freaked out by time travel.”

“Glad to help, but since when are you able to travel through time and space all by yourself and still stay in the same dimension?”

“In a week, I’ll discover time travel spells in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing of the Canterlot Archives.”

“Oh, I’ll be sure to mention it to you, then. Now, what kind of terrible thing were you trying to prevent?”

“Oh, it was horrible! I just barely escaped with my—” she disappeared in a flash of light.

“Well, that was weird.” I shrugged and started forward again. Cake waits for no one.

Later, I trotted down to the Town Hall to check up on my drilling permit. While I didn’t yet have the market for it, I was investigating sinking a second oil well. The demand would rise to meet the supply. I hoped.

That done, I hobnobbed with the mayor a little about converting the town to run on oil heat, rather than wood. I offered her campaign contributions, but she didn’t seem to understand the concept of political lobbying. Stupid appointed positions.

Afterwards, I headed back to the library. I wondered if Twilight’s friends were still there. Opening the door, I stepped in something sticky.

The nice thing about being quadrupedal is that you don’t have to lean over very far to examine the floor. There were little red drops on the wood.

“Hello?” I called.

“Oh, hi, Valiant,” said Rarity, coming out of the kitchen.

“Where is everyone else?” I asked.

“They had a little accident.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Are you blind? Just look at this place! Tomato juice everywhere! The rest of them went down to the creek to clean off by swimming. I volunteered to stay behind and clean up.”

“You’re the nicest vampire I know, Rarity.”

Author note:
Self pandering time. I’ve got a new story.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders Get Lost in North Carolina

Dragon Quest

I apologize for the short chapter last time. Here, try this.

“Swimming, huh?"

“That’s right, we had to get cleaned up, and it was a nice day,” said Twilight.

“That water isn’t very deep.”

“We can splash,” said Rainbow, demonstrating on Applejack, who responded in kind.

“So how come Rarity didn’t get drenched and all of you did?” I asked.

“Oh, she caused the mess. It was all directed away from her.”

“What was she doing with tomato juice?”

“She told you it was juice of the tomato kind?” said Pinkie. “Oh no, it was blood.”

I looked at the five of them, speechless. “She just…sprayed blood all over you? Doesn’t that freak you out a little?”

Applejack said, “Not tomato juice, blood orange juice.”

“Okay, fine, what was she doing with blood orange juice?”

“We were having lunch, and she offered to serve,” said Twilight.

“Where do blood oranges even grow around here?” I wondered. I shook my head. “Nevermind. I’ve got stuff to do.” I left them to their water-based activities.

I wondered why Rarity would lie to me. I wasn’t sure whether to be worried. On the one hand, telling falsehoods about the kind of juice on the floor wasn’t too terrible of a thing to do, but on the other, if she started here, where would it stop?

I decided to sleep on it and make a decision later.

Twilight pulled me out of bed the next morning and made me walk down to the fields where they’d built a hunting blind. All the ponies were wearing cammo. I had no idea what they were doing, as they didn’t have weapons. Wasn’t that the point of hunting?

“I don’t see any dragons,” said Twilight.

“Me neither,” agreed Rainbow.

“Me neither neither,” added Pinkie.

Dragons? We were waiting, unarmed, for dragons? Well, good thing my camouflage was good.

Shortly, a whole sky-filling swarm of dragons passed overhead. I felt kind of glad to be hiding.

“Lame,” said Rainbow.

“If you think so,” I said.

“Huh? Was that Valiant? I didn’t know he was here.”

“I brought him,” said Twilight. “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him since then.”

“I’m right here,” I said, standing up. They all fell over in surprise.

“What in tarnation is that?” demanded Applejack.

“It’s ghillie cammo. You seriously didn’t see me there?” Darn it, I wish I’d thought of this back when I was actively trying kill most of them.

The dragons kept passing by overhead. Spike apparently wanted to join them, and Rarity, Twilight, and Rainbow wanted to follow him.

“You know that’s a breach of a friend’s trust?” I said. “He wanted to go alone, and don’t you three have, like, jobs or something to be doing instead?”

“Why don’t you come along, Valiant? You like to be creepy and spy on ponies, right?”

“He’s technically a dragon.”

“Still, you want to go. Admit it.”

“Okay…”

“Worst plan ever,” I told the three of them. The cloth dragon costume they’d come up with might fool the real dragons, but putting them inside it and expecting everything to be okay was probably not going to work. Dragons liked fire, if I understood correctly.

“Well, what do you suggest?” asked Twilight, annoyed.

“I was just going to fly around in the Monstrosity and do what I feel.”

“Well, if we’re going to be in the costume, we could use air support,” said Rainbow.

“I just wish Pinkie would let me borrow the party cannon long enough to get it converted to an artillery cannon. Looks like my dreams of a gunship will have to wait.” I shrugged. “Anyway, the biggest problem of all this is communication. How am I supposed to talk to you if I’m in the air?”

“I have just the spell for that,” said Twilight. She fetched a pair of winter earmuffs and with a quick flash of purple light, got some magic up in that shiznit.

“Voilà! Two way communication!” She applied the same spell to another pair of muffs.

“A magical walkie-talkie,” I said, impressed. The earmuffs were hot and uncomfortable in the summer weather, but they worked.

We set off. The three ponies crawling along in the dragon costume, and Captain Falcon and I in the aircraft.

For quite a while, we stalked Spike. He never looked back, and never stopped. It was…kind of boring, really.

While Captain couldn’t speak, I began to suspect that he was getting tired of the same jokes over and over again. Luckily, we happened on a volcano after not too long, and Spike climbed over the edge into the caldera. I caught a glimpse of lava over the side, and decided not to overfly it. Unstable air currents, and all that.

“Valiant, come in, Valiant,” said Twilight’s voice.

“What’s up?”

“’What’s up?’ You go through that whole lecture about proper communications procedures and then just say that?”

“I never said that I was going to be following them.”

“Whatever. Anyway, we’ve spotted Spike. He’s hanging out with some teenage dragons. They appear to be hazing him.”

“Is that a request for backup?”

“Um, not quite yet. Standby.”

Well, I stood by. Flew by. Something. Captain preened himself a little and several minutes passed.

“Valiant, you are go for intervention.”

“Copy that.” I grinned, twisting the throttle wide open and zooming towards the volcano. “What are they doing?”

“They’re having a celebration! It looks pretty crazy.”

I rolled my eyes and pulled out of my attack run. “Seriously? Are you afraid he’ll party his brains out or something? Spike loves festivities. They don’t call him Mr. Lampshade for nothing.”

Nobody called him Mr. Lampshade, actually. Spike did party pretty hard, though.

“Wait, they’re leaving,” reported Twilight. “They’re going on…a raid? This can’t be good.”

I ducked the Monstrosity down behind a hill and out of sight. “So what do you want to do about it?”

“Do something!”

“Yes, but something what?”

“What? Something!”

“You’re not being very specific about it,” I grumped. “And furthermore, don’t you think it’s really assuming a lot that I’m able to make a tactical decision like this all by myself? Also, where’s your usual micromanaging tendencies? I worry about you sometimes, Twilight. You really need to take it easy and—”

“Stop them!”

“Well, that I can do.”

I pushed the control stick forward and thundered into the forest. If I had once slammed into a school without harming the aircraft, I figured flying at treetop level wasn’t too dangerous.

…Except for that freaking pair of enraged phoenixes that I almost sucked into the engines.

I jerked the controls hard and spiraled into the trees. Monstrosity bounced off the ground and came to rest in a treetop. The engines died. I frantically checked the gauges. The fuel pressure was low, so I figured that a fuel line must have come loose in the bump.

I crawled out of the cockpit and slid down the tree. Captain fluttered down and perched on my shoulder. I heard voices coming closer, and hid myself in a bush.

“What have you got there, Spike? Is that an egg?”

I peeped out and spotted a couple of dragons with Spike. The little purple dragon was holding a flame-colored egg. I could only assume it came from the phoenix next.

“Well, what are you waiting for? Smash it!”

“I can’t do that,” said Spike. “I mean, I used to be an egg, too.”

“You can’t say no to me!” said the larger dragon. He started forward, but three ponies ran up just then.

“Nopony's gonna lay a claw on him!” shouted Rainbow.

“That's right!” said Twilight.

“Fighting's not really my thing,” began Rarity, “but I'll rip you to pieces if you touch one scale on his cute little head!”

“Uh, yeah,” I agreed, climbing out of the bush. Captain squawked noncommittally.

“Ooh, scary!” laughed one of the dragons. “Spike, are these namby-pamby ponies your friends?”

“Yes, they are, and they're better friends than you could ever be!” said Spike, taking a level in badass. “Now, if you don't back off, you'll see what us ponies do when confronted by a big jerk dragon.”

“Oh yeah?” said the dragon. He snorted. “What's that?”

“Kill it with fire!” I screamed, diving out of the way. One of the other dragons had just spit a fireball at me, and it ignited the fuel dripping out of the Monstrosity.

The whole tree went up in flames and the dragons fled. Apparently being fireproof doesn’t prevent you from getting crushed by fire-weakened timber. The aircraft came crashing to the ground, luckily out of the reach of the fire.

It was spreading fast, though, so I managed to get the fuel line reconnected quickly and got everyone aboard. We flew away as the whole forest began to burn.

“Such destruction,” whispered Rarity, looking down at the inferno.

“It was a combination of dragons and flammable hydrocarbons,” I pointed out. “It was bound to happen eventually.”

“We’ll have to notify the Ponyville Fire Department and make sure it doesn’t spread all the way over to the Everfree Forest,” said Twilight. “This is going to affect a lot of ponies.”

I shrugged. “Well, I didn’t start the fire.”

Shortly thereafter, I discovered that ponies don’t care for Billy Joel.

Back in town, I let everyone out and performed a little routine maintenance on Monstrosity. It had earned some attention.

I saw a couple of Twilight’s friends go into the library, but didn’t think too much about it. I asked Fluttershy when I saw her what it was about.

“I don’t know,” she told me. “Rarity just wanted to get all of us together in one place.” She went inside.

Spike came out a little while later.

“What’s going on in there?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. Rarity told me it was a secret and gave me some ice cream. Anyway, look at this!” He showed me a newly-hatched phoenix chick.

“Wait, so instead of smashing it, you stole the egg? If Equestria had a department of natural resources, you’d be in big trouble. And did you stop and think about bringing a firebird into a treehouse?”

“Well, no.” He looked kind of ashamed. “Anyway, Rarity told me to tell you that they want to see you inside.”

“Okay.” I finished up one last task on the aircraft and walked in.

The inside of the library was empty. “Where is everybody?”

The door slammed shut behind me. I jumped, noticing the distinctive blue glow of Rarity’s magic. I turned back, finding the six ponies in front of me.

“What’s going on?” I asked. There was something about the expression they all wore that I didn’t like.

“What are we going to do to him?” asked Twilight.

“Why, the same thing I did to the rest of you,” said Rarity.

“Uh, guys?” I said, taking a few steps backward. “You’re weirding me out.” They walked towards me. I felt my rump against the door.

“Come on,” said Rainbow. “It’ll be fun.”

I stared at them as they closed in.

“Oh, buck my life.”

I put up a fight. As egotistical as I am, I can honestly say that I held them off for a while. Eventually, they took me to the floor and held me down. Rarity walked up.

“Hold still,” she said. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

The next morning, I stumbled off the couch. Everything seemed different, and I wasn’t sure if I would be able to go back to the way things were before. I felt kind of violated.

It was a good thing the mirror had been broken during my struggles. I didn’t want to see myself as I was now.

They’d given me a makeover.

Hurricane Fluttershy

“So it kind of sucks being the butt of all the jokes in Ponyville, right?” I asked the mule. Rainbow had just flown by and used the phrase “be cool or be mule.”

“Well, being the unholy offspring of a donkey and a pony caused me to have an uneven number of chromosome pairs which results in sterility,” the mule admitted.

“But hey, you can have all the sex you want without fear of pregnancy issues,” I pointed out.

“There is that,” agreed the mule.

I looked at one of the flyers that Rainbow was distributing. All the pegasi in Ponyville were being called to create a giant tornado to lift water up to Cloudsdale. Sounded really inefficient to me. I mean, Monstrosity wasn’t configured for heavy lift capability, but I was reasonably sure that I could have done the job without going to the trouble of creating a freaking tornado.

“By the way,” said the mule. “I like your mane.”

“Screw you!” I walked away in a huff. The unwilling makeover Rarity & Co. had performed on me was getting attention. I hated it. I wanted to be an unkempt ruffian again.

I saw Fluttershy sneaking out of the pegasus meeting. “What’s up?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m not going to be participating in the tornado.”

I nodded, figuring the issue was over.

“I feel so ashamed,” she went on. Rather than hurt her feelings, I stopped to listen.

“I just don’t know how I could ever do well enough to be a part of it.”

“We’ve all got problems.” I tapped a hoof impatiently.

“I know I’m not a very strong flier, but I just feel so embarrassed when I can’t even function like a normal pegasus.”

“Are you going to whine to me all night?” I asked. “Because if you are, I’ve got a solution to your problem.”

“Really? How can you do that?”

“I’ve been working on a jetpack, and I think it’ll fit you. Come with me.”

The next morning, I had the first prototype robot ready for delivery to the Mares in Black. I had been instructed to bring it in for initial evaluation, so changes could be made if needed.

I had purposely downgraded the capabilities somewhat. There was no sense in tipping my hand, at least not until they paid me. As it was, the flight controls barely worked, and the rockets were severely underpowered. It looked good, though.

“It looks terrible,” said Luna, once I had arrived in Canterlot. “What kind of camouflage is this?”

“It’s not. It’s stars and stripes.”

“These are the colors of your homeland, correct?”

I nodded. “While not very useful in combat, this paint job makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.”

“Valiant, regardless of your other principles, I admire your almost fanatical devotion to your country.”

“I prefer the term ‘rabidly patriotic’.”

One of the test engineers gave me a list of things to change. It was about what I expected, so I could slack off a little in fixing them.

I walked outside, glancing at the blackened window where there had been a fire in the Canterlot Archive. The version of Twilight who’d come to warn us about something last week had escaped the flames by traveling to our time. She’d forgotten to plan ahead, though, and dropped straight into the blaze upon her return.

We accidentally created a time paradox as a side effect, but through intervention by yours truly, our Twilight had been saved. It could have turned out better, though. She didn’t consider my statement, “I saved your life, so now I own you,” to be legally binding.

Speaking of Twilight…“Hey Luna,” I said. “Do you know anything about breaking anti-revenge spells?”

“A little. Why, is that what happened to your mane?”

“Yes, I got makeover’d, and Twilight cast the spell to keep me from killing them all.”

It was a very strange feeling knowing that I should be angry about something, but wasn’t. I hated not being able to hate.

“I will do what I can,” said Luna. “In the meantime, get to working on the robots.” She turned to go back inside.

“Hey, why do you want these things, anyway? Just what kind of great evil is coming?”

“You’ll find out. All in good time.”

Later that day, I was back in the library. “Twilight, does Equestria have a Freedom of Information Act?”

“What’s that?”

“The Government should not keep information confidential merely because public officials might be embarrassed by disclosure, because errors and failures might be revealed, or because of speculative or abstract fears. Basically, if it’s not life-or-death, they should tell us.”

“I’m sure the Princesses have their reasons.”

“What the heck. Maybe I should file for disclosure of the upcoming unsavory event. All you ponies just sit around not questioning your dictatorship. Maybe the records department would be so surprised by my request that they would actually tell me.”

“In the meantime,” said Twilight, “I’ve got a favor to ask you. The weather tornado is about to start soon, and I think it would be a great opportunity to study the phenomenon. Could you fly inside with instruments and collect data?”

“That sounds stupid and dangerous, and I don’t want to do anything for you. On the other side of that coin, it also sounds pretty rad.” I had been somewhat inspired by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They were the guys responsible for flying into hurricanes and stuff just for the heck of it. They had major stormboners.

As ick as it was to be sexually aroused by severe weather, I totally wanted to do that. Captain Falcon thought I was nuts and refused to fly with me, so I recruited Braeburn.

“You’re doing what? he demanded.

“I told you, weather research.”

“You never said we were flying into a tornado!”

“You should have asked while we were still on the ground.”

Twilight’s test equipment had been loaded onto the Monstrosity and we were headed for nether weather. I made a low slow pass to check that everything was all right. Twilight, Spike, and for some reason the Wonderbolt Spitfire were on the ground nearby. They were trying to get Fluttershy to fire up the jetpack and join the twister. I knew that wouldn’t work out very well. While I’d been trying to train her to use it, she’d never once left the ground.

“Here, take the controls,” I said to Braeburn.

“Are you kidding me?”

“You’re a freaking cyborg and you don’t even know how to pilot a basic VTOL aircraft? You make me sick.”

“Hey, you were the one who didn’t build the capability into me.”

“Darn it. Anyway, give me that rock.”

It was the ugly chunk of basalt that had caused so many problems so far. It had been in the cockpit for some reason and I had finally found a use for it.

Note to self: find out if there’s a connection between the term “cockpit” and hurricane-related errections

I tossed the rock out the window and it hit the power switch on the jet pack. I wish I could have seen the look on Fluttershy’s face because it would have been epic. She zoomed into the tornado with fire trailing behind her.

“Now it’s our turn.” I pulled the control stick over and dove into the whirlwind.

Over the sound of the wind buffeting the aircraft and Braeburn’s screeching, I checked to make sure the data recorders were working. I’d closed the window again and everything was relatively serene inside the cockpit.

Then we hit Derpy. She didn’t spat on the windshield, really more of a squish. I asked Braeburn what he would describe it as, but he didn’t reply with anything coherent.

Well, we’d probably better get that cleaned off. I activated the wipers, but they just bumped ineffectually against the mare’s body.

“I’m going out,” I said to Braeburn. “I know you can’t fly this, but just hold the stick and you’ll be fine.” I reached for the window catch and flipped it open.

The wind was a whole lot stronger than I had figured and it tried to suck me right out of the aircraft. I just barely hung on, but realized that I might have a little problem.

Okay, it was actually a huge problem. If I let go, I was probably going to die.

“Um, guys? Hello?” I doubted any of the pegasi heard me over the wind.

“Braeburn?” The stallion looked at me and shrugged desperately. He was belted securely into his seat on the other side of the cockpit and out of reach.

At that moment, an out of control jetpack’d Fluttershy crashed into me, slamming me against the side of the Monstrosity. The aircraft was knocked off course and I was left wrapped around Fluttershy.

We exited the tornado on a ballistic trajectory straight towards Rarity’s boutique.

“Pull up!” I shouted.

“I can’t!”

I fumbled for the straps holding the jetpack on, and got them to release. Fluttershy managed to get free and flare her wings enough so we didn’t kill ourselves on impact with the ground.

The jetpack continued on and smashed into the boutique, spraying fuel everywhere. The whole building went up in flames.

“Well, that sucks,” I said.

Seconds later, Monstrosity plowed into the building.

I facehoofed. This really wasn’t my day.

There was a scream that sounded like Rarity getting her mane burned off.

“Holy crap, Rarity’s probably in there dying a horrible death!” I jumped up. Fluttershy had turned into a crying fetal ball of uselessness, so I ran towards the burning boutique alone.

Just as I reached the front door, it slammed open, flying off its hinges. I got hit with it and knocked on my back, the door coming to rest on top of me. Braeburn trampled over the top, carrying Derpy on his back.

I crawled out from under the door. I didn’t think I was bleeding, and miraculously nothing seemed broken, either. Well, onwards and forwards, then, I guess.

The building was pretty much toast by now. I didn’t know how it was still standing. These thoughts only occurred to me after I was inside the inferno.

I spotted Rarity. It turned out that she hadn’t been burned or anything, she was just crying over some dress.

“Seriously? You have a big-time problem with your obsession with cloth.” Heh, clothboner. At the very least, we could say that the unicorn was…horny.

Damn, I’ve got to keep my mind from wandering. The whole “inside a burning building” thing required a lot of attention.

Rarity ignored my comments. It didn’t look like I would be able to persuade her to leave with normal methods, so I knocked her in the head with a heavy clay vase. Flowers went everywhere.

I dragged her limp form out the back door and sat panting heavily. All the action with the fire department was going on out front, and it seemed remarkably peaceful here with just us.

Rarity stirred. “What happened?”

“I rescued you from a fire.”

“Oh.” She raised her head, looking at the blaze forlornly. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now.”

I shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll get through it. Just do what you feel.”

So that bitch bit me.

Ponyville Confidential

“Hello. My name is Valiant, and I’m a vampire. A freaking pony vampire.”

“I don’t know why you’re making me do this,” said Rarity.

“Well, now that there’s two of us, I figured we should form our own local chapter of Vampires Anonymous.”

“I don’t know why you’re making me do this,” said Twilight.

I shrugged. “The library is just a handy place to meet.”

Deciding that it would be too much trouble to hide, I’d told Twilight what had happened to me almost immediately. Also, I’d wanted to see how she would react. It had been pretty funny.

While I didn’t break my nondisclosure promise to Rarity, I’d pressured her to tell Twilight. So far, we hadn’t told anyone else.

“I really wish you’d come to me sooner,” said Twilight to Rarity. “I don’t know of any cure, but I could have helped you adjust.”

“As the local expert on eating meat, I think I did just fine,” I pointed out.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “I was talking about emotional adjustments.”

“Fair point.” I turned to Rarity. “Did I at least taste good?”

“Oh, your blood was simply divine! Going back to squirrels and rabbits will be hard to do.”

Twilight squirmed uncomfortably. “Am I going to have to put a paralyzing spell on you?”

“Hang on,” I said, “to get rid of this, we have to take out the vampire that caused it. We can’t exactly do that if you’ve got us hobbled.”

“But we can’t take the risk that this will happen again!”

“But if it does, then we’ll have three vampires out to get Blueblood.”

“So you’re…creating an army of evil to stop evil?”

“Well, I’m not such a dick that I’d force this on anyone else, but if I was, I would prefer the term ‘militia of the damned’.”

“That’s a terrible idea, Valiant.”

“Have you got a better one?”

“How about you contact Princess Celestia and have her negotiate with Blueblood to see if he knows about a cure?”

“That’s a terrible idea, Twilight. If we’re going to go through all that trouble, why don’t we just stake the vampire that turned Blueblood?”

“That’s actually not a bad idea,” said Twilight.

“Actually, it was,” I said. “Blueblood deserves a stake whether he’s a vampire or not. Come on, Rarity.” I slipped my sunglasses on and we went out.

The sun seemed a little harsher than I remembered, but a few minutes outside wouldn’t hurt.

“So the plan is still to get him at the wedding,” I said.

“That’s still a few weeks away,” Rarity sighed.

“Yeah, that’ll give us lots of time to plan. In the meantime, I’m going to go into the forest and find something tasty to eat.”

I trotted off towards Everfree with visions of small animals on my mind. I hadn’t often eaten meat outside the “big three” of chicken, pork, and beef, so this would be a novelty. While I didn’t usually prefer my protein raw, I could make an exception for this.

I ran my tongue over the two sharp points of my fangs. While the mirror in the library was still broken, and I had no idea whether vampires in this world even had reflections, I probably looked pretty badass. Luckily I didn’t smile much, or my cover would have been blown.

As I passed by Sweet Apple Acres, I was knocked to the ground by an apple to the head. I got unsteadily to my feet, juice dripping into my face.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” said Applejack, trotting over. “Braeburn was tryin’ out a new technique and it didn’t work out too well.” The stallion in question gave me a meek wave from where he stood.

I wiped the juice out of my eyes. It stung slightly, but only a little. Compared to getting beaned with the apple, it was only a minor complaint.

“Since you’re here,” said Applejack, “I was hopin’ I could ask you for a favor.”

“What do you mean?”

“The Foal Free Press started printin’ a whole bunch of dirty news about everypony in town. I just thought you might want to check into it.”

“What, a gossip column? How much damage could a school newspaper do?”

“Why don’t you have a look yourself, sugercube. It’s bad.”

Well, if she thought so. I headed back for town, blinking to get the sting of the juice out of my eyes. My stomach growled a little.

Yeah, the gossip column turned out to be pretty uncool, although that was nothing compared to what I had to do in order to find out about it. I had to visit the spa.

I told the group of ponies that I was investigating the newspaper and Gabby Gums, the writer of the gossip column.

“Celestia, just like us?” read Twilight from the newspaper. “Gabby Gums doesn't value anypony's privacy.”

“Oh, lighten up, Twilight,” said Rarity. “That’s nothing but harmless gossip!”

“Yeah, Twilight,” agreed Pinkie. “Listen to this one. Mayor, not naturally gray! The Mayor in a mane dyeing scandal? Who wouldn't want to read that?”

I picked up a copy of the paper. “Valiant: harmless nut or dangerous psychopath?”

“Well, we know the answer to that one,” said Rainbow.

“Look at this,” said Applejack. “Rarity writes vampire novel. It’s not very good.”

“Let me see that,” I said. The column noted that the book had been hoofwritten in a journal marked “diary.” A vampire novel written in first-person format? Ha.

“It’s, um, true,” said Rarity. “Just a little project I’ve been working on in my spare time.”

“Who could have had access to that?” I asked.

“I have no idea. Sweetie Belle works for the Foal Free Press. Maybe you can ask her.”

“I sure will,” I said, getting ready to leave. “Gabby Gums is clearly a threat to privacy. Between her and Wikileaks, I’m sure nothing in the whole universe is sacred.”

I walked out of the spa. A skinny colt snapped my picture.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“I’m Featherweight, the photographer for the Foal Free Press.”

“In that case—” I yanked the camera from around his neck. “Tell me who Gabby Gums is or I’ll smash this.”

“What?!”

“Jeeze, with ears like that I would have thought you’d heard me the first time. What are you anyway, part bat? Tell me Gabby Gums’ real name!”

“Gabby Gums is actually Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom.”

I popped the back of the camera open, exposing the film and ruining the pictures. It would look suspicious if he snapped a photo of me and I didn’t show up because of the whole vampire thing.

I tossed the camera back to him. “Thanks, kid.”

Walking back into the spa, I said, “I found out who Gabby Gums is.”

“Already?” said Twilight in amazement.

“That’s right.” I turned to Rainbow. “And you thought you were fast.”

I told them what I had learned.

“I’ll destroy her!” screamed Rarity when I mentioned Sweetie Belle.

“Now calm down,” I said. “I’m sure we can use this for blackmail or something.”

“No,” said Twilight. “We need to stop this. I’m going to go down to the school and talk to Cheerilee.”

“I’ll come with,” I said.

“You’ll just make things worse.”

“You sound like my ex,” I grumbled.

“Which one?”

“The hostage negotiator.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Sometimes I wish somepony would take you hostage.”

Ouch. They should call me Mario, because I just got 1-up’d.

I left the handling of the Foal Free Press to the other ponies and went back to the library. I was still a little hungry, but decided that I had something to take care of first.

I had been in the process of fashioning a switchblade. While I would basically have to resort to holding it in my mouth, such a weapon had never before been seen in Equestria, and I hoped it would give me an edge.
...a knife edge.

Post Haste stopped by with a letter for me. It was a message from the Mares in Black. They informed me that the robots were going to be needed ahead of schedule. Something big was going down, and faster than expected.

I sighed. I would probably have to work all night. Still, there was nothing to do but get started.

Sometime later, I collapsed in exhaustion. The job wasn’t done, but it was closer. Strangely, I had an actual dream while I slept. I knew that it was a dream because I was reliving the night back at the bar before this whole crazy business started.

I had thought of the scene before. I couldn’t figure out why I kept coming back to it, but apparently my subconscious was trying to tell me something.

Let’s see, the tequila was just like I remembered. The unfriendly girl who wouldn’t take off her sunglasses was there. The disinterested bartender looked about the same. A whole bunch of people were partying. More tequila. It all ended with me stumbling home and going to sleep. After that, ponies.

I woke up from the dream in bed at home. First thing, I checked my mouth. No fangs.

I sighed. After everything that was happening in Equestria, coming home to my apartment felt like a vacation. A sudden thought gripped me. If I didn’t get back and keep working on the robots, I wasn’t going to get paid!

I felt like I was playing Farmville or something. The money didn’t feel “real.” Still, it was something to work for, and I was kind of curious to find out what the big evil deal was all about.

I had to get to sleep fast, and I knew just the way to do that. I started lacing up my shoes in preparation to go to the local bottle shop, but glanced at the clock. It was a few minutes past midnight on Sunday morning. I couldn’t buy alcohol.

“Hey,” I shouted. “Do we have any liquor around here?”

“Check the kitchen cabinets,” answered my roommate. “Also, shut up and go to bed.”

I got up and went to find the stashed hooch. It turned out to be a plastic 1.75 liter bottle of the cheapest vodka available. It was almost full because my roommate didn’t drink it, either.

Now, tequila and I had our ups and downs, but it was a working relationship. Vodka and I hated each other, and the cheaper the brew, the worse it got.

Still, it looked like I was out of other options. I sighed and carried the bottle back to bed with me.

Music always seemed to make the liquor quicker, so I grabbed my mp3 player and set the headphones down on my ears.

Here we stand

Worlds apart, hearts broken in two, two, two

Sleepless nights

Losing ground

I'm reaching for you, you, you

Yeah, I was totally a world apart, sleepless, losing ground, and trying to reach Equestria. Strange how appropriate the song turned out to be.

Someday love will find you

Break those chains that bind you

One night will remind you

How we touched

And went our separate ways

Okay, maybe those lyrics weren’t quite so accurate. I screwed the cap off the bottle and pinched my nose to keep from smelling the stuff. I had heard that it tasted like gasoline. Since I’d never drank this vodka before, I couldn’t say for sure.

Troubled times

Caught between confusions and pain, pain, pain

Distant eyes

Promises we made were in vain, vain, vain

Well, I was caught between confusion and pain, and I promised myself that I was going to get hammered, and not in vain. Huh, a nice little rhyme there.

I put the open top of the bottle in my mouth and upended it. It tasted even worse than I thought it would.

“Ugh,” I said, my voice sounding funny because of my pinched nose. I knew that one swig wasn’t going to do it, so I prepared for another.

I still love you girl

I really love you girl

And if he ever hurts you

True love won't desert you

No, No

“God, I hate Journey,” I muttered.

Author note:
I’m not afraid to admit that I actually put apple juice in my eyes in order to portray Valiant’s reaction as accurately as possible. I didn’t go so far as to drink to Separate Ways, though.

A Canterlot Wedding - part 1

I didn’t wake up that morning expecting to be lynched. Most people wouldn’t have. Unfortunately, I wasn’t most people. I was vampire pony who’d accidentally registered under the wrong fake name at a hotel.

While I hadn’t been anticipating any specific threats, I was at least prepared. History had shown that there really were ponies out to get me, so a reasonable amount of paranoia was justified.

When the angry Mustang family came knocking on my door, I went out the window. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that there were a dozen of them and they were armed with torches and pitchforks. There was also the added bonus of eliminating the need to pay my hotel bill.

I met up with my companions at the train station. The improved speed of the returning Friendship Express was welcome. I was eager to put Canterlot behind me.

Had I known what was about to go severely wrong in Equestria, I would have kidnapped the train crew and forced the locomotive to keep going as far away from Canterlot as humanly possible. Ponily possible. Whatever.

There was a picnic planned for when we got back. Spike showed up with a letter from Celestia. Everyone was invited to a wedding.

“I wonder who’s getting married?” asked Twilight.

“Your brother,” I said. I laughed at the shocked look on her face. “Oh my gosh, I have been waiting for this for so long. You have no idea.”

“I don’t understand!” she cried. “He’s my BBBFF. Why didn’t he tell me himself?”

All of us looked at her curiously. She rolled her eyes. “Big Brother Best Friend Forever. Before I came here and learned the importance of friendship, Shining Armor was the only pony I really accepted as a friend.”

“I have more friends that you do, Twilight, and that’s saying something.” It was only after I said that that I realized how bad it made me sound.

Anyway, Twilight broke into song with the other five ponies providing backup vocals. I got bored and thought about leaving, but decided to wait a little while and see if anything interesting would happen.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders came by. “What’s up?” I asked.

“We're goin’ to be flower girls for the wedding!” said Apple Bloom.

“You already know about it?”

“Word travels fast,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Fair enough. I don’t think that’s a good idea, though.”

“Why not?” asked Scootaloo.

“Have you ever been to a wedding before?”

They hadn’t.

“Good. Mostly, it’ll be stuffy formalities and little to no excitement. You three would be better off staying home.”

“Well, if you say so Valiant,” said Apple Bloom. “Come on, girls.” They left.

The song was over. “I think your brother sounds like a real nice guy,” said Applejack.

“I guess,” said Twilight. “They don’t just let anypony be Captain of the Royal Guard.”

“Let me get this straight,” said Rarity. “I get to make dresses for a Guard Captain too? Good thing I’ve been working on the bride's dress since Valiant told me about it.”

Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know about it?” she asked me.

“How didn’t you?” I said. “The rest of us knew.” The other ponies nodded in agreement.

Twilight groaned. “Well, I guess we should get started.”

We got back on the train. “Serious waste of resources, here,” I said. “Kind of terrible to get back from the dessert competition just to have a picnic and return to Canterlot.”

Nobody paid me any mind. “I get to host the bachelor party!” Spike was saying. I made a mental note to get him some booze to make things interesting.

I did manage to chat with Pinkie a little. "I have a theory!" she told me.

"Let's hear it."

"You know how everypony says that earth ponies have a kind of magic of their own?"

"Sure."

"Well, I'm the only pony I know who can use it!" She frowned. "Well, Applejack probably can too, but she's too honest to break the laws of physics. Anyway, nopony in Ponyville does either because all that randomness would be too much for one town to handle!"

"So the whole random behavior thing is just earth pony magic?"

"Yep!"

I thought about it. It did make sense, or at least more sense than any other explanation I'd ever heard for why Pinkie acted the way she did.

Pinkie looked out the window. “Hey, why is the castle inside a giant bubble?”

At the train station, Twilight stormed off to give Shining Armor a piece of her mind. Sounded like fun, so I went along.

She screamed at him for a little while as I stood in the background.

“I’m really sorry I couldn’t come to Ponyville to tell you,” he said. “Princess Celestia has ordered an increase in security because of a threat against Canterlot.”

I figured this was the big, evil event the Mares in Black had been preparing for. It made me wish I’d brought my switchblade. Oh wait, of course I did. Why wouldn't I have it with me everywhere?

Shining Armor revealed that he was the one keeping the bubble in place.

“Okay, I get it,” said Twilight. “You’ve got a big job protecting Canterlot with a forcefield only you can conjure up.”

“Uh, didn’t you do something like that to keep the Cutie Mark Crusaders out of the library when they were snooping for Gabby Gums articles?” I said. “And surely the Princesses can do it, too.”

“Who’s this?” asked Shining Armor, sounding offended.

“Hi, I’m Valiant, the local badass.”

“I’ve never heard of you,” he said.

“Well, local to Ponyville anyway. I hang out with your sister and keep her out of trouble.”

“What are you talking about?” shouted Twilight.

“Hey, calm down,” said Shining Armor. “Don’t get all worked up before the wedding.”

“Speaking of, who are you marrying, anyway?” asked Twilight.

“It’s Cadance,” he said.

“Oh, my old foalsitter!” said Twilight. “That's great! She's so special. How many ponies can just spread love wherever they go?”

“If that’s her unique talent,” I said, “how do we know this marriage is consensual?”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” said a voice. A multicolored, but mostly pink, pony appeared. Cadance, I presumed.

I realized that if I stayed, I’d probably insult the bride and have the whole Royal Guard after me, so I took a walk. See, sometimes I make smart choices.

I encountered Spike in the kitchen. “Where the hell did you even get action figures of the bride and groom?” I asked.

“Oh, these go on the cake,” he explained.

“Cool. I’m going to go see if I can find Blueblood and put a stake in his heart.”

“All right—wait, what?”

“Nevermind.”

I was unsuccessful in my search, and eventually admitted defeat. Someday, you bloodsucker. I met up with everyone that evening.

Twilight complained bitterly about Princess Cadance.

“I thought you liked her,” I said.

“But she’s changed! It’s like she doesn’t even remember me! She’s being fake, and totally insincere.”

“That isn’t too different from, say, Rarity,” I said, “but you make a good case. I’ll go get my wedding-ruining kit.”

“You have a kit for that?” asked Spike.

“It’s called starting a fire in the event hall.”

“Don’t do that,” said Twilight. “I’ll sort this out.”

“Oh, all right.” I rolled my eyes.

While Twilight was gone, a messenger came by to recruit the other five ponies as bridesmaids. Rarity quickly whipped up some outfits for them.

“We’ll have to see about getting outfits for the new flower girls,” she said. “Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were supposed to do it, but they had something else going on.”

“I heard Derpy is doing flowers,” said Rainbow.

“That sounds like a terrible idea,” I said.

The pegasus shrugged. “I saw her in Canterlot earlier. It must be true.”

Twilight seemed very surprised when she got back.

“We’re the new bridesmaids!” said Applejack.

“New ones? What happened to the old ones?” Twilight shook her head. “Never mind that, Shining Armor’s in real trouble! You have to help!”

They told her she was overreacting.

“What kind of trouble is he in?” I asked.

Twilight turned to me. “I saw Cadance using a spell on him. I think it might be some kind of mind control!”

“Fair enough.” I cracked my neck. “Let’s go tear this bitch a new one.”

“A new what?”

I rolled my eyes. “Let’s ruin her.”

Twilight nodded and we were about to leave when another messenger came by asking us to report to the event center for the wedding rehearsal. It sounded like a good opportunity to confront the Princess.

Well, Twilight blew it. She accused Cadance of being evil in front of everyone, and Shining Armor tore her a new one.

I was left alone in the hall with a despondent Twilight. I didn’t really want to see her tears, so I told her, “Stop it.”

“I can’t!” she wailed. “I made a terrible mistake. I’m so sorry.”

“You will be,” said Cadance, who had returned silently. Her horn lit up and a ring of green fire drew a circle on the carpet around us.

“Well, if it’s any consolation Twilight, I believe you now,” I said.

Cadance walked away, chuckling evilly to herself. I made a move to jump over the ring of fire and go after her, but Twilight stopped me. “You have no idea what this stuff is. Escape might be impossible. Why would she just walk away if she thought that you could get out?”

“Well, what do you suggest we do? Hey, did you feel that?” The floor beneath us appeared to be shifting.

“Oh, this isn’t good!” said Twilight. “I think this is a ground collapse spell! We have to get out of here before we get dropped into the huge caverns beneath the castle!”

“Like I said before, what do you suggest we do?”

Twilight’s horn lit up, probing the magic that held us. “I think I can use a teleportation spell…but it will only work for one of us.”

“Well, I always knew my bad deeds would catch up with me,” I said. “I just never thought I would find myself about to fall into a giant cave through magical means and the only unicorn who could help hates my guts.”

“Actually,” said Twilight. “you’re the only pony who believed me when I found out Cadance was evil. For that I…I owe you something.” Her horn glowed brighter and in a flash I was back in Ponyville.

I sat up from dirt where I had ended up. “I’ve said it before,” I muttered to myself, “but I don’t think any situation has ever called for a statement regarding the reality of excrement more than this one.” I sighed. “Shit just got real.”

I picked myself up and made some quick plans. While I felt no particular reason to oppose whatever mischief Cadance was up to, I was determined to pay her back for forcing Twilight into that ground collapsing spell. That was some really nice carpet she ruined.

“Hey, Post!” I shouted. The mailpony in question happened to be walking down the street towards me.

“How’s it going, Valiant?” he said.

“Canterlot’s got an evil wedding going on, and I’m about to go beat the bride into a pulp.”

He nodded slowly.

“Want to help?” I asked.

“I’m only authorized to take extreme physical measures in relation to mail delivery,” he said.

“Hang on.” I went to get the panzerfaust replica I had built. The old German rocket launcher only carried one shot, but I wasn’t taking it into combat. I filled out an address label for Princess Celestia and stuck it to the weapon.

“So if Celestia was under attack, you’d fight your way through the crowd to deliver this?” I asked.

Post nodded seriously. “Neither wind nor rain nor armed assailants stop the Royal Mail Service from completing our deliveries.”

“Right on. Can I offer you a ride?” I pointed to the row of six combat robots that I had built at the behest of the Mares in Black, and the extra one that I'd built for me.

Post was okay with that, so I gave him some basic training with the controls and let him practice while I went to look for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. While I didn’t think they were mature enough to participate in a wedding, there were few ponies who I trusted more with advanced weapons of destruction. Screwy, ain’t it?

The three fillies were in their treehouse at Sweet Apple Acres. They quickly agreed to come with me and bring some pain to Cadance.

I saw Braeburn nearby. “Hey, you want to help save and/or ruin a wedding?” I asked.

“I don’t know if I’m qualified.” He’d been really down since I’d implanted cybernetics into his body. It’s like he didn’t want to be half-robot or something.

“Look, I know you’re feeling all depressed about being seen in public. This is going to be a formal event, so you’ve got an excuse to wear clothes so nobody will be the wiser.”

“Well, since you put it that way, I guess I can help,” he said, rather reluctantly.

I nodded. “Thanks.” I did a quick mental checklist. I had Post committed to the job, or at least as long as it took to deliver the special package. The Crusaders were with me, and Braeburn would probably go along with it if I forced him. That left one robot unaccounted for.

I instantly thought of Derpy. Her independent eyes would be an advantage in combat, but she was in Canterlot and unavailable. The Elements of Harmony and Spike were also out of reach. I reviewed a couple of other names.

“Who should I pick?” I muttered.

Author note:
Please answer Valiant’s question. Which Ponyville resident do you want to see piloting a combat robot? You have until 0200 UTC on April 23 (about 27 hours from the upload time of this chapter)

A Canterlot Wedding - part 2

Before we begin, I'd like to thank those who helped, both here and in the rest of the story.
It's a little sad that A Dream is going on hiatus and I'll have to go back to writing my own material instead of just copying the show. Oh well. Have fun with this chapter, everyone. I know I did.

“Hey Doc! I need some help!”

Doctor Whooves glanced up from his meal at the café. “Can it wait until I’m finished?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so. What do you know about giant robots?”

He shrugged. “Destroying or piloting?”

"What's that mean?" I asked suspiciously.

"Uh, nothing."

“Good enough. Come on.” We went over to the library where the rest of the team was assembled.

Cheerilee appeared blocked my path. “Valiant, what are you doing with those fillies?” She indicated the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

“They’re going to be traveling to Canterlot with me to help defeat an evil Princess who for some reason wants to marry Twilight Sparkle’s brother.”

“I don’t think that’s in their best interests.”

“It’s not a school day. Shove off, titch.” I grinned. “Do you like what I did there? It’s a portmanteau of teacher and bitch.” I tried to push past her, but she surprised me with a hoof to the face so fast I never saw it coming.

“Nopony puts my students in danger!” she shrieked.

I picked myself up, hoping my jaw wasn’t broken. “Aside from all those other times that I did?”

She advanced on me angrily, but the Crusaders stopped her.

“But Ms. Cheerilee, we want to do this!” protested Apple Bloom.

“Canterlot isn’t going to save itself,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Well, it might,” said Scootaloo. The other two gave her a look. “But we should totally go make sure!” she added. “You can chaperone!”

Cheerilee’s eyes cut back and forth, considering her options.

“We haven’t got all day,” I said. “You can either be a boring school teacher or you can be a badass in a combat robot.”

She glared at me, although it didn’t hold the same intensity as before. “Let’s go.”

I found Twilight’s supply of magic earmuffs. The long distance communication ability was a great thing to have, and she’d enchanted several pairs of them just in case.

I checked to make sure I had my switchblade and firestarting kit. I considered telling Mr. and Mrs. Cake that it was a gay wedding that we were going to, but I didn't because I wasn't sure if they would want to help tear things up or just boycott it.

I walked out to the robot that had been designated mine. I found Cheerilee already there, much to my annoyance. “Couldn’t you get a ride with one of the fillies?” I asked.

“Well I’m sorry, but maybe you hadn’t considered that I don’t know anything about these robots!”

“Then why did you agree to come?”

“Because you peer-pressured me into it!”

I shrugged. “So you get a good story to tell for your next anti-bully lecture. Are we done here?”

She glared at me, but slid over to make room. These new robots were really highly advanced if I did say so myself, a far cry from the steam-powered prototypes I used to build. I really wanted that government contract.

“Radio check,” I said.

“What’s a radio?” asked Apple Bloom.

I sighed. “Magical earmuff check.”

All the ponies reported in. “All right,” I said, “set thrusters to takeoff power and proceed to flight level 38.”

“What’s that mean?” asked Braeburn.

“Push the big red button and hang on.”

“Also,” said the Doctor, “what measurement system is that flight level in?”

“U.S. units.”

"Bugger," he muttered.

“What’s a U.S.?” asked Scootaloo.

“No more questions!” I shouted. “I’m leaving, and if you don’t follow me, too bad!” I slammed my hoof down of the thruster controls and the robot leaped off the ground on a column of fire.

I was pleased to see Cheerilee get shoved against the back wall of the cockpit by the acceleration. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I saw the three Crusaders following, along with Post Haste and the Doctor, with Braeburn bringing up the rear.

I got a warm fuzzy feeling as I led the formation. The only thing cooler than seven flying robots would be if they were all stuck together in one giant Megazord-like conglomeration. Yeah, Pony Rangers would be awesome. I am unashamed of my childhood TV habits.

Even giant, unaerodynamic robots can fly pretty fast when you strap rockets to them. The trip to Canterlot was relatively short.

“Are we there yet?” complained Sweetie Belle.

Relatively short.

I wasn’t sure what to make of the pink bubble surrounding the castle. I flew the robot closer and tried to look for a way in. The guards posted around the marked entrances did not appear to like the idea of letting in a robot, no matter whose side we might be on.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to punch though. It’s only magic, right?”

“That sounds like a terrible plan,” observed the Doctor. "Brilliantly terrible, but still pretty terrible."

"Well, what would you do?" I shot back.

"Eh, wing it?"

“Well, poor planning hasn’t killed me yet.” I shoved the throttle forward and sped towards the barrier.

“Poor planning might kill me!” shrieked Cheerilee.

I turned my head to look at her. “Oops…”

I don’t know exactly how many pieces the robot shattered into when it slammed into the magical pink bubble, but I don’t think a billion million would be out of the question. Being inside all of that carnage kind of sucked, if I do say so myself.

On the other hand, we did get through. As I fell to the ground amid bits of metal and Cheerilee, I saw the other robots make it through the hole before the bubble started to repair itself.

I saw a lavender hoof flailing through the air in my peripheral vision as I was falling, and I grabbed onto it. A small, deep pond located in the castle garden came rushing up to meet me.

I honestly don’t remember much about what happened next, but it involved a lot of hurt and moisture. I ended up someplace dark and dry. I could only assume there was some kind of underwater entrance to a cavern beneath the pond.

“Whew, some ride, huh, Cheerilee?” I said, gasping between the waves of pain.

In reply, all I got was a small cough.

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad.” I felt around and touched a hoof. “Come on, get up.” I pulled on the hoof and it moved. I kept pulling until I got to the end of the leg and found that there wasn’t a body attached.

“Um…well, shit. Cheerilee?”

I heard another faint noise nearby and used it to track her down. She seemed to be both breathing and bleeding. It smelled awesome. It didn't feel so awesome to think that I thought that it smelled awesome. I think.

Using the small sharp piece of flint in my firestarting kit, I hacked off a generous portion of her mane and squeezed the water out. After a couple of attempts, I got it to light up.

I immediately wished I hadn’t. Being able to see made me both more nauseous and way more hungry. She was a mess.

“Can you keep a secret?” I asked her. I couldn’t tell if she nodded between gasping breaths.

“I’m a vampire.” Once again, she gave basically no reaction.

“I would really, really like to drink your blood.” Nothing. In fact, she may have just stopped breathing.

I fidgeted. “Saynoifyoudon’twantmetodothat.” I dove in.

Holy shit you guys, pony blood is delicious. And oh my God, the self-loathing that comes with it is insane. I cried happy and I cried sad, like those theater masks you sometimes see.

It was only after the burning hair went out that I realized how bad burning hair smells. In the darkness, I felt like throwing up, although that had nothing to do with the odor. I didn’t upchuck, though, for some reason.

Oh, hey, suddenly I felt better. Seems like a little drink was just what I needed. I’d just committed an unholy sin, no big deal. Oh my God, I was a terrible pony.

Well, if I was going to Hell, I might as well get on with it. I trotted away through the cavern, and soon came upon Twilight and Princess Cadance. They were talking and laughing.

“Ahem,” I said.

“Valiant, what are you doing here?”

“I came back for you. Are you proud of me?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Well, this doesn’t really help, being stuck in this cave.”

“What if I told you I’ve got six combat robots topside outfitted with drilling equipment?”

“That would be great.”

“Too bad, they aren't equipped with anything like that at all.”

Twilight gaped at me. “The one time in my life when I wish you were crazier, and you disappoint me.”

I shrugged. “Anyway, I can still kick Cadance’s ass all by myself.” I took a step towards the Princess.

Twilight blocked me. “Wait, this is the real Cadance. The other one was an imposter.”

I shrugged again. “Point me that way. I’ll kick her ass instead.”

“We have a bit of a problem,” observed Cadance. “The cave exit is up there,” she pointed a hoof at the ceiling, “but I can’t carry both of you.”

“I have a spell for that,” said Twilight. “Hold still, Valiant.” Her horn put out a burst of magic, and I felt something on my back.

“Did you just give me wings?”

“I sure did. Let’s get out of here.” Cadance grabbed Twilight and carried her upwards.

I flexed muscles I hadn’t had until recently and somehow floated off the ground. Seemed natural enough. Unnaturally natural. Anyway.

We popped out behind a hidden door inside the castle. In the light, Twilight gasped.

“Why are you covered in blood?”

“Huh? Oh, um…” I glanced back over my body and did a little gasp of my own.

“Why do I have freaking butterfly wings?”

“It’s the only kind I know how to make,” said Twilight.

“Cadance could have made a second trip for me," I pointed out. "Take ‘em off right now!”

“We don’t have time for this arguing,” said Cadance. “We need to stop the wedding.”

I rolled my eyes. “Fine.”

The three of us burst into the event hall. The crowd gasped.

“I’m speaking now and not holding my peace!” I shouted. Twilight glared at me.

I shrugged. “Sorry, once in a lifetime opportunity.”

“I don’t understand,” said Applejack, looking back and forth between the Cadance beside me and the one at the altar. “How can there be two of ‘em?”

“She’s a Changeling!” said the Cadance at my end of the room. “She takes the form of somepony you love and gains power by feeding off your love for them!”

The imposter Cadance laughed, changing into her true form. “Right you are, Princess! And as Queen of the Changelings, I—”

“"Yo Queen, I'm happy for you," I said, walking up the aisle. "I'm gonna let you finish, but you are clearly the most hideous thing of all time."

I cleared my throat. “Now, I’m no art critic. I abide by my own opinions of beauty. But I think that anyone here would say that you are the largest single concentration of pure ugly this side of the sun.”

The crowd murmured in agreement. Shining Armor stood there, seemingly oblivious to everything. I assumed he was under some kind of spell.

“I mean, Jesus Christ, did the doctor slap your parents when you were born?” I said.

Ms. Queen-of-the-Changelings seemed remarkably unaffected by my comment. “No matter," she said with a shake of her head. "Even now, my minions are chipping away at the protective spell placed around the castle. Soon, they will break through. First we take Canterlot, and then all of Equestria!”

“No, you won’t,” said Celestia, who for some reason had been merely observing quietly until then. “You may have made it impossible for Shining Armor to perform his spell, but I can protect my subjects from you!”

“Citizens,” I corrected.

Celestia shot me a glare. While her attention was diverted, she got blasted backwards by a bolt of energy from the Changeling, who then grinned at Cadance. “Shining Armor’s love for you is even stronger than I thought. Consuming it has made me even more powerful than Celestia!”

“Well, we’re all boned now,” I said. “Nice knowing you guys.” I may be a macho hothead, but I have amazing self-preservation skills. I ran away.

As I exited the wedding hall and went someplace quieter, I reflected on the life choices that had led to me being turned into a vampire butterfly pony, and how exactly I had managed to get involved with some kind of love-sucking fiends. Hmm. Interesting subject. I’d noticed that the Changeling Queen seemed to have fangs. Was this a variant of a vampire?

Speaking of bloodsuckers, I caught a glimpse of Prince Blueblood. He, too, appeared to be fleeing the scene. I saw him disappear through the doorway that Cadance, Twilight, and I had come out of.

Well, at least this day hadn't been a total waste. I sprinted towards the door.

Wait a minute, why was I running? I had these gay wings, I might as well use them. I flittered after Blueblood as fast as I could.

Down in the caves, I tried to make up the distance between us. I may have been going a little too fast, though, because it didn’t take much effort on Blueblood’s part to stick out a hoof and clothesline me.

I fell to the ground, out cold.

“He’s waking up!” called a voice. My vision was blurry and all I could see was a white ceiling.

“Huh?”

A face came into view. “Sir, do you know how much you had to drink?”

“Well, clearly not enough. I’m not in Equestria anymore.”

The man frowned. “It's only pure luck that your roommate found you and brought you in before you died. You’ve got a severe case of alcohol poisoning. We’ve got you on dialysis to get it out of your system.”

I grabbed his arm as well as I could manage. “I have to fight the vampire pony. Put it back in!”

He twisted out of my grip. “Nurse, can we get some sedative over here for an unruly patient?”

“That works, too,” I said. The nurse came over with a syringe and emptied it into my IV.

I woke up back in the cave, inches from the edge of a steep drop.

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” Blueblood said as he stood over me. “You even made me nervous once or twice.”

“Yeah, the vampire killing was going pretty good there for a while,” I said. "So why did you do it?"

"The Changelings aren't so bad," he said. "They feed on love, I feed on blood. We're both vampires, just slightly different."

"Vamps got to hang together, huh? Just how did you plan that?"

Blueblood shrugged. “I plan for everything.”

Well, he sure wasn’t planning on me popping open my switchblade and cutting his throat. He fell to his knees, making gurgling noises.

“I’ve been thinking about this moment for a long time,” I told him. “I never really came up with a plan for how I wanted to end you, though. I could just stab you repeatedly until you keel over. I could break off your horn and impale you with it.”

He said something, but it was too faint to hear.

“What was that?” I leaned closer, cocking my head to listen. The bastard bit my ear.

I instinctively kicked out, and he went flying over the edge of the cliff. I looked over the side and saw him stuck neatly on a stalagmite. Then he exploded.

“I’ll never get used to that,” I muttered, wiping some blood off. I swished my tongue around my mouth. No more fangs.

My ear still hurt, though. Minor complaint. I had to get back to the business of saving my skin. I turned around and ran smack into Cheerilee.

“Um, hi,” I said.

“What just happened?” she asked.

“Remember that whole ‘I’m a vampire’ thing? Well, I killed Blueblood who turned Rarity, who turned me, and now I’m not a vampire anymore, and Rarity probably isn’t either.”

“Did you turn me?”

“Um, well, since you’re not dead, I guess, maybe?”

Cheerilee had glared at me in the past and I felt nothing. This time, I got the feeling that she was staring into my soul and repeatedly giving it a knuckle sandwich.

“You turned back,” she said, slowly, dangerously. “Why…didn’t…I?”

“Eeep!” I shot into the air, and out of reach. No way was I going to let an angry, vampire, Cheerilee get her hooves on me. I flew out of the cave.

Outside, there was some kind of attack carrying on that resembled orbital bombardment. Jets of green light kept smashing into things. Little black Changelings, each uglier than the last, were everywhere.

I caught my reflection in a shard of broken mirror lying on the ground. Blueblood’s fang had punched a trim little hole in my ear. I sighed. I’d have to get an earring now. If I chose right, I would look like a pirate. If I chose wrong, I would look like a douchebag.

I went on. I saw Derpy hanging out, looking remarkably calm. Her eyes moved in different directions, watching the carnage around her.

“Is there something wrong with you?” I said. “Run!”

“Oh, no, I’m with them,” she said.

“What?”

“Yeah, I work in the delivery business. It wasn’t hard to sneak the Queen into the castle in a box. Blueblood signed for the shipment."

"Why did you do it?" I asked.

"Well, mind control, but also the Queen set me up with some cool gear to travel time and space.” Derpy showed me a rock, which I recognized as the ugly piece of basalt that had plagued me for so long. It made sense that ugly Changelings would have an ugly rock.

“Wait, so you dropped that piano on Twilight on purpose? Did you then kill your coworker Merry May and send us her body parts?”

“Yes and Yes,” she confirmed.

“One problem,” I said. “That’s the rock that I found in my pocket in the human world.”

“Oh yeah, due to the time paradox thing there's multiple copies of it. I went to earth and slipped one into your pocket while you were getting drunk. You coming to Equestria was just the distraction we needed to start the whole process. Did you enjoy the multiverse, sucker?"

My mind flashed back to the bar, remembering the girl who didn't take off her sunglasses…because her eyes were messed up.

“Oh my God, I was so stupid, I should have seen the clues all along!” I said.

“Don’t feel bad,” said Derpy. “I don’t even know what’s going on half the time. They’ve got some kind of mental control on me, and they keep calling me Ditzy Doo.”

“So…you’re doing this against your will like you’re possessed or something?”

“Pretty much.”

I had very little experience with possessions. I always wondered if Catholics were the only ones who performed exorcisms because they were the only ones trained to do it, or if they were the only ones that needed it.

Either way, I definitely wasn’t on orders from the Vatican, so I backhoofed Derpy across the face. Her eyes rolled around in their sockets.

“Do you feel better?” I asked, hoping she’d snapped out of whatever she was in.

“No! I just realized how many ponies I’ve murdered for my Changeling overlords!”

I shrugged. “Well, the truth sometimes hurts. Anyway, I’m off.” I flittered away.

There was one heck of a fight going on in the castle courtyard. The Elements of Harmony had dropped the whole “Friendship is Magic” idea and were resorting to fistfighting. Hooffighting. Whatever.

There were dozens if not hundreds of Changelings around, and they were all shapeshifting like mad. One of them even tried to be me, but I cut that bitch.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders and Doctor Whooves entered the battlefield with their robots.

“Hey guys,” I said.

“Valiant, where’d you get those wings?” called Scootaloo.

“Long story. Where’s Post and Braeburn?”

“Post went to deliver the mail,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Braeburn said somethin’ about being self-conscious and went down to the caves to sulk,” added Apple Bloom.

“It’s nice to chat,” said the Doctor, “but we appear to have a slight problem.” He gestured to the giant crowd of Changelings.

“Oh, right. Words can sometimes be weapons, but weapons are always weapons. All of you are piloting giant robots and you’re in a target-rich environment. Just do what comes naturally.”

After that, the Battle of Canterlot was over pretty quickly. Even when the Changeling reinforcements showed up, it was no big deal. Sure, with all the shapeshifting we did have a few friendly fire incidents, but nothing major.

I now saw why Luna and the Mares in Black had wanted me to build the robots. The Elements of Harmony would have been useless against creatures that fed upon love.

"But Princess Celestia told me to go find the Elements!" said Twilight when I told her that.

I shrugged. "Celestia must not have been in the loop. This was Luna's project, after all."

There was still scattered resistance to mop up, namely the Changeling Queen, but I saw no reason why that should be difficult.

That is, until Derpy smashed into me and knocked me out of the air. I landed wrong, and the thin gossamer of one wing was torn completely away. It didn’t hurt because it was only a magical construct, but I was grounded. Figuring Derpy was back under the control of the Changelings, I kicked her hard. She flew off me, straight into the path of one of the green lightning bolts falling from the sky. I saw burned feathers fly everywhere.

“Oh. Damn,” I said. I really hadn’t intended for that to happen.

Twilight and friends ran up. “Did she just attack you?” said Rainbow.

“Yeah.” I briefly explained everything Derpy had told me.

“Oh that poor dear!” said Rarity. “We have to track her down and fix her.”

The googly-eyed mare had dissapeared.

“I don’t see where she went,” said Applejack. “How did she get away if her wings were fried?”

“Allow ZZ Top to answer your question,” I said. I took a deep breath and sung a line.

“She’s got legs and she knows how to use them…”

All of the ponies stared at me blankly. I shook my head. “Nevermind. Let’s go find the Queen.”

The eleven of us, four in giant robots, must have looked pretty awesome as we burst into the wedding room. The Doctor attempted to enter without taking out a wall, but the Crusaders didn’t bother.

Princess Celestia was inside a transparent green cocoon hanging from the ceiling. It looked like the panzerfaust Post had delivered was inside with her.

The Changeling Queen sighed. “Are you ponies actually going to make things interesting and fight me? The last one who showed up only made Celestia sign for a package and then he left.”

“We’re here to stop you,” said Twilight, stepping forward.

The Queen laughed. “You’ve certainly plowed through a lot of my minions, and Prince Blueblood. You also appear to have taken out my dimension-hopping pony helper, Derpy,” she said. “Very efficient, really.” The Queen smiled. “But there’s still me, and I’m more powerful than any of you!” She laughed for a little bit.

“Cut the dramatic laughter,” I said. “It makes us take you less seriously.”

The Queen shot me a look. “But it’s funny, really. Twilight here was suspicious of my behavior from the very beginning. The rest of you were so involved with wedding planning that you didn’t notice!”

As usual, Applejack was the first in line to apologize. “Sorry Twi, we shoulda listened to you.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Twilight. “She fooled everypony.”

“I did, didn’t I?” The Queen walked over to the window. She started to sing.

“This day has been just perfect. The kind I’ve dreamed of since I was small. Every pony I’ll soon control, every stallion, mare, and foal. Who says a girl can’t really have it all?”

“That would be me,” I said. “Also, your song sucks.”

The Queen whirled around to glare at me, but caught sight of Twilight halfway across the room on her way to rescue Cadance. The Changeling's horn began to glow, and it looked like she about to fry Twilight or something.

Up in the cocoon on the ceiling, I saw Celestia twitch. There was a little flash of light as the panzerfaust disappeared.

Spike looked ill, and then he vomited the rocket launcher out at my feet.

“Cool, thanks.” I picked it up. I had suitably modified the design for hooves and had no problem getting it into firing position.

The Changeling Queen realized I had some kind of weapon, but was too slow. I fired. The warhead hit her square in the chest and knocked her backwards out the window before it exploded.

We all stood there for a minute in stunned silence. The remaining Changelings decided that they should probably leave.

I dropped the empty launch tube. “That worked even better than I thought. Well, we should probably go on with the wedding now.”

We got Celestia down. “I’ll be fine,” she said. It didn’t look like it to me.

“Just take it easy,” I said. “I’ve got this.”

“You can marry a couple?” said Celestia, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, I’ve never actually done it before, but I am ordained, so it’s legal. One of my exes was a minister.”

We went up to the altar. I’m not sure Cadance and Shining Armor were too pleased with the arrangement, but this whole thing was their fault in the first place. If their love was really so strong, I figured they would have noticed an imposter. Oh well, if the passion had gone out of the marriage before it had even begun it wasn’t my fault.

“Do you have vows prepared?” I asked.

“I’ve been sitting in a cave for the past few days,” Cadance reminded me.

“All right, let’s go on. Shining Armor, do you take this mare to be your wife?”

“I do.”

“Princess Mi Amore Ca-whatever the hell your name is, do you take this stallion to be your husband?”

“I do.”

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. Kiss and make up, you’re probably going to need it.” I looked around. “Where are the rings?”

“Spike’s down for the count,” said Twilight. She levitated the wedding bands over and gave them to the couple.

I walked off the altar and over to the dragon, who looked sick.

“Ugh,” said Spike. “I never want to do anything like that again. What was it that you called that thing? Pants-her-first?”

“Panzerfaust.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It’s just a word.” I shrugged. “Panzerfaust, Lauren Faust. Whatever.”

“Who’s Lauren Faust?” he asked.

“Ex girlfriend. All she wanted to do was draw cartoons instead of have sexytimes, so I dumped her.”

I looked around. The wedding hadn’t exactly been saved, but it had at least been salvaged. There were still a few loose ends to tie up, though.

We discovered Derpy at the local muffin shop. As it turned out, she hadn't been injured too badly and was in the mood to talk now that control over her had been lifted.

The whole time-traveling messup had been caused by the time paradox Twilight had accidentally created by having her future self die in the Canterlot Archive fire.

The time traveling also neatly explained how the Twiminator robot had been sent back from the future to do…something. We weren’t really sure what. Maybe just take Twilight's place so I wouldn’t kill the real one. I wondered if my female time-and-space-traveling-badass counterpart from the other universe had anything to do with it.

Discord saying that Twilight was the main character had been a mystery, but Derpy helped us clear that up, too. The Draconequus had basically been a pawn in the game, and had been manipulated by Derpy of all ponies, which was actually kind of funny when you thought about it. It had been her that had told Discord that I was human. She’d gotten her eyes crossed while reading her notes, though, and accidentally told him that Twilight was the main character. The real main character was actually Diamond Tiara. That only applied to the show that DT watched in her mind, though.

“None of this makes any damned sense,” I said. “Aren’t there easier ways of traveling time and space?”

“If there were, don’t you think Derpy would have taken them?” said Doctor Whooves. "Those were terrible things the Changelings had her doing. I think she needs some rest and recuperation. Trust me, I'm a Doctor."

We were interrupted by Braeburn showing up in his robot. He was carrying an angry Cheerilee in the metal manipulators.

“Um, I think something’s wrong with her. She tried to bite me.”

Rarity and I glanced at each other. She flashed a quick smile that didn’t show any fangs. Maybe my vampire saliva had only gone to work on Cheerilee after Blueblood was dead. As Twilight had once explained to me, blood-borne ailments weren't exactly a science in Equestria.

"Just put her in a cage or something," I told Braeburn. "We'll take care of her later."

I turned back to everyone else. “Well, I had fun, and I usually hate weddings. When’s the reception?”

“It was scheduled for tonight,” said Twilight. “I think it may have been canceled in the turmoil.”

I sighed. “Guess I have to save the afterparty, too. Get these wings off me, Twilight. I’ve got work to do.”

“Actually,” said Twilight, “you aren’t a legal resident of Equestria, and so your ordination isn’t recognized here.”

“So…I didn't save the wedding, I actually ruined it worse by falsely marrying them?”

“Well, yes, but at the moment it’s probably easier if we just gloss over it and go straight to the party.”

“That may be the coolest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Twilight.”

Princess Luna showed up later. She seemed a little tipsy.

“What did I miss?” she asked.

“You really skipped a freaking war?” I said.

“Well, Spike had a keg of something at the bachelor party, and he invited me to have a drink.” I had gotten the dragon straightened out on when the bachelor party was supposed to occur. Luna apparently had been plastered since the night before. While ordinarily I wouldn't recommend raising the moon while hammered, nothing bad appeared to have happened.

I nodded to Luna. "Well, I'm glad you had a good time." She thanked me and walked away, stumbling slightly.

Photo Finish popped in and tried to take my picture. Admittedly, it was better than if she was around when I was sporting iridescent fluttery wings. I broke her latest camera and sent her on her way.

Spike said, "I've been meaning to thank you for helping with the bachelor party."

"Did you all have a good time?"

"Oh yeah. In fact, I think some of the guards are still drunk."

Well, that explained their lackluster reaction to the Changeling invasion.

“There’s still some left in the keg," said Spike.

“Cool, let’s drink.”

And then everybody but me got laid.

The Crystal Empire - part 1

Author note:
Want to catch up on stuff Valiant did between seasons 2 and 3? Check out Stuff Valiant Did Between Seasons 2 and 3. You don’t have to read it, but hey, why not more Valiant?

And without further ado, welcome to another season of A Dream.
I got your crack right here.

The sidewalk had no idea of the awesomeness that was happening on top of it. I swaggered a little as I walked, moving to the beat of Stayin’ Alive in my head. I’m usually not much for disco, but made an exception this time. It was that kind of day.

After obtaining enough gold to finally get Valiantco™ Industries off the ground, business had actually sort of taken off. Ponies wanted this petroleum stuff, not to mention a few of the other products.

The gold had come from an around-the-world sailing trip I had taken with the Elements of Harmony and Spike. The eight of us had done all the proper pirate things, including finding long-lost treasure.

At any rate, my cut of the money helped my financial situation a lot. Heck, it created my financial situation. Twilight had been happy to see me get off her couch and move to Las Pegasus. I had taken out a mortgage on an old building in Ponyville formerly used by a clockwork company that I had once suspected of building terminator robots that looked like Twilight. When the company had folded mysteriously, I had also gotten a hold of their new location in Las Pegasus.

I had been suspicious of Hoofnmouth Industries for a long time. When their future selves could have possibly built a time-traveling robot, anyone would have been apprehensive of them. A thought occurred to me, however. Perhaps now that I owned their building, I myself would eventually build said robot. Maybe I would send it back in time to troll myself. Sounded like something I would do.

But in the meantime, I was living large and not being discrete about it. I hadn’t forgotten my little friends, though. I had projects running back in Ponyville.

I knew that oil wouldn’t last forever, and had already begun work on its replacement. I might as well be the first in line, right? That was where the Ponyville Industrial Nuclear Powerplant came in. The PINP, as I liked to call it, was not yet in working condition and probably would not be for quite a while.

I once built this atom bomb, see, but it’s not that easy or quick to convert all that weapons-grade uranium into something less volatile.

It was lucky that Equestria had no nuclear inspectors or I would be in trouble. That’s what happens when you design a nuclear power plant without any knowledge of the subject and embed explosives in the walls just in case. If there were inspectors, I could just PINP-slap them with a Big Bag O’ Bribe Bits (BBOBB-acronym patent pending).

Such wealth and privilege did not come without burdens, however. Ponies were always asking me for donations and stuff. Hey, I earned this fair and square. Perhaps not honestly, but definitely fair and square. Also, it was a lot of work that sometimes put me in more than just a lot of danger.

Speaking of danger, a few bandits had actually tried to make off with me a couple of times. Not the same bandits of course, I killed the first couple in legitimate self-defense, but for some reason kidnappers just kept coming.

I was beginning to suspect some kind of conspiracy.

But, all the way back to me walking on the sidewalk to the tune of an old disco song, a kidnapping attempt hadn’t happened yet today, so I was in a good mood. I stopped by my postbox and picked up the mail before heading inside.

The building was once an industrial facility and was still fairly new. Basically take a large building with a few very large rooms that have high ceilings. Give yourself a big salary. You’ll have to imagine what you would do with it, but I didn’t have to. It was awesome.

I had all the garage space I could want for my various vehicles, as well as all the stuff I had wanted on Earth but was too poor to afford.

That reminded me, what was I currently doing on Earth? Probably still in the hospital. It had been a while since I’d last “woken up” from Equestria. Considering that I’d been in the middle of a binge drinking detox, yeah, the hospital seemed likely. Best place for me if they thought I’d gone into a coma by not responding for so long.

It raised a few questions about the trans-dimensional ramifications of my condition and what I would ultimately choose if I had to. Sure, Equestria wasn’t home, but I was rich here.

I sorted the mail as I walked past my VTOL aircraft, various robots, a dune buggy, a train that sat on rubber tires, and a crude replica of a NASCAR-spec racer. That last one was an attempt to cash in on the untapped sports market of Equestria. I figured that if the Apple family were all rednecks, surely there had to be more of them.

A pink envelope in the pile of mail made me stop in my tracks. It looked so different from the usual junk and bills that I wondered what it could possibly be. The return address was from Ponyville.

I opened it and gasped in surprise. Pinkie and Fluttershy were getting married. I didn’t think things would progress this far. I knew Pinkie was a lesbian, but when Fluttershy had been too timid to turn her down on a date, I thought it was funny. I thought Fluttershy would eventually grow a pair metaphorically and tell Pinkie she wasn’t into mares, or perhaps grow a pair physically and make Pinkie not interested in her. Evidentally, neither of those had happened. To be fair, I wasn’t really betting on the second one. This wasn’t Universe 63, after all. Ugh, I hate that place. I’d had to go there recently when we were kicking eight-legged Trixie’s ass. I wish that statement made more inherent sense, but the facts are: Trixie sprouted some additional legs, we sent her to the moon to chill, end of story.

Well, I had nothing better to do this weekend than go to the wedding. I was slightly surprised that I had been invited, but that was Pinkie for you. I figured I should probably go to Rarity and get a tuxedo made of the finest, most expensive materials. I shook the bag of money I carried, listening happily to the jingling bits inside. Just then, there was a knock on the door. Curious, I went to see who it might be. Hopefully not kidnappers.

I opened the door to reveal two unicorns, one a stallion, the other a mare. They were both a pale taupe color with dark grey manes that seemed to be rather spiky as if hair gel had been applied, or perhaps they’d gone to a stylist who typically cut hair for anime characters.

Their eyes were a yellow-green Mountain Dew color. The stallion looked bored. The mare looked annoyed. Aside from their facial expressions and gender differences, they looked pretty much exactly alike.

I opened my mouth. The stallion said, “Yes, we’re twins.”

“You must get that a lot,” I said.

“You have no idea,” answered the mare.

“Well, then, what can I do for you? Perhaps you’re interested in some nice oil.” I gestured to the Valiantco™ logo over the door.

“We’re just here because we were paid to be,” said the stallion.

His sister added, “You’re going to be seeing a lot of us, Valiant.”

I rolled my eyes. “Look, if you’re going to try to kidnap me, just get it over with, okay? I’ve got stuff to do.”

In unison, the two of them turned and indicated a small pile of what appeared to be griffons by the street. None of them were moving.

“I can’t understand why an idiot like you would be a target,” said the mare.

The stallion shrugged. “Regardless, they’re dead now.”

“Gee, really? Thanks! I don’t think I’ve ever been targeted by griffons before.” I frowned. “But if I was the target, then how are you going to justify self-defense?”

The mare gave me an “Are you serious?” look. Apparently she didn’t care what law enforcement might think. Her brother said, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay. One less thing to worry about.” There were a few seconds of silence as we stared at each other. The two of them may have been even more alike than I had originally thought. They blinked in unison. That was somehow very creepy.

“So…are we just going to stand here all day or are you going to actually tell me what you want?” I asked.

“We can do either,” responded the stallion. The two of them kept staring at me.

“How about we talk?” I suggested. “What’re your names?”

“Beauty,” she said.

“Blackwood,” he said.

I supposed that fit. Her cutie mark was a manicure file, well I guess in Equestria it would be called a hooficure file. His was a wood chisel.

I began to laugh. A slight trace of annoyance crossed Blackwood’s face. Beauty showed more than a trace. It took a little while, but I eventually calmed down. I looked at the two of them. “What, isn’t anyone going to ask what’s so funny?”

The said nothing. I sighed. “Well you see, back home we had this story about a horse called Black Beauty. It just kind of reminded me of you two in a roundabout way. Beauty, Blackwood. Black Beauty, Woody. Can I call you Woody?”

Still nothing. I shrugged and slammed the door in their faces. I had things to do, and the creepy Black Twins had proven themselves unworthy of entertaining me.

I headed down to the garage and got into my flying contraption. It was called Monstrosity, and it kind of was. Still, she was a tough old bird and I felt safe when strapped in.

Inside the cockpit with me was an actual tough old bird—my pet falcon, Admiral. He’d advanced in rank from Captain. He wasn’t much of a copilot, but I sure looked like a badass when I carried him around on my shoulder.

I rolled the VTOL aircraft out of the garage and started the engines. I could see the Black Twins watching me from a distance. They seemed disinterested, but watchful. That was strange. Not many ponies were disinterested in a flying monstrosity.

I took off for Ponyville. It was faster than riding the train and I got there in a reasonable amount of time. After making a low circle over the PINP facility to check on it and make sure the explosives in the walls hadn’t for some reason detonated, I continued on towards the center of town.

To my displeasure, they’d replaced the area I used to use for landing with a flowerbed. That was all right, I didn’t like flowers.

It must have been Twilight’s gardening, because she was not pleased about me landing there. I wondered what she would threaten me with now that she could no longer evict me from her couch.

Luckily, we never got to that point because I waved the wedding invitation in front of her face and she immediately brightened up. Seems we both would prefer to talk about two mares getting married.

While I had long believed in the existence of lesbian mind tricks (Seriously, how is Ellen Degeneres so successful? Normal women aren’t supposed to be that funny.), Pinkie hadn’t been able to convince Mr. and Mrs. Cake to let her stay as their employee. It was probably due to the fact that they were crushingly homophobic, and that Pinkie had decided to come out by throwing a big-gay party in their shop. Or perhaps it was a big gay-party. I don’t know. I didn’t go to it.

Either way, Pinkie was no longer employed at Sugarcube Corner. She’d gone to work with the other party company in town, Sir Win’s Hellish Beverage Brewing and Infernal Event Planning Service. Sir Winifred Condemnation Inferno—Sir Win for short—was a demon that had come to live in Ponyville. He was rather pale and had a fiery mane and tail. He was also into stallions and rather flamboyant about it, which I guess made him flaming and on fire. I really should get around to writing some new jokes about him.

Sir Win had come to Ponyville because myself and a few “friends” had broken Hell. Not broken out, just broken it. The portal to the underworld was over at Twilight’s library in sort of a basement inside a basement. Baseception.

I walked in the direction of Sir Win’s building. He wasn’t a bad guy, once you got to know him. I found Fluttershy outside. She brightened more at the sight of Admiral Falcon than at me.

“So how’s the wedding planning going?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m just so nervous. Can you keep a secret? I just can’t tell Pinkie that I’m not attracted to her and don’t actually want to go through with this.”

“How do you deal with sex?”

Fluttershy went bright red. “I…I really don’t have the courage to say no to that.”

“Gross.” I tapped on the door. Pinkie opened it. Her frizzy mane was done up in two points like devil horns.

As I watched, she re-fluffed it. “Sorry, the concentrated evil in here sometimes does that. Come in.”

“Helloooo!” called Sir Win as I came through the door. He offered me some spicy candy, which I declined.

“Everything is going well,” he said. “This is likely to be a wedding that will be talked about for years to come.”

“I believe you.” I looked at some jars on the shelf. They were labeled with things like fire and brimstone. The whole place was about as stereotypically comic-evil as you could get.

Sir Win was just about to tell me more when the door opened and Spike came in, out of breath. “Twilight just got a letter from the Princess! She’s going nuts!”

I shrugged. “Duty calls.” All of us followed Spike over to the library, arriving at about the same time as Twilight’s other friends. The purple unicorn was babbling about some kind of test and generally “going nuts” as Spike had said.

I refused to fly her to Canterlot because that would have meant listening to her the whole way. Instead, we took the train. I booked a private car all by myself to get away from her.

At Canterlot, Twilight disappeared to the castle for a while. She met us back at the train station.

“Didja pass?” asked Applejack.

“Not quite,” said Twilight. “We’re going to the Crystal Empire.”

There was a general chorus of “Huh?”

Sir Win said, “Oh, that place is fabulous! I haven’t seen it for, gosh, it must be about a thousand years now.”

Twilight regarded him for a moment. “I suppose you’ll be a valuable resource for this expedition. Not to mention, you can keep us warm in the frozen north.”

Sir Win chuckled a little and cracked a few sex jokes. Twilight had been referring to him being a great portable source of heat, not anything else. Our sheltered librarian hadn’t really figured out double entendres yet.

“Well, let’s get going!” said Pinkie. “I hope we can get this done before the wedding!” She grabbed Fluttershy around the neck and mashed their faces together. I think it was a kiss.

“We’ll be meeting my brother and his wife there,” said Twilight. “If you’d like, they can marry you two. After what happened with their own wedding, they’ve become super-ordained.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

Twilight glared at me. “Just what it sounds like. Now nothing, not even you, should be able to break them apart. If some unforseen circumstance does come up, they are authorized to remarry themselves, just in case.”

“About time,” I said. “For being the pony of love, Cadance sure didn’t have a very strong relationship with Shining Armor and let Queen Chrysalis sneak in.”

“For the last time, that’s just what Changelings do,” argued Twilight. “They’re very good at it.”

“And love is just what Cadance does,” I pointed out. “It’s her special talent. She should be very good at it. And cut it out with the ‘for the last time’ business. It’s never the last time.”

Twilight sighed and shook her head. “We should get going.”

“You guys go ahead,” I said. “Give me a map or something and I’ll catch up later. I have some business in Canterlot.”

I left the train station and walked towards the center of town. The Black Twins were waiting for me.

“We thought you should know that you’re being followed,” said Woody.

“You aren’t very good at it,” I said. “I’ve noticed both of you a couple of times today. Speaking of, how did you get here from Las Pegasus so quickly?”

Completely ignoring my question, Beauty said, “If we were stalking you, we would stay hidden. We’re talking about that pony over there.”

I swung my eyes in the direction she indicated. After figuring out who they were talking about, I looked back at the pair of them. “I need a favor.”

“No.” Both of them spoke at the same time.

“Come on, I’ll pay you.”

“We don’t need the money,” said Woody.

“You don’t have enough anyway,” added Beauty.

“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “I once made a huge withdraw from the bank just so I could do like Scrooge McDuck and go for a swim.”

“You don’t have that much,” said Woody, matter-of-factly. I frowned. While I had been lying about Scrooge McDucking it, I wondered how he knew exactly how much was in my bank account.

“Well anyway,” I said, glancing at the pony they had pointed out to me. “Since you won’t do me a favor, I’ll just have to handle this myself. Stick around, it’ll be interesting.”

The two of them glanced at each other. Neither one spoke, but I somehow got the feeling that a mutual decision had been made. They turned simultaneously and walked away.

I shrugged. Whatever. Their loss. I started down the street, already planning how I was going to handle the situation.

Just then, shit got real.

Too Many Pinkie Pies

With all my money missing, all I had left in Las Pegasus was my stuff. Everything was paid for, at least.

The company would begin to put cash back into my reserves, but it would take a little while. My research pertaining to firearms would have to go on hold.

I had begun to develop cartridge weapons, although nothing too impressive yet. I hadn’t even figured out a way to carry them. While my money reserves were low, however, I decided to experiment with other things.

An alternate universe version of me had figured out how to grow blue agave plants to make tequila. I had no idea how that worked, but decided to give it a try.

I went outside and planted my hoof on the ground. Earth pony magic had never really been my thing. I couldn’t do Jedi mind tricks or anything with it. In fact, until that moment, I had never experienced it at all.

I felt something shift beneath my hoof. Lifting it, I found a sprout growing there. As I watched, it got bigger and bigger, shaping into the distinctive spiky leaves of the agave plant.

From a half-remembered documentary about tequila, I thought it took something like eight years for them to get big enough to harvest. The plant stopped growing when it was a little taller than I was.

“Cool.” I pulled the leaves off and was left with an egg-shaped bulb a little larger than a volleyball. After digging it up and cleaning off the dirt, I took it inside and plopped it in a cooking pot. I picked up a masher and set to work.

A couple of days later, I was left with a quantity of concentrated agave sauce. It was sweet and had an interesting flavor. It wasn’t alcoholic, though, and that’s where fermentation came in.

With the primitive alcohols I’d made in the past, I knew a little about the process, so it was simple to get the mixture cooking. I left it inside stainless steel vats that I’d bought for the purpose.

While I waited for the stuff to mature, I decided to swing by Ponyville and see how the PINP was doing. You can’t just leave a nuclear power station to go by itself without checking once in a while, even if said station wasn't actually operating yet.

I set the Monstrosity aircraft down outside the building and went in. The walls were all made of thick concrete. I wasn’t a total idiot when it came to power plants, even if the explosives rigged to the interior walls begged to differ.

Everyone I talked to had asked me why there was a destruction method already in place. I had decided that it was for emergencies, although exactly what kind I didn’t yet know. Hopefully the blast would be contained by the outside walls and just annihilate everything inside the building.

Checks finished, I went up to Canterlot. Something had been bothering me ever since the Crystal Empire affair. That something was Trixie still being alive.

I stopped in at the castle. My leg was still in a cast from punching Sombra so hard he exploded, and it made kind of a thunking sound on the floor. With that noise, I’m a little surprised Luna didn’t hear me coming.

As I walked into her office, she slammed a book shut. I recognized it as one I’d seen her with the last time I was in Canterlot.

“What’s that?”

“None of your business,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“I just came about the ELF.”

Luna nodded. “Yes, the Eight Legged Freak. She’s revealed herself as Trixie, correct?”

“That’s right. I thought you sent her to the moon.”

The Princess looked bashful. “Well, I tried. She merely ended up in low orbit. I am not as powerful as my sister, after all.”

“It’s okay,” I reassured her. “I wanted another shot at killing Trixie anyway. First I have to find out where she got that robot, though.”

“And while you’re at it, could you perhaps determine how she was affiliated with King Sombra?” asked Luna.

“About that,” I said. “Just what kind of villain was he? I mean, Chrysalis wanted to suck love from everyone. Nightmare Moon wanted eternal night. Discord wanted chaos. What about Sombra? Did he just want crystals? Aren’t precious stones like a dime a dozen in Equestria? Was it actually crystal meth?”

Luna frowned. “You have to remember, a thousand years ago when he was here last, I was on the moon. You've already told me that he didn't say anything of importance when you met him.”

“Yeah, he just kind of mumbled. Okay, I guess I’ll have to find someone else to ask.” I paused. “It’s not actually a kingdom of crystal meth, is it?”

I was not able to get a suitable answer from Luna, and decided to go back to Las Pegasus. I saw a column of smoke as I approached and discovered that my building had burned to the ground. Written in the ashes was a simple message. Regards, Beauty and Blackwood.

The distilling tequila in its metal containers had survived. Nothing else had. I took a sip of the beverage. It must have been the burning building or something, but it was the best firewater I had ever tasted.

The pleasant experience let me blow off a little steam so I could think a bit more clearly about my situation. I still had the company infrastructure. I still had a place of my own in Ponyville. I had Monstrosity. Most importantly, I had gallons of awesome tequila. Oh, and Admiral Falcon. He showed up a few minutes later, looking disgruntled.

“Good thing you’re here,” I said. “Someone needs to be designated driver. Let’s go to Ponyville.”

While leaving Las Pegasus seemed like giving up, I preferred to think about it as regrouping to plan a massive counterattack. And oh, what a counterattack it would be.

I had no idea what the Black Twins wanted from me. That was fine. I was going to kill them so hard they wouldn’t know which way was up. Hopefully they would get Heaven and Hell confused and go the wrong way.

I reviewed the advantages I had over them. The biggest was that they didn’t know I was from Earth. I had surprise on my side, and could do things that they would never expect.

Somehow I got to Ponyville without crashing. I was pretty hammered by then because it was hard not to partake in the awesome tequila. I stumbled into my building and collapsed into a happy stupor.

The next day I went to find Twilight. It was only fair that I should tell her I was back in town for a while so she could avoid me. I found her practicing magic. Pinkie bounced onto the scene and interrupted the unicorn, who accidentally turned a poor bluejay into an orange.

Rarity showed up with some kind of crazy outfit and listened to Pinkie freak out about missing so much fun. I would have offered her some liquid fun but had forgotten to bring a bottle. She dashed off and I had a chance to talk to Twilight.

“I’m back,” I said.

“Why?”

“I’m a victim of arson.”

Twilight and Rarity traded glances, actually looked concerned. “How did that happen?”

“You remember how I told you about the Black Twins? Yeah, it was them.”

“But why would they do that? They already took all your money.”

“I don't know, but my building in Ponyville is the only place I have to stay now.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I should probably go find Pinkie. I’ve got something that’s sure to be fun.”

I left before Twilight and Rarity could ask. I found Pinkie making out with Fluttershy on a couch covered with butterflies. I say “Pinkie making out with Fluttershy” because it certainly wasn’t the other way around. The timid pegasus still hadn’t told her fiancé that she didn’t want to get married.

The wedding was supposed to have been a little while ago, but the spontaneous appearance of the Crystal Empire had put it off. I learned that it had been rescheduled for that afternoon.

I coughed politely. Pinkie looked at me and waved a hoof, but didn’t disengage her mouth from Fluttershy. Rainbow Dash and Applejack showed up just then.

“I’ve got something fun planned this afternoon that I thought you might want to know about,” said Rainbow.

“I’m here for the same reason,” said Applejack.

“This is perfect!” exclaimed Pinkie, finally coming up for air. She brought her hooves together like a supervillian. “Everyone will now bring their fun to me.”

“Everyone?” I asked.

She smiled and nodded. “Yep! I’m borrowing a word from you, Valiant. Not all the sapient beings out there are ponies, after all.”

I nodded. That made as much sense as anything. I turned to go. There was no guarantee that Pinkie would still be there when I got back, but at least I knew where to start looking so I could give her some tequila. I was going to call it a wedding gift.

I encountered Cheerilee while walking back into town. She was sitting on a bench, wearing sunglasses to compensate for the cloudless sky. I noticed that she was reading a book.

“What the heck?” I said. “I thought you were illiterate.”

“That’s what I said so you would leave me alone.”

“This…this changes everything. Suddenly, you actually are qualified to teach.” I thought for a moment. “You’re still a vampire, though, right?”

She glared at me. That was answer enough. I continued on into town. Before I could retrieve a bottle of tequila and return to the butterfly couch, a crowd of Pinkies went by. I stood for a moment, dumbfounded. “What the…”

This sounded like a problem for Twilight Sparkle. I went over to the library and found her frantically searching for answers. Spike found a secret compartment and pulled out the book she was looking for. I was about to ask why they had never noticed the compartment marked with a golden horseshoe before, but Twilight rushed outside.

She quickly explained that there was a spell to reverse the multiplying Pinkies, but first we had to figure out which one was the original. Gathering them all together was the first problem.

“I have an idea,” I said. “I know how to get them all in one place.”

“You do?” said Twilight.

“Really?” said Fancypants.

“What the heck are you doing here?” I asked him.

The stallion from Canterlot shrugged. “Rarity was dressed so fancily earlier because she invited me to a little fashion show.”

I nodded. “Makes sense. Anyway, back to my plan. It’s going to take a lot of sacrifice on my part. I’m taking one for the team here. And someday, I’ll take it back. But until then, know that I’m doing you all a huge favor.”

I walked to the center of town and cleared my throat. “It’s my birthday!”

There was a collective gasp that echoed throughout the town as everyPinkie realized that I needed a party. That took precedence over the wedding, but some of the decorations could be reused.

Sir Win was a little unhappy that his preparations for Pinkie and Fluttershy’s wedding had been ruined a second time, but being the rather jovial fellow he was, he didn’t complain too much.

I have to say, it was the most fun, most exhausting birthday party ever. You have no idea how hard you can party until you have a couple dozen Pinkies forcing you to. At least I got some gifts.

Fluttershy got me a bag of falcon food. Applejack made me a pie. Rarity said she would help me redecorate my temporary quarters to be more livable. Twilight presented me with a book that I didn’t read. Fancypants had heard about my financial difficulties and gave me a small bag of bits. Rainbow got me a cloud.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with this?” I demanded.

She shrugged. “It’s the thought that counts.”

My angry retort was interrupted by Sir Win. “Sorry, I didn’t have time to get you anything. I promise to make it up to you.”

“Can I have my soul?” I asked.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Like a one-time free pass on death. Pleeeeeaaaase?”

“Well, I really shouldn’t, but I suppose I can make an exception just this once.”

“Cool, thanks.” I pulled out a bottle of tequila and grabbed Twilight. “Okay, here’s the next step of the plan. We get all the Pinkies drunk, and then whichever one stays true to Fluttershy the longest is the real one.”

She nodded. “I…guess that will work.”

I lined up a row of shot glasses and began pouring. Let me tell you, buzzed Pinkie Pie is way worse than normal. Luckily, they all progressed into mellow Pinkie pretty quickly and lecherous Pinkie soon after that. It’s a good thing Ponyville was mostly mares, because otherwise we might not have had enough to go around.

It scared the shit out of me when one of them sprouted fingers from her hoof in order to interact with the pony she was hitting on a little more thoroughly. Another one turned into a freaking horse in an attempt to provoke bestiality. I was happy to see that it didn’t work.

Twilight was zapping so many fake Pinkies that her horn had started to glow with heat. It looked like air cooling wasn’t keeping up, and I picked up the glass in front of me to douse her with it.

Wait a minute, is that what I really wanted to do? I set the glass down and picked up the bottle of tequila.

As Twilight’s head went up in flames, I spotted Fluttershy in a compromising position with a Pinkie. I could only assume that this was the correct one, and herded the two of them down the street away from the scene.

“So many v-vag…” moaned Fluttershy.

“It’s okay,” I said. “You’re safe from the Pinkie pussy now.”

“You can’t twat-stop me like that!” complained the Pinkie that was with us. I assumed that was the female equivalent of a cock-block.

“It’s your own fault,” I said. “You were the one who started it, plus the other weird things that have occurred. I think for your sake that waiting until you’re married would be the best idea, just to make sure nothing else crazy comes up.”

Pinkie sighed. “All right, I’ll reschedule the wedding for next week. I hope nothing else bad happens.”

We walked by Sugarcube Corner. A Pinkie was making out with Mrs. Cake. Mr. Cake stood there, with a strange look on his face. I assumed it was the expression stallions used when a sudden boner led them to discover that their homophobia was misguided.

I heard later that Twilight burned for a while, but an unexpected splash of orange juice managed to get her put out. I wondered what poor creature had sacrificed itself for the good of Ponyville.

True to her word, Rarity got my building outfitted. I moved in shortly thereafter. Having no experience with security, Rarity hadn’t set up the defensive perimeter yet. I set to work on that.

The Black Twins worried me, honestly. I didn’t fear them, but they were actively targeting me, and I hadn’t managed to figure out why.

That was put out of my mind for the moment as there was a knock on the door. It was Twilight.

“I hope you’re happy,” she said. “It’ll take weeks for my mane to grow out again.”

“It was still a successful anti-Pinkie party,” I pointed out.

She nodded. “I guess you’re right. Hey, wait a minute, how can it be your birthday? I thought time passed differently here than on Earth.”

I shrugged. “It’s complicated. Or is it? Honestly, I just thought of it on the spot and it worked out pretty well.”

Twilight nodded and turned to go. She didn’t ask for the book she’d given me back, since it wasn't actually my birthday. That was fine, because I had tossed it somewhere and still hadn’t read it.

A little while later, Sir Win came knocking at my door.

“I was hoping we might hold the wedding here,” he said. “You have the room for it, and with the rescheduled event, our intended venue is not available.”

“Can I charge a fee?” I asked.

He hesitated. “I’m still new to the whole ‘friendship’ thing, but I think that would be a rather unpleasant thing for you to do.”

I did feel a little bit like a dick for that, but said, “Do you realize I just lost my life savings?”

He nodded. “Well then, I suppose exceptions can be made. Could I at least ask you to help?”

“I suppose. I’ve never helped with a wedding before.”

Sir Win smiled. “I can promise that it’s more badass than you think.”

“Really? Okay, I’m in. What are we doing first?”

“I was just about to make the cake,” he said. “I’ve got the oven ready to go and everything.”

I stepped outside. “Okay, I’ll come with you.”

He turned away and I followed him. While I was still skeptical that preparing a wedding could be awesome, I’d never known Sir Win to lie to me before. I hoped making a cake would be a cool thing to do.

Oven, prepare to meet your baker.

One Bad Apple

Somehow, preparing for the wedding was more badass than I imagined. I was actually kind of proud of the cake Sir Win and I managed to make.

We’d decided to move the event to Sweet Apple Acres. The weather was going to be good. I’d never been to a successful outdoor wedding before, but since the weather in Equestria was controllable, there was no reason it wouldn’t be.

I was still trying to get Fluttershy to own up that she really didn’t want to marry Pinkie, but was not making much progress. However, since discovering the joys of making wedding cakes, I had begun to feel conflicted about that. It seemed a shame to waste such a cake.

I also wondered about my sudden turnaround in attitude. It was possible that Sir Win had used some sort of freaky demonic powers on me. On the other hand, it could have been the tequila.

Since discovering my talent for growing agave, my general happiness level had skyrocketed. I’d tried to include some in the cake batter, but Sir Win declined. Since I liked him, I agreed. Part of the reason I liked him was that he had gotten me my soul for my birthday.

It had not actually been my birthday, but I was not about to return a get-out-of-death-free-card. I’d merely picked a day that sounded plausibly like it could have been my birthday and spread the rumor. There were certain times of the year that were more likely to be someone’s birthday. For instance, mid-November birthdays were generally the result of Valentine’s Day sex.

Speaking of making babies, there were some ponies that should have never been born. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, for example. I saw them sneaking around as I went out to the farm to speak with Applejack.

Applejack and Braeburn were there. I nodded to them. “’Sup, Apples?”

Braeburn looked at me distrustfully. I mean, I had kidnapped him a few times to replace his missing limbs, eye, and ear with cybernetic parts from a Twilight Sparkle-shaped terminator-type robot. Maybe he had a reason not to like me.

“What is it, Valiant?” said Applejack.

“Sir Win sent me to check up on the cider for the wedding,” I said.

She nodded. “Oh yeah. Sorry, forgot that it was being picked up today. Follow me.”

The two of us stepped out of the barn, although I didn’t know why we couldn’t just talk right there. “Why can’t we just talk right there?” I asked.

“Braeburn’s back to havin’ bad dreams,” she said.

“I could program him so he won’t.”

She shook her head. “Ah think he just needs to get out of Ponyville for a while.”

I figured I could help him with that. Applejack showed me where the cider was and I told her I would leave it there for a while because the wedding would now be coming to it, instead of the other way around. While I was there, I glanced at the Apple family entry into the Summer Harvest Parade, a float that looked like a giant pumpkin.

As I walked back to town, I spotted a pegasus flying overhead. He was long-legged and dark blue in color with a red mane. I couldn’t see his cutie mark at that distance, but I knew it was a golden harp. The stallion’s name was Guinness.

He was one of the very few other humans I’d met in Equestria, and we didn’t get along. He liked history and Rainbow Dash. I liked living in the present and not Rainbow Dash. As he headed for Ponyville, I broke into a run.

I was trying to intercept Guinness before he managed to sex up Rainbow. I had no doubt that was his plan, as he’d done it before. That was right after he and I had been part of a little group that accidentally blew open Tartarus and brought Sir Win into our midst. While I could understand victory sex, I wasn’t pleased that he got it on with ponies so happily. Freaking zoophiles.

I didn’t manage to catch up to the tall blue pegasus before running into the Black Twins. They stood in the middle of the road as if waiting for me. I’ve never been one to avoid confrontation, so instead of just going around them, I slid to a stop.

“You both realize that I want to kill you, right?”

Neither of them reacted.

“You should be worried. About 80% of the things I want to kill I eventually do.”

Still nothing. I growled and stepped around them, heading into town.

I saw Rarity’s father fishing in the pond in front of his house. I thought about stopping and asking to borrow his pole so I could use the hooks to do nasty things to the Black Twins, but decided that since I was back on track, I should keep looking for Guinness.

Sir Win met me on the street. I asked him if he could help me kidnap Braeburn.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I have a lot to do to prepare for the wedding,” he said.

I frowned. “The last time we did this, Pinkie helped me, but she’s in the wedding. I guess I’ll have to find someone else.”

I passed the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They looked upset about something. I didn’t know why. They’d all done a lot of growing up in the past few weeks. Sweetie Belle could put out a few sparks of magic with her horn, and Scootaloo was learning to hover for a few seconds at a time.

Continuing on, I found Guinness checking out the decorations that were being put up for the parade. He was not pleased to see me, mostly because I put him in a choke hold from behind.

“What are you doing here, asshole? I thought you were on a quest.”

He gasped. Despite the fact he had a significant amount of height on me, I had a leverage advantage. “I was just getting supplies and visiting Dashie.”

“What kind of supplies?”

“Well, food and stuff. I also wanted to ask you a favor. I need some kind of weapon.”

I was flattered, really. I let him go. “What did you have in mind?”

“I have been fighting pirates, bandits, criminals, and other assorted bad guys. Make it something big.”

I thought for a moment. “Well, I was considering possible ways to kill a couple of ponies. A broadsword sounded like a good way to accomplish that. I suppose I could make another one for you.”

Guinness grinned. “Really?”

“There’s a catch, though. You have to go to Pinkie and Fluttershy’s wedding.”

“That does not sound so—”

“And you have to help me kidnap Applejack’s cousin Braeburn.”

His mouth dropped open for a moment, but he recovered quickly and shrugged. “It can not be any worse than what I agreed to do the last time I was in town.”

“Speaking of bad things, I have no idea where to find Rainbow.”

His eyes narrowed. “How did you know I was going to ask?”

“Well, considering your track record, every time the two of you get close, sex tends to happen.”

“I like her!” he protested.

I shook my head. “Just don’t be surprised if the sword slips and castrates you.”

I turned away and went about my business. That involved going to the hardware store and collecting supplies for swordmaking. I met the Crusaders there.

“Valiant, finally somepony we can talk to!” said Sweetie Belle. The three of them ran over to me.

“How are we supposed to deal with a bully?” asked Scootaloo.

I shrugged. “Kick ‘em in the nuts.”

“Mah cousin Babs Seed came from Manehattan and she’s a blank flank and we tried to get her to join the Cutie Mark Crusaders, but she’s really mean and stuff,” said Apple Bloom.

“She,” I said. “Okay, so no nuts. That leaves…a cunt punt?”

“A what now?” asked Sweetie Belle.

“Forget that, or at least don’t tell anyone it was me that said it when you inevitably repeat the phrase.” I thought for a moment. “Wait, why are you even concerned with bullies? Don’t you have a giant robot? Sweetie Belle, aren’t you still practicing ninjutsu?”

“Huh?” asked Apple Bloom and Scootaloo simultaneously.

“It’s a boring thing,” said Sweetie Belle, neatly deflecting the question.

“Well, I guess we do have some stuff she doesn’t have,” said Scootaloo, “but Babs is still a bully.”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” I said. The three of them left with a few things. I went back to shopping and got what I needed.

Later in the day, I heard that Babs had destroyed the Apple family parade float. The setting for the wedding at Sweet Apple Acres had been smashed by the runaway pumpkin. Wow, not even the third time was the charm. Even Guinness’s sort-of luck of the Irish, which was why I had wanted him to come to the event, hadn’t helped. Granted, that was probably because he was American, but any pony who had a beer logo on his ass was better than nothing.

At any rate, he still had to help me kidnap Braeburn. The two of us went out to the farm that night, carefully avoiding the barn where I heard what sounded like three fillies building a new parade float while playing music from the A-Team. That couldn’t have been it, though.

Braeburn, as usual, was easy to kidnap, and we got him back to Sir Win’s place. The demon had nothing to do after the wedding had been canceled once again, and gleefully helped me work on the sleeping stallion. Guinness looked like he was going to be sick with the wicked science we were doing and left the building.

Braeburn had been fitted with three prosthetic legs, one eye, and one ear. We armored his remaining leg and torso, and traded his one electronic eye for a visor that enhanced vision to both.

I had repurposed the internals of the night vision goggles Pinkie had given me, and the other optics, electronics, and cybernetics had been put together from various sources. I didn’t think Twilight knew I was using the experimental mind-electric interface she had developed for exactly not this reason.

In the morning, Braeburn woke up. I was there to greet him. “Wow, for God’s sake Braeburn, Princess Peach is harder to kidnap than you.”

He groaned. “Please don’t tell me you’ve done something to me.”

“Indeed I did. Well, Sir Win helped, right?”

The demon grinned. “Yes. I had fun fitting the metal on that broad chest of yours.”

Braeburn shuddered, for various reasons. We got him up and trying out his new equipment. The modified legs ended in various retractable attachments like fingers, a can opener, a grappling hook, and a silly experimental gun I had been working on that probably didn’t function.

With all the new stuff we’d done, he was looking a lot like Robocop. Or maybe Inspector Gadget.

Sir Win and I stood on the street watching the parade after Braeburn had left in a hurry. It’s like he didn’t want to be Robocop or Inspector Gadget.

I heard a few cries of moral quandary and trotted over to the Crusaders. “What’s up?”

“Well, we just found out that Babs had been gettin’ bullied in Manehattan,” said Apple Bloom.

“That’s why she came here and started bullying us,” explained Scootaloo.

“But now we set her up for a prank, and feel bad about it,” whined Sweetie Belle.

I shrugged. “So what? She would have done the same to you. Getting bullied is not any excuse to take it out on anyone else. Hell, even I know that. So, do I have to smack a filly or something?”

“Just try and stop the float!” said Apple Bloom. I followed them as they raced forward along the parade route.

Up ahead, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were talking to Babs as she piloted a golden apple float along the street. One of them said, “You’re too cool for mule!”

A mule wearing cool-guy sunglasses overheard them and looked sad. DT and SS just didn’t care who they hurt. That was fine. I didn’t care if I hurt them.

There was no time for childish violence on children, however. The Crusaders caught a ride with Pinkie, who had decided to wipe away her tears of yet another ruined wedding date by driving a giant head of lettuce.

We took off after Babs in hot pursit. Pinkie was really broken up about the wedding thing and was making even less sense than usual.

“Veggie salad!” she exclaimed.

I patted her comfortingly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, you’ll get married eventually.”

Babs bumped our float and the salad tossed. Into a ditch, that is. The five of us picked our way out of the wreckage.

Then I got distracted by the Black Twins. They were sitting on the hill watching, as if it was the grassy knoll and this was the Kennedy assassination. I suddenly remembered that my sword wasn’t finished and dashed away to work on that.

Blacksmithing is pretty easy if you know how. I didn’t, but I sure tried. Slowly, the fine shape of a blade emerged from the steel I was hammering.

The door opened and Guinness came in. I hadn’t invited him, and if I wasn’t in the middle of something I probably would have kicked his ass. Pegasi are easy to beat up when they’re indoors and unable to fly away.

He wore a dreamy little smile that indicated that he’d gotten some recently. “Some” being Rainbow Dash’s female stuff.

“So when is that sword going to be ready?” he asked.

“No idea. First I have to make mine, then I’ll kill the Black Twins, then I can start on yours. It would go faster if you’d leave me alone.”

“Well, I—”

I held up a hoof as I turned back to my work. “Stop. Hammer time.”

He chuckled. It was nice to find someone who actually understood my Earth jokes. Pity I hated him so much.

The Black Twins were not on the hill when I went back to find them. Probably because it took a couple of days to forge the sword. I had it strapped to my back, and was ready to menace them with it. Then I would kill them, because what fun is menacing when you can be slaying?

I looked around the whole town for them, but had no luck. As the day wore on, I grew more and more frustrated.

Braeburn came into town. I walked over to him to check if perhaps he had seen my sworn enemies. He hadn’t, and was on his way out of Ponyville.

“It’s time to see some new country,” he said. I followed him to the train station, mostly to see how his fellow passengers would react to his new robotic exterior.

Applejack, the Crusaders, and Babs were also at the station. The former bully had apparently turned good in the blink of an eye, as many villains seemed to do around these parts. Twilight had once explained to me that there was a small betting pool on when I myself would turn good. I was somewhat flattered, but mostly irritated.

As Babs made ready to board the train, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon appeared.

“Aha! Just the fillies I wanted to see.” I walked towards them. Babs shrugged and got on the train.

“What do you want?” asked Silver Spoon.

“Justice.” I leaned forwards. “What were you trying to prove? That deep down, everyone's as ugly as you?”

They both took a step backwards. I went on. “The night is darkest just before the dawn. And I promise you, the dawn of your beatdowns is coming.”

Before I could scare them with more semi-quotes from Batman, I was distracted by the Black Twins again. In a rage, I drew my sword and charged in their direction.

I was just about within range when a burst of magic sent the sword flying out of my hooves and high into the sky. Guinness was flying over Ponyville at that moment and ducked as the blade nearly decapitated him. He’d gotten bored waiting on me to make another one, and was leaving town.

I watched the sword fall somewhere in the Everfree Forest. Guinness glared down at me and kept flying.

My gaze dropped back to the Black Twins. Both of their horns were glowing and they stared at me intently. I wasn’t sure if they were angry, trying to burn my brain up, or some combination of the two. I quickly came up with a new attack plan. I knew what I would do to Woody. For Beauty, I would just have to wing it.

Jumping forward, I aimed a kick at the stallion’s crotch. My hoof slammed off something I hadn’t seen and I went tumbling to the ground. The two of them advanced on me.

“I’ve heard of hard nuts to crack, but this is ridiculous,” I muttered as I lay on my back with both of them standing over me. They were backlit from the sun, and I squinted.

“It’s a basic groin protection spell,” said Woody.

“Too bad you’re an earth pony,” said Beauty.

My eyes widened. Surely they wouldn’t…

They did. My eyes snapped shut and my whole body involuntarily curled into the fetal position. Tears came to my eyes, and I gasped. Then, because it hurt so much, I gasped again.

Several minutes passed before I was able to open my eyes. I still couldn’t move. The Black Twins had departed.

In their place, I saw Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon. They were grinning maliciously.

“Is the poor widdle stallion in testicle-wrenching pain?” asked Diamond in a baby voice.

“What a loser,” laughed Silver.

I glared at them through the agony and pulled up a mental list, preparing to add their names to it. At my earliest convenience, the two of them were going to die.

The character Guinness is property of Altoid

Magic Duel

Preparations were underway–again–for Pinkie and Fluttershy’s wedding. This time, we’d decided to hold it at the edge of the Everfree Forest. That way, the only thing that could disrupt it would be either weather or wild animals. Those things we could at least deal with. The crazy random things that had ruined it before were from so far out of left field nobody could have conceived of them.

Everything had gone well up to now. The location was set and decorated. The food and whatnot was being prepared. The deserts, courtesy of my newfound cake-fu, were great. Sir Win still wouldn’t let me cook with alcohol, but maybe he was saving that for when it was more appropriate, like Berry Punch’s wedding. I was the one who brought booze to Equestria, so I have no idea how they already had a town drunk.

We’d gone through the wedding rehearsal and gone back to Ponyville that evening to have a small party to unwind before the actual event the next day. There were a few games, and of course, food and sweets.

Rarity introduced us to a game called Reactions. It was played with note cards. Each card had two numbers and a location. Each player wore a number. If you picked up a card, you replaced the numbers with the names of the ponies and read the card. The objective was to see the reactions of the two ponies you’d mentioned.

Applejack picked up a card and looked around the circle to find which two ponies she was talking about. “Fluttershy, you and Spike went to Canterlot.”

Fluttershy nodded. “Oh, okay.”

“This is kind of boring,” said Spike.

“I’m sure not all the cards are so simple,” Twilight reminded him.

As if fate mocking her, the card I picked up was indeed more interesting. I cleared my thoat. “Dash, Pinkie takes you to a gay bar.”

Rainbow’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. Pinkie grinned, but gasped as she remembered her current situation. “No! I’d never cheat on Fluttershy!”

“I wish you would,” said the yellow pegasus, although I may have been the only one who heard her.

We were still talking about things to make the wedding cooler. Rainbow spearheaded this committee.

“What about…an air show?” she suggested.

“The last time you tried to get the Wonderbolts to come to Ponyville, they blew you off. Just like every time you talk to them,” I pointed out.

Rainbow glared at me, but Twilight got between us. “Maybe we can use magic to simulate something like that.”

“Magic is your solution to everything,” I complained. “And you never explain shit.”

“I don’t have to. It’s magic.” Twilight turned to Fluttershy. “So, can I borrow some of your animals to practice on? I’d hate to screw up a spell and hurt somepony.”

Fluttershy let out an “Eep!” as if she was not comfortable at all with the idea. Twilight and Spike were already talking about what the show might consist of and had walked away.

I went down the street to my building. It wasn’t a house and I hesitated to call it a home. Still, it was a good base of operations and I had a few priority missions to carry out. The first: kill the Black Twins. The second: kill Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.

My rage against the Black Twins had grown to the point that I was willing to spend frivolous amounts of money just to get even with style. To that end, I decided to keep in mind the fact that they didn’t know anything about where I had come from or my experiences on Earth. Sure, they may have heard I was from somewhere else, but they had never heard of America.

To that end, I decided to build a Desert Eagle. While they were made in Israel, the design was pure insanity that could only have come from my homeland. Since I doubted Magnum Research could file copyright infringement claims on me in Equestria, I pretty much had free rein to make my own stupidawesome .50 caliber handgun.

Unfortunately, I didn’t really have the technology. I had done some research into firearms before, but never had carried it very far because I was basically doing every single bit of work all by myself. Ponies weren’t really interested in guns.

Still, the Black Twins had wronged me so badly that I was willing to invent something that didn’t exist on this planet just to have my revenge.

It was probably a coincidence that I met the two of them outside my building. I doubted they had freaky mind powers to know when I was thinking about them, but it would sure be worrying if they did. I gave them a glare as I walked up to my front door. They stared back, both of them wearing identical expressions of boredom.

“Nice place,” said Woody.

“Shame if something were to happen to it,” remarked Beauty.

“It’s made of stone,” I pointed out. “It can’t be burned like you did last time.”

Woody shrugged. “No problem. It’s coming down next week regardless.”

“Do you have any idea how many defenses I’ve put up? Do you know how much I am motivated to foil you two because I hate you?” I just barely kept my voice from devolving into incoherent screaming.

“Good luck with that,” said Beauty. “It won’t help.”

The two of them walked away. I realized I was grinding my teeth. I didn’t know how they could be so casual about things. They were clearly very confident, but not externally haughty. It was an attitude that frustrated me very much. I decided to prioritize the murders of DT and SS, if only to cheer me up.

I went inside. Between the physical defenses I’d built, I’d gotten Rarity and Twilight to perform some magic. Rarity had done a few things like fireproofing my fabrics. Twilight had managed some defensive spells, but those were not really her field of study.

After a quick dinner, I sat down to work on my nefarious designs. My nefarious, awesome, designs.

In the morning, Spike came by. “Twilight’s about to go practice the air show.”

“Cool, I’d like to see that.” I followed him out of town to Fluttershy’s place. I thought it a little overconfident of Twilight to only begin practicing the morning of the wedding, but she was the Element of Magic.

“How long do you think you need?” I asked.

“The event is this afternoon, but this won’t take that long,” she said. Fluttershy sternly warned Twilight about letting any of her animal friends come to harm. Then, the unicorn began to concentrate and a whole bunch of assorted cute animals flew into the air, forming a sideways figure-eight.

“Infinite critters,” I observed. “Nice.”

Rainbow came zooming up. “Twilight! Come quick, there’s an emergency!”

The multicolored pegasus didn’t usually make a big deal out of things, so there was either a crisis or it was one of her pranks. For either eventuality, I prepared my switchblade and followed Twilight back to Ponyville.

As we approached the town square, I saw a burst of red light and heard Rarity’s distinctive moan of fashion anguish. Fanguish? No, that was vampire Cheerilee’s problem.

The white unicorn was wearing some sort of dress, and had swooned to the point of actually falling over. Applejack and Pinkie were carrying her away.

“What’s going on here?” asked Twilight.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Twilight Sparkle!” exclaimed Trixie, pulling her hood down to reveal her evilly grinning face. She was decked out in a black cloak this time, and the red gem she’d been wearing the last time I’d seen her had changed into a full metal necklace with little red inlays. Perhaps this was her battle form, because it certainly looked like she’d abandoned all pretense of sneaking around. That would be kind of hard to do when she had eight legs, the giant robot she sat atop did too, and you could practically see the evil coming off her. I mean, I’m a magic-insensitive earth pony and I could feel it.

I was honestly a little worried, because she was just generally more wicked than I had ever seen her before—and for Trixie, that’s saying something. Of course, I only had that realization when I was already flying through the air and approaching her general location.

While Twilight had addressed her from the front, I had circled around behind and launched myself off the top of a house. There was an invisible bubble around the cockpit of her robot, though, and I bounced off and into the dust. Trixie chuckled.

“You call that great and powerful?” scoffed Rainbow. Trixie fired a bolt of red magic at her and suddenly one of Rainbow’s wings grew huge, throwing her off balance.

“Good spell, oh Great and Powerful Trixie!” called Snails. The eight-legged unicorn (arachnicorn?) zapped him and Snips, joining them at the horn.

While the two colts ran away in terror, Twilight put on a frown. “Stop picking on my friends, Trixie.”

“Snips and Snails are troublemakers,” I pointed out. “And while you might not say it to her face like I would, Rainbow is a bitch.”

“Shut up, Valiant,” said Trixie and Twilight at the same time. Realizing what they had done, the two glared at each other. I giggled.

Trixie was the first to recover. “You and I have some unfinished business, Twilight. My magic’s gotten better since the last time I was here, and I’m going to prove it. You and me—magic duel. Loser leaves Ponyville forever.”

“Since when do you not talk in third person?” I asked. “It was easier to make fun of you that way.”

“Why do you keep interfering?” screamed Trixie. “You come second. First, I defeat Twilight.”

“Jeeze, fine. I’ll go get some popcorn or something.” I wandered away to find Pinkie. Truthfully, I wasn’t worried that my revenge on Trixie would go unquenched. Twilight would soften her up, maybe teach her a friendship lesson or two, and then I would cut her throat. Hopefully literally.

As I wondered how to optimize the slice in order to get as much arterial spray on Twilight as possible, Trixie began shooting more red magic bolts at various ponies in order to coerce Twilight to agree to a duel. The thought that she was using fear to get what she wanted put her in the same category as terrorists. I hate terrorists.

I didn’t have to go very far to find Pinkie so I could ask for some popcorn. As Trixie was working on her supervillian monologue, she mentioned a dreadful job working on a rock farm. Pinkie, who had grown up doing just that, was the first to protest. “You’re lucky a rock farm would take the likes of you!”

Trixie removed her mouth and nose.

“Whoa.” I stared, wide-eyed. While I had no idea how Pinkie was breathing, Trixie had managed to do something nobody had ever done before—get Pinkie to shut up.

Twilight seriousface’d. “All right Trixie, let’s duel.”

I doubted that she meant to make a reference to Yu-Gi-Oh, but Trixie began laying out the conditions. “If I lose, I won’t set hoof in Ponyville again, but if you lose you’re the one banished from this one-horse town.”

I looked around for a horse to see if he had been insulted, but those weren’t as common as mules.

And so the duel commenced, but it didn’t last long. Twilight got her ass kicked in probably the least dramatic way possible. She couldn’t turn Snips and Snails back to their normal ages after Trixie had made one younger and the older older.

Twilight got kicked out of Ponyville, and Trixie summoned a huge bubble to place over the whole area. I followed the rest as they ran to the edge of town. Twilight was on the outside of the bubble.

“It’ll be okay, guys. I’ll figure something out. Keep an eye on Trixie. There’s something strange about her.”

“You don’t say?” I shouted. Twilight ran off.

We walked back into town. Trixie hailed us. “You all, I want decorations made! Hang them around town. While you’re at it, dance for my amusement and make applesauce.”

“We-we’d better do what she says,” whimpered Fluttershy.

“Not so high and mighty now that Twilight’s gone, are you?”

Trixie glared at me. “The Great and Powerful Trixie was going to say that! Don’t you dare steal her lines!”

I shrugged. “Look Trixie, I think we can all agree that you are the only pony in this town who likes you. I’ll steal whatever I want from you, although in this case it wasn’t stealing at all because I thought of it first. Even if I didn’t , you can’t prove it because I said it first.”

I shook my head. “Sorry, I got off track. Anyway, the point I wanted to make is this: You aren’t the only one to hold a grudge against Twilight. The feud between her and I is legendary compared to yours.”

“Aren’t you friends?” she asked. “You even lived with her for a while.”

“Frenemies,” I said. “It’s complicated. Something that is pretty simple, though, is how I’m going to take you down. I challenge you to a robot duel.”

She grinned. “Oh really? What are the conditions?”

“No magic, just machines. We fight to the death.”

“I’d love to,” she gushed, advancing in her spiderbot. I suddenly realized that I was naked. I mean, I was in Ponyville, so of course I was naked. I meant naked in the sense that I had just challenged a madmare to a robot duel, and I didn’t have one. They had all burned up along with my building in Las Pegasus.

“Face sand!” I shouted, throwing a hoof full of soil at Trixie’s eyes. It bounced off her invisible shield just like my body had, but it was enough of a distraction to let me slip out of sight.

Trixie rampaged around for a while, but didn’t manage to find me or the Elements of Harmony. We had all holed up in the library with Spike.

“There sure is somethin’ funny about that necklace,” observed Applejack. We’d managed to find a book that contained information about Trixie’s mysterious new jewelry.

“What the heck is an ‘alicorn’?” I asked.

They all looked at me. “How could you not know?” asked Rarity.

“I swear, I’ve never heard that word in all the time I’ve been here,” I said. “Is it a new thing?”

They all ignored me and began concocting a plan to sneak Fluttershy out of town to take a message to Twilight about the amulet. Since sneaking was involved, I decided to do a little of my own. After donning an old pair of sunglasses that I’d left in the library and putting on a jacket Rarity had fashioned out of the curtains, I went out.

The town had been transformed into some strange perversion of Ponyville. There were red and black banners with symbols on them. I set my jaw. Trixie was a terrorist and a Nazi? Where was George W. Bush when you needed him? Not in Equestria, the wimp.

While I was disguised, now seemed to be a good time to talk to Trixie. I ambled down the street, trying to slip into a traveling salesman vibe. Trixie was busy being a terrorist Nazi.

“’Scuse me, miss, I was hoping you could tell me where you got that robot.”

Trixie turned. “The Great and Powerful built it, of course! It’s the best one in the universe.”

“Ha ha, oh really?” You lying bitch. “Care to build me one? Or tell me where I could find a duplicate?”

“Try Fillydelphia Cybernetics. They give Trixie a cut of the profits.” She did a haughty flip of her mane.

Fillydelphia Cybernetics? How had I never heard of them? Well, that was a small matter. I could destroy their company later. I nodded. “So I saw that crazy battle earlier. It’s a good thing you had that shield around you.”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie always plans ahead.”

“How does it work? Just for reference. I’m sure somebody would love to write an article in the magic journal about you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Somebody?”

Shit. “Uh, sorry, I have Tourette's. Horseapples.”

Trixie explained it, and since I wasn’t Twilight I didn’t understand a thing she said. Well, I guess I would just have to resort to the brute force method. I asked if she would mind lifting the barrier so I could leave town and tell the world what she had done. Despite the fact that what she had done was hold an entire town hostage, Trixie seemed to think that the only thing worse than being talked about was not being talked about, and let me go.

I had debated asking her about the connection she had with the Crystal King in the time leading up to her attack on the town, but since King Sombra was dead and I was already pushing my luck with the disguise, I figured it didn’t matter. I mean, there wasn’t somebody else called the Crystal King, was there?

I encountered a group of beavers assisting Fluttershy to escape as well. I put jokes about her beaver aside and walked with her to Zecora’s hut. Twilight was there, and we watched a little bit of freaky Jedi training the zebra had her doing. Part of that was walking on water.

I was going to give her a piece of my mind about that, but Zecora began to say something and I shut up because her speech was generally pretty hilarious.

“If Trixie’s tricks have you in a fix, you must use your magic, and use the six.”

“Are you saying I should have built a Smith & Wesson .500 revolver instead of a Desert Eagle?” I frowned. “No wait, that only has a five round cylinder. What the hell kind of six-gun are you talking about?”

“The Elements of Harmony!” exclaimed Twilight.

Aha, of course, Trixie was evil now, I should have seen what the perfect choice was. I said, “Using the Elements on her body would be the perfect way to make sure she stays peacefully dead. Around here, evil things have a tendency to come back.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Twilight.

“Well, I challenged her to a robot duel to the death,” I said. “While I don’t currently have a robot, I’m certainly not going to be the one to back out.”

I marched out the door before any of them could reply. Out of the forest and down the road was Sweet Apple Acres. I came up on Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie Belle.

“I’m going to need to borrow that robot,” I said. “Trixie’s back in town and this time I’m going to finish her.”

The three of them looked nervous. “Promise to bring it back?” said Apple Bloom.

“I can’t promise that, but I will get you a replacement if it comes to that.” That was good enough for them, and the three fillies climbed down from the cockpit.

The robot had been modified extensively from the last time I’d used it. They’d painted it brightly and adapted it to their use. It didn’t have any weapons, though.

I was at a bit of a disadvantage. Not only was Trixie’s eight-legged bot much more stable on eight legs, it was a newer design than the old one I’d given the Crusaders. I swore once again that when this was over, I was going to pay a visit to Fillydelphia Cybernetics.

Heading towards Ponyville, I reviewed my game plan. It was good that I knew what I was up against, but bad that I didn’t have all the advantages. Let’s see, I had my switchblade, an old robot, a small flask of tequila, and cool guy shades. Well, I supposed that would have to do.

I approached the bubble and knocked on it with one of the robot’s manipulators. Before too long, Trixie came out of Ponyville on a golden four-poster bed being dragged along the ground by Snips and Snails.

“You could just use wheels,” I pointed out.

“She doesn’t trust them,” wheezed Snips.

Trixie stared at me. “Well, well, well, look who’s back.”

“Can it. Then let me can you.”

She did a little evil laugh and then ordered the two colts to drag her back to where she’d left her robot. I realized that maybe she was outside her protective bubble at the moment and felt the urge to attack, but had to watch forlornly as Trixie calmly boarded her spiderbot because I couldn’t get through the barrier.

“Come and get me!” she shouted from the center of Ponyville. The bubble faded away and I moved forward. In close quarters, I probably had a maneuverability advantage. Trixie moved out of the streets and into the town square to negate some of that. We squared off.

I glared at her. “This day has been a long time coming.”

“It has,” she agreed.

“Let’s get it on, you eight-legged freak.”

With a terrific slam of metal on metal, we clashed head-on in front of the town hall. The Mayor, in a cage, looked on as the two robots grappled together. I managed to get a solid hold on one of the spiderbot’s legs and twisted it until it bent. Trixie’s horn lit up and I ducked just in time to avoid a spell that was aimed at my head. It bounced off the rear wall of the cockpit, and I imagine it would have kept bouncing around if I hadn’t gotten lucky and had it go straight back out the open windshield.

“We agreed no magic!” I shouted.

Trixie grinned. “Yes, but if I win, does it matter?”

“You do have a point, I suppose. In that case, let me show you some of my magic.” While I was capable of growing agave and transforming it into alcohol, I never would have guessed that tequila had reasonable a combat effectiveness.

I opened my flask and threw it at Trixie. It bounced off her shield, but tequila flew everywhere. It was a simple matter to beat more metal on metal until sparks lit everything up.

Trixie winced in surprise at the flames and I managed to get a good enough grip to throw her robot. The eight-legged machine landed at the far end of the town square, sort of near my buiding. I had a sudden thought. What if I take down my building myself before the Black Twins get to it? That would show them.

Trixie managed to right her robot but it was still on fire. I rushed forwards and hit her again, ripping off one leg with each of my robot’s manipulators. I followed up with a couple of kicks with her own missing legs and tossed her through the wall of my place. The roof caved in on top of her.

Slowly, Trixie made her way out of the rubble. The now six-legged robot swayed a little, but she wasn’t down yet. Her eyes flashed red and the whole robot was enveloped with a magic aura of the same color. I should have known she would have a backup plan.

She went on the attack, slamming into me so hard I almost got whiplash. My robot flew across the town square and knocked over the fountain. It seemed that I was going to have a real problem dealing with her all powered up.

As I struggled to rise, my eye fell on a boulder sitting by itself down the street. Rarity had dropped it there back when we were fighting Discord. His name was Tom.

“Hey Trixie, how’s your love life been recently?”

My question was so far off topic Trixie actually halted her attack to speak. “That is no business of yours!”

“I bet it sucks. Anyway, you said you worked on a rock farm. There’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.” Using a manipulator, I pointed.

She looked incredulous. “A rock?”

“He’s always hard for you. And when you have sex, you don’t have to worry about getting pregnant, because his semen is cement. Sement. He’ll screw you in the asphalt all night long. Plus, if you ever decide to break up, you can kick him in the stones.”

She looked at me even more incredulously than before. I made a mental note to apologize to Tom later, and began preparing for my next attack in the few seconds I had before Trixie recovered. This was likely going to take all I had and more than my robot could provide. I was thinking about how much that sucked, when my eye fell on a button the Crusaders had installed. It was labeled nitrous.

Well, that was an easy button to push. I heard a surge of power in the mechanics and I pushed the controls forward in a direct attack. The collision was terrific, and the spiderbot lost several more legs as its machinery ground to a halt.

My own robot did not escape unscathed, but that hardly mattered at this point. Trixie was thrown from her seat and spilled out onto the ground. I hopped down from the cockpit and walked over to her.

Her head jerked up at the snick of my switchblade opening. Her long, eight-legged freaky body was splayed out on the ground, and she began trying to get up.

I noticed that the bubble around Ponyville had faded. Since I was able to walk right up to Trixie, I assumed that all her magic had temporarily been stopped. Good.

I was about half an inch from completing what I had set out to do—killing the bitch—when Twilight’s voice shouted at us. “I’m back, Trixie!”

“You all have a really weird concept of forever,” I said. “That’s how long she said you had to leave if you lost, Twilight. Actually, now that I think about it, very little in Equestria that is said to last forever actually does.”

While I was distracted, Trixie got up and used several of her legs to grab me.

“Eww! It touched me!” I cried.

“Don’t come any closer, Twilight,” said Trixie. “If you move, I’ll kill him.”

“While this is my life you’re talking about,” I said, “You couldn’t have picked a worse thing to threaten her with. Frenemies, remember? She doesn’t care about me.”

Twilight nodded to confirm that. Trixie growled. “Well, what are you here for, Sparkle?”

“I came to challenge you to a rematch,” the purple four-legged unicorn said.

“Ha! Still worked up about those age spells?” cackled Trixie. “Well, how about I give you a closer look?” She fired a bolt of red magic.

Twilight grabbed a piece of metal from the shattered robots. Just like it had in the cockpit, the spell ricocheted off the steel. My eyes went wide as the magic headed straight back the way it had come. It whizzed past my ear and hit Trixie in the face.

She shrieked and fell over backwards, releasing me. I glanced up at Twilight who was staring at the wreckage of the town.

“Kind of made a mess,” I said. “Totally worth it, though.”

“Well, it’s not the plan I was going to carry out, but I suppose it works.” Twilight sighed. “I guess I should thank you for taking out Trixie’s robot to make things easier for me.”

She started to repair my building, placing the stones back where they had been. I almost stopped her, but she spoke before I could. “And if I’m thanking you for that, you should thank me for saving your life.”

“I…okay, yeah. Thanks.”

“Friends?” she asked. My lip twitched and I couldn’t seem to make my vocal cords work.

“Frenemies?” she tried.

I nodded quickly. “Yeah. Frenemies.”

Twilight held out her hoof and I bumped it. She went to calm the watching crowd with a few tricks. Applejack and Rarity were aged and de-aged. AJ turned into a dude. Pinkie played her polka set.

When Rainbow was doubled, one of the watching ponies gasped. “What does it mean?”

“Just tricks,” said Twilight. She revealed the clever disguises she got her friends to put on. Also, she put down the cute animals that had been swirling overhead with her magic.

“You’re a terrible magician,” I said. “You’re not supposed to reveal the secrets.”

And speaking of magicians…I turned, looking in surprise at what lay in the street. It was a blue unicorn foal, too young to have a cutie mark. And thank God. The last one Trixie had looked suspiciously like the star and moon of Islam. George W. would have had a fit.

I was interrupted for a moment by Pinkie mashing her lipless face against Fluttershy’s mouth. It was the creepiest kissing I had ever seen, but since their wedding had been ruined again, I suppose they deserved it. Or at least Pinkie did. One of these days, I would have to set her straight on Fluttershy’s true feelings.

Twilight fixed Pinkie, and to avoid watching the makeout after the pink mare tacklesmooched Fluttershy, I went back to what I had been looking at previously.

Trixie’s big eyes looked kind of confused, and not at all like normal asshole Trixie. I wondered if the de-aging spell had affected her memories. The amulet was now too large and had slipped off her neck. I walked over to the young filly.

She looked up at me. "Are you my daddy?"

Sleepless in Ponyville

“She certainly seems to have imprinted on you, Valiant.” Twilight was reading from a book titled Young Foal Psychology.

I stared morosely at the blue unicorn filly, who seemed unaffected by my death glare. In fact, Trixie seemed to think I wasn’t her sworn arch nemesis. Like we had feared, her memory had pretty much been wiped. Twilight estimated her age at six years old.

“I can’t even tell her to get out of my hair by sending her to hang out with the Cutie Mark Crusaders,” I complained. “She’s a couple of years too young.”

“Well, somepony has to take care of her,” Twilight pointed out.

“And she’s a couple of years too old to just foist her off on the Cakes as an adopted third child.” I sighed. “This sucks so much.”

“What does that mean?” asked Trixie. It sounded strange for her to not be using her “Great and Powerful” façade.

“It means that it’s not a good thing,” I said.

She seemed satisfied with my explanation and went back to looking through the children’s section of the library. She was at least old enough to read.

“I hope you’ll watch your language around her,” said Twilight, giving me a look. “We certainly don’t need a foal that speaks like you. I mean, what will ponies think? She’ll be talking about hands and bacon, and none of the words that come out of her mouth will be politically correct.”

“Speaking of politicians, I know how we can solve this problem. I’ll go to the Princesses. You said it took powerful magic to do age spells, right?”

Twilight nodded reluctantly. “And I suppose if it doesn’t work, you can enroll her in the school for gifted unicorns. I stayed with my parents in Canterlot, but I know there were some dormitories for students that lived at the school.”

“I thought it was for gifted unicorns.”

“Well, regardless of how she used her power, Trixie’s cutie mark was for magic.” Twilight shrugged. “I’m sure that counts for something.”

I sighed and glanced at the currently bareflanked Trixie. “I’ll also have to figure out why I’m not openly hostile to her anymore.”

“Well, it’s pretty clear that she isn’t really the same pony you had a grudge with.” Twilight grinned. “I think you might have a case of the feels.”

I glared at her. “If you ever talk about my feelings again, I’m going to murder you.”

“What’s murder?” asked Trixie.

“Why don’t you talk about that some other time?” suggested Twilight.

I sighed, somehow not able to be angry. God damn, having feelings sucks. “I guess we’d better get started. The sooner this gets fixed, the better.”

The thought that I was trying to return Trixie to her usual state just so I could kill her was somewhat difficult to process. I decided to save it for later. “Come on, Trix.”

The little filly trotted after me as I headed for the door. Outside, I stopped short as Scootaloo went buzzing by on her scooter at a high rate of speed. Trixie bumped into me, her horn poking my side. I winced and stepped out of the way.

“That looks like fun!” exclaimed Trixie, watching the departing Scootaloo.

“She’s a pegasus and uses her wings to move forward.”

Trixie screwed up her face in concentration. Her horn glowed, and her hooves began to lift off the ground with magic. As she began to float away, I quickly pulled her back. “Maybe you want to practice that first. Where did you learn to use magic anyway?”

She shrugged, seemingly unperturbed by me yanking her out of the air. “It’s not too hard.”

Well, I suppose Twilight did say her talent was magic itself. I would have to be careful of that if I wanted my plans to succeed. I knew where I stood with old Trixie. This kid was going to drive me nuts.

I walked down the street towards my place. I was keeping an eye on Trixie and not really paying attention to where I was going. Her eyes were wide and staring at all the things around town. I wondered if perhaps I could instill in her some wholesome democratic values so that she would be skeptical and pessimistic about this magical little land. Maybe I could even turn her into a lil’ insurgent. I frowned as I thought about it. No, wait, insurgents were bad. Democracy was good. Turn her into a…uh…freedom fighter. Yeah, let’s go with that.

I thought that it was lucky Trixie had been returned to her natural, unmutated state when she had been changed into a foal. God, how creepy would a little filly with spider legs be? Not to mention how the townsfolk would react. I mean, I’m used to torch and pitchfork mobs, but they’re usually directed at me.

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice the Black Twins until Trixie and I had practically walked into them. I stopped in my tracks. Trixie ran into me again. I might be developing a bruise from her horn.

“We’re here to inform you about our intent to stop Fluttershy and Pinkie’s wedding,” said Woody.

“What the hell does that have to do with me?” I asked. “The two of them are going to Las Pegasus to find a quick-n-easy method because everything else so far has gotten ruined. I’m not involved this time.”

Beauty nodded. “By terminating their planned ceremony, it will force them to hold another at a later time. They might decide to have it in Ponyville, which will get you involved.”

I stared at the two of them. “What sort of convoluted plan is that? What type of idiots are you to tell me this? Futhermore, what kind of evil bitches ruin a wedding on purpose?”

“What are bitches?” asked Trixie.

“Not now,” I told her. I turned back to the Black Twins who stared at me impassively. “And didn’t you say you were going to destroy my building? It hasn’t happened yet.”

“We said we’d do it in a week,” explained Woody.

“And next week, we will,” promised Beauty. She glanced at Trixie. “Cute kid.”

“She isn’t mine.” I watched as the two of them turned and walked away. I stared after them with rage. I do have a few honor standards, but at this point if my gun was ready, I would have shot them in the back without hesitation. The nerve to think Trixie was my daughter.

I debated working on the Desert Eagle now, or wait until I had taken the filly to Canterlot. I didn’t know if I could work with the distraction of her around, so I decided to make the trip first.

Trixie stared with wonder at the Monstrosity aircraft. Admiral Falcon fluttered over and took up position in the copilot seat while I made a few preflight checks. Trixie clambered through the rear door as the engines started.

“This is fun!” she called.

“We haven’t even left the ground yet,” I said. After advancing the throttles, the aircraft lifted off. Trixie squealed with excitement and wrapped a harness around her body so she could lean out the open door without fear of falling.

“Something strange about that kid,” I remarked to Admiral. He shrugged noncommittally.

The flight to Canterlot didn’t take long. I landed in the castle courtyard and took Trixie up to see the Princesses. Only Luna was available. I started in on the story of how we ended up in this situation.

“…and that’s how I ended up with this.” I finished the narrative and gestured at Trixie, who was busy reading a book that was lying on Luna’s desk.

“If an age spell isn’t reversed immediately, then there could be unintended consequences of trying to undo it,” Luna explained. “The spells slowly wear off, and it becomes harder to compensate for that the longer you leave it.”

“So…she’ll eventually return to her normal age?” I asked. Luna nodded. “So how long will that take?”

“It’s hard to say. I could explain, but—”

“Magic, yeah.” I rolled my eyes.

Luna smiled. “Don’t feel bad. There is a lot that even I don’t know about it. For instance, I’m still slightly confused about resuming my role as Royal Dream Moderator.”

“Huh? What’s that?”

“I enter the subconscious of sleeping ponies to help them have healthier, less scary subconsciouses. A kind of nighmare patrol, if you will.”

“So you’re some kind of dream police? That’s a cheap trick.”

Luna shrugged. “I want you to want me to help. Just surrender your doubts.”

“Don’t forget that for a long time I thought that Equestria was a dream. Two can play at this game.”

The Princess nodded. “Very well. Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“What? Aren’t you going to fix Trixie?”

“No. It would be best if we just gave her time to re-grow up.”

“Well, can we enroll her in the gifted unicorns school?” I asked.

“We have a standing policy about admitting students who are currently under the effects of spells.”

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Luna looked thoughtful. “Raise her?”

“Do I look like I’m qualified!?” I shouted.

“There’s no reason you can’t learn,” Luna suggested. “Why don’t you just go back to Ponyville. I’m sure there are plenty of ponies around there who could help you.”

“You’re insane. Come on Trixie, let’s go before the insanity spreads.” I got up and Trixie closed the book, which I recognized as one Luna had had around her office before. It had a dark cover and faint markings of stars and swirls. Then I tripped over a bearded lizard and went sprawling to the floor. The reptile scurried away.

“What the hell do you have those things in your office for?” I demanded.

Luna shrugged. “It’s an ancient castle. Sometimes things just get in.”

Grumbling about a suspicious lack of exterminators in Canterlot, I led Trixie back outside. She said, “I’m hungry.”

What the hell was I supposed to feed a kid? I looked around. Aha, the donut shop. We went inside. Joe asked, “Are you really sure you want to just feed her this much sugar?”

“It’s your fault for not making healthy donuts,” I pointed out.

Joe made a face. “I think you’re looking for the bagel shop.”

Trixie and I headed that way, but found a proper restaurant first. They had a kids’ menu. I stared at the little filly as she ate, seeing absolutely none of the Trixie I had grown to hate. Where had her life taken a turn to transform her into such a bitch? Was it something that could be avoided by a different lifestyle?

A while later we were back in Ponyville. My plan to show Trixie the boring drudgery of interacting with heads of state had failed. She told me that she enjoyed the experience of simply hanging out with me.

“Well, make yourself useful and hold this.” I gave her a few small parts of the Desert Eagle and picked up the frame with my hooves. “Now, put them in here and here.”

Trixie concentrated, her tongue sticking out. With magic, she inserted the parts into the proper places. I was a little envious, actually. Being a unicorn would up my weapons production considerably.

There was a knock on the door and Applejack stuck her head in. “Hey Valiant, I’m goin’ camping with Apple Bloom. Rarity, Sweetie Belle, Rainbow, and Scootaloo are coming too. We can take Trixie if you want.”

Trixie sqeeed with excitement and tugged on my hoof. “You should come too. Please?”

“I don’t have a tent.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “The one Rarity brought has two floors. She’ll probably let you stay. Besides, you should get out of town soon. Pinkie and Fluttershy are coming back from Las Pegasus soon.”

“What, and miss the wedding afterparty?” I said.

Applejack shook her head. “Nope. We heard that the wedding was called off ‘cause Las Pegasus was destroyed.”

“What, like…all of it?”

“Sounded like it,” Applejack confirmed. “They’re sayin’ it’s the worst disaster in Equestrian history. There were almost a dozen injured.”

Holy shit. Mathematically, that made the Black Twins worse villains than Nightmare, Discord, Chrysalis, and Sombra put together. I wondered why Applejack hadn’t mentioned the Twins. Maybe they’d done it secretly? That was why they had told me about it-I wouldn’t have known otherwise. And everyone thought I was a sick bastard.

I packed up a few things and Trixie happily pulled me along to go camping. After walking for a while into the woods, we set up camp. Applejack used a bow fire drill to light up the camp fire. It was an interesting piece of field craft, but I couldn’t really show her up because I had forgotten to bring any napalm.

As we sat around the fire, Rainbow started to tell some scary story. I wasn’t really paying attention. Trixie was leaning on me, and at particularly intense moments of Rainbow’s story, she would sometimes tense up.

Later that night, the two of us crashed in Rarity’s tent, which was more than big enough. Trixie had her own sleeping bag. She smiled at me. “Thanks for everything. This was the best day ever. I love you, daddy.”

My eye twitched, and my whole body followed suit. I heard Rarity come stomping down the stairs. “Valiant, what is that awful noise you’re making?”

“I…I think I’m having a heart attack. I hope I am, because that would be way more manly than the alternative.”

I did not die, however, and in the morning had mostly managed to forget about the incident. After packing up, we kept walking. The trees were getting thicker. Our ultimate destination was a waterfall. I didn’t know much about the place, but I had been promised rainbows. I hate rainbows, especially the pegasus variety.

Dash hadn’t done much to annoy me today, and for that I was happy. It gave me more time to concentrate on Trixie, who was busy frolicking. I couldn’t tell, but she might have been slightly taller today. I figured it was the spell wearing off, like Luna said. At this rate, she might be back to normal in a few weeks.

After walking all day, we made camp in the evening inside a cave below the falls, intending to walk up there in the morning. At some point in the night, Trixie nudged me awake.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Princess Luna was in my dream. She told me to tell you that Scootaloo might be in trouble.”

I sighed. “All right, let’s go.”

Scootaloo’s sleeping bag was empty. The two of us walked out of the cave. Trixie cast a soft light from her horn that helped me find scooter tracks on the ground. From behind, I heard a snort that sounded like Rainbow was choking on air and/or snoring like a horse. Maybe that’s why she wore earplugs, to stop from waking herself up.

We walked through the forest, carefully keeping to the path Scootaloo had taken. I was brought up short, however by a sword stuck in the ground behind a bush. It was the one I had forged with the intent of killing the Black Twins. I thought it had been lost forever.

“What’s that?” asked Trixie.

“It’s a sword. I made it myself.”

“Neat.”

I carried the blade carefully and we kept walking. Overhead, I saw Rainbow go by. The pegasus pulled up short. “Hey, what are you doing out here?”

“Looking for Scootaloo,” I answered.

“Did a dream wake you up, too? Did Princess Luna show you—” She shook her head. “Never mind.”

“No, I want to hear this,” I said. “What did she show you?”

Rainbow flew away without answering. Trixie and I continued on, still following the tracks. In a few minutes, we came to a river that ended in a waterfall. Rainbow flew up from under the cliff, carrying a wet Scootaloo.

“Ha!” exclaimed Rainbow. “Look who’s fastest at saving lives.”

“You think you’re so great?” I asked.

Rainbow puffed out her chest. “Yeah. I’m better than anypony.”

“I know a good way to even things up. Death is called the great equalizer for a reason-the rules are the same for everyone.” I glared at Rainbow. Once again, she took off without comment. I realized she still hadn’t told us what Luna had showed her.

This was just Rainbow being Rainbow, and I could hardly add her to the kill list for being her usual self. Didn’t mean she wasn’t close to being added anyway. I mentally reviewed who was on it. Oh yeah, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon were near the top. The Black Twins, on the other hand, had received so much of my hate that they practically had their own list.

Hopefully this sword would serve as an interim offensive measure until I could get the handgun finished. The Desert Eagle was my master plan, but I would certainly settle for killing them with a blade.

With Scootaloo saved and in good health, Trixie and I walked back towards the cave. She looked at the sword. “Can I hold that?”

“It’s pretty dangerous.”

“I’ll be careful, I promise.”

Well, if I could trust three fillies with a robot, I could probably trust just one with a sword. That reminded me, I still needed to pay the Crusaders back for using their robot to put a stop to the rampaging spiderbot Trixie had been piloting. That reminded me that I still needed to visit Fillydelphia Cybernetics.

Trixie experimentally swung the sword in front of her with magic, slicing off a few vines and even tree branches. It was a little hilarious to watch, since it was a rather large sword even in my hooves. For her, it was longer than she was tall. I quietly managed to suppress a laugh so I wouldn’t have to explain to her what I thought was funny. I didn’t stop watching, though.

The next morning, we all headed to our main destination. As we walked, I noticed again that Trixie might have grown an inch in the night.

The falls were all technicolor and stuff. Speaking of rainbows, I asked Rainbow again what Luna had shown her. She was reluctant to answer.

“Uh…distraction!” Rainbow kicked a low-hanging cloud and rain showered down on Trixie and I.

The dripping wet filly growled. “You’re a bitch, Rainbow.”

In spite of myself, I grinned. “That’s my girl.”

Wonderbolts Academy

When I woke up in the morning there were two red lines on the ground that extended through Ponyville. It looked rather strange.

“What could that be?” asked Trixie. She had continued to grow, and this morning was almost on the same level height-wise as the Cutie Mark Crusaders.

I shrugged. “No idea. Why don’t you go that way and I’ll go this way and we’ll try to find the ends.”

She agreed to that and we set off. I followed one end of the twin trails. I began to get the feeling that perhaps this wasn’t paint, as there appeared to be small chunks in it. Occasionally, little pieces of white stuff would also show up. Bone, perhaps? Had someone been put through a wood chipper?

The trail terminated at the edge of town. Walking back, I met up with Trixie. She reported a similar finding on the other side of Ponyville.

We both agreed that it was strange. Did two lines imply a pair of pulped ponies? Anyone I knew?

At any rate, Trixie and I weren’t distracted for long. There was still a lot of work to be done. Most of it was centered around the Desert Eagle currently under construction. It was neither a simple nor a quick process.

I also worked on reforging and honing the blade on the sword I had recovered from the forest. I was looking for new sharpening techniques, so I took it over to the library to see if Twilight had any books about metalworking that could give me an edge. Literally.

She managed to come up with a few books that might help. I saw her examining the sword, which was a little out of character for her as she didn’t really like weapons.

“See something you like?” I asked.

“With a little more work, this could turn into something more than just a blade. More like a work of art,” Twilight commented.

I narrowed my eyes. “Have you been reading those period romance novels again?”

“What? No, that’s not what I meant at all. I was just reading a letter from my brother about the magic shared between a weapon and its wielder. Some soldiers have even given their swords names.”

I considered that. I had named robots and aircraft before. “So what do you think this sword should be called?”

“Hmm.” Twilight thought. “Edge?”

“I’m not naming anything after a member of U2.”

She didn’t get the reference, but continued on. “Sword of Highly Incredible Technology?”

“Well it is, but think about the acronym.”

Twilight made a face. “How about Sting?”

“Do I look like a hobbit?”

Later in the day, Trixie had gone off to play with the Crusaders. Her magical ability was pretty much superior to any unicorn in her age group, so Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo wanted her help for their shenanigans.

I still owed the Crusaders a robot, but I had a few more important things to take care of. While I hadn’t seen the Black Twins yet that day, I figured it was only a matter of time until they put in an appearance. I was probably luckier than most ponies in Equestria, but no way was I lucky enough to have those twin blood trails be what was left of the Twins.

The day wore on. Work on the handgun was slower since Trixie wasn’t around. She came by with the Crusaders late that afternoon. “Dad, can I spend the night?”

“I have no problems with that.” I didn’t worry a whole lot about Trixie. She’d already shown more than enough competence with magic. The Crusaders, while often finding themselves in sticky situations, usually managed to get out of them easily enough. The best part was, Trixie didn’t seem to need school. As she grew older, her memories seemed to be coming back. I hadn’t asked whether they conflicted with her new childhood, but she hadn’t said anything was bothering her.

I actually had a pretty relaxing evening. I didn’t drink to excess, but just enough to relax. While I was at the library, Twilight had loaned me the newest Daring Do book. My recreational reading had dropped off since I first arrived in Equestria, and it was nice to just hang out for a bit and think about other things. I still couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen the Black Twins.

In the morning, Trixie wasn’t back yet, but I asked about her to Applejack and Rarity when I saw them. They both confirmed that she was having a blast with the Crusaders.

I met up with the two mares at a picnic. Pinkie was hosting it because she was so excited to find out if Rainbow had been accepted to the Wonderbolts Academy. So very excited, in fact, that she had cancelled her own wedding.

“I mean, it would probably just get interrupted by something anyway,” she said.

While Fluttershy was agreeable, I was a little angry. “I mean, it’s not my wedding or anything, but you blew it off like it was nothing.”

“Silly Valiant, you can get married as much as you want whenever you want. This is the only time Dashie could get a letter from the Wonderbolts Academy!”

In a strange way, that made a lot of sense.

Post Haste showed up with a letter for Rainbow. I hadn’t seen him around much since he’d helped with the whole combat-robots-versus-Changelings in Canterlot. He gave Rainbow her letter and we chatted for a little while before he left to continue his route.

To no one’s surprise, Rainbow had been accepted to the Academy. Not that I liked seeing her happy, but as the only pony to ever do a sonic rainboom, let alone twice, and as an Element Bearer who had saved Equestria a couple of times, not to mention saving the lives of the Wonderbolts themselves that one time in Cloudsdale, I was a little surprised that the Wonderbolts hadn’t come in person to recruit her. I concluded that they must be even more conceited than Rainbow was.

“DON’T FORGET TO WRITE!” thundered Pinkie through a megaphone at Rainbow as she departed for the academy.

I yanked it out of her grasp. “I’ll take care of this. You’re loud enough already.”

“Okie Dokie Lokie!” Pinkie turned to go.

“Hey, while I’m thinking about it, when did the wedding get rescheduled to?”

She shrugged. “We can’t have it without Rainbow. And since I don’t know when she’s coming back, I don’t know when the wedding will be, and I don’t know when I can finally not feel guilty about getting some of that sweet Fluttershy flank!”

The yellow pegasus in question gulped. Pinkie grinned and pulled her away.

The next couple of days passed quickly and pleasantly. Trixie was still hanging out with the Crusaders, and I still hadn’t seen the Black Twins. I even managed to get the gun almost finished.

Pinkie continued to hang out by the mailbox, obsessively waiting for a letter to arrive. She eventually agreed that maybe it would be best to visit Rainbow and bring her a care package.

I was tasked with transportation. The Academy was located at the peak of a very steep mountain with a flat top. I had no idea how the building materials for the place had gotten up there, but it had a very nice paved runway.

It had been a very long time since I had been able to make a conventional landing with the Monstrosity aircraft. In the tight confines of Ponyville, it was usually VTOL only.

There was a little tornado we had to fly through to arrive. It wasn’t as powerful as the one that had been used to lift water from Ponyville to Cloudsdale, and I had no trouble navigating through it.

“Wow, I’m kind of glad we didn’t take the balloon,” said Twilight. “It might have been a rougher flight.”

Rainbow was there to greet us as we stepped out of the aircraft. “What are you all doing here?”

“We wanted to bring you a care package,” said Applejack. “Didn't realize you'd be in the middle of some crazy tornado drill.”

“That was awesome!” cheered a pegasus who looked a little like Rainbow. “We totally wiped the clouds out with that tornado. The other cadets will have to be up there for days to bust as many as we did.”

“That was your tornado?” I said. “Bitch, please. You don’t know a damn thing about severe weather.”

“It’s kind of true, Lightning Dust,” agreed Rainbow. “On top of that, you made me clip my wing and you sent half of our class into serious tail spins on the obstacle course.”

Lightning put on a so what look. “Yeah, and…?”

“I get that you want to be the best,” said Rainbow. “So do I, but you're going about it in the wrong way.”

“The Wonderbolts don't seem to think so,” argued Lightning. “After all, Spitfire did make me the leader and you the wing pony.”

Rainbow sighed. “You're right. She did.”

Speaking of Spitfire, she flew over to us, probably trying to figure out what the heck had just landed on her runway. I might be in a little bit of trouble, but I had tried to call the tower before landing and got no response. Probably because there wasn’t a tower.

“You two are supposed to be up there busting clouds,” said Spitfire, looking at Rainbow and Lightning.

“We're done with that, ma'am,” answered Rainbow.

Spitfire looked surpried. “Already? That's an academy record! Explain your methods.”

“I decided to use a tornado,” said Lightning.

Spitfire hmm’d. “A bit excessive for cloud-busting, but judging from your time, it was obviously an effective tactic.”

“Not really,” I said. “As the guy who had to fly though it, I can say that it didn’t even make me wet my pants even a little.”

“Who is this?” asked Spitfire.

“Don’t listen to him,” put in Lightening. “He’s just an earth pony thinks he knows something about flying.”

“Oh, so now it’s about racism?” I said. I quickly ran back to Monstrosity and retrieved the megaphone I had taken from Pinkie. “GOT NEWS FOR YOU. WE ARE ALL EQUAL NO MATTER OUR PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES. IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT, I WOULD BE GLAD TO SHANK YOU WHERE YOU STAND.”

I could have followed up on the threat, too. I just happened to have brought the sword with me. The gun was not operational yet, but I had brought that too in case I got some downtime to work on it.

Everyone who had been on the receiving end of the megaphone looked a little windswept and like their ears were ringing. Twilight edged over to me. “You realize you just threatened a major celebrity who is a member of the Equestrian military?”

“Well, it wasn't directly aimed at Spitfire, but I can do whatever I want. I have the megaphone. GOT THAT, BITCHES?”

After dropping off Rainbow’s care package, we left. The conversation on the way back centered around Rainbow’s new Academy acquaintance.

“I think it was admirable how Rainbow took the higher road,” said Rarity. “She accepted Spitfire’s decision to make her the wing pony.”

“Well, that did get reversed after you made Lightning appear incompetent,” observed Twilight, looking at me.

“Yeah, I do kind of regret that,” I said. “We should keep her around. It isn’t often that you find a pony who makes Rainbow look like less of a bitch by comparison.”

Back in Ponyville, a press conference had been called. I didn't know of anything noteworthy as of late, so it was a little confusing as to why the Mayor wanted the whole town to assemble.

When we were all there, the Mayor broke the news. “Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon have been missing for several days now. Along with those two blood trails through town, I think we can agree that they could be injured.”

“No, they’re definitely dead,” put in Sir Win.

“Yes!” I shouted.

All eyes turned to me. From the podium, the Mayor said, “Mr. Valiant, could you please tell us what you know about that?”

I heard the suspicion in her voice. “Yeah, it was true that I wanted to kill the two of them. But do you think I would be so crazy as to leave that much evidence spilled on the street?”

“You’ve never been the most sane pony,” I heard someone mutter. I felt something in the crowd dynamic change as angry herd mentality kicked in. All the building hostility was aimed squarely at me. I glanced away from the irate faces to see two ponies shouldering the Mayor away from the podium.

“Good afternoon. My name is Blackwood. This is my sister, Beauty. We’re here to take responsibility for the killing of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.”

My mouth dropped so far open in surprise that I thought my jaw would unhinge.

The mare spoke up. “They weren’t very nice fillies, but mostly my brother and I did it to antagonize Valiant and deny him the satisfaction of killing them himself.”

The crowd had gone dead silent. The Black Twins presented evidence of their deed: DT’s crown and SS’s glasses.

“Sorry there isn’t more to show,” apologized Woody.

“They were pretty much meat paste after we were finished,” added Beauty.

My legs began to shake. I was vaguely aware that it was caused by rage. The casual manner in which the Black Twins had slaughtered two fillies caused part of it. The fact that they had done it specifically because they knew it would anger me also contributed. They hadn’t threatened or even mentioned Trixie, but it was clear that they wouldn’t mind hurting her. I hoped that her magic would somehow deny them the ability.

“Get them!” shouted Post Haste, the first pony to snap out of the horror-trance that most of the crowd was under. The Black Twins pointed their horns at him and he exploded.

Once more, the crowd was silent. Being showered with blood will do that to you. It also explained how easily DT and SS had been pulped.

Well, it was now clear that basically no one was safe, not even our mail ponies. I had used so much of my self control trying to keep my thoughts rational up to this point that my still-growing fury broke loose, overwhelming my consciousness and causing my mind to go dark for safety purposes. I didn’t even feel it when I hit the ground.

I woke up on Twilight’s couch. She was looking at me. “Oh, you’re awake. I guess you didn’t have an aneurysm after all.”

As much as it pissed me off that my body had reached its design limits, I was kind of grateful that it shut down before my heart could overpressurize things and blow a blood vessel. I guess my brain was smarter than I was.

“What did I miss?” I asked.

“Well after murdering Post Haste right in front of everypony, they left the stage. We were all too afraid to follow them.”

“At least you now understand what I’ve been dealing with since they showed up.”

Twilight nodded. “I’m sorry. I had no idea. This is a serious problem. I’ve already written to Princess Celestia.”

I felt anger rising again, but managed to quell it. It was becoming clear that this might not be a problem I could handle myself. I didn’t like to admit that, and came dangerously close to another infarction.

After a few minutes, I finally restored enough control to sit up from the couch. “Twilight, why am I here?”

“Oh, um, after their little demonstration the Black Twins leveled your building.”

I took a deep breath. “How is the damage?”

“I just told you. They leveled it – it’s flat. Literally. There aren’t two bricks stacked on top of each other.”

“I thought you put defensive spells on it,” I said.

“Clearly that didn’t stop them.”

“You’re the freaking Element of Magic! How is that possible?”

“Well, defensive spells have never been my best work,” said Twilight.

I took another breath and let it go. This was way less severe than the other things the Black Twins had done. It was almost petty by comparison. Huh, I think my anger tolerance was going up. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, as they say. Maybe there was some way I could use that to my advantage.

“Twilight, start annoying me. If I can build up my stamina, I can be the angriest pony in Equestria.”

Apple Family Reunion

Rather calmly, I sat down and began making an itemized list of all the advantages I had over the Black Twins. It was a refreshing break from being angry.

My hatred training had been going pretty well. By extending my tolerance, I was able to go further without another rage-induced auto shutdown of my mental facilities. Twilight seemed to think that it made me generally more mellow when I wasn’t trying to get mad. That comment helped me get angrier, like some kind of irate feedback loop.

As I made the list, I felt some annoyance. Every time I wrote down something, I would think of a way the Black Twins had demonstrated that they could counter it. Swords had been crossed off, as had groin kicks. I kept thinking of new things, only to abandon them.

Eventually, I was left with just one single advantage. Luckily, it was a big one. They don’t know I’m from Earth. I could still pull human tricks on them. Namely, the .50 caliber Desert Eagle.

My current base of operations was the library. I was back to sleeping on Twilight’s couch, and every time I thought about that, I had to fight to keep the anger down. Trixie seemed to enjoy the easy access to books, however.

Twilight had initially been against the two of us sharing the couch. Trixie and I, that is. Twilight sure as hell wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near sleeping with me, regardless of how much either of us didn’t want that anyway.

I had relented, however, because Trixie was a remarkably motionless sleeper. She was still growing, but the two of us could still fit on the couch together. Twilight eventually ok’d the arrangement when I reminded her that I was in no way interested in sex with ponies, especially not ones who thought I was related to them.

One huge change had been made, however. Trixie gave me the sad puppy dog eyes and asked me to stop drinking so much so my breath wouldn’t be bad. Unwilling to have an adorable little heart attack, and unable to quickly find a new place for her to sleep, I had relented.

And it sucked. I could now only get drunk in the mornings, and that time today had already passed. Getting bored, I looked out the window. An airship passed overhead with some familiar-looking ponies aboard. Maybe members of the extended Apple family?

I didn’t pay much attention to the airship itself. Such things were gaining popularity in Equestria, but none of them were quite as high tech as the one I used to have. Still, it seemed like something to check out, so I got up. “Hey Trix, are you busy?”

She looked up from the pile of magic textbooks Twilight had lent her. “I could use a study break.”

“I think the Apple family is having a reunion or something. It’ll probably be boring, but they do make the best apple fritters in Equestria.”

Trixie jumped up quickly with enthusiasm and the two of us left the library.

Sure enough, there were more Apples than you could shake your stick at. I figured that in such a group, there was a chance that maybe one of them was gay and would enjoy that.

On the other hand, I’d never seen such a gathering of rednecks outside a NASCAR race, so maybe this was not a place for stallion-snugglers.

Apple Bloom and Babs Seed quickly grabbed Trixie and tried to make a Crusader breakaway, but Applejack quickly hauled them back. Trixie agreed to at least stay around to keep them company.

I left her there, and after having an apple fritter, headed back to town. I was thinking about finally getting started on the problem of Fillydelphia Cybernetics. I would be more actively pursuing the Black Twins, except they came and went at will, and I would have to encounter them before I could kill them.

Speaking of, they were at the community athletic center when I walked past.

I attempted to hide before they saw me, but my surprise and hatred caused me to rip off a long string of swearing, completely blowing my cover. The gun wasn’t finished yet, and I still needed to test-fire it, not to mention that it was back at the library in pieces.

The two of them saw me, looked at each other, and shrugged. Concentrating their magic, they focused on the athletic center’s swimming pool. It was concrete and set in the ground. Pretty soon, it was still concrete, but slowly rising free of the earth.

I stared in horror as the giant tub of water slowly floated into the air. A few ponies that hadn’t gotten out fast enough and still floated inside seemed to be terrified. The pool continued to rise higher and higher. Then it turned over.

A huge tidal wave splashed downwards to the ground and spread out rapidly, sweeping towards me. I turned tail and sprinted for the library.

“Twilight! Get everything off the floor! I hope you have water damage insurance. Everything that is about to happen is the Black Twin’s fault, not mine, I swear. Did you see the pool? They flipped the bitch!”

She poked her head out the window. “What did you say? You shouldn’t scream and run at the same time.”

Fortunately, Twilight didn’t miss the huge wall of water, and with a surprised yell ducked back through the window. As I burst through the front door, I saw that she’d done everything I’d said.

With a gasp, I realized that the disassembled gun parts were still lying in the bottom drawer of the desk I’d appropriated from the library as a workbench. I yanked the drawer out and held it over my head just as the flood hit the tree building.

A few windows were blown out with the force and water cascaded in, but with my warning, Twilight had managed to save everything. I looked in the drawer. The pieces of the Desert Eagle were still dry. Good.

After magically drying the floor out and putting everything back, Twilight and I walked out the door, our hooves squishing in the mud. The damage wasn’t catastrophic, but in a town like Ponyville where floods, and consequently flood insurance, weren’t common, it would probably be a hard blow to the residents.

I believe in sharing hardship as much as anyone else, but it seemed like kind of a dick move for the Black Twins to not keep this between just them and me. I still couldn’t figure out what their overarching plan was.

The Monstrosity aircraft was as undamaged as always, but the engines had been flooded. It would take a while to get them back in condition. I wouldn’t be going to Fillydelphia today.

I decided to work continuously until I finished the gun. It would keep me busy. The next time the Black Twins showed themselves, I vowed to be ready. Armed and ready.

The afternoon and evening progressed rapidly, and I managed to get everything put together even without Trixie’s helpful magic. I had made up some cartridges, and I took half of them—one magazine’s worth—with me to test.

I passed by Sweet Apple Acres on my way to the Everfree Forest. Their barn had collapsed for some reason, and Apple Bloom looked distraught that they had no robot to help. Trixie, however, seemed to be helpful enough by herself and the framework was going up rapidly. I noticed Granny Smith, never the most active pony, looked more lethargic than usual. Maybe she’d come down with something.

Continuing on into the woods, I found a nice out of the way place and set up my target. It was a piece of paper with a crude representation of the Black Twins drawn on it. After pinning it to a tree, I stepped back several paces.

The loaded magazine went into the gun with a satisfying click. I dropped the slide and it chambered the first round just like it should. I wondered how I was managing to do the intricate maneuvers with hooves—something I really should have considered before building the gun. Either way, I didn’t seem to be having too much difficulty. Chalk it up to earth pony magic and don’t think about it too much. Smiling, I aimed at the drawing. “Suck a whole bag of badger dicks!”

It was not a great one-liner, and I made a note to come up with a much better one.

The first and subsequent shots hit their mark, splintering the tree behind the target. I was certainly glad I had worn hearing protection. The gun thundered loudly and powerfully. It made me very happy.

I pulled the earmuffs off after I had fired every shot in the magazine. I’d expended half the ammo I’d made, and had no more on me at the moment. Still, it was a satisfying and successful test.

My thoughts turned to my one-liners. Instead of coming up with an awesome one on my own, I could draw a lot of inspiration from movies and TV and it wouldn’t sound cliché because the Black Twins didn’t know I was from Earth.

A male voice suddenly spoke from behind me. “As far as handguns go, you could have picked better than a Desert Eagle. At least you saved it from the rust that flood would have caused.”

“And ‘badger dicks’?” said its female counterpart. “Are you from Wisconsin or something?”

My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. They totally knew I was from Earth.

Spike at Your Service

Granny Smith died of cancer.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I slurred, the tequila I had imbibed earlier that day affecting my communication skills.

Applejack had taken her hat off and was looking at the floor of the library. “It was so sudden. I’m just glad she was able to see another family reunion.”

“I’ve never heard of cancer being sudden before. Was it supercancer?” That was a little insensitive, but I was drunk.

“It was a strange thing,” Applejack agreed, shaking her head. “The doctors couldn’t figure it out. At least she didn’t suffer much, like Ma and Pa.”

“So…can I offer you a drink?”

She looked at my bottle warily. “I’m sure that stuff would take away my mind for a while, but I have a funeral to plan. I’ll be away from the farm all day settin’ things up.”

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably something you want to do sober.”

Applejack left the library. Twilight came over to me. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “I thought you weren’t going to drink so much.”

“Well, since it is now clear that I can’t outsmart the Black Twins with stupid human tricks, I need to come up with something they’ll never expect from anyone. I figured alcohol will help with that. I’ve had some of my worst ideas while hammered.”

“Well, don’t bother me, I have a lot of reading to get done.” Twilight turned away. Spike had put together a stack of a dozen books that Princess Celestia wanted Twilight to read. The titles were things like Making Friends With Creatures You Hate and What to do When One of Your Worst Enemies Comes Back. Seemed like a rather strange field of study.

Twilight gave Spike the rest of the day off. I lay around for a while longer, unable to come up with any stupid ideas. In the afternoon, I finally ran out of tequila.

Scowling at the bottle, I got up to go find some more. There wasn’t any and I would have to brew some more. At least I had the makings of a faint idea.

I headed for the Ponyville Industrial Nuclear Powerplant. The PINP wasn’t functioning yet, but when I finally got it online it would take care of a significant portion of Equestria’s energy needs. Combined with the hydroelectric dam, it would even make the air pollution insignificant.

I studied the design of the building for a while. The walls may have been packed with explosives, but that didn’t mean I could easily destroy it if I wanted to. Why had I built it that way, anyway?

I frowned. Oh yeah, I had a surplus of explosives lying around and it was cheaper to just integrate them in to the construction than buy more concrete.

After making a few notes, I headed back to Ponyville. I encountered Trixie and the Crusaders along the way.

“Valiant! We just had a cool idea!” exclaimed Apple Bloom.

Scootaloo grinned. “It would be just like boxing, except with Robots!”

“Best cutie mark ever!” cried Sweetie Belle.

“But we need the robots first,” added Trixie.

They all looked at me with anticipation. I thought for a moment. “Well, the time it would take to build at least two robots is probably longer than it would take to just go knock over Fillydelphia Cybernetics. I’ve been putting that off for too long anyway.”

“Cutie Mark Crusader Super-Hostile Takeover!” I cheered along with them.

After a quick stop at Rarity’s to get some custom-made tactical gear, we piled into Monstrosity and headed for Fillydellphia.

“These big sharp knitting needles Rarity let me borrow will work great!” said Scootaloo. She had them folded under her wings. The little pegasus looked at Sweetie Belle. “Where did you get that samurai sword?”

“It’s a ninja sword,” answered Sweetie. She didn’t say where.

“Ah guess I’ve got the worst weapon,” sighed Apple Bloom. “Applejack only let me borrow her rope.”

“Now now,” I comforted her, “rope can always come in handy.”

“Says you,” she grumped. “You built that gun yourself.”

“He also forged my sword.” Trixie grinned. “Thanks dad.”

“Never let it be said that any kid of mine isn’t badass.” I carefully banked Monstrosity low over the city of Fillydelphia. There weren’t any great places to land, so I brought us in for a hover over the target. The four fillies fast-roped down to secure the area and then I just plopped the aircraft down on the roof. It didn’t collapse. While that would have been cool, I kind of wanted to interrogate the ponies inside.

After shutting down the engines, I clipped a rappel line to the edge of the roof and swung down over the side, landing on the sidewalk beside the front door. I looked up at the sign on the side of the building. It was new, so new I could still smell fresh paint, and it read Hoofnmouth Industries.

Confused, I shrugged and went ahead with the plan. I bucked open the door and the five of us went in. As it happened, there were five employees, so we each got one. All of them were too surprised and scared to fight. I pointed the barrel of the gun at the guy I assumed was in charge. He wore a vest with manager stitched on it. “Tell me about the robots.”

He blinked. “Well, we have a lot of them.”

“Did you build an eight-legged one recently?”

The pony nodded. “Yeah, it was for a freaky-looking mare that kind of resembled that filly over there.” He pointed at Trixie.

I nodded. Finally we were getting somewhere. “We recovered a data plate that fell off the robot that indicates the robot was built in cooperation with the Crystal King. Can you tell me more about that?”

“Well, he put memory charms on us all that would activate if we ever talked about him, but since I heard that Sombra died shortly after the Crystal Empire was discovered—” The stallion suddenly stopped speaking, a vacant look in his eyes.

I bumped his forehead with the barrel of the gun. “Hello?”

He blinked. “What?”

“You were just about to tell me what the deal was with the Crystal King.”

“The who?”

I ripped off a long colorful string of profanity that was entirely inappropriate with four fillies present. I shouted at the other shop employees. “Tell me what you know!”

They tried. None were able.

“Wow, that was some powerful magic,” noted Trixie. “I don’t know much about memory spells—I haven’t gotten to that book yet—but it sure took a lot of energy. I don’t think a counterspell would be able to recover anything.”

“Well, just like Pinocchio, shit got real.” I kicked a robot in frustration. It actually looked like a pretty sophisticated piece of equipment.

“How did you guys get this technology, anyway?” I was pretty sure nothing of the kind had existed before I came to Equestria, and they’d somehow managed to put all of this together quickly. I hadn’t heard even a hint of them before the Changeling invasion.

The manager started to speak, but blanked out again. “I don’t know.”

“Don’t tell me that was part of the memory spell, too.” Apparently the Crystal King was more involved with the robots than I thought. Had he started the operation? Just how long had this guy been working behind the scenes? And was King Sombra, of the Crystal Empire, actually the Crystal King? That would make sense, but with so much stuff not making any, was the one logical thing actually false?

“Well, at least we can take their gear.” I directed the Crusaders to cut a hole in the roof so we could airlift everything out.

“So what are you going to do now that your source of livelihood is gone and you can’t remember why?” I asked the manager.

He shrugged. “No idea. We’ve got lots of tools for making intricate parts. Maybe go into the clock business.”

Something about that struck me. The old Hoofnmouth Industries that I had encountered in the past made clocks, yet were somehow involved with the Twilight terminator robot. I asked, “Why did you suddenly change the company name?”

“We got a letter suggesting it.” He shrugged. “It sounded like a good idea. Strangely, the return address was for Hoofnmouth Industries in Ponyville. I checked, and they don’t exist.”

But they used to. In fact, I had set up in their old building until the Black Twins flattened it. This was very strange, and trying to think about it was giving me a headache. I was afraid that we might have a time-traveling company on our hands, and that always made things more complicated.

We continued to take their stuff, and the Hoofnmouth Industries employees didn’t put up too much of a fight. I suppose them not knowing anything about the robots helped. I holstered my handgun so I could help the fillies out.

I spotted a strange device. I wasn’t sure if it was a Geiger counter or a magic equivalent. Either way, it was labeled, radiation detector, and it beeped when Trixie passed by.

I frowned. It had been radiation from the bomb I built mixed with magic that had mutated Trixie into an eight-legged freak. Through all of that and getting turned back into a filly, nobody had thought to decontaminate her. I suddenly had a terrible thought. She’d been hanging out with the Crusaders a lot lately, especially at the Apple family reunion. Could that have been enough to overcome Granny Smith’s weak immune system and touch off a case of supercancer?

I sat Trixie down and had a talk with her. I had already told her all the things that she’d done as asshole-Trixie because I wanted her to not do those things again. Her eyes widened in fear as I showed how the radiation detector reacted. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“I think that’s probably a question for Twilight. Until then, I’d like you to keep this giant block of lead I found in the corner of the building between you and me at all times.”

Trixie looked at the block sadly. “Okay, if it’s for your safety.”

We had to figure out how to creatively load Monstrosity so that the robots and Trixie with her block wouldn’t throw off the weight distribution. I hated to do it, but Trixie was positioned as far away from the Crusaders and I as possible.

Back in Ponyville, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo took away the robots to suit their various purposes. Trixie and I met with Twilight. I had to pull her away from her reading.

“Hmm, I think I see your problem,” said Twilight. “It’s magical radiation.”

“Isn’t magic what you do?” I asked. “Get rid of it.”

“Nopony has ever seen anything like this before,” she said. “We’d have to invent a whole new field of study just to learn more about it, to say nothing of decontamination. The whole process could take years.”

Seeing the horrified look on Trixie’s face, I gave her a smile. “Hey, don’t worry. Once you’re a mutant, radiation can’t hurt you any further. It’s well documented.”

She smiled. “Thanks. That makes me feel better.” She went outside to play, dragging the block along with her.

As the door closed, I burst out, “Oh God, why do I feel so bad about lying to her?”

“Well, there might be a small amount of truth to what you said.”

“Really?” I looked up, hopeful.

“Well, I can’t say for sure that there isn’t. I mean, I just told you nopony knows anything about this.” Twilight looked out the window thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen a filly of that age with such advanced magic. Her technique isn’t great, but she has a lot of raw power. Knowing what I know about old Trixie, I think she might be stronger now.”

“Does that come from reading your magic books, or radiation?” I asked.

Twilight shrugged. “Either way, it’s probably a good thing she likes you.”

I considered that. Yeah, definitely nice to have her as an ally.

Applejack came by. She wore a black hat and a grim expression. “We’re holdin’ the funeral soon. I’d appreciate it if y’all came.”

“Sure,” said Twilight. “I’ll give you all the support a friend should.”

I agreed to go, while quietly avoiding any mention of Trixie. Like Twilight said, we didn’t know anything about magical radiation. Maybe it actually caused anti-cancer, and Granny Smith hadn’t been exposed enough. Yeah, let’s go with that.

The weather was good, and the services would be held at the cemetery. Twilight and I walked with Applejack. The unicorn looked around. “I haven’t seen Spike all day.”

I shrugged. “He’ll probably turn up. How much trouble can a baby dragon find?”

She frowned. “Have you forgotten all the times he—”

“Guys, I just found out something really cool!” Spike came running up as fast as his short legs could carry him.

“Where have you been?” asked Twilight.

“Well, it’s kind of a long story how I got into the Everfree Forest, but while I was there, I found out that I’m tougher than I thought! I was attacked by these timberwolves, and I thought I was a goner, but when they tried to bite me, it didn’t work because their teeth are made of wood and I’m covered in hard scales.”

I gave him a hoof-bump. “Nice.”

Spike looked at Applejack’s somber face, remembering why she had come to the library that morning. “I’m sorry again. Losing somepony so close to you must be hard.”

“It’s all right,” she sighed. “Here’s to hopin’ we can just get some peace and put this all behind us.”

Of course, that’s not how it worked out at all. I should have known that my day was going too well.

We passed by the body lying in the coffin. It’s always freaked me out a little bit that dead people look like plastic. Here in Equestria, the coat of hair covering a pony's body helped a little.

Once the viewing came to an end and we were all sitting, the event speaker stepped up to the podium. Before the speech could get started, the Black Twins elbowed their way to the front.

“Thank you for all coming to this funeral,” said Woody. “I’m sure some of you are heartbroken.”

“We can’t make it any less sad, but at least everything can be more interesting,” added Beauty.

I started to get out of my seat. Beside me, I saw Twilight’s horn begin to glow, perhaps putting together a defensive spell. While the majority of the harm the Black Twins had done was directed at me, enough collateral damage had occurred that everyone in town was afraid of them.

The two ponies at the front turned to the coffin and blasted it apart with magic. Applejack shot up, rage in her eyes. She stopped short as Granny Smith crawled out of the wreckage of the casket. Her eyes were rheumy and it was apparent that her movements were more jerky and uncoordinated than usual.

Twilight was so surprised that she didn’t immediately react. Applejack started forward. “Granny…”

The rest of the crowd screamed and ran. Spike shouted, “Zombie!”

I drew my gun, silently grateful that I hadn’t had time to take the holster off since getting back from Fillydelphia. Yeah, I took a gun to a funeral, but when it comes down to reanimated corpses, who’s laughing now?

Granny Smith was pretty slow to begin with, but undeath made her even worse. I had plenty of time to line up the sights and pull the trigger. Headshot. Perfect.

I looked around. The Black Twins had disappeared. Grumbling, I shoved the gun back in its holster. I noticed Rainbow writing quickly in a notebook. “What are you doing?”

“This is great action! A zombie at a funeral and two incredibly hard to kill enemies popping up every so often to create drama!” She put the quill back in her mouth and kept writing.

“Since when do you need inspiration for action scenes?” I asked.

“I’m writing a novel. It’s about this awesome pegasus who's the best flyer ever, and becomes the captain of the Wonderbolts!”

I stared at her. “Other than being author wish-fulfillment and a terrible Mary Sue character, how exactly does that pertain to zombies and funerals?”

Rainbow shrugged. “It’s really hard to come up with filler. I mean, did you know a story isn’t a novel unless it’s more than 50,000 words long?”

I laughed. “Seriously? Who has time for that?”

Rainbow shrugged and kept writing. I glanced over to where Applejack was looking glumly at the ruined funeral decorations. At least she was smart enough not to approach the body. You never know how contagious that zombism is.

I frowned. Wait, wasn’t it a magically created zombie? Did that affect things? My eyes widened. The Black Twins could bring things back to life. Oh shit. There were a lot of enemies I had that would need re-killing if they decided to make that happen.

Pissed, I wandered back towards the library. There was a lot I needed to do to get ready. I figured I should probably contact the Crusaders and see if they were ready to work on the robots. After that, I needed a much improved design for weaponry. The pistol was not going to cut it.

I wondered what kind luck I had to cause something like this to happen. Several somethings, actually. It had been a pretty much nonstop parade of bad stuff. I figured that if one more thing happened, it might drive me insane.

Just then, I was struck by lightning from a contrived bit of deus ex machina.

totallynotabrony sat back from the keyboard, steepling his fingers. He grinned maliciously. “Excellent.”

Author's Note

I can't belive it's three weeks until the next episode. :twilightangry2:

Keep Calm and Flutter On

I’m sorry for listening to everything on your tape recorder, Valiant. It really was quite fascinating, and I’m impressed how well you’ve documented everything. I appreciate when you made the switch to talking in past tense all the way back at the beginning of the tape. I think it makes the story flow better.

I’ve seen you using the recorder before, but strangely you never mentioned it in your narrative. It’s somewhat entertaining to listen to your parodies of everypony’s voice. Speaking of that, I need to find out who this totallynotabrony is. My best guess at the moment is some kind of alter ego.

Anyway, I felt a little guilty about intruding on your privacy—er, even if you included several plans to murder me—so I left this message to apologize.

Twilight! I think he started a fire at the west end of town.

*clunk of tape recorder being set down*

Spike’s talking about you. I should probably go see how the battle is going.

Twilight’s gone now. I should probably say that it’s not really a battle, just you tearing Ponyville apart trying to kill the Black Twins. I don’t know if you know that or not. Twilight was saying that you went crazy, and I don’t know if crazy ponies know what they’re doing.

I can kinda see why you went nuts, though. I mean, zombies are bad news. I’m glad you’re trying to solve the problem instead of curling up into a ball and whimpering. I totally would have done the same thing.

Uh, I mean the solving the problem thing. Yeah.

*sound of door opening*

Spike, have you seen my dad around?

Oh, hey Trixie. Yeah, he’s down at the west end of town burning things.

Like, all of them?

All of the things? I think so. After the funeral, he went a little nuts. That was two days ago.

*clip clop of hooves coming closer, thump of Trixie’s protective lead block being set down*

Spike, why do you have his tape recorder?

Well, he’s not using it and I thought that as much as he documented everything he would want to know what happened during this little freakout episode.

I really hope he calms down soon. I got my cutie mark back! Well, I suppose not really back because it’s different than the one I had before, but I really want to show him. He’ll be so proud of me.

Huh, that’s an interesting cutie mark. I don’t know what it is, but it’s interesting.

I’m pretty sure dad can tell me more about it. I’m going to go find him.

Here, you take the recorder.

Dad, remember when you taught me that phrase ‘Go big or go home’? Well I have to say, you’ve gone so big that a lot of ponies don’t have homes to go back to. Two solid days of wielding weapons, building new weapons, and wielding those has really done a number on the town. I also would have thought that you would collapse from exhaustion before now.

Oh wait, I see your plan now. You’ve got a war of attrition planned for Black Twins. One of you has to break first. At the rate you’re going, this plan could work.

*distant explosion*

Was that…was that some kind of rocket? I can only imagine why you built that.

*distant machinegun fire*

Well, I know why you built that. The twins have some sort of shielding spell, but from what Twilight taught me, those have a limit. With a high enough volume of fire, you should be able to get through.

I just hope you manufactured enough ammunition.

It’s Trixie again. I just talked to Rainbow Dash. Besides being a bitch, she told me about what she saw of the fighting. It didn’t seem wise to go to that part of town myself. Luckily she was stupid enough to go have a look. Apparently you paused long enough to shoot at her. Sorry to tell you, she’s fine.

Anyway, the rocket that blew up earlier was apparently a small test platform. Once you calm down, remind me to ask you what NASA is. I don’t have to go over there to see the new rocket. It’s so tall that it makes Town Hall look tiny. The Mayor seems upset that you didn’t get a zoning permit. Hey Fluttershy, hold this for a moment.

What is it? Oh, is that Valiant’s recorder? I don’t think he would like somepony else touching it.

I don’t think he’s in a position to care at the moment. I’ll be right back.

*sounds of fumbling with hooves*

Is it on? I think it’s on.

*whimper*

I don’t like fire.

Fluttershy! I’m so happy I found you!

Hi Pinkie.

After Granny Smith’s funeral totally conflicted with our wedding plans, we need to make some new ones. It was so terrible that we had the whole wedding ready to go right after the burial, which looking back on it might have been poor planning, but at least everypony would have been right there and ready to attend. Stupid zombies ruining my plans. Er, not that I think Granny Smith is stupid or—Wow, is that Valiant’s tape recorder? We should record some cool songs. I’m sure he’ll love them. Well, maybe not love them, but maybe he’ll at least laugh when he’s going through the whole tape to listen to it.

I don’t think…

*accordion music*

Makin’ a song to tape record, doin’ it because I’m bored! When the tape spins, it makes me happy like I’m with my friends. I’m singin’ my lungs out, quite unlike a trout, which is because a trout is a fish and breathes with gills instead of lungs, and…hmm, the song needs some work. Give me a few minutes to think and come up with something better.

Hey dad, I just spoke to the Mayor. I told her that because the rocket is a vehicle and not a fixed structure, you shouldn’t need a permit to build. She wants you to demonstrate a liftoff to prove that, though.

I had to wrestle the recorder back from Pinkie. She seemed to think you would appreciate a nice polka. I swear, sometimes I think she’s actually the local radioactive pony.

Speaking of that, I have some bad news. As I was coming back from Town Hall, a blue box appeared out of thin air. A stallion who looked exactly like Time Turner stepped out, gave me an envelope, and got back in. The box disappeared as suddenly as it arrived.

I read the letter. Due to some, uh…wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff, there’s a very real chance that I could re-mutate. I have to be careful with my magic output. In fact, I might be pushing it by carrying around this recorder. There is some medicine that can treat the symptoms, however. I’m on my way to Zecora’s place to see if she can make it.

I don’t know why Trixie left this tape recorder with me as she was passing by the farm. She said something about using less magic until a cure could be found. I had a listen to some of the stuff on the tape, and I’m not impressed by your impression of me, Valiant. I ain’t got no accent.

I can see the smoke from town. All those wooden stands in the market, probably. I think it’s safe to assume the market is closed today. That’s all right, I needed to do some work at home. I have to go get Fluttershy and see what she can do about the beavers that are flooding the orchard again. Maybe if they go so far as to cancel school, Apple Bloom can help. I don’t know if that’s going to happen. Miss Cheerilee has been a lot more assertive lately. Come to think of it, that started after she went with us to Shining and Cadance’s wedding. Does that sound about right, Big Mac?

How should I know?

Even with that silly Crusaders love plot, you were still friends with Cheerilee, right?

Eeyup, but that don’t mean we talk much. She could be a vampire and I could be a werewolf and neither of us would ever know.

That’s kind of a strange comparison, Big Mac.

Eeyup.

I don’t think you should be touching that, Apple Bloom.

This looks like Valiant’s recorder. What’s it doing here?

We could take it back to him.

That’s a great idea, Scootaloo!

Cutie Mark Crusader…um, Tape Recorder Returners?

We really need to come up with better names for this stuff.

I thought you were the dictionary!

That doesn’t help when you need a thesaurus!

*several minutes of robot noises*

Whoa! Did you see that?

Uh, girls, I think we might be in the danger zone here.

Hey, this is a good opportunity! We’ve tried lots of stuff with fire, everything except putting them out!

Cutie Mark Crusader Fire Putter-Outers!

Firefighters.

Shut up, Sweetie Belle.

Rarity, where is your sister and the other Crusaders?

I’m sorry, I haven’t the slightest clue.

I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I found the tape recorder lying in the street and their voices are the last ones on it. At any rate, I called all of you here today because Princess Celestia will be coming to town soon with a special guest.

I got my hooves shined just like Rarity for the occasion!

I just wish Princess Celestia wasn’t so late.

Well Spike, she is bringing a special visitor. That could be part of it.

Uh, Twilight?

Hang on, Spike.

*muttering*

Oh! Princess Celestia…Discord? HOW COULD YOU BRING DISCORD HERE? Uh, your majesty.

*various screams and accusations, mostly overridden by Pinkie’s voice, perhaps involving dollops of whipped cream*

I’m fully aware that the last time Discord was here he created serious havoc, but I have use for his magic, if it can be reformed.

*fragmented recording*

Make that bunny cute again, now!

*static*

Dad, did you hear that shit? I recorded over the rest of their conversation because it wasn’t important, but I think it’s pretty clear that Celestia has ulterior motives. I’ll check into it.

As for Discord, I thought you killed him. I mean, at least you blew him up with that hydrogen filled airship. The stone covering his body was cracked and broken, but it looked like it had been glued back together. I personally haven’t seen Discord yet, so I don’t know if he’s all in one piece under the stone.

Oh, and angry beavers are building an industrial-strength dam near Sweet Apple Acres. I thought you might get a chuckle out of that.

I’m standing across the bridge from Fluttershy’s house. Or rather, where it used to be. Right now, it’s uprooted from the ground and turning slowly in midair. I think it’s safe to assume Discord is in there.

*magic noises*

Why hello there! You must be Trixie.

Uh, I guess that makes you Discord.

The one and only. You’ll have to forgive me, I’m feeling a little disjointed at the moment. Being crushed and exploded inside a statue sometimes does that.

I’d heard that you were made of a lot of different animals, but it looks like you went through a meat grinder before being put back together.

*meat grinder noises*

Like this?

That’s disgusting.

It was your idea. At any rate, yes, I was broken up a bit. Fortunately, immortals can’t really die, or Chaos forbid, be turned into zombies. I only needed a bit of help with the resurrection. As it happened a couple of nice unicorns happened along with just the spell I needed. I really should find them and thank them. Speaking of resurrection, I sense some powerful age spells were performed on you, my dear.

That’s right.

Fun! How about some aging spells right now!

*rumble*

What are you doing?

Digging for fossils, of course. I haven’t done an age spell in ages and ages, so I’d like a challenge. Ah, a nice tyrannosaurus rex.

*magic noises, bones rattling, a loud roar*

A dinosaur skeleton?!

Why yes, I do love a nice premodern pet now and again. Say, little girl, are you interested in taking care of a nice t-rex?

Discord! What are you doing out of the house?

*fluttering wings of an arriving pegasus*

I know you love animals, Fluttershy. I was just checking with Trixie to see if she would let you take care of her pet dinosaur for a while.

It’s not my—

Fluttershy, Trixie, we’ve come to get you away from Discord! He’s just terrible and from the looks of it, completely out of control.

Actually Twilight, we’re making great progress. He’s even given Trixie a new pet.

You don’t underst—

*t-rex roar*

See, they get along great.

Seriously?

I’m just earning his trust by giving him some space to be himself.

Hate to break it to you, but he used all that space to tear out all the pages with reforming spells from the library.

Well, that does explain the paper eating.

HE ATE THEM?

*sound of hoof hitting face*

Tell you what, I’ll invite you all to a dinner party tonight. I’m sure his manners will have improved a lot by then. Discord, could you please put cottage back on the ground?

Certainly.

*crash*

Uh, I think I’ll skip dinner. I really need to go find my dad.

You might need a lot of luck for that, Trixie. Most of the reason we’re here is because Ponyville has become mostly uninhabitable.

I should be fine. He said radioactivity would help a lot if I ever found myself in a wasteland.

Before you go Trixie, can I borrow the tape recorder? Valiant will probably want to know how the dinner party went.

Twilight thinks she’s making notes as the meal progresses. Won’t she be surprised when she finds out that I’ve secretly been recording a little song for her?

Now this is the story all about how

Ponyville got flipped, turned upside down

And I'd like to take a minute, you just sit right there

I'll tell you how I became the Prince of Chaos everywhere

In west Draconequustia born and raised

On the chaosground where I spent most of my days

Chillaxing, relaxing, being all cool

Playing with cotton candy clouds and shooting pool

When a couple of alicorns, they were no fun

Caught up with my trouble, had me on the run

I got in one little fight and Celestia decreed

She said, ‘You're getting sealed up in stone for your evil deeds.’

I hung out for a while and one time I got out

Only to get put freshly returned by some ponies with clout

They were led by this one purple mare

Yes Twilight, I name-dropped you right there

Out again, on parole this time

Celestia thinks I’ll commit no more crimes

But look at all this opportunity in front of us

To let me again be the Prince of Chaos

*rabbit noises*

Angel, wait! Come back with that recorder!

Forget Angel, look at those beavers!

*distant machine gun fire*

*close machine gun fire*

*indistinct explicatives being shouted in a loud voice*

Beauty, did you see that rabbit with a tape recorder?

You have an angry pony with an M60 in front of you, and you’re focused on something like that?

Good point. I am kind of interested to know how Valiant managed to build an M60.

And a skateboard.

To be honest, the Saturn V was the most surprising thing.

True.

Angel, what are you doing here? Oh, thanks for the recorder, dad will want this back. Huh? What are you trying to tell me?

*rabbit noises*

Machinegun? Over there? Thanks for the tip. Come on, Rexy.

*t-rex roar*

Dad!

*machinegun fire*

Dad!

I’M BUSY!

Too busy to see your daughter ride her first dinosaur?

I…what?

She has a tyrannosaurus skeleton, Blackwood.

I can see that. I think perhaps bringing back Discord was a bad idea.

YOU ASSHOLES DID WHAT!

Dad, no!

WHERE IS HE? WHERE IS HE?

*skateboard noises*

Well Trixie, it’s been two days and this is the first time he’s stopped shooting.

Shut up. Both of you. Hey, where do you think you’re going?

Well, two days is a long time. We’re bored.

Get back here, or I’ll tell this dinosaur to eat you!

It doesn’t have a stomach. What do you know about necromancy, anyway?

I’m sorry, dad. I know you would have wanted me to go after them, but I had to check on you.

*machinegun fire*

DEAD…THINGS…STAY…DEAD!

Come now, Valiant, I think this is a bit of an overreaction?

Valiant—yipe!—it’s true, Discord is reformed!

This isn’t working, Twilight. Not that you could reason with my dad before, but this is a whole new level of crazy.

I could just fly over there and take the gun away from him.

You know he would try to kill you too, Rainbow.

I just hope Princess Celestia doesn’t show up. That would be the worst possible thing! We know how Valiant feels about her.

Horseapples, is that—!

*explosion*

*static*

There! I wasn’t sure we could get this working again. These small audio electronics can’t take much abuse.

Thanks a lot, Vinyl.

*door close*

*sound of walking*

That might have been the most destructive final showdown Ponyville has ever seen. At the moment you’re still unconscious, dad. I’ll wait until you wake up and let you observe the results for yourself.

*door open*

Hey Nurse Redheart, can I see my dad?

He needs his rest.

I'm sure he's getting it.

Hey, wait!

*hooves on a tile floor*

Sir Win, what are you doing here?

Well, I’m a demon of my word. If there was the slightest chance that Valiant was going to die, I thought I should be present. I did give him his soul for his birthday, after all.

Oh, that’s right. He said it was a one-time deal.

Correct, and he hasn’t used that one time yet. He’s a very stubborn pony, always clinging to life.

Um, yeah. Anyway, do you know where his personal effects are?

The skateboard and the machinegun? I believe they’ve been stashed under the bed.

Thanks. Hmm, maybe I could learn to use this stuff while he’s recovering.

Knowing your father as I do, he would probably find that to be very badass, Trixie.

I'll make him proud.

Just for Sidekicks

I was in a hospital bed. It was quiet there and nobody was trying to kill me.

My tape recorder had been placed on the bedside table, and I listened to it. It provided some helpful hints as to what had transpired, but didn’t quite tell the whole story. I also learned that I really needed to reeducate some ponies on the meaning of privacy and leaving my stuff alone.

The door opened and Trixe rolled in. She hopped off her skateboard and propped it against the wall, slinging the M60 off her back and sitting down. After taking off her sunglasses, she gave me a small smile. “Hi dad. Good to see you’re awake.”

I nodded. “Let me get this straight: you have a pet t-rex.”

She nodded.

“That is incredibly badass and I’m so proud of you.”

She leaned forward and we shared a quick hug. Trixie pulled back, a little regret in her eyes. I remembered the radiation and how just being near her was probably a bad idea.

“I was thinking about doing some traveling,” she said. “You know, spread my toxic footprint out a little.”

I nodded sadly. “I understand.”

She nodded and started to get up when the door opened and six ponies came in. They appeared to be a little wary, but calmed down once they saw that I wasn’t foaming at the mouth anymore.

“So…what happened?” I asked when they were all there.

“There was this bomb,” said Twilight. “You called it a MOAB.”

“Which you got from somewhere,” added Rainbow, rolling her eyes.

“But with the moon rocket, machine gun, skateboard, and other weird stuff, we shouldn’t really be surprised,” broke in Pinkie.

“Discord was pretty near the blast,” commented Applejack.

“But we can’t really say for certain whether he’s dead or not, because we didn’t find any traces of him,” finished Rarity.

“I hope he’s all right,” murmured Fluttershy.

“Regardless,” continued Twilight, “He’s the Princesses’ problem now. We have other things to worry about.”

“Like rebuilding the town,” said Applejack.

“What’s the destruction?” I asked.

“Well, a twenty thousand pound bomb has a pretty large blast radius,” said Trixie. “Most of Ponyville is at least damaged.”

I considered that. “What about the Black Twins?”

“We haven’t seen them,” answered Twilight. “We think they left town before the explosion.”

We were all quiet for a few minutes. Apparently I had pretty much destroyed the town and gotten very little to show for it. By the sound of things, Discord might not even be able to be killed.

I tried to sit up, but it was a little painful. I might not remember what I had done while on a psychopathic rampage, but I was sure paying for it now.

I fell back on the bed. Something needed to be done, and fast. I kicked around a few ideas, some of them quite terrible. Then I hit on the most terrible of them all. “Twilight, please go get that shit-ugly rock and my finest booze.”

She gave me a skeptical look. “What are you planning?”

“The Black Twins know I’m from Earth. In fact, they know so much that I would say that they are probably from there themselves.”

“But how is going there going to help us?” asked Rarity.

“I know a guy,” I assured her.

Twilight returned in a few minutes with the requested items. “Why do you need the tequila? Since we installed the computerized logistics monitoring package, the multiverse capabilities of this rock are much more stable and useable at will.”

“Because alcohol makes me happy.” I took a swig from the bottle. “Proceed.”

Twilight stared at the complicated electronics that the rock was cradled in. “I think it’s been damaged in the blast. I can’t tell if I’m setting it to take us to your world or thirty-four world.”

I frowned. Those two might have rhymed, but the letters didn’t look anything alike. Whatever. Magic. I waved a hoof for her to just get on with it.

There was a bright flash of light, and we were transported to a different place. Well, different, but still the same relative spatial location. The big changes were to the general décor and activities of the local residents.

Fluttershy covered her eyes. Pinkie looked excited. The rest of us displayed varying levels of do not want.

“Er, I guess this is actually Universe 34,” said Twilight.

“Awkward,” muttered Rainbow.

There was another flash of light and we appeared inside a hospital in Milwaukee. The last time I had seen the place, I was being treated for alcohol poisoning. That had been quite a while ago in Equestrian time, all the way back during the wedding in Canterlot.

It seemed that only hours had passed in Earth time, however. The room was empty except for the eight of us. Seven were naked.

“All right everyone,” said Twilight. “I’m sure there are some spare hospital gowns around here somewhere. Humans have this weird hangup about being naked.”

I was glad she remembered the lessons I had taught her the last time we visited Earth, especially because I was confined to a hospital bed in this universe, too.

There was the expected shock and awe over being stuck in different bodies, but that passed quickly. All of us had experienced enough strange stuff recently that deliberately going to another universe was actually pretty low on the weirdo scale.

They unplugged me from various tubes and wires and rolled the bed out of the room and down the hallway. A nurse glanced in our direction. “What are you doing?”

“They’re, um, kidnapping me,” I said.

She rolled her eyes. “You’ve been telling tall tales ever since you got here. I'm not going to believe this one.”

With that out of the way, we left the hospital and headed down the street. There was a grade that led downhill towards my place. The bed began to roll freely and Pinkie jumped on, giggling. Not to be outdone, Rainbow piled aboard, and the rest were forced to climb on or be left behind.

“It’s the fastest I’ve ever gone on a bed before,” I commented.

“It’s awesome!” cheered Pinkie.

“How are we supposed to stop?” asked Fluttershy.

We were all silent. None of us knew.

With parked cars whizzing by on one side and moving traffic on the other, it almost felt like we were making a trench run on the Death Star. We’d also be just as dead if we hit the walls.

“I’ll probably be okay,” I said. “I’m sure there still enough residual booze in my system to relax my body for impact. Sorry for the rest of you.”

Applejack grabbed the dangling wires and tubes taken from the machines in the room and fashioned them into a crude lasso. She tossed it over a stop sign as we barreled through an intersection. It did slow the bed down, but at the cost of simultaneously ripping the EKG electrodes off my chest and the needles out of my veins.

When I stopped screaming in agony, I realized that we had neatly come to a halt right outside my apartment building. The jolt of pain had caused my reflexes to come back online, and the burst of adrenalin had negated a little of the intoxication. I was able to get out of bed and stumble up the stairs. I was worried for a moment that the door would be locked, but my roommate was there.

“Hi,” I said. “You’ve met Twilight before. This is my daughter, Trixie. The other five are just tagging along.”

He took in the sight of the seven women and myself all dressed in hospital gowns. I bet he was wondering how I had stumbled into a theme porn film, but discounting the idea because I wasn’t that lucky.

“Anyway, we need your connections,” I said.

“What?”

“Come on dude, you’re both a geologist and a discerning aesthetics snob. You have to know something about precious stones, and while you aren’t a jeweler, you probably know a couple of people who are.”

“Well, yeah, but—”

“And chances are that at least one of the jewelers is a fence for the mob. Among the various organized crime groups, someone has to know a pair of twins who do murder and mayhem.”

He shook his head. “Twins, what?”

“Trust me. Just get the word out.”

It took a little more convincing, but he picked up the phone. His jeweler friend said he would make some inquiries. We waited around for a while and the phone rang again. My roommate answered it, his face growing more and more pale as he listened.

Concerned, I asked, “What’s up?”

“Your ex is unhappy with you.”

I didn’t have to ask which one, as that was pretty much the story for all of them. “That’s not news.”

“You don’t understand. It’s the blonde.”

I had dated a couple of blondes. The blonde, however, was one woman I really didn’t want to piss off. I gulped. “What did I do?”

“I wasn’t able to find out. Sorry.”

While I doubted that particular ex would send the Black Twins after me—she preferred to take care of things personally—it was still disturbing that I literally had no idea what I might have done to get on her bad side.

“Anyway,” I said, “I should probably get out of here before she comes for me.”

“It’s probably best,” he agreed.

“Go in the other room. I don’t want you to accidentally get teleported with us.”

He gave me a strange look, but shrugged and went down the hallway. Twilight held up the ugly chunk of basalt and activated the electronics.

“I’ll be glad to get out of this hospital,” I said, back in Ponyville.

“So will I,” said the pony in the bed on the other side of the room. He was a light blue pegasus with a microchip, wire, and piston for a cutie mark.

Trixie pulled the curtain between the beds. She turned back to me. “Get well soon. I think I should probably be going.”

“Don’t forget to write,” I said. She gave me a quick smile before departing with her skateboard and machinegun.

“The rest of us should be going soon,” said Twilight. “Princess Cadance wants us to help bring the Equestrian Games to the Crystal Empire.”

Trixie popped her head back in. “Spike said he’s watching your pets while you’ll be gone. Can he also take care of Rexy?”

“And Admiral Falcon while I’m in the hospital?” I asked.

“I’ll talk to him,” said Twilight. “He seemed a little pushy and wanted to be paid in jewels, though.”

“This sounds like that one time when he got greedy,” I noted.

They all thought for a moment. “You know, he’s right,” said Applejack.

“I couldn’t bear to have that happen again,” said Rarity.

“Okay, so we need to give Spike a good smackdown before he gets any ideas,” put in Rainbow.

“I was just going to pay him in bits rather than jewels,” offered Twilight.

The six of them agreed that maybe that would be easier. They left to board the train to the Crystal Empire.

I lay there for a while, feeling oddly content. I realized there were some drugs going into my IV. That was probably it. I reviewed what I wanted to do when I got out of the hospital. If there really was a Saturn V parked in Ponyville, you bet your ass I was going to go to the moon.

I clicked back in the tape recorder, listening to the fragments of my insane ramblings it had caught. Apparently, green was now a color and a shape, beetles had invaded Switzerland, I promised that next alicorn that I met for the first time I was going to kill, and I wanted a nice ice cream cone. Actually, that last one I felt more strongly than ever. I pressed the call button to summon a nurse.

The ice cream was going on my bill, but combined with the cost of treatment already, I figured that it wouldn’t escalate much. I was happily licking at the cone when the Black Twins walked in.

“Relax,” said Woody. “We’re just here to take away your painkillers.”

Beauty yanked the IV out. I was getting real tired of needles being ripped from my skin today.

They started to walk away, but I called after them. “Is that it?”

“Your temporary insanity was enough to entertain us for quite a while,” said Beauty.

“We’re sticking to small stuff for now,” added Woody.

“You’ve never explained why you keep toying with me in the first place,” I said. “Back when we first met, you said you were getting paid, but never explained by who or for what reason.”

“It's none of your business,” said Woody.

I had an idea. It was risky, but if I was right, it gave me an advantage. “Clearly, if you were allowed to kill me, you already would have.”

Beauty pointed her horn at the pony across the room and something very bad must have happened to him judging by the amount of blood that splattered on the curtain.

“A fancy demonstration,” I said as coolly as possible, “but I’ve got bigger problems to worry about right now. I just found out that my ex is after me.”

The two of them stared for a moment before turning away to have a whispered conversation.

“Hey, afraid I’ll overhear?” I called.

Beauty glared at me. “This is for badass unicorns only.”

Trixie wasn’t here, so I plunked the ice cream cone on my head and looked at them expectantly. Woody shook his head. “Valiant, out of the shockingly high number of exes you’ve had, why is this only happening now?”

I shrugged. “I only just found out myself.”

They traded glances. I gave them the most evil grin I could muster. Somehow, something incredibly improbable had fallen into my lap. I had finally found one thing that appeared to antagonize them.

I said her name. “Meghan.”

Games Ponies Play

I managed to get out of the hospital not much later. The melted ice cream in my mane was sticky, and I went over to the library to have a shower. Spike was there, trying to take care of all the animals the departing ponies had left him while they went to the Crystal Empire.

After cleaning up, I went back out to the main room of the library. Spike had disappeared, taking the animals with him. Rexy didn’t seem to be causing too many problems.

There was an earth pony pretending to look at the books. I say pretending, because the moment I stepped into the room she lost all interest and shot me with a high-powered glare. “There you are.”

Her mane was blonde streaked with magenta, and there was a typewriter on her hip. I had never seen her before, but I recognized the voice.

I jumped backwards. “How did you get here?!”

“It’s not important. What you need to do is help me restore Equestria to the way it was. No more crazy things. No more excessive violence.”

“Why? Why do you care about these ponies? Furthermore, how did you know I was here? Why do you want to associate with me after we broke up? And actually, I think the question you didn’t answer about how you got here is pretty damn important.”

She continued to advance, cranking up the wattage on her glare even further. This is why we had broken up. She intimidated the heck out of me. Her look was different than Fluttershy’s Stare. It was more like a directed-energy weapon, and as the Black Twins had inadvertently revealed, it worked on them too.

I swallowed hard. “Okay… give me a moment. I only just got out of the hospital. I’m sure you’ve seen how that happened.”

“That’s part of the reason why I’m here,” she said flatly. “This isn’t about just you.”

My ears perked up. “Are you here to help me with the Black Twins?”

“Yes.”

I got up, managing to hold myself back from doing a little jig. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

She didn’t go. In fact, she hadn’t thought my question was rhetorical at all. “We’re waiting on a few others.”

I sat back down. “Who?”

“Trust me, you know them.”

The door opened. A tan pegasus with a straight-cut brown mane entered. Her cutie mark was a fiery wheel. There were two ponies with her, both wearing long cloaks. I could see that they had horns.

I had been surprised by one ex-girfriend today, and got a vague sinking feeling that maybe I was looking at more.

“You’ve probably seen Wildfire around,” noted Types, indicating the pegasus. I had decided to mentally call her Types because her real name almost gave me shivers to say.

“Did I date you?” I asked the other mare. “I’ve seen you around before.”

“No, actually,” said Wildfire. “I’m just the monitor and have been watching how things were going. The situation has gotten desperate, even more so than it appears. I had to call the others in for some direct intervention.”

I turned to the two still under cloaks. “And you are…?”

The shorter one pulled her hood back. “You know who I am.”

I blinked in confusion, seeing a face and hearing a voice I knew. “Twilight?”

She shook her head. “No, this is just the form I was randomly assigned when we arrived here. You can be très stupide sometimes.”

“Wha…French...”

She waited patiently for me to make the connection. I shook my head. “But…I didn’t even know you could speak English! How could you deceive me for so long? I thought girls from Quebec were supposed to be nice!”

“Because me speaking in English sounds almost exactly like Twilight Sparkle, so I didn’t want to cause any confusion. And you got to learn French, so there’s a bonus to you. Oh, and just because I’m able to speak French and Canadian doesn’t automatically mean I’m French-Canadian.”

I shook my head again. “Ta—”

She jammed a hoof in my mouth before I could finish saying her name. “We’re trying to fix everything that’s wrong in Equestria, and to do that we need to stay covert and un-human as possible. Don’t use real names.”

I spit out her hoof and nodded in reluctant agreement. I supposed that made sense. I turned to the last pony, who was the tallest in the room by a fair margin. “So, who are you?”

She pulled her hood down. Her coat was white beneath a mane colored a particular shade of red. That was what tipped me off. Only one woman could have had hair like that.

I giggled. All four of them glared at me. I managed to get myself under control. “Sorry. It’s a long story, but it involved a rocket launcher and a play on words with your name. Then I blew up a giant bug. It was pretty funny, trust me.”

They all stared at me and shook their heads. Wildfire said, “That’s lame.”

“Oh yeah? And I assume you know how to have a good time? You hang out with my exes!”

She got in my face. “On Earth, I drive racecars and I’m too cool to have ever dated you!”

I swept my hoof over the others. “You’re better than them?”

“Yeah! I mean, wait…”

I put on my best trollface. The others gave Wildfire a look.

“This is just what he does,” said Types. “You’re lucky you never dated him.”

“Can we get moving?” asked the mare-who-looked-like-Twilight. “We really need to get this problem solved as quickly as possible.”

“We need to go to the Crystal Empire,” said Panzerfaust. “It’s very important that we head off the great evil that is about to befall Equestria.”

“Villain of the week?” I said. “Let me handle it. I’ve killed plenty of bad guys during my time spent here.”

“This is who has been controlling the Black Twins, and formerly, Trixie,” said Fauxlight. “I believe you know of him—the Crystal King?”

I nodded cautiously. “Yeah, I’ve heard the name. So is he actually King Sombra or someone completely different?

“Let’s put it this way,” said Types. “King Sombra isn’t all he is.”

I thought that a sad look might have crossed her face as she said it. My mind ran wild with speculation. Did she know him from Earth? Did I? Were the two of them romantically involved? As her ex, how much did I care? Just what else was she hiding?

I cleared my throat. “Sounds interesting. Tell me more.”

“You really need to work on your transitions,” commented Panzer. “No audience watching at home would ever believe that total lack of sincerity or abrupt mood shift.”

“Shut up,” I mumbled. “At least I don’t draw cartoons.”

“That’s more for the benefit of society than anything you ever did,” she replied lightly, refusing to stoop to my level. I hate it when that tactic doesn’t work.

I sighed. “Fine. Let’s go to the Crystal Empire and get this sorted out.”

“We can talk on the way,” suggested Types. The five of us left the library.

“It’ll be too loud to talk, and I don’t have headset communicators for you all,” I said, turning towards where Monstrosity was parked. All of them immediately nixed the idea.

“We’re taking the train,” insisted Wildfire.

“What, a racecar driving pegasus like you is afraid of a little mechanical aviation?” I taunted. Unfortunately, she was a quick learner and refused to be baited again.

“It’s necessary for normality to be maintained as much as possible,” explained Types. “Plus, that flying machine would attract attention to our arrival in the Crystal Empire.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Fine.”

We got train tickets and boarded. I thought I felt a t-rex hiding under my seat, but couldn’t be sure. I decided not to mention it because the visitors from Earth probably would not like to hear that.

There was an interesting thought. Had I spent enough time here to think that perhaps I was becoming a native and others from Earth were “visitors”? That was a horrible thought and I decided to think about other things. Namely, the four mares that were discussing the situation. I tried to butt into the conversation. “So do I get to know everything that is going on?”

“No,” they chorused.

“So let me monologue,” I said. “That usually helps get all the facts out on the table. First, while I’ve been here in Equestria, bad things have happened.”

“We had a plan,” interrupted Panzer. “You ruined the whole thing. We tried to get it back on track with subtle alterations to the world, but eventually it was decided that drastic measures needed to be taken.”

“I have no idea what those might be,” I said. I paused to think for a moment. “But I have a few guesses. Things like the appearance of really big bad guys like Nightmare Moon, Discord, the Changelings, and King Sombra. Equestria had supposedly experienced a thousand years of peace before I showed up. Then, we get like four apocalypse scenarios all at once. Five, if you count what the Black Twins have done.”

“Incorrect,” commented Frenchie Sparkle. “Some of those were planned. Your method of handling them was what went wrong. We knew we had to do something. Somepony you would never suspect was our agent.”

Several names came to mind. The trouble was, if it was one I would never suspect, I wouldn’t think of it. So I tried to think of ones that I wouldn’t think about. That went about as well as you might expect.

I threw up my hooves. “I give up. Tell me the answer.”

They didn’t.

“And what do you mean by ‘your agent’? Too afraid to come to Equestria and do dirty work yourself?”

“Hey, it’s not dirty work,” retorted Wildfire. “I volunteered to keep an eye on things here while maintaining a low profile so I wouldn’t mess things up like you did.”

“So…are you guys like the gods of this world or something?” I asked. I dreaded if the answer was yes, but that would certainly make for some awesome crazy ex-girlfriend stories.

“This is an alternate reality created for wholesome entertainment,” explained Panzer. “It’s a place to go to escape the real world, a place where you can dream and be happy with simple things.”

“All of us and others had a share in creating it,” said Types. “This was supposed to be a refuge from the real world. A place to get away from it all.”

“Well, I can sort of see how I might have screwed that up.”

“Oh really?” the purple Canadian nearly shouted. “Is is that obvious? You ruin everything!”

I ducked my head. “I’m sorry, I truly didn’t mean to. Do you think I would intentionally jump into your little universe and screw with things on purpose? You all know that I try to stay as far away from my exes as possible. And anyway, how could I have known about your little project or figured out how to get here?”

They were silent, possibly even slightly regretful for assuming that I was more of a dick than I really was. See, even my ex-girlfriends don’t think I’m the worst person out there.

I continued. “So, what is this place? How did I end up here, anyway? I thought the magical rock that caused all this was planted on me by someone from Equestria—that you created.”

“Equestria is more a state of mind than anything,” said Panzer. “If you believe hard enough, anything is possible. With several of us coordinating our efforts—”

“And witchcraft,” broke in Wildfire.

Panzer shot her a glare. “That isn't what it really is, and you know it. Back to what I was saying, clearly we have created a world that goes beyond simple imagineation.”

“So...this kind of is a dream?” I said. “Or more like a dream gone uncomfortably real? One with bad guys that can breach our world to slip me magic rocks?”

Types shifted uncomfortably. “That was a result of a failed experiment. A very failed measure that we took to try and stop you. In fact, it’s still causing problems.”

I remembered back to the crazy wedding when I’d realized some of what was going on. “Derpy traveled time and space, forced to do tasks for her Changeling overlords. She came to Earth and slipped the rock into my pocket at a bar so that I would wake up in Equestria. In fact, that makes it even less of my fault than before. The universe you created pulled me in without my consent.”

“The Changelings are only part of the puzzle,” said Types. “Believe me, I know.”

I wondered how to take her comment, but went on. “So what exactly are we dealing with here? It’s certainly not good when an artificial universe you created is able to make jumps back to our world.”

“We told you, the Crystal King is behind it,” put in Panzer.

“That doesn’t help me. Who is he?”

“He’s our agent, gone bad,” admitted Types. She looked rather broken up about it. “Things got out of control and he took on a mind of his own.”

A few feels made themselves known, and I was unable to kick her while she was down with a snide comment. I said, “You mentioned that it was somepony I would never suspect?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but the train arrived in the Crystal Empire station just then. I groaned in anticipation of being turned sparkly, but to my delight the magic of the Empire seemed to have backed off to just making the locals look like walking discos.

We got off the train. It seemed like most of the crystal ponies were gathered around the castle for some kind of announcement. I heard Princess Cadance’s amplified voice in the distance. “The next host of the Equestria Games is the Crystal Empire!”

The crowd cheered and a wave of love and happiness washed over them all, soaking into the Crystal Heart, which occupied its pedestal beneath the castle. A bolt of energy lit up the whole building, but instead of bursting into a pretty light show or something, black smoke began waft through the air. The glow from the Crystal Heart changed to more sinister colors and kept getting brighter, becoming difficult to look at. I squinted, spotting a figure appear in the center of the light. An evil laugh echoed off all the buildings around the center of the city where the castle was located.

Beside me, Types looked horrified. I asked, “Is that some new evil thing?”

She shook her head. “No, a rather old one, I’m afraid. We’ve been trying to avoid a confrontation like this for a while.”

I started forward, opening my switchblade. It made a reassuring snick sound. Panzer pulled me back. “You can’t do that. As disturbingly effective as your methods usually are, they won’t work this time.”

“I know what you need to do,” said Types.

“And why should I take your advice on how to solve this problem?”

She stared at where the figure continued to cackle manically. “Because I created it.”

Magical Mystery Cure

“We need to get out of here and come up with a plan,” said Panzerfaust. Her horn lit up and a tear appeared in time and space.

I jumped back from the jagged portal. “What the hell? How are you doing that?”

“Being part of the creation crew grants special abilities,” said Types.

“So let me get this straight. This is like some sort of virtual dream world that you can pretty much do anything your mind conceives?” I ask.

“That’s how it started out,” Wildfire informed me. “This plane of existence was formed in the collective unconscious of the universe. Unfortunately, we never anticipated that thoughts and emotions would be so powerful.”

“That’s what video games have done to us,” said the traitorous Canadian Twilight clone.

Ignoring her comment, I said, “So that’s how everything got out of control?”

Types glared at me and I cringed slightly. Her look held the same power whether she was a pony or a person. “No, you coming to the world was what sent things out of control.”

“We’ve been over this, and you admitted that it wasn’t my fault. It was the fault of time-traveling bad guys.”

“Which wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t come to Equestria!” put in Panzer.

“But that still doesn’t make it my fault for getting here.” I frowned. “So basically this is just one confusing chicken-or-the-egg situation that may have been instigated by me, but couldn’t have been instigated by me because then who would instigate it in the first place?”

“Shut up,” ordered Types.

“Yes ma’am.”

While we had been arguing, the mysterious Crystal King had begun throwing spells around and generally destroying the Crystal Empire. It kind of reminded me of Ponyville, really. Speaking of Ponyville, Panzer prodded us through the portal.

“Valiant!” shouted Twilight, leading her five friends over to the hole in the universe. “What is that thing? Why are you here? What do you know about that mysterious pony that just appeared?”

“We should bring them along,” said Types. “The Elements of Harmony are the most powerful force for good in this world.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” put in fake Twilight.

Real Twilight gasped in surprise. “Who are you? Why do you look and sound exactly like me?”

“Long story,” I interrupted. I turned to my ex. “It does get kind of confusing, though. What can we call you to remember who is who?”

She thought for a moment and shrugged. “Call me Sparklicious.”

“Seriously?” coughed Types.

“Yeah, I think you could do better,” added Panzer.

“We don’t have time for this,” I scolded. “All of you, through the portal.”

“That’s a surprising take-charge attitude from you,” observed Wildfire.

I shrugged. “If you’re one of the controllers—the moderators, if you will—of this world, then you’ve seen me organize battle forces before. No big deal.”

We got all of them through the portal and Panzer closed it. Ponyville was quiet compared to the battle we had just left.

“Okay, I think we need an explanation,” said Twilight.

“As it turns out, you aren’t real, just like I’ve been saying since I first arrived in Equestria,” I said.

“But…but…”

“Actually, that’s not true anymore,” said Types. “While this may have started out as a fantasy world that you were pulled into, the fact that it is having actual effects on our world makes it real enough.”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine. Twilight, you are real, but only because a group of my exes created you.”

She shook her head. “I still don’t understand.”

“And it’s still not accurate,” added Sparklicious. “You haven’t dated the whole development team. Some of them aren’t even female.”

“Can we get back to the problem of how to fix everything that went off the rails?” I asked, looking at the visitors. “Let’s see, I have a pair of very bad ponies from Earth harassing me through property damage and killing the locals of Equestria, the four of you dropping in and showing off your Mod Powers are probably upsetting the magic around here, and the Crystal Empire is under attack.” I looked at Types. “I believe you said that last one was a problem you created?”

She nodded remorsefully. “Yes. Post Haste was a character I created.”

I blinked. “What.” No question mark. I was that surprised.

Types continued. “His only purpose was to deliver the letter from Applejack that she wasn’t coming home from Dodge Junction. Then you had to go and make friends with him, thereby adding to his meaning in Equestria. Before too long, he started having thoughts. Thoughts that since he’d been elevated from a simple background pony that perhaps he could go higher than mere secondary sidekick.”

“So he decided to become evil?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, he wanted to be a King. When he first heard about the Crystal Empire, Post Haste looked at his flank and saw a cutie mark depicting an envelope with a heart on it. It inspired him to go after the Crystal Heart because he thought it was his destiny.”

“But why the evil?” I asked.

“His dedication was too great,” she explained remorsefully. “ ‘Neither wind nor rain nor armed assailants can stop the Royal Mail Service…’ His drive to succeed led him to do anything to become the ruler of the Crystal Empire.”

“And that was your fault because you designed him with that determination?” I said.

She glared at me, but confirmed it with a nod. “However, it was your fault that he got his hooves on advanced robotic equipment. He sold the designs to Fillydelphia Cybernetics for cash to continue his operations.”

Well, that certainly explained a few things. “One problem, though. I personally killed King Sombra, and I saw the Black Twins kill Post Haste. Even if they weren’t the same pony, he should still be dead.”

“If the Twins are capable of a killing spell, don’t you think they’re capable of a fake killing spell?” asked Panzer. “He spent some of the money from Fillydelphia Cybernetics to hire them.”

“But why?” I asked. “Bits are useless on Earth.”

“Well, it’s not like we’re omnipotent or something,” said Sparklicious, throwing her hooves skyward. “Some questions just can’t be answered with our current knowledge.”

“That’s where I come in,” said Trixie, arriving on the scene. Since getting radiation suppressors from Zecora, she could interact with us without fear of cancer. “Dad, do you remember that book Princess Luna had, the one with stars and swirls on the cover?”

I nodded. I vaguely remembered seeing her with it shortly after the discovery of the Crystal Empire, and got an up close look when she let Trixie read it. “I was meaning to ask you what that was about.”

“Well among a whole bunch of useless trivia was a spell for creating a Nightmare Night costume of King Sombra from magic. It’s pretty easy to do.”

I thought for a moment. Twilight had told me that Princess Celestia had demonstrated something like an incomplete version of that when telling her about the Crystal Empire. Furthermore, I had seen Twilight do about the same thing on accident when dealing with some of Sombra’s residual magic.

“So with two powerful unicorns in his employ, Post was able to take on the appearance of King Sombra,” said Trixie. “That’s why the tip of his horn disappeared when it was cut off by the protective dome over the Empire. It was a magical construct.”

“But how the hell did he survive?” I demanded. “I cut that bitch so hard he split from end to end.”

“Maybe necromancy?” suggested Twilight. “When Sombra finally entered the Crystal Empire and took on a solid form, don’t you think that was a little unwise and exposed him to attack? We know the Black Twins have the ability to reanimate corpses. They could have just substituted one.”

I frowned. I didn’t like to admit it, but he had been a suspiciously easy-to-defeat evil villain. “I guess that explains why all he did was mutter incoherently. He was a zombie.”

“And before they swapped out, Post Haste didn’t want to talk clearly and have you recognize his voice,” added Wildfire.

“I still don’t understand why he went to the trouble at all,” I said. “I mean, we decided that the Empire wasn’t made of crystal meth, right?”

There was a moment of silence while the four from Earth looked uncomfortable.

I facehoofed. “Oh dear lord, that’s why the Black Twins were in on this. Think how much profit whole buildings made of drugs would bring.”

“I swear we didn’t mean to,” said a panicked Types. “It started out as a joke, but once the universe grew too powerful, it was too late to take it back.”

“But how would they transport this ‘meth’ to Earth to sell it?” asked Twilight.

“The Alicorn Amulet,” commented Trixie. “Not only would it turn Post into that raging maniac we just left back at the Empire, but it would provide enough power if he and the Twins knew how to use it.”

“What happened to that thing after we got you calmed down from using it?” I asked her.

There was another long silence.

I shook my head. “I think it’s pretty clear that this world either has, or is in the process of going, to shit. The only solution I can think of is to burn it down.”

Wildfire seemed to agree with me. The others seemed reluctant.

“We’ve done so much,” lamented Panzer.

“It would be a shame to just throw it away,” agreed Sparklicious.

“And think about how difficult it would be to set up new lives elsewhere for all those that are worthy,” added Types, gesturing at Trixie. She was the only Equestrian native still standing there. Twilight and friends had left, planning to do something on their own.

“But it’s possible?” I asked.

Types sighed. “Yes, we could wipe this world clean. It wouldn’t be pleasant, even if we saved all who we could, but it would be a final solution.”

Just then, a lanky blue pegasus dropped in. “I finally found the can, Valiant!”

“Hello Guinness. Were you aware that the world is ending?” I asked.

He frowned. “No.”

The four Mod mares had a quick whispered discussion. They emerged from the huddle. “Just how did you get here?”

Guinness scratched his head. “Some sort of mixup with an empty can of Red Bull and weird interdimensional problems.”

“No matter, we can exfiltrate you too,” said Wildfire.

“Wait, what are you all talking about?” asked Guinness.

I broke in. “Due to things I’m not going to bother explaining again, this universe is an artificial virtual reality-type place that got too real for its creators. Things are unsalvageable, so we’re going to figuratively take off and nuke it from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

Guinness coughed uncomfortably. “About that. I, um…got Rainbow Dash pregnant.”

I woke up several hours later, back in the hospital. Trixie informed me that I had facehoofed hard enough to give myself a concussion.

Wildfire informed me that she thought it was entertaining and impressive that I had the ability and fortitude to do so.

Panzer informed me that the six mares were about to try a new spell that might give them an edge in dealing with Post.

Guinness informed me that I was invited to the baby shower. I informed him just what I thought about that. It was loud and unpleasant.

“It’s not fair!” he shouted. “You have a kid!”

“And I didn’t have to screw a mare to get one!” I shot back.

“Do you love Trixie?” he asked. “In a family-type way?”

“I—” Trixie was standing right there and I tried desperately to think of a way to say what I was thinking without saying exactly what I was thinking.

Luckily, Guinness went on. “I don’t care that Rainbow is a pony. Even if I were you and that was the thing that horrified me most, I would still stay with her because I have a responsibility to the unborn foal. You don’t believe in spousal relations with ponies, but I know you care for children.”

“Dad, can I talk to you?” Trixie broke in, her voice low. I glared at Guinness and climbed out of the hospital bed, my concussed head hurting a little. Trixie and I went down the hallway.

“Throwing away Equestria—this isn’t like you at all,” said Trixie. “Normally overwhelming force is your style, but in a stubborn hang-on-to-what-you-have kind of way.”

I sighed. “Trix, right now I’m more confused than I’ve ever been in my life. Four people from Earth—three of them my exes—showed up, a pony I thought I killed on two separate occasions and in two separate bodies is still alive and incredibly powerful, and I just woke up from a self-inflicted K.O. I don’t know how things could get more convoluted.”

Just then, a wave of magical energy swept through the building. It was rather tingly and strangely made my head feel better. I looked around. “That was weird.”

Trixie gasped. “We switched cutie marks!”

Not that I’ve ever been a big fan, but I’d grown to at least tolerate the mark on my ass. Suddenly having a new one was unexpected and rather upsetting. Judging by the startled remarks from all around the hospital, it apparently had happened on a wide scale.

Guinness burst out of the room. “What just happened?”

I looked at his mark. It appeared roughly the same. Then I saw Lyra walk by. The Guinness Beer harp logo adorned her hip, while the blue pegasus had a lyre. Eh, what was a stringed instrument one way or the other?

I left the hospital with Guinness and Trixie. I saw five mares go by and did a double-take. Rarity’s cutie mark had been replaced with Rainbow’s. Pinkie had taken on Applejack’s. Rainbow’s had been replaced by Fluttershy’s. Fluttershy had gotten Pinkie’s. Applejack had Rarity’s.

“This…this is just wrong,” I said, shaking my head.

“I have to go after Dashie,” exclaimed Guinness. “I have to know they are all right.”

“They?”

He glared at me. “Her and our unborn child.”

Trixie tugged at my shoulder before I could escalate the shouting match. “Come on. We should find your exes. Maybe they know what’s going on.”

We did find them at the library, where they were freaking out along with Twilight. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know the spell would swap everypony’s cutie marks!”

“What happened?” asked Trixie.

“A package was waiting when I got back to the library,” explained Twilight. “It had Starswirl the Bearded’s journal in it. When I read the spell on the last page, it did the swap.”

“Powerful magic,” I noted.

Trixie picked up the journal. “This is the book Princess Luna let me read. I didn’t quite get to the last page, but I remember it.”

I scanned the last page. “Yeah, there’s no counter-spell here, Twilight. You’re going to have to come up with something, or heaven forbid, go ask the Princesses for help.”

“When did you get so knowledgeable about magic?” she asked.

Trixie gasped. “It must be the cutie marks.”

I rolled my eyes. “Great. I’m now supposed to be good at magic, but I’m a goddamn earth pony. Well, screw that. I refuse to believe that a cutie mark controls your destiny.”

“Furthermore, I don’t understand why it didn’t just swap cutie marks among the Elements of Harmony,” said Twilight. “I mean, maybe the extra stress of having your old mailpony turn into a supervillian made me put a touch too much magic into the spell.”

“Probably,” I nodded in understanding. I suddenly shook my head. No. I would not be good at magic if I could help myself.

“What do we do now?” asked Trixie. “This has only created more craziness in Equestria, what with all the ponies running around with different cutie marks.”

“Valiant, I hate to change my mind to agree with you, but short of incredibly powerful and impossibly complex magic, there’s nothing that can save Equestria now,” said Panzer.

“She’s right,” added Types. “I don’t think we can save this world any more.”

“I knew this was going to happen,” murmured Sparklicious sadly.

“No,” I said.

They all looked at me in surprise.

“We don’t need magic,” I said. I was going to prove the new cutie mark wrong, or, well…destroy all of Equestria trying.

“What are you saying?” asked Twilight.

“Do you all remember how the wedding went down?” I asked.

Types nodded. “The Changelings were characters I created, too. Not to mention the crystal ponies.”

“You didn’t need the Element of Harmony for that battle,” I said. “It was just kicking ass. I’m sure that if you actually planned to do instead of being taken by surprise, it would be even more effective.”

“I like it,” said Wildfire. My three exes reluctantly agreed.

“I can’t believe I’m getting recruited to fight a battle in a fantasy world of magical ponies,” muttered Panzer.

“Think how I feel,” I told her. “I’m the General in charge.”

“I thought you were the Admiral?” said Twilight. “That’s how you promoted yourself when we were on that boat trip.”

I waved a hoof. “This is different. So are we going to do this or not?”

We went to collect the rest of the Elements of Harmony. They were all freaking out about not being able to do the things their marks represented. I told them to chill. This wasn’t about special talent, after all. It was just about kicking ass.

I noticed Guinness wasn’t clinging to Rainbow and asked her about it. Not expecting his mare to be in danger, he had apparently gone window shopping for maternity items.

There was a struggle to open a portal back to the Crystal Empire. Between the juggled cutie marks, it took a moment to figure out who had the power to do it. Sparklicious eventually managed the feat, and a large tear appeared in the fabric of spacetime.

They all charged in enthusiastically. There was actually a little pileup at the door to get them all through. Trixie and I ended up last in line. We stopped short as it became clear that they’d all walked straight into a trap Post had laid.

He spotted me and walked towards the portal with an evil smile. The Alicorn Amulet was around his neck. Before he could launch into a villain monologue, Sparklicious lit up her horn and closed the portal. I stood there for a second, slightly surprised. It was certainly nice that Post wouldn’t be able to easily get to Ponyville through the tear in the universe, but somewhat jarring that he had so easily captured our entire fighting force.

“Well shit,” said Trixie.

That pretty much summed things up. I nodded in agreement. “Time for Plan B.”

“Gunship rescue?” asked Trixie.

“Yep.”

“That reminds me,” she said as we began to walk towards Monstrosity. “I got bored being out on the road away from everyone so I duplicated the M60 for fun.”

“So now we have two machine guns,” I mused. “But one of us has to fly.”

Then my eye fell on Guinness, who was over at Quills and Sofas, browsing their wares. I walked over to him. “So we decided to save Equestria after all.”

He looked at me. “What made you see the light?”

“It certainly wasn’t your broodmare.”

Guinness gave me a look of pure disgust and turned to walk away. I swallowed hard, unused to asking for help. “Please. I need a door gunner.”

Guinness’ head whipped around. “What did you say?”

“This is going to be a gunship rescue, and I can't do it alone.”

He stood there contemplating. I could practically hear Ride of the Valkyries playing in his head. Actually, I think the pegasus was humming it.

Slowly, he nodded. “Knowing you, we’re both going to be in insane amounts of danger, and I might die a painful death in a fiery explosion but, well...it’s a freaking gunship rescue. How can I say no?”

I grinned. Action movies had saved the day again.

I grabbed all the weaponry I had lying around—the Panzerfaust rocket, my Desert Eagle, various blades—and we mounted up. Trixie gave Guinness a crash course on basic machinegun operation while I steered the aircraft towards Canterlot. Not only was it pretty much on the way to the Crystal Empire, but a particular purple unicorn had forgotten to send a letter informing the most powerful ponies in Equestria that something bad was happening. You know, the usual.

“I suppose it’s lucky that you only swapped cutie marks with each other,” I said. “That still means both of you are capable of doing your jobs, right?”

“Correct,” said Luna. “Now, why did you land in the center of the main hall? We have doors, you know.”

“The way you put up new stained glass windows, I’m sure you’ve got somebody around who has that for a special talent.” I frowned. “Okay, maybe since the cutie mark incident you don’t anymore. I guess if you ever want the windows in this place to look nice again, you should help me solve the problems with Post.”

“Oh, all right,” agreed Celestia. “I suppose it would be terribly bad PR if we just let the Crystal Empire fall to pieces.”

“I’ll have to talk to you about that later,” I said. “It’s kind of a narcotics issue. But ass kicking first, drug busts later.”

The two Princesses boarded Monstrosity and I took us out through the broken window we had entered from. Heading north, I focused on flying through the winter gale to get to the Empire. It looked like the weather shield was still in place, so perhaps the locals were still providing enough love and tolerance to operate it.

Speaking of the locals, it looked like a portion of them had been turned into some sort of mindless slaves or zombies or something. I didn’t know how that worked, but having previously witnessed the effects of the Alicorn Amulet, I wasn’t too surprised. And sparkly zombies—how often do you see that?

I also wasn’t convinced that these ponies were as real as the others. If the Crystal Empire hadn’t had much to do with the rest of Equestria then the characters of the crystal ponies weren’t as highly developed. I hoped that made sense. Anyway, I ordered weapons free.

We descended into the city, 7.62 rounds and magic flying. The Princesses didn’t seem to have a problem blasting the crystal ponies who were clearly not of their right mind. I suppose it’s not every day you get a good excuse for target practice on your loyal citizens. Now I know how the President feels about ordering drone strikes on home-grown terrorists.

I heard Guinness advising a few of his targets to Get Some. Sounded like a fine idea to me. I flared the aircraft and put it down in the castle courtyard. Leaving the engines running, I hopped out. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

“I want to come with you,” said Trixie, dismounting her gun from the mount near the side door.

I looked at Guinness. “Don’t tell me you want to go because Rainbow is in there.”

“She WHAT?” he screamed in surprise. I had neglected to tell him exactly who we were gunship rescuing. He tried to yank his machinegun from where it was mounted, but pegasus hooves aren’t great for carrying around weapons like that. We can’t all be Rambo. Regardless, Guinness was committed to going along.

I looked at the Princesses. “Can I leave you here? You aren’t going to screw with my ride, are you?”

“We’ll be good,” said Celestia.

“Most definitely,” added Luna.

A royal decree was about as good as I was going to get, I suppose. I led Trixie and Guinness towards the castle. I figured that Post had probably taken up residence there.

We walked inside, finding ten hostages in various states of restraint. They were bound with envelopes and letters. I rolled my eyes. Figures that a mailpony would be a paper user. I didn’t see Post around and nodded to Trixie. She got the hint and we began a silent sweep of the building. That was rendered useless by Guinness freaking out and loudly trying to save Rainbow.

Fortunately, paper is kind of a shitty hostage-taking material and it didn’t need much effort to rip apart and free her or any of the rest of the ponies.

“What other ex would mount an armed rescue to save you from a magically corrupted pony?” I asked.

“Are you trying to get back together?” questioned Sparklicious.

“Hell no. You had your chance.”

“I think it would be wise to get away and then come up with a better plan for dealing with Post,” said Panzer.

I considered that. “Yeah, I really don’t trust the Princesses sitting alone in my flying machine.”

We left the castle. Shining Armor and Cadance came running up. “Some job you did of protecting your tiny, city-size Empire,” I said.

Shining gave me a look. “Come on, were you honestly expecting to have to defend against an evil mail carrier?”

I shrugged. He had a point.

Trixie, Guinness, and I, plus twelve, boarded the aircraft. I was happy to see that it hadn’t been screwed up in the time that we’d left the Princesses alone. It was a little tight to fit so many passengers but we managed. Wildfire dropped into the copilots’s seat, looking around the cockpit with facination. She may have been more accustomed to cars but was clearly impressed by the hardware. Bitches love hardware.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” said Wildfire. “What’s your cutie mark?”

“A Plymouth Valiant hood ornament,” I said.

She smiled. “Nice.”

I had just increased power to get the wheels off the ground when Post Haste, the alicorn version, burst from a window in the castle. I yanked the control stick hard and swooped away before he could catch up.

“Could we kindly head for Ponyville?” asked Celestia. “It’s already taken a beating, and I’m sure that when Post finally catches up there’s going to be a big fight.”

I nodded. That made sense. I altered course. Post followed. He may not initially have been fast with his new wings, but he was learning. He fired a clumsy bolt of magic that missed.

“Can you keep this thing straight and level?” I asked Wildfire. She nodded and took the controls. I got up and pushed my way through the crowd to the tailgate. Unslinging the rocket launcher, I took careful aim.

The replica German antitank weapon had served me well. It certainly had done a number on Queen Chrysalis. I fired. The warhead streaked away but missed. Hey, air-to-air with unguided weapons is hard.

I slapped a reload in and aimed again. Post had lost some ground when forced to take evasive maneuvers and was a more distant target now.

“I could use a little help!” I called. Celestia and Luna stepped up beside me and bracketed Post with bolts of magic to make it harder for him to evade a second time. My next shot knocked him out of the sky.

I stared morosely as his body fell to the ground. While the weapon had gotten him off our tail, he was still in one piece and that could mean he was merely stunned. I sighed. Our best plan was probably continue on to Ponyville and make a plan.

I took the controls back from Wildfire for the landing and put us down near the library. The ponies held prisoner looked a little disheveled but otherwise fine. A bit of Panzer’s cloak had torn and I saw that she had wings. I suppose that explained why she was taller than the rest, but it certainly wasn’t inconspicuous like the image the Mods were trying to project. At least the cloak’s concealment had worked for a while.

“I think step one is getting the cutie marks switched back,” said Twilight as we walked into the library. “That should put everything relatively back to normal so we can focus on defeating Post.”

“No argument from me,” I said.

Working together, the several magically-inclined ponies managed to hastily put together a spell that should work.

“All right everypony, stand back,” said Twilight. She and the Elements of Harmony donned their jewelry, attempting to use their power to fuel the spell and gain enough energy to restore all the cutie marks in the land.

The magic built up, a fact I tried to ignore so I could forget my current cutie mark. Out of the corner of my mouth, I whispered to Celestia, “Is this going to work?”

“It should,” she said. “While that’s a very old spell by Starswirl the Bearded, I believe that all of us collaborating on a solution rendered what we needed.”

The six mares reached critical magic levels and there was a white flash in the center of the room. When the brightness had gone, we were all left blinking away an afterimage. Oh, and Twilight had wings.

“You look just like a Princess,” remarked Fluttershy. I glanced at Celestia, who wore an unhappy look. Both that the spell had side effects and that there was a new challenger to the throne, I figured. She quickly buried that look and walked forward. “Twilight, you have finally fulfilled your destiny.”

I narrowed my eyes. What? Celestia was known for quick thinking, but I couldn’t see where she was going with this.

A sudden thought struck me. While I was having my little psychotic episode and fighting the Black Twins in Ponyville, I had vowed to kill the next new alicorn that I saw. But was that Panzer, who had recently arrived in Equestria, or Twilight, who had just been created?

Or perhaps it was the abomination that landed outside. Post was a little singed, but otherwise unharmed from getting shot with an antitank weapon.

I looked around. Celestia, Luna, Cadance, Panzer, Twilight, and Post. Six goddamn alicorns. This was the stupidest thing I had ever seen, and now I was really confused about who exactly I had vowed to kill.

But maybe this could work to my advantage. If they fought to the death, then I wouldn’t have to pick. With that in mind, I alerted the rest to what I was seeing outside the window.

Celestia had been lecturing Twilight about Princess duties, and I think the former unicorn was somewhat overwhelmed. “I just want to study and hang out with my friends!”

“And we’re all kind of bummed out that Twilight is now a goddess and we’re just regular ponies,” said Pinkie.

A twinkle came to Celestia’s eye. “No!” I shouted. “Don’t you goddamned dare make five more alicorns!” I menaced her with my handgun.

“Uh…” broke in Guinness. “But shouldn’t we be doing something about Post?”

“An excellent point.” I kicked open the library door, getting somewhat tangled in the screen door beyond it. It had been a decent idea to install for summer breezes, but took something out of my dramatic exits. “Charge!”

Post was waiting for me and even allowed me a moment to get untangled from the screen. I think he was still getting used to the evil role and hand’t yet progressed past the gloating stage.

Speaking of lessons in advanced evil, I spotted the Black Twins observing nearby. They both looked a little astonished. Apparently the two of them hadn’t realized exactly what their boss was up to. I reluctantly admitted that Post was probably the bigger threat and I would have to deal with them later.

My allies in this battle burst out of the library, preparing for the fight. Pinkie was clutching a battleaxe. My eyes popped open in surprise. “Where the hell did you get—er, nevermind. Knowing would take the fun out of it.”

“This is a pretty simple problem to solve,” said Twilight. “Magic was my special talent before, but now this is almost too easy.” She pointed her horn at Post. “Okay, he’s powerless now.”

That was just like magic, taking all the fun out of things. I hoofed the mail delivery alicorn in the face. He took the punch like the earth pony he used to be. “Why did you do this? I liked you! I trusted you!”

Post picked himself up. A look of regret mixed with frustration was on his face. “I believed what you said about the American Dream. I wanted to be something more. When you told me that I had the right to grow up and be anything I wanted, I decided that I would shoot for royalty.”

My mouth dropped open. I couldn’t hate him for that. Post went on. “As for selling your designs, that’s just capitalism. Plus, you hadn’t filed any patents to make it illegal.”

This almost sounded like it was my fault. “But…why? I might be an asshole, but I never screwed you or anyone else this badly.”

“The turning point was at the wedding,” he said. “I saw the Changelings trying to take over, and took lessons from them about what not to do. Then, when the Crystal Empire was publicly revealed to all of Equestria, I decided that I would become King. No point in taking charge if nopony has ever heard of the place.”

I looked at Types. She shifted uncomfortably. Not only had she created Post, but also Changelings and the crystal ponies.

“Look,” said Post, “it’s pretty clear that things aren’t going to go back to the way they were. Not to mention that I’m a figment of someone’s imagination. You might as well just kill me and get it over with.”

I sighed. This suddenly wasn’t fun anymore. Types stepped up beside me. I could see sorrow and regret in her eyes. “We can reform—”

I cut her off. “He’s old enough to make his own decisions, and right now the creation of yours that took on a mind of his own is asking to die with any residual scraps of pride still intact. He failed in the evil he set out to accomplish, but he was motivated to do his best, a quality you gave him.”

She nodded sorrowfully. “Here,” said Pinkie, “you can borrow my axe.”

And so Ponyville hosted the first public execution in Equestria’s history. It was not pleasant, but at least Types managed to get it done in one chop.

“He truly had become a real pony,” said Sir Win, just arriving. “Soul and all.”

Types covered her face. “That makes me feel worse.”

“But you saved Equestria,” said Panzer, comforting her.

“Er, not quite,” murmured Sparklicious quietly, glancing over at the other purple unicorn, the one with wings.

“Sorry I’m late!” called a goateed stallion, running up to us just then. He looked around. “Wow, this place is even more out of control than I thought. At least we’ve gotten rid of Post.”

“Who’s this?” I asked.

“Another member of the development team,” said Types. “Alicorn Twilight is his creation.”

“You did what?” shouted Twilight. She jerked my pistol out of its holster and blew out his brains.

“Oh my God, two creations rebelling in one day,” I exclaimed.

“More souls for me,” said Sir Win, shrugging.

As blood from the stallion’s mangled head began to pool on the ground, Twilight’s wings disappeared. I think we all breathed a sigh of relief.

I glanced up, spotting the Black Twins making a hasty exit from town. I galloped after them. Regardless of whether they were still being paid to mess with me, I had unfinished business.

I think they realized that I would pursue them to the ends of the world if I had to. Also, maybe their ride back to Earth had died with Post. I caught up with them outside of town, on the grounds of the Ponyville Industrial Nuclear Powerplant.

PINP still sat unfinished. What with everything that had been going on, I hadn’t managed to get all the fissile materials in place to begin operations.

Twilight had given me the gun back, and I fired a couple of shots. The two unicorns took shelter inside the building. While I wouldn’t put it past them to know the interior layout as well as I did, this contained them in a smaller area.

I burst through the door, pointing the gun around. I saw a flash of movement and fired at it. The three of us slowly worked through the entire building, and I burned through a couple of magazines of ammo.

“We want to make a deal!” shouted Woody from somewhere.

“This world being basically virtual reality, nothing we did was really wrong,” added Beauty.

“I agree,” I said. “Heck, I used to think the same when I thought I was dreaming this place. However, I hate you. This isn’t about Equestria. It’s personal.”

I heard hooves sprint for the door. If they got outside, it would be difficult to track them down again. Furthermore, the two had cheated death so many times that it had ceased to be funny long ago, if it ever was at all. My eye fell on the self-destruct button. I had put those explosives in the walls of the building for a reason.

I smacked it as hard as I could. There was a faint electrical charge in the air, with tons and tons of explosives all receiving the detonation signal at once. Then the powerplant vanished in an enormous fireball.

I found myself floating in a featureless white space. Oh yeah, I had detonated the building with me inside it. I glanced to the side, seeing the Black Twins were here too. That at least made me happy.

“Hey there Valiant,” said Sir Win.

“Oh. Hey.” Somehow the sight of him confirmed what I had been suspecting. Shit. I’m dead.

He winked at me. “Remember when I promised you your soul for your birthday? Now run along.”

I felt myself slipping away, back towards the living world. Sir Win turned to the Black Twins. “Now as for you two…”

I opened my eyes. The Elements of Harmony, the Mods, the three Princesses, Shining Armor, Guinness, and Trixie were all standing in a circle around me.

“I don’t know what you just did, but there’s a giant crater where the powerplant used to be,” observed Trixie.

“Let’s put it this way,” I said, sitting up. “The Black Twins are no longer a problem, but Equestria will have to go a while longer without clean nuclear energy.”

I felt pretty good, considering that I was dead just a moment ago. I would have to thank Sir Win for putting me back in a pristine-condition body. I got up.

“I have to admit, you did just solve a lot of the problems that Equestria had,” said Types. “The destruction will have to be cleaned up, but it goes a long way towards getting things back to normal.”

“You’re welcome.”

“About that,” said Panzer. “You can’t stay here. It was your influence in the first place that kicked off this series of events.”

“And you have too poor of impulse control to resist doing it again,” added Sparklicious.

I glanced between them all. I turned my eyes to town, where the tall Saturn V stood. “Can I…go to the moon first?”

Before they could ask, I went on. “I clearly couldn’t do that on Earth. I’m just some guy, not anyone NASA would be interested in. Here, I can truly do awesome stuff that I dream about. Plus, you kind of owe me. I recued you after Post got the upper hand.”

“Well, going to space would get you out of Equestria for a while,” said Wildfire.

“Oh, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” I said. I cleared my throat. “I’m not very good at this, but would you be interested in a date?”

She fumbled for words. “I…yes, I suppose so.”

Types, Panzer, and Sparklicious simultaneously facehoofed.

I leaned forward. Wildfire’s eyes sparkled with interest. My lips met hers for a few moments.

I pulled back. “I think we should see other people.” I hoof-pumped. “Yes! I always wanted to be the one to say that.”

I think Wildfire was crushed that I had broken up with her, but it made me feel better. That was good. I would need to be at the top of my game for the space launch.

I spent a while making checks to the rocket. After putting on my space suit, I climbed into the capsule at the top.

“Radio check,” said Trixie’s voice.

“I hear you ground control.” I flipped some switches to bring everything on line.

“Everything checks out,” she replied. “You’re good to go.”

“Thanks.”

“Come back soon, Dad. I lov—” her throat caught.

I shifted uncomfortably. “Uh, yeah. That word. It’s okay, I understand. Me too.” What a crazy little family we were.

Trixie began the countdown. I stared at the sky. Moon here I come.

Rexy made a sound slightly less than a roar from behind me in the capsule. I grinned. What other kind of pet would I take to the moon? A reanimated dinosaur skeleton didn’t need to breathe. This was going to be awesome.

My eyes widened in sudden realization. I was missing Pinkie and Fluttershy’s wedding. In addition, there were so many loose ends that hadn’t been tied up with the whole destruction thing.

Oh well. Space waited for no one.

Author's Note

Tired of waiting for season 4? Try The Adventures of Trixie if Her Father Was a Badass Alien!

Princess Twilight Sparkle - part 1

Author note:

Want to catch up on stuff that happened between seasons 3 and 4? Check out Stuff that Happened Between Seasons 3 and 4. You don’t have to read it, but hey, why not more Dreams-verse?

And without further ado, welcome to another season of crack A Dream.

Trixie rolled out of bed and had a good yawn. It was early, and while she didn’t have anything in particular to do today, it was nice to be awake on such a nice morning.

Leaving her bedroom, she went to the kitchen and began to make herself some breakfast. The house she had recently bought was modest, but still more than large enough for just her.

Or it would have been. Combat robots and VTOL aircraft took up a lot of space in the garage.

Since her father Valiant had left Equestria for space and parts unknown, Trixie had taken custody of his equipment and business assets. It was largely a silent venture that provided her with a steady income but little else.

She’d attempted a nation- and world-wide tour in an attempt to find adventure and something worthwhile to do with her life. She had discovered a lot of cultists, including those from the Cults of Awesome, Badass, and Jazz; respectively. Coincidentally, she had also fought a lot of cultists, including those from the Cults of Awesome, Badass, and Jazz; respectively.

While Trixie had been gone, Ponyville had changed quite a bit. Among other things, there was a new librarian and a new restaurant was opening. In addition, Rainbow Dash had apparently experienced a freakishly accelerated pregnancy and could now be seen around town with her little filly.

There had also been the matter of a star-destroying alien in the biz of showbiz. It had taken a lot of effort – including guest appearances by Iron Will and the Flim Flam Brothers, not to mention realicornifying Twilight – but the day had been saved.

Trixie thought a little about Twilight as she ate her breakfast. The purple pupil of the Princess was now a Princess herself. Er, again. There had been significant emotional fallout over the to alicorn/to not alicorn question, and if Trixie wasn’t such a good friend things might have been quite a bit more blow’d up. Or whatever. Either way, friendship was magic or something.

Getting up from the table, Trixie washed her dishes and then went to get her picking kit. She’d needed a hobby since returning from her trip and had hit upon jimmying locks. It seemed like the sort of thing her father would be proud to see her doing. Plus, Ponyville needed a locksmith. Granted, that was mostly to keep the Cutie Mark Crusaders out of things, so business was good.

For practice, Trixie picked everywhere she went. Going from the kitchen to the living room was only a slight challenge. She was getting used to that lock. The garage door took a few seconds longer.

Stepping into the garage, Trixie stared at the rows of silent machinery, covered with tarps and slowly gathering dust. she had the urge to throw the covers off and go for a joyride.

The urge quickly passed and Trixie grabbed her skateboard.

Out on the sidewalk, Trixie kicked off and headed towards the library. There was a new Daring Do novel out and she wanted to see if it had come in.

Along the way, Trixie passed Guinness, the lanky blue pegasus who had knocked up Rainbow Dash. Guinness never seemed to get along with Valiant, even though he was apparently human, too.

He and his griffon business partner named Squibles were opening a restaurant. It was apparently an “Irish Pub.” The entire town was abuzz with rumors about what exactly that might mean.

Guinness nodded to Trixie as she rolled by. Trixie watched as Rainbow and her foal descended from the sky. The filly was so young that her feathers were still growing in, however she had learned how to cling to her mother while Rainbow flew – at a rather gentle pace for a pony like Rainbow.

Trixie remembered that the foal was named Rainbow Catcher. She was a light teal color with golden eyes and a near-copy of Rainbow’s distinctive mane.

Also, despite being his daughter, Guinness had once told Trixie in a nervous whisper that she was something called “the Antichrist.” Trixie was not sure what that meant, but it sounded like a bad thing.

Trixie made her way to the library, picked the door, and went inside. Sunset Shimmer, the new librarian, was there.

The, well, sunset-colored unicorn looked up as Trixie came in. “It-it’s no trouble for me to get up and open the door for you.”

“It’s okay,” said Trixie. “I told you before; I’m just practicing.”

“Okay then.” Sunset lowered her head back to the card catalog in front of her and resumed rearranging it.

Sunset had come to town by roundabout means. After trying to steal Twilight’s Element of Magic tiara, she had tried to start a zombie army in a high school in another dimension. Twilight and Trixie had stopped those plans. Then Twilight had done some irresponsible mucking around in Sunset’s head. The result was a mare even meeker than Fluttershy who was also a convicted war criminal.

It was honestly a little disconcerting knowing that somepony could be so…broken like that. While this version of Sunset was still preferable to the evil version, it still left a lot to be desired. Trixie had never been much for mental magic, and even less so now that she had seen what kind of damage it could do.

That’s not to say that Trixie wasn’t a powerful unicorn in her own right. Between radiation, training under Twilight, and a few fits of pure rage, she had pulled off some amazing things.

Bouts like that were usually concurrent with an excursion of extra legs. Trixie had learned to control her spiderlike side, but it hadn’t been easy.

Speaking of not easy, Twilight had been going through a rough patch lately. After fighting through crisis after crisis, including those caused by Valiant’s exes, she had come a little unhinged. That was part of what led to Sunset’s current condition - Twilight refusing to play nice with the universe.

The new Princesshood combined with a stern talking-to from Trixie seemed to have turned Twilight around. That was good, because just then that very pony appeared through the window.

Broken glass scattered everywhere and Sunset dove behind a desk with a shriek. Twilight struggled to her hooves, wobbling slightly. She shook her head. “Trixie, there you are! We have a serious problem; the Princesses are missing!”

Since Twilight had moved back to Canterlot – to the castle, no less – this was a subject on which she was probably well versed. Trixie was immediately worried, as this information coming from Twilight carried significantly more weight than, say, Pinkie. “Both of them? Er, do you mean all three Princesses? Wait, four, what about you?”

Twilight shook her head. “Okay, I guess I need a better pronoun depending on who I’m talking about. Maybe it could be an acronym depending on whether we’re talking about four, three, or two of us. It could be based on the first letter of our names. T for Twilight, L for Luna, C for Cadance, C for Cel…oh wait, we have two C’s so that won’t work.”

“Go back to the part about missing Princesses,” Trixie said.

“Oh, right. We really need the Elements of Harmony,” said Twilight, instantly swinging back to the topic at hand. “And Trixie, I know you’ve been trying to live a quiet life here, but can I ask for your help, too? I hope things won’t come to be so serious, but I’d appreciate the moral support, if nothing else. I’m sure the girls would, too.”

Trixie nodded. “Count me in. I’ll tell Rainbow what’s up on the way back to my place. Can you round up the rest?”

Twilight spread her wings awkwardly, shaking out bits of shattered glass. “I’ll try, but I’m still getting used to flying, obviously. This disaster has really had me pushing myself to the limit of ability. Probably the worst part is the threat that if we don’t get the Princesses back, I’ll have to run Equestria by myself. Now that would be chaos.”

“The perfect sort, really,” commented Discord, popping his head out of Twilight’s mane.

Sunset squeaked in terror and ducked back behind the desk. Trixie jerked in surprise. “I thought he was dead.”

“It’s a long story,” said Twilight.

Trixie hesitated, but nodded. “I’ll ask when we have time, then.”

She took a last look at Discord, hanging out with Twilight like some sort of fashionable mane accessory, and went out the door.

Rainbow was still outside the restaurant when Trixie sped up on her skateboard. “Rainbow, Twilight’s in town and says we have a serious problem. The Princesses are missing. Get your Element.”

“What, really?” Rainbow gasped. “Oh my gosh, I’ve got to go.” She kissed Guinness on the nose and thrust the baby at him before dashing away.

While Rainbow was, and had always been, a bitch, Trixie did admire the Element of Loyalty’s response to crisis.

Guinness looked uncomfortable, holding young Rainbow Catcher at arm’s length. “Um, Trixie? Can I ask you something? Does this foal have evil snake pupils?”

Trixie blinked in confusion. “She’s a baby, so young you can’t even see her pupils yet.”

“What about the teeth? Do you see the fangs?”

Trixie checked. “She’s going through teething, which I’m pretty sure is normal for babies.”

“What about the aura of palpable evil radiating off him?”

“No. Also, him?”

“It is, uh, complicated. If you see Sir Win, could you send him my way? I have questions about this kid that I am pretty sure only a demon could answer.”

Trixie said that she would and hurried off to her house. There, she prepared for anything.

Preparations for a nonspecific eventuality such as “anything” were remarkably simple. Trixie put on her robe and wizard hat, and picked up her badass M60 machine gun and switchblade.

Thus outfitted, she was now able to accomplish anything, and in fact had been doing so for quite some time now.

Trixie thought about pausing to pick the lock on her front door, just for practice, but decided that she had dawdled enough. Exiting the house the quick way – kicking the door off its goddamned hinges, she leaped on her skateboard and zoomed away to the town square.

The Elements of Harmony were already there. Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and of course Twilight Sparkle were outfitted with their baller-ass bling of golden jewelry.

“All right girls, let’s do this!” Twilight proclaimed, but suddenly nopony was listening. They all had caught sight of something attention-grabbing in the sky.

The thing, whatever the hell it was, flamed like Pinkie’s gayness. It was so on fire that all the chapped asses of all the misbehaving young foals in history were like nothing in comparison.

And it was coming closer. The big flaming thing was boring in on the surface of the planet and getting ready to sock it like a hooker who gave a toothy blowjob. Or if you prefer: give the world a pounding like the whore it was.

All across Ponyville and Equestria, citizens were looking up in amazement and fear. With tones of wonder and terror they jibber-jabbered, quite pissing off Mr. T even from a universe away. As the heavens rent and the fiery meteor streaked through the sky, one question bubbled to the surface, one query was on every tongue. They all wondered, what could it be?

It was me, bitches.

Princess Twilight Sparkle - part 2

I'm not going to say that I was rocking out on top of the flaming reentry vehicle as it plunged and burned through the atmosphere, but I'm not going to say that I wasn't, either.

Little pieces of fireproof insulation flew by as the air got thicker, leaving a cometlike trail behind the capsule. The trajectory had stabilized and it dropped like a bullet towards the planet below.

The splashdown point was the lake outside Ponyville. When the capsule struck the surface of the water, the heat instantly flashed a lot of it to steam. I was able to walk on dry land up to the shore.

I swung my electric guitar around my shoulders and adjusted my sunglasses just as the space vehicle exploded in a spectacular fireball behind me. By then, the flash-evaporated water had taken a second to flash-condense into clouds and was already soaking the lake with a downpour, refilling it and covering all the evidence up.

Also, there was a reanimated T-Rex skeleton trotting along behind me. But despite everything else that had happened, that was fairly normal and part of the plan.

“Oh my gosh, dad!” Trixie was first on the scene and wrapped me in a tight hug. With four of her eight legs, I noticed. That raised my eyebrows a little, but it was nothing I hadn’t seen before.

“I’m so glad to see you,” she said, eyes closed.

I touched her mane. “Right back at you, Trix.”

Her eyes opened and for a moment we just stared at each other. I smiled. It was damn nice to be back.

“What have you been up to?” I asked.

“You know, the usual. I did recently take up lockpicking.”

I nodded in approval. Trixie’s gaze drifted to the side. “Hey Rexy!” She pulled away to give the T-Rex a pat on its bony skull.

I turned to look at the rest of the ponies who had come out to meet me: the Elements of Harmony. “‘Sup?”

“We thought you were dead,” said Rainbow.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Now, now,” said Rarity diplomatically. “You were gone for a rather long time, Valiant.”

“This is a country where the Princesses are several thousand years old, and you call that a long time?” I shook my head.

“No, seriously,” said Twilight. “We ran the calculations. Even with the potential supplies you could have packed, there’s no way you could have survived. How is this possible?”

“Is there something you aren’t telling us?” Pinkie asked suspiciously.

“Why is Twilight an alicorn?” I asked, ignoring both questions.

“We had to do that in order to defeat an evil star-destroying alien, named appropriately enough, Starburst,” Trixie explained. “Actually, when I talked to her earlier in her rampage, she said she’d met you at some point out in space?”

“Oh yeah.” I nodded. “What a bitch. You got rid of her? That’s great.”

“But there’s still so many things I need to ask you,” said Twilight, levitating a notepad in front of her. She looked around for something to write with. I gave her a pen.

She scratched a few notes. “Now, first thing-”

“Wait,” interrupted Rainbow. “Where did you get that pen from?”

“He probably carried a lot of pens with him into space,” Rarity suggested.

“That’s not what I mean! What I wanted to know was where did he get that pen from the second before he gave it to Twilight?”

I did a little pirouette and grinned at Rainbow. “Obviously I’m not wearing any pockets. Nothing up my sleeves.”

“Ooh! A guessing game!” Pinkie cheered.

“Now wait just a gol-danged minute,” Applejack broke in. “I didn’t see where he got that pen from either, and I think there’s a whole lot of questions Valiant needs to answer, but at the moment doesn’t everypony think that savin’ the Princesses is more important?”

“Yep,” I said. There was a long pause. I made a go on gesture. “Uh, isn’t this the part where you tell me what kind of crisis you’re in? That was kind of implied from my sudden entrance in the middle of it.”

“The Princesses are missing and we’re headed to the old castle in the forest to look for them,” Twilight explained.

“Oh. That will probably be hard with the Everfree growing out of control,” I pointed out.

Rainbow zoomed upwards to take a look from altitude. “He’s right! But how did he know?”

“I saw it on my way in,” I replied.

“Okay, if the forest is growing out of control, we need to get going as quickly as possible,” said Twilight. She looked at me.

I looked around to see if she was perhaps looking at somepony else nearby. “What?”

“Aren’t you going to drive or fly us there in one of your crazy machines?” Twilight asked.

“Well, I guess I could. To the library!” We all took off for the center of town. Upon arrival, however, something was definitely wrong. “I could have sworn that I left everything right here…”

“I moved it all to my place,” Trixie explained.

“Your place? You moved out so soon?” I asked.

“Dad…” Trixie bit her lip, clearly not happy about breaking this news. “Do you know how long you’ve been gone? It’s been months.”

“Say whaaaaat?” I looked around at the rest of them. “For real?”

“It’s been quite long,” Twilight agreed.

Just then, the door of the library opened to reveal a yellow unicorn mare with red highlights in her mane. She jerked in surprise.

“Yo.” I trotted past her and into the building but pulled up short. It was different than I remembered.

“What happened here?” I asked.

“A lot can happen in a few months,” Twilight said. “I moved out and Sunset Shimmer here is the new librarian.”

“Huh.” I shrugged and put my guitar down in the corner. “Whatever. I’ll deal with this later. Now Trixie, where did you stash all my stuff?”

“It’s safe at my place,” Trixie replied. “But none of it has been started since you left and I don’t know what will and won’t work. I’m sorry, I didn’t think-”

“It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll deal. Guess we’ll just have to do this old school.”

That involved a brisk canter into the forest. I was kind of regretting it before we got there, even with the newly expanded borders of the Everfree.

Also, the moon started rising into the sky. It was kind of strange, not only from the stellar impossibility of it, but the fact that the half of the sky with the moon in it was darker than the sun side.

Twilight gasped. “This is an effect of the Princesses’ disappearance! I tried to hold it off as long as I could, but now the sun and moon are starting to do their own thing!”

As we ran, black spikey vines were sprouting everywhere. Also, black spikey clouds had started to spread across the sky.

“The weeds and the weather are invading! Everything’s going wrong for earth ponies and pegasi!” Applejack stuttered.

Just then, Rarity’s horn lit up in a slightly unusual way and started throwing off random magic. She shrieked. “Unicorns too!”

“All right, everypony calm down,” said a voice. It was a voice I hadn’t heard in a very long time.

I slowly turned my head to where Discord was poking his nose out of Twilight’s feathers. Even more slowly, I said, “Where did you come from?”

“We don’t have time for this,” Twilight said. “And before any of you get any funny ideas, I summoned Discord already and he isn’t responsible for this chaos.”

There was no way I was willing to just start trusting like that. Especially since I was very much not a fan of things I had killed not staying dead. I was just about to express my displeasure, when Zecora came stumbling out of the forest.

The zebra carried a few things with her. She gasped when she saw Twilight and quickly dug through her things for a bottle. It was small and ornate, filled with a purple liquid. “You can turn can turn the potion from purple to white. You can see why the sky is both day and night.”

Twilight concentrated and a beam of magic hit the bottle. I noticed that the magic was blackish purple and green. My mouth opened. “Is that-”

Twilight picked up the bottle and took a giant slug of it. She went rigid for a few seconds. When she came out of it, a very uncomfortable look was on her face. “Why are you all looking at me like that?”

“Well, the sobbing was a little strange,” I said.

“Everypony, I know what happened. I saw Princess Luna turn into Nightmare Moon in the past. Also, I saw Discord’s original defeat.”

“That was quite a show,” Discord said in reminiscence.

“Actually, the battle between the Princesses was a lot cooler,” Twilight replied.

“Regardless,” I cut her off. “The ass that we end up kicking is…?”

Twilight shook her head. “No. We have to go into the Everfree Forest and find the Tree of Harmony.”

“Well, that’s still a quest!” said Spike. He jumped on Twilight’s back and fastened a seatbelt. “Time to power pony up!”

“What?” I said flatly. “Spike, are you still having superhero fantasies?”

“Not important!” he said, pumping his fist. “Let’s go!”

And so we went. Admittedly, there were still a whole bunch of questions that needed to be answered, but honestly this wasn’t the time, being in the middle of the narrative and all. Plus, I was avoiding that as much as I could. It’s fun being the narrator with the tape recorder.

As we traveled deep into the forest, I talked with Trixie. Apparently I had missed a lot of stuff. Even the Summer Sun Celebration had been a few months ago.

We had some adventures and stuff along the way with strange creatures and whatnot. I looked around, seeing that Zecora and Discord had disappeared at some point. It was kind of strange for Zecora to have appeared just long enough to give us a MacGuffin, but whatevs.

We did have an argument about Twilight not going on the quest. A lot of her friends wanted to turn her away because Equestria didn’t need to risk losing another Princess.

So of course, I had to get involved. Not only would losing another Princess help pave the road to setting up an Equestrian democracy, but a warrior Princess is cool by anyone’s definition of cool.

Not that I thought Twilight herself was cool, but any super leader on the battlefield was always interesting. It reminded me of that old war movie, Twelve O’clock High, with the commanding General flying bombers over Germany.

“Hang on now, I think Twilight should be with us.”

“I’m glad you think so, Valiant,” said Rarity. “I mean, how much sense would it make to send our most powerful asset in this conflict away?”

And with that settled, Twilight came with us. Why had we even argued? Yes, I’m openly criticizing everyone. Deal with it.

And so we continued on until we reached the old castle in the Everfree. I was getting a little bored of walking at that point, but fortunately this wasn’t The Lord of the Rings, so we didn’t have much more of that to do.

There was the problem of the gas-spewing spider vine claws. We solved it. With fire.

“And where did you get that stuff?” Rainbow demanded.

“What, the matches and gasoline?” I asked. “Where did you think I got them?”

“That’s just it – I didn’t see!” Rainbow said. “I know that’s impossible! I know you couldn’t have actually been carrying that stuff! It’s just like the pen you took out earlier that appeared from nowhere!”

I shook my head and chuckled. “You know I’m only doing this to keep you guessing. Trollololol.”

I do love being infuriating, especially to Rainbow.

We went back to our quest. During the fight with the vines, I noticed Applejack really stepping up and getting some good one-liners in. If I had to guess, she might make a pretty decent leader if we didn’t have me. Or Twilight, I guess.

We did eventually arrive in a cavern beneath the old castle where the so-called Tree of Harmony was getting the shit choked out of it by the vines.

“We need to save it,” Twiligth said. “It’s dying. I think I know what we need to do. We need to give it the Elements of Harmony.”

“Just…give it?” I asked.

“Some problems have a simple solution,” Twilight said. “Even Discord with such chaos was pretty simpleminded.”

“So…give it the D?”

Everyone stared at me. I shook my head. “Nevermind.”

Anyway, Twilight gave it the Elements and all the vines disappeared. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were revealed and everything seemed to be cool.

Then a pink blossom grew from the tree and popped open to reveal a treasure chest with six locks.

“What the hell does this have to do with anything?” I asked. “This wasn’t part of the lore. I thought you were a researcher, Twilight.”

“All I had to work with was a mind-altering potion,” she grumbled.

I shrugged. “Fair. Anyway, what’s with the chest?”

“What could be inside?” Twilight wondered.

Trixie stepped up and whipped out her lock picking kit. “I got this.”

I smiled. “That’s my girl.”

We all returned to Ponyville while Trixie worked on the locks. Discord was there to greet us as we came out of the forest and explain what had gone down. It was all his fault, basically.

But they forgave him. For some reason. I think it was friendship-related. I wasn’t really paying attention, because at that moment Trixie got the chest open.

I was standing right next to her when the final lock clicked. “Hey everyone, it’s open!”

They all crowded around to see what was inside. Trixie showed them the locks and opened lid. The inside was completely empty.

Surprised gasps and noises of consternation filled the air. The usual with this crowd, basically.

“Anyway,” I said. “Back to business as usual.”

“No it isn’t!” Twilight insisted. “This is the most important thing that has happened in possibly ever and you just brush it off like it’s nothing? And don’t you have a lot of questions to answer about your disappearance, return, and general behavior? I would say that you're so different, but honestly it's like you're the same just...stranger.”

“Twilight, have you ever considered that maybe I know something that you don’t?” I put on my best trollface.

She paused. “Often. But then I remember it’s you, Valiant.”

“Ouch.” I shrugged. “Anyway, see you all later. I’m going to go take a nap. This whole space travel thing is kind of tiring even without the weekly nationwide ancient conspiracy that popped up just as soon as I got back. And oh by the way, Cadance is pregnant.”

Despite the stutters of incredulity that went up at my last statement, I turned and walked away, returning to the library. There was a lot that I had left to do, but that could wait. I wasn’t in any hurry. Ironically enough, after getting back from such a long vacation, all I wanted to do was relax.

Walking into the library, I settled down on the couch. It was just like I remembered. I had time for a moment of quiet reflection and a tired smile. “Oh yeah. It’s good to be back.”

“Um, do I know you?” asked Sunset Shimmer.

Castle Mane-ia

Sunset Shimmer was a great roommate. She didn’t speak unless spoken to, didn’t leave dirty dishes lying around, and hardly ever tried to conquer the world.

Trixie had told me where we found Sunset, and I had to say, I was impressed. Such a grand thing when your daughter grows up to be a universe-hopping badass.

Going back to the part about Sunset being cool to live with, she let me sleep as late as I wanted. This was handy when I got plastered drunk, such as the night I returned from space and subsequently went on a quest to save the Princesses with the Elements of Harmony. For all my galactic badassery, I have still not learned how to handle my tequila.

I did eventually get up late that morning. Sunset was busy organizing the shelves and being quiet as a churchmouse about it. I nodded to her and stumbled out the door.

I was on my way to meet with Princess Luna. She had asked me to visit after we rescued her and Celestia from the evil tentacle vines in the Everfree Forest. I didn’t know if I was supposed to go to the castle to get an official attaboy for my contribution, or if this was about something else. Either way, going with a hangover was at least doing something productive instead of just sitting around with a hangover.

I had a lot of options for getting to Canterlot. Under the circumstances, however, I decided to let someone else drive and bought a train ticket.

The trains were slower than I remembered. I thought I had fixed that. If I had really been gone for months like everyone kept claiming, then maybe things had changed in my absence. I guess ponies don’t have what it takes to keep jet engines and MAGLEV running. What technological wimps.

Regardless, I could think about that later. I slept most of the way to Canterlot and was feeling reasonably refreshed by the time the train arrived.

I went up to the castle. There was a new guard on duty that I didn’t recognize. Granted, most guards were pretty hard to tell apart, but this guy was a bright orange pegasus. He had a trainee nametag that read Flash Sentry. I decided that I didn’t like him as soon as I saw him. Funny how some ponies can inspire that.

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Who the hell do you think I am? How many times do I have to save Equestria before you guys recognize me?”

“I uh…”

I shook my head and took out a framed picture of myself. It had my autograph on it. I had appraised it at being worth several hundred bits. “The name is Valiant.”

“How did you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?”

“Where did you get that picture from?”

I rolled my eyes and broke the portrait, glass and all, over his head. The frame ended up bracketed nicely around his neck as he slumped to the ground.

I sighed and stepped over his limp form. “Jeez, if ponies don’t have pockets you’d think that more of them would have heard of hammerspace.”

I thought it might have been better to have hit him with one of those cartoon extendo boxing gloves on a pantograph, the kind that you work the levers and it shoots out and punches someone. I didn’t have one of those, though. Note to self: get one.

Luna met me in the castle atrium and we went to her office. I sat down across from her at the large desk where she did her Princess paperwork, which is a lot like normal paperwork but more girly.

“I would like to hear about your adventures in outer space,” she said.

I shrugged. “Going into an environment like that, no air, no warmth, no life…basically every waking moment all you’re doing is just trying to survive. After you struggle against the void for so long it gets kind of boring really.”

“Is that it?” Luna asked.

I shrugged and said nothing.

“Very well. You’re back now and I am interested to know if you are still interested in fulfilling your contracts with the military.”

“For the combat robots?” I remembered. “Eh, I don’t know. After being gone for so long, it might take a while for me to get my skills back. Plus, you know me; I don’t really do series production that well. I’d get finished with one and be trying to do something different for the next one. I have other sources of income as well.”

“Are you trying to renege on our contract?” Luna’s eyes narrowed.

“No.” Yes.

“Perhaps I can offer you a different form of employment, then.” Luna looked thoughtful. “What if I were to give you a number and take away your name?”

Faint strains of Secret Agent Man began to play in the back of my mind, but I asked, “We’re talking figuratively, right?”

“Yes.”

“Just making sure.” I paused. “That actually sounds really cool. I didn’t know you guys had secret agents.”

Luna frowned. “I thought you’d already met my Mares in Black.”

“Secret asshole agents don’t count.”

“And what about Cheerilee, who you recommended to me?”

“Same answer.”

Luna considered that. “I was thinking of disbanding MiB. We simply don’t have enough of their type of work anymore. We need agents that are a little more diverse and applicable. A little less conspicuous. I know you’re capable of being incognito, if I pay you enough.”

“Princess, for the right price, I’ll be a goddamned ghost.”

She nodded and smiled. “I’ll contact you again soon.”

That was my cue to leave. It seemed a little suspicious that Luna was willing to just drop the robot contract so easily. I frowned. As usual, there were a lot of unanswered questions when it came to the Princesses. Now that I thought about it, why had she and her sister ended up tangled in vines in the Everfree Forest? Did they get kidnapped by somepony? Did they go willingly all the way from Canterlot and put themselves in those traps? Why didn’t Twilight ever ask these questions?

Speaking of, I ran across Twilight and Spike who were packing a chariot for a ride to Ponyville. She waved me over. I figured a free ride was worth tolerating her company. That was until I realized why she wanted to talk to me.

It was a bombardment of questions. Everything from the success of my rocket to the life support systems to my observations of interstellar travel. And then she started in on how apparently I came back different after being gone so long. I swear, I would have pushed her over the side of the chariot if she didn’t have wings.

“Maybe you just think I’m different because all of you changed while I was gone,” I said. “You told me I was gone a long time.”

Twilight frowned at that. “I guess it’s possible. I’m a Princess. Rainbow had a foal. Sunset came to Ponyville. So much else has happened.”

I remember Guinness had knocked up Rainbow before I left. Trixie told me that there were a few strange things about the pregnancy, but it had ultimately resulted in a cute little filly.

While Twilight was still speculating about who or what had changed, I took out my sunglasses and put them on. Twilight seized my hoof and jerked it into the air, checking around the vicinity of my armpit and down towards my tail.

“Twilight, what.” I didn’t finish the question. By the tone of my voice and by her actions, the question I was asking should be pretty clear.

“Where did you get those from?” she demanded.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “It’s going to be from your ass if you don’t let me go.”

One of the pegasus guards pulling the chariot looked back. “Did you just threaten the Princess?”

“You should have seen me back when I was actively trying to murder her.”

There was an awkward silence. The guards, I think, took it as a joke with incredibly poor taste. Twilight remembered back when I was actively trying to murder her, and let me go.

Arriving in Ponyville, Twilight and Spike got out and headed towards the forest. Twilight said something about going to the old castle and searching for books. It was tied into the mysterious chest with six keyholes that had been found. Something about how it shouldn’t exist because there wasn’t a reference in the library.

She could have just asked me about the chest, although actually getting me to tell her would have been difficult.

While Twilight and Spike went into the forest, I headed towards the center of town where Guinness was working on the pub he was building. He noticed me as I approached.

Rainbow wasn’t around, but their filly was sitting in a highchair and watching her father work. The little pony was a pegasus, light teal in color with the same rainbow mane as her mother. Also, her eyes had slitted pupils and gave off an aura of blackest evil. She opened her small mouth, showing off impressive fangs. The voice that came out was something like James Earl Jones with feedback and an echo. “What are you looking at, mortal?”

I turned to Guinness. “Were you aware that your kid is the Antichrist?”

He threw up his hooves. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everypony since she was born!”

The filly growled, “I’ve told you before, father, I am to be addressed as ‘he’!”

Guinness shook his head and turned back to me. “You are the first one to see her the way I do. Must be because we’re human or something.”

“Have you tried an exorcism?” I asked.

“Not yet, although I’ve considered it. I just didn’t want to hurt little-”

The filly interrupted. “I am the King in Yellow, Harbinger of the Fourth Syzygy. I will destroy your souls!”

“Er, we call her Rainbow Catcher,” finished Guinness.

I looked at the filly sitting there in the highchair, waving her little hooves and wings at us. “So…is it all talk or is your kid really destroying souls?”

Guinness actually looked a little relieved. “Nothing serious. No telling what will happen when she learns to walk and fly, but it is a start.”

That seemed like a good transition to talk about something else. “So what’s with the pub?”

“Well, I figured we needed to Irish this place up a little. Ponyville could use a good venue for good food, good music, and if we can figure it out, good beverages.” He sounded enthusiastic, but abruptly turned to me, grinning with excitement. “But enough about that. You just got back, man. Tell me about space!”

I shrugged. “After you get used to the zero-g it’s kind of boring.”

“But…you were gone for so long. Surely something interesting had to have happened.”

“You said good music for the pub?” I asked. “I think I can handle that. Put me on lead guitar and I know Trixie has a hell of a drumline.”

“Cool, I’ve been learning how to play the bass. But what does that have to do with space?”

“You ask a lot of questions for someone who’s getting a free house band.” I gave him a look before turning to walk away.

I spotted Rarity heading towards the forest. Fluttershy was with her, and Pinkie was with her. Pinkie was smooching Fluttershy as per norm, and Rarity looked like she was struggling to put up with it.

Rarity was probably trying to distract herself when she spoke to me. “Hello Valiant. We were just on our way to the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters to look for interesting tapestry projects.”

I shrugged and fell in step beside them. “It’s been a while since I’ve been out there. I guess I’ll go and see what’s up.”

We got out to the castle and the three of them split off to look for tapestries. I searched around for something more interesting, because they weren’t any fun, jumping at the slightest noises and stuff.

I thought I heard something from the basement and headed down to check it out. In retrospect, it may not have been the greatest idea, since in this world of magic it was a lot more likely to actually encounter a ghostie or ghoulie. Unfortunately, I found something worse: Rainbow Dash.

She and Applejack were trying to scare each other or something. They seemed to be doing a bang-up job of it, too, so I left them to it.

Twilight and Spike were upstairs, having found a lot of books just like Twilight wanted. Spike seemed to be bored. Twilight was having her usual nerd out bookgasm.

I frowned at that thought. Or would it be printing lust? Were there special fetishes for different fonts?

Ugh. Back home, on the internet, probably yes.

Anyway, at some point, they all started to freak out individually. Even Twilight came down out of the library and met up with her five friends so they could all have a nice little hextuple freakout. Plus Spike.

I looked up from playing my theremin. “Something the matter, you guys?”

Daring Don't

“Just a city colt…

Born and raised in San Fransiscolt…”

“You can’t rhyme colt with colt! What kind of songwriter are you?” shouted one of the ponies in the crowd in front of the stage.

“Shut up!” I yelled at the heckler. “If you’re so good, you get up here and sing!”

“I could,” the mare called back. “And a lot better than you.”

“Doesn’t matter. You don’t know the words.” I hit another guitar chord for emphasis.

“That just means you suck as a musician overall!”

“Uh, Valiant?” muttered Guinness beside me, holding a bass guitar. “We’re just supposed to be background entertainment, and especially not antagonizing customers. Especially not now, at the grand opening.”

I looked at him and then back at Trixie on the drums. She nodded.

“Fine,” I grumbled, transitioning to a nice little rhythm that carried a tune but didn’t necessarily need vocals.

The new pub in Ponyville, called The Half Pint, seemed to settle down into a pleasant chatter. Food and drink went around. All the customers seemed to be enjoying themselves. Apparently, the event had also coincided with National Random Holiday Party Day. I think it was something Pinkie made up, but the atmosphere was festive enough.

It was three months and twenty six days until the next Daring Do book came out. I was looking forward to it. Not only would a new novel be nice, but Rainbow would finally shut up about it.

I think it even grated on Guinness’ nerves a little, but he was much more accepting of it than I.

In that respect, the party seemed to help take Rainbow’s mind off the book. She barely mentioned it as she helped Guinness’ business partner, Squibles, tend the pub. Rainbow Catcher, the littlest demon in Ponyville, sat in her highchair and watched.

Squibles was a griffon Guinness had met somewhere. Between the two of them, they had developed several meat substitutes to serve on the menu. Some of them were even worth eating.

I looked around as I continued to play guitar on stage. Pinkie had dragged Fluttershy along. She looked to be enjoying herself, although quietly, of course. Rarity was also there, having some punch. Ever the socialite, she was chatting with a few patrons.

Sunset was pressed against the wall, her eyes darting back and forth as if terrified that someone would approach her. Apparently, she did not handle parties well.

Guinness, Trixie, and I were just finishing up our set when Twilight walked in. Everybody bowed to her, although it made her look uncomfortable and she quickly waved at them to get back up.

I put my guitar down and went over to her. “Back in Ponyville so soon? Why don’t you just live here?”

“There are a lot of things to take care of in Canterlot, what with Princesshood just recently being dumped on me,” she said. “I’ve also been working on the secret of that mysterious box with the six keyholes. But most of all, Ponyville has a new librarian and I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“You were the one who appointed Sunset,” I said.

“Well, what’s your opinion?” Twilight asked. “You’re living at the library with her.”

I shrugged. “Well, when you put it that way, she’s way better to live with than you. She’s quiet, never has backfiring spells, and doesn’t frown on my alcohol consumption.”

I grinned. Twilight rolled her eyes.

Rainbow came by just then, fangirling about Daring Do. Twilight delivered some bad news. She’d just heard that the new book was going to be delayed another two months.

“How could you possibly know that before me?” Rainbow demanded. “I’m the series’ biggest fan!”

“I’m just as big a fan as you,” Twilight reminded her. “A.K. Yearling just might be my favorite author! I know everything about her. Where she grew up, where she studied literature, where she wrote the first Daring Do book-”

“Where she lives?” Rainbow broke in.

“Uh…no, but I could probably find out somehow,” Twilight replied. “Why?”

“Because we’re about to make a bad decision?” I suggested.

“No! Because we need to go help her!” Rainbow retorted. “She needs to spend every waking second writing the book. We can help by doing her laundry, cooking her meals…whatever! Now who wouldn’t appreciate that?”

I cleared my throat. “Someone who doesn’t like bad decisions?”

“She could just say no,” Rainbow grumped. “I’ll get the girls and we’ll go!”

I figured I should probably tell someone that I was about to go on a stupid adventure. Seriously, how does shit like this keep finding me? Why do I keep agreeing to it? Well, mostly on the hope that Rainbow’s hopes and dreams get crushed.

I went over to the stage where the instruments were being packed up and told Trixie what was going on.

“Need help?” she asked. “I know a lot about adventuring.”

“Sure,” I said. I turned to Guinness. “Looks like your wife is sticking you with the baby.”

He grimaced slightly at the memory that said baby was a monster. I left him to think about his mistake and headed back across the room with Trixie. On the way, I saw a large stallion looming over Sunset and apparently trying to pick her up.

“The music’s stopped now, but maybe we could find somewhere else to dance,” he was saying. “You sure look like a mare I would tango with.”

“Hey man, if she doesn’t dance, she doesn’t dance,” I suggested.

He shot me a look. “This isn’t your business and she didn’t say no.”

“N-no,” whispered Sunset.

He looked back at her with anger. “I’m not finished with you!”

“Leave her alone, or you’ll be finished with your dick.” I pulled out my switchblade. It was a lot more impressive now that I’d started keeping it in my hammerspace rather than my mouth. No slobber, basically.

Jarred, the stallion moved away quickly. I nodded to Sunset and went on my way.

“That was nice of you, rescuing her,” said Trixie. “Do you like her?”

“Huh? I’m just trying to make sure we still have a librarian so I can read the next Daring Do book. Why, are you trying to set me up with someone?”

Trixie laughed. “Do you think I would do something like that to you, dad?”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Yeah, like the place where you pulled that knife from.”

“This again?”

“Come on, dad. You’ve got to tell me the secret.”

I sighed. “Soon, we’re going to have to sit down and have a long talk, Trix. I should tell you what happened to me in space.”

Trixie still seemed intensely interested, but my promise of having a conversation eventually was enough to sate her for now. We joined up with the rest of the group and left town.

Pinkie painted a red line behind us as we went. I walked up front with the rest and talked over the situation.

“I don’t think we should intrude on her privacy,” Twilight was saying. “Why else would she live way out here all alone if she didn’t want company?”

“Meth lab?” I suggested. I frowned. “No, probably not, considering we have the whole Crystal (meth) Kingdom. By the way, I think I already mentioned this, but Cadance is pregnant.”

“Hey! I think I spotted the house!” said Rainbow before anyone could reply to me. She pointed the way to a small cottage that looked trashed as if a gang of thieves had had time to work over it.

“Apparently somepony had intruded pretty hard on her privacy already,” Rainbow muttered.

“Now I hope we’ve all learned something today,” I said, turning to leave. “Let’s go home.”

“But we gotta find out what happened!” said Rainbow, quickly zooming over to the house. Everyone followed her. I sighed and went after them. The inside of the house looked just as disheveled as the outside.

“Oh my,” murmured Rarity. “I hope A.K. Yearling is all right.”

The fire was still burning in the cast iron stove, showing that all this damage had happened recently. We were still picking around in it when a voice called out, “What are you all doing here?”

A sand-colored mare with a grey mane, who wore a hat, glasses, and cloak, appeared in the door. Fangirling commenced. Hard.

Amid the squees, I noticed that A.K. Yearling seemed to have the same colors as Daring Do. It made sense, as authors often created characters that were at least a little bit like themselves.

A.K. Yearling hunted around her wrecked possessions before finding a book with a lock to a secret compartment. She spun in the combination and popped it open. The inside was empty.

“Where did it go?” A.K. gasped. Trixie and I traded a private glance.

“Um, maybe this is a bad time,” said Rainbow, “but is there any way we can help you with your new book?”

A.K. kicked us out. By the sound of it, after we were outside, she started ransacking everything in the house trying to find some lost item.

“You should really learn to respect ponies’ privacy,” Twilight muttered to Rainbow.

“What about those guys?” said Pinkie, pointing to the roof, where three stallions were jumping into the house through a window.

So instead of respecting her privacy, we went over and creeperpeeked in her window. As it turned out, A.K. Yearling was Daring Do.

Although it made me wonder which was her real name. She could have a penname for authoring books about herself, or she could use a fake name for her character who was in all other respects exactly like her.

Regardless, the three stallions we saw sneaking in got into a fight with her. “My mind is officially blown!” squealed Twilight.

“Now that you’ve got alicorn powers for good and all that, why don’t you break up this fight before I go in there and blow the minds of those guys?” I said. “Goddamned literally.”

“Uh, yes,” said Twilight. She hurried into the house and used magic to pull all three intruders to separate corners of the room. “What’s going on here? We came to help.”

“Daring Do doesn’t need help. She handles her business herself.” The adventurer put on her hat. She scowled at the crooks Twilight had caught. “Which one of you took the ring?”

“What are you talking about?” one of them said. “We thought you had it!”

“She doesn’t have it?” asked a fourth stallion, walking through the door.

“Caballeron!” shouted Daring. “So let me guess: Ahuizotl has put you up to this? You're stealing the ring to give to him so his hold on the Fortress of Talicon will be good for eight centuries as foretold by prophecy!”

Strangely specific, but I appreciated the backstory.

“That’s Doctor Caballeron,” the stallion corrected. “Also, close, but no. I'm planning to sell it to him, make a bundle, and retire from archaeology in splendor.”

That made sense to me. If you’re good at something, never do it for free.

Daring made a noise of annoyance. “Caballeron, you fool! You're dooming the valley to eight centuries of unrelenting heat!”

“That’s right, just as soon as I find the ring. Come, henchponies!” Caballeron went out the door. Still held by Twilight’s magic, his goons didn’t move.

This time, it was Twilight who made a noise of annoyance. “Didn’t he recognize me? You can’t just commit crimes and things in front of Princesses.”

“You should track him down and beat his ass,” I suggested.

Twilight threw me a look. “Isn’t that more of your thing?”

I did a mock salute. “Yes ma’am. I’m on it.”

During our banter, however, Daring was already out the door and followed by Rainbow. Trixie and I trotted after them.

The forest got dark, but up ahead we could navigate by Rainbow’s shouts. Trixie asked, “So when are we going to tell them that I picked the lock on Daring’s secret book thing and you stole the ring?”

“In time,” I assured her.

The two of us kept walking until it got dark. Shortly thereafter, we heard a commotion up ahead and hurried to see what it was about.

Ahuizotl was there, and so were his cats. They were beating up Daring and stuff. Ahuizotl was way uglier than the books depicted him. He had a creepy little face on the end of his elongated skull.

Anyway, they captured Daring and carried her away.

We passed Rainbow, who seemed to be in a state of shock. While she had the whole Element of Loyalty thing going on, Daring had repeatedly spurned her offers of help and apparently Rainbow didn’t know how to handle that. Trixie and I kept going.

“So what are we going to do for Daring, uh, Do?” Trixie asked. She put on a hopeful smile. “Gunship rescue?”

I smiled but shook my head. “Nah, I don’t think the situation is serious enough.”

We eventually found our way to the Fortress of Talicon. Ahuizotl was pacing back and forth in front of a pillar that had a tall stack of rings on it. Around him were a group of ponies similar to each other who were equipped with warpaint, spears, and jewelry.

“Cultists,” Trixie growled. Her teeth started grinding. From what she’d told me of her travels, cults had not been kind to her. In fact, her body started to lengthen, her emotions fueling a change to her eight-legged form. Despite the fact that I was family and supposed to be supportive and all, it was creepy as hell.

Good thing I had the perfect thing to pacify her.

“I’ve got your M60 right here,” I said, giving her the machine gun.

She grinned, attitude suddenly changing. “Thanks, dad. You’re the best.” And she started mowing down cultists.

I wandered away and found Daring Do struggling to get out of a piranha pit. She’d just about managed it and landed on the ledge overlooking the water, breathing hard.

“What in the world is that noise?” she asked, hearing the distant gunfire.

“No big deal,” I said. “We’re just cleaning up the mess.”

She and I stopped at the entrance to the ring room. Trixie was cackling with laughter and firing at cultists without reprieve. Daring’s mouth went slack, seeing Trixie’s mutated body and massive weapon.

“What…”

“Shhh,” I said. “Just watch.”

The shooting slowly died down. Daring and I walked into the room. Ahuizotl cowered behind the stack of rings, eyes wide at the carnage he had just witnessed. Trixie grabbed him by his weird hand-tail and dragged his ass out into the center of the floor. She put the barrel of the gun to his head and looked up as Daring and I approached.

The Elements of Harmony caught up to us just then and rushed into the room. “What happened?” Twilight demanded.

“Like I said earlier, if Ahuizotl had gotten the ring, it would have been a disaster,” Daring said.

“This guy’s been causing you a lot of trouble, right?” I said to Daring.

“Well, yes. You’ve read the books,” she replied.

“You know, if all these books are true, then Daring has probably saved Equestria more times than you guys,” I said to the collective Element bearers. “We should probably investigate this stuff and make sure that nothing bad happens now that we know bad guys like Ahuizotl actually exist. In the meantime, we could certainly take him out of the picture.”

I looked to Daring for guidance as Trixie made ready to fire. Ahuizotl’s eyes bugged out. “Daring Do, don’t. Uh, I mean, Daring Do not… Daring Do, do not do… Ugh!”

I rolled my eyes and gave Trixie a signal to shut him up. With the butt of her machine gun, she hit him right in his creepy little face.

“You look like you have experience busting heads,” remarked Daring.

Trixie shrugged. “You learn things when you go on adventures.”

Daring’s eyebrows went up. “Are you interested in a book deal?”

All those present, myself and especially Rainbow Dash included, were taken aback. Trixie considered her answer. “Well, I am well versed with the entertainment industry.”

Daring and Trixie walked a few steps away to make plans. I turned to the Elements of Harmony and grinned. “I do love a happy ending.”

Flight to the Finish

Lyra and Bon Bon were many things to many ponies. Some just thought of them as a harp player and a candy maker. Some others may have known the truth.

Lyra pretended to have terrible scoliosis, which is why she could often be seen slumping on a park bench. She would tell anyone who asked that it was the only way she could get comfortable with her poor, crooked spine. The fraudulent medical insurance money was laundered through Bon-Bon’s candy shop. They also did contract killings and fraudulent acquisitions.

But none of that was why I had met with them that day. In the darkened room at the back of Bon Bon’s shop, I pushed a piece of paper across the table to them.

Lyra took it and held it up. She and Bon Bon glanced at each other. “This is it?”

I nodded. “I’ve got the money. Just get it done.”

“It’ll cost you, especially if this is going to be as hard as you say.”

I slid a bag of bits across the table. Getting up, I nodded to both of them and went out the door.

The very fate of Equestria depended on Lyra and Bon Bon to deliver. It was kind of important. However, it would either get done or it wouldn’t, and there was no use worrying about it until it either did or didn’t happen.

I bet you’re wondering what it was. That’s the beauty of me narrating. It creates suspense.

Lulz.

I put the request out of my mind and kept walking. Ms. Harshwhinny, the Equestria Games inspector, was in town, and I decided to steer clear of her. She was kind of schizophrenic, going from brusque to unbearably happy at the drop of a hat. Most ponies didn’t see that, only experiencing her bad side. Her bad side was mean and her happy side was annoying.

I saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders going off to practice something. It looked like a song and dance routine. I still hadn’t got around to building them a robot that I had promised. My mouth involuntarily twisted, my nose scrunched, and my eyes looked away as I thought of it.

I stopped. What the hell was that? I shook my head. Aloud, I said, “I promise that I’m going to build them a robot.”

It happened again. Damn, that was strange. So far, it was the only promise I had ever failed to fulfil. Maybe that was why?

Anyway. I got moving again.

I met Trixie down at the library. She’d agreed to come by and talk with me. Sunset saw the two of us walk in. We sat down before she spoke. “Would you like some tea?”

Her voice was barely audible, and I think it was the first time I’d ever heard her speak without previously being spoken to. Trixie gave her a smile. “That would be nice, thank you.”

As Sunset went into the kitchen, Trixie turned back to me. “So dad, I think you were just about to tell me about space?”

“Yeah, I can’t really put it off any longer.” I sighed. I didn’t want to do this, but if I had to, Trixie might as well be the one to listen.

“So, you knew this was an artificial world,” I began. Trixie nodded. She’d had time to get used to the idea. “The thing is, while it’s a really detailed landscape, there’s nothing out there in space besides the planet, sun, moon, and stars that you can see in the night sky. Or there didn’t used to be, anyway.”

Trixie frowned but didn’t interrupt as I went on. “Think of it like a hollow ball. The planet is in the center. The sun and moon go around it. The stars decorate the inside surface of the ball. I’m guessing things are this way because this world, this universe, is artificial and only what was needed for it to exist was created.”

I let that sink in. Trixie nodded. “You sound like you understand this very well.”

“I had a lot of time to think while I was in space.”

That got a smile out of her. Just then, Sunset came back with the tea. She steeped it carefully and served Trixie and I. After putting the cups down, Sunset stood awkwardly for a moment before slinking back to the kitchen and out of sight.

I took a sip of the tea and wished I hadn’t. I don’t really know if it was good stuff or not. I don’t like tea, period, and so was no judge of quality.

“So what happened when you got out to the edge of the universe?” Trixie asked.

“That’s the thing. I never got there.” I gave her a look to make sure she understood. “This universe was artificially created to encompass the space it needed to. When I got out there to the edge, it expanded to accommodate me. If it hadn’t, I would have crossed the edge of the universe and been outside of it.”

I titled my head. “While we know from experience that traveling to other universes is possible, you can’t get there by physically moving. You get there by dimensionally moving. Each universe that you go to has its own finite limits. You can’t go outside a universe. Probably.”

Gesturing around me, I said, “This universe is pretty small as they go. It only had one planet in it. Because you can’t leave the universe, it has to expand to keep you inside. By taking that trip out into space, I was effectively creating new territory in the universe.”

Trixie digested that for a moment and then asked the question that I had been dreading. “So what was out there?”

I had known it was coming, but I still had to take a moment to face it. “It was me. Not in the literal sense, but because I was the catalyst for creating a new piece of the universe, it was effectively made in my image. It could only be composed of what I knew. It couldn’t be anything random or something I didn’t know about, because there was nothing else out there to be creating it.”

“That sounds…very deep.” Trixie frowned, but then her look brightened. “I can see the advantages of being familiar with things because they were being created from your mind.”

“Except for the things I didn’t want to be familiar with. You can’t just pick and choose your mind, Trixie. When I said that I was experiencing things pulled from my mind, I meant everything in my mind. Worst fears, deepest shames, the whole lot.”

“You did that for months?” Her voice had gone quiet and she stared at me.

“Yeah.” I took a breath and looked up. “What’s worse is that all that stuff was being created and made real, not just relived.”

I forced myself to smile to distract her from asking further questions. “On the plus side, I got really in touch with myself.”

Trixie chuckled. “I’m just glad you opened up to me, dad. Honestly, I expected you to say about three paragraphs on the subject.”

I laughed with her. “Or just gave a one-line summary. ‘I was in space, a lot of shit happened, some more shit blew up, and then I got back here, the end.’”

I thought for a moment. “Honestly, that’s pretty accurate. Space explosions get boring after a while.”

A couple of days passed and the gang made ready to leave for the Crystal Empire to see the Crusaders perform their little routine for the Equestria Games.

I say “the gang” because it’s much easier than listing all the ponies by name and I didn’t have a cutesy collective title for them. I was never really into puns, and anyway, calling them the Mane 6 was usually never accurate if Spike, Trixie, the Crusaders, or myself were also there.

While we were packing up to go, Daring Do showed up in town. She was in disguise, but I knew who it was as soon as she walked into the library.

She met with Trixie about the upcoming book deal. They talked it over until it was time to go, and Daring said she would wait until Trixie came back to keep working on it.

We left Ponyville on the train. The route took us through Canterlot, where Twilight got on and I got off.

I had some business with Luna and decided that skipping a little ceremony before the actual start of the Equestria Games was acceptable.

I passed Twilight at the station. She was looking a little taller these days and with a longer horn. Growing into being an alicorn, I supposed. We both only had time for a quick greeting before she had to go and I had to visit the castle.

There were some files spread on Luna’s desk when I walked in. They had some unusual titles. She greeted me and we sat.

“I’ve officially shut down the Mares in Black, and we’ve commenced the setting up of the new organization,” Luna told me. “I have the files here for a few of our high value assets. I’d like you to read them and get familiar. But first, take a look at your records and make sure they are accurate.”

I glanced at the folder she pushed across the desk at me. The title was Alien. It was a decent codename, I supposed, and kind of accurate too.

Opening it up, I saw that all the pages were blank. Luna said, “Hold still.”

I looked up, pausing to let her cast a spell that settled somewhere between my ears. The pages in front of me suddenly filled with text and other information. It was fairly scant, only revealing public details about me. I was happy to see that Luna and her underlings hadn’t managed to pry out anything that I didn’t want them to see.

“Here’s a quill if something needs updated,” said Luna. I considered that. Should I change anything?

I flipped through the pages, thinking about it all. I thought of my experiences in space. It was a lot of information to write down, something that I didn’t really want to do at the moment. Maybe it could be summarized. One sentence? Nah, I could do better than that.

I thought about what I should write. What had changed about me since I’d been forced to battle my own mind for months? Everything I had seen and faced down, of course. Twilight’s initial observations about me when I’d gotten back were probably accurate. Something about me was different.

I picked the word to write: fearless.

Power Ponies

I stared at the six mares and Spike. I made sure to give them a disapproving look to make sure they understood just how disappointed I was.

“So...let me get this straight. All of you were sucked into a magic comic book that transported you to another universe where you were superheroes and had to fight to defeat an insane evil villain. And you didn't take me?”

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Just kidding. Here's what actually happened.

I was hanging out with Trixie and Daring Do one morning at Trixie’s place while the two of them discussed Daring’s next book. While they talked, I was in the process of putting together a system of linkage to build a pantograph; a scissors-type mechanism if you aren’t familiar.

I was planning to put a boxing glove on the end. I’d always wanted a cartoon extendo boxing glove so I could punch people in the face from a distance.

There was a knock on the door and I went to answer it. Guinness was there along with Sir Win. It had been a while since I had seen the demon. He was still flaming.

And no, I’m not tired of that joke yet.

Guinness said, “I’ve been thinking about Rainbow Catcher and I’d like to have her looked at by an expert.” He gestured to Sir Win.

I nodded. “So why do you need me?”

“It just seemed like something you would be interested in,” Guinness said. He looked past me into the house. His eyes went wide and he started to back up.

I looked over my shoulder. Daring had spotted Guinness and was walking to the door. “Hey, I remember you.”

I looked at Guinness. “You know each other?”

“Uh, yeah,” Guinness stuttered. “She was clingy and stuff while we were slaves to a theater together in Saddle Arabia. Then she took the play I wrote and claimed it as her own.”

“Hey, I helped write it!” Daring protested.

“You just inserted sex scenes as an excuse to get closer to me!” Guinness argued.

“You wrote a play?” I asked.

“We,” Daring interrupted.

“No, it was me,” Guinness argued. “The Pirates of Steampunk Middle Earth Fight the Evil Star Empire on a Planet Full of Apes While the World Falls Into a Post Apocalyptic State. You’d love it, Valiant.”

“And you were slaves to a theater?” I asked Guinness.

“That’s not-” Daring started to say, but Guinness talked over her.

“It’s a long story. I had to write the play in order to earn my freedom.”

“Really?” I asked.

Daring tried to break in again. “I can write, too. Perhaps you’ve heard of A.K. Yearling?”

“Heh,” Guinness chuckled at the similarity of her name to another author he’d heard of.

“It is a nice pun,” I agreed.

Daring said, “It’s not a-”

I looked at her. “Shut up, Daring. We don’t need your shit making this more complicated. Go be fictional.”

She huffed and turned around to go back to the conversation with Trixie.

Guinness sighed. “Thanks. I really didn’t want to see her again. What’s she doing here?”

“Working on a book deal with Trixie.”

“Hmm. Well anyway, back to my possessed kid.”

“Let me know how that goes,” I said. “I’ve been a little suspicious of Daring myself. I think I’ll hang around and watch her.”

Guinness and Sir Win left. I kept working on my extendo-glove. Daring concluded her business in a few more minutes and went back to her hotel.

Twilight arrived in Ponyville later that morning to collect her friends. They were headed to the old castle in the Everfree Forest to do some spring – er, millennium – cleaning.

They stopped by Trixie’s place to see if either of us wanted to go along. Trixie thought about it for a moment. “No, I have some writing to get done. Daring asked me to pen out a few things.”

“I’ll go,” I said. I could use the exercise.

We went into the forest, heading for the castle. From what I remembered of the building, the roof was missing in places, but most of the underlying structure was still good. Otherwise, I would have recommended a complete teardown and new construction.

Twilight did seem intent on fixing the place up. I wondered if she was planning to move into the old castle. I supposed that made sense. That way she could stay closer to Ponyville. It was pretty obvious that she didn’t like staying in Canterlot.

The six of them said they didn’t need my help so I didn’t help them. Spike got the same message but seemed a little put out about it. He stayed up in one of the old towers reading comics.

I was content to hang with him and read over his shoulder. Comic books are something you don’t outgrow.

We got to the last page and discovered that it was blank except for tiny printing.

Spike and I looked at each other. I said, “Probably just an advertisement to sell you fake x-ray glasses or something.”

“Hmm, I know I saw a magnifying glass around here somewhere,” Spike said, checking the room. He found it and came back to read the small print. “You can return to the place you started when the Mane-iac is defeated. Take a closer look to join the adventure in this book.”

“The hell does that mean?” I wondered aloud.

Just then, the comic book lit up with a magical blue-white glow.

Let me be perfectly clear: I’ve seen a lot of shit. Literally facing your fears in space (where no one can hear you scream) effectively enables you to pass most things after that off as not too serious. It may have been slightly boastful to tell Luna I was now fearless, but my point stands.

What I’m getting at is that a magic comic book was something I hadn’t seen before, but unless it was about to explode in my face or something, I remained calm.

Then the pages sucked Spike in.

“Huh,” I said.

“Spike!” shouted Twilight, rushing past me in an attempt to save him. The other mares raced after her, forming a chain and trying to stop the magical sucking energy from hauling them into the book. It didn’t work.

Pinkie came skipping along after the rest had already disappeared and did a cannonball into the ball of magic. “Whee!”

“Huh,” I said again.

Just then, a hoof emerged from the glowing light. It looked kind of sketchy. Like, literally sketchy, as if it was a drawing come to life. It gestured to me, inviting me closer.

I looked at it skeptically. “What is this shit, Take on Me?”

The hoof gestured again, slightly impatient.

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Let’s get this over with.”

Walking forward, I took hold of the sketchy hoof and was immediately pulled into the comic book. After a brief whirl of colored light, I was deposited on top of a building.

“Somepony want to tell me what the hay is goin’ on?” asked Applejack. She was outfitted with superhero gear. Ordinarily, I would have just called it a costume, but the horseshoes in her holsters looked pretty real to be cosplay.

In fact, all of them were outfitted with superhero gear, including Spike. He named them off: “Masked Matter-Horn, Fili-Second, Zapp, Radiance, Mistress Mare-velous, and Saddle Rager!”

Spike pointed at me. “Mr. Guy!”

Source

I checked myself. I had a sweet suit and tie. I took off the sunglasses that I had been wearing and gave Spike a look. “Who?”

“Well, he doesn’t appear in this issue,” Spike explained. “He’s usually kind of the go-to antihero in the city of Maretropolis.”

“Sounds like me,” I mused. “I don’t ever cross over into villain territory, though, do I?”

“Maybe sometimes,” Spike admitted.

“Well, you should have plenty of experience with that, Valiant,” Twilight muttered.

“Hey, that’s the kind of talk that makes antiheros go bad,” I cautioned. “Plus, if I was a villain, I’d be a supervillain.”

“What’s the difference?” asked Rainbow.

“Why, presentation, of course,” I said, drawing a look of appreciation from Rarity.

“Yeah, presentation is everything,” agreed Spike. “The Power Ponies didn’t come up with these cool costumes for nothing. I just wonder why we got zapped here and put in the place of the Power Ponies.”

Just then, there was an explosion. We all stepped to the edge of the roof and looked down. A building that I recognized as the museum from earlier in the comic book had just had its front entrance blown out and the Mane-iac came out with her tentacular hair.

“Power Ponies?” she cackled. “How kind of you to join us!”

She was holding the Electro-Orb that had been stolen from the museum. Spike spotted it. “That must be part of her plan! My comic book said the way to get back to where we started was to defeat the Mane-iac!”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. I pulled out my Panzerfaust. Good ol’ rocket launcher.

“Hang on,” said Twilight. “Aside from where did you get that, if we’re superheroes we’re not supposed to kill anypony!”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re that kind of superheroes? Fine. Do whatever you want.”

While we were talking about morality, the Mane-iac had used her hair tentacles to climb the building.

“She’s right there!” shouted Spike. “Use your powers to stop her!”

Twilight’s horn lip up. “Piece of cake. I am the most magical pony in Equestria.”

Seemed like a solid plan to me, but Spike shook his head. “This isn’t Equestria! No cheating overpowered ponies are allowed to mess with a perilous storyline!”

“What about Valiant?” demanded Rainbow. I gave her a trollface.

Just then, our little discussion was interrupted by the Mane-iac reaching the top of the building and attacking. There was a pretzel cart clenched in her tentacles and she used it to start smashing around.

The so-called Power Ponies got out of the way. The Mane-iac continued to giggle as she assaulted our position. I stood there eating a pretzel, thinking that I could use a little a-salt myself.

I suppose the Mane-iac left me alone because I wore dark colors and wasn’t moving. Basically, superheroes know nothing about camouflage and stealth.

She did pause to say hello, though. “Mr. Guy.”

I nodded. “Mane-iac.”

She went back to thrashing everyone else.

“You could help, you know!” Twilight shouted.

“You and I both know that I don’t really do less-lethal,” I called back.

The Mane-iac knocked them all flat and then strode away over the street, her tentacles latching onto buildings and lamp posts to keep her moving. She still hadn’t stopped laughing.

“We’ve got to go after her!” said Spike, getting up and pointing after the Mane-iac. “The only way to get back is if we defeat her!”

“Lead the way,” said Twilight.

Spike nodded and we followed him downtown to a shampoo factory. We gathered in the shadows. Twilight whispered, “All right Power Ponies, here’s the plan.”

Above us and in plain view of the factory, Rainbow shouted, “Come on out, Mane-iac, or the Power Ponies are coming in!”

“Leeeeeerrrooooyyy Jenkins,” I muttered under my breath.

The factory doors slid up and a whole crowd of henchponies came rushing out. They all had fantastic mane styles.

By now, the hero group had gotten its shit together in the superpower department and kicked a not unreasonable amount of ass. Honestly, I was kind of proud. Take away their usual talents, take away their Elements of Harmony jewelry, and here were six mares that were not afraid of fisticuffs.

The Mane-iac went through the usual routine of sending her underlings out to get squashed before appearing herself. She brought a giant spray can out, one that Spike identified with some concern as the Hairspray Ray of Doom.

He was right to be wary, because it froze solid all six of the not-so Powerful Ponies. The Mane-iac had a chuckle over this, of course, and wrapped up all six of the statue-like mares with her tentacles and carried them into the building.

I called after them. “Hey Twilight, can I start being a badass now?”

She didn’t reply.

“What are we supposed to do?” moaned Spike. “Neither of us have any powers. Twilight doesn’t want you to use your weapons. I don’t have any weapons.”

“What about that bucket you just stepped in?” I asked.

Spike looked down. “Hey, yeah! That’s something.” His smile quickly turned sheepish. “Um, if you could help me get it off, that is.”

After de-bucketing Spike, the two of us snuck into the factory. The Power Ponies were locked in a cage receiving periodic respraying to keep them immobile.

The Mane-iac was doing her little supervillian monologue thing. Despite her lack of hostility towards me, I found her movements around her hairdryer-shaped machine…disturbing. Tentacles never make things less icky.

“Once the Electro-Orb has powered it up completely, this cannon will amplify the power of my mane one million times, expelling an energy blast that will cause everypony in Maretropolis's mane to grow wild! You will be my weapon's first victims, and there is nopony who can save you from this fate!” The Mane-iac chuckled and did her little slithery thing on the machine.

“Ugh,” I said, stepping out of the shadows. “Quit humpin’ the laser.”

“Doomsday device,” Spike corrected.

“Whatever.” I turned back to the Mane-iac. “Treating equipment like that is gross.”

The Mane-iac did stop, but only long enough to shush me and begin another monologue. “Tonight, we stand upon the brink of immortality, for we collectively - though, mostly me - have finally defeated our most hated nemeses!” She gestured at the Power Ponies. “We have hurled the brush of badness into the now fearful face of goodness, and have struck a blow for freedom in the name of oppression! And nothing will stop us!”

“Wait, what?” I said. “Go back to that part about freedom.”

“It’s a trick, Valiant!” Twilight managed to croak, only to receive another shot of spray.

I stood there, my lips silently moving as I tried to remember the Mane-iac’s exact words. Struck a blow for freedom in the name of oppression… Oh. Freedom in the name of oppression. It didn’t make any sense. Probably because the Mane-iac was insane. Okay, I understood now. No sudden shift to democracy, just a lunatic.

Unfortunately, in the time I had been occupied, the Mane-iac attacked. I got hit in the face with a surprisingly soft lock of hair. I mean, it was still a tentacle and it still grossed me out that it touched me, but the touch itself wasn’t bad. It was the impact I experienced after getting knocked through the air that really hurt.

I slammed into a vending machine near the break area of the factory floor. Bottles of soda and juice rained down on me, spoiling my suit. The Mane-iac’s hair slid through the puddles, reaching for me.

I picked myself up out of the glass as a beverage-stained braid crashed through the place where I had just been.

The Mane-iac was closer now, her tentacles stained with various drinks. She swatted at me angrily. I avoided a cranberry juice-soaked tentacle and another that was wet with strawberry-kiwi. Another, orange-flavored tentacle almost got me. I carefully avoided tentacle grape, and got free, opening some space away from the juice machine and my own terrible puns.

While I distracted the Mane-iac, Spike bashed his bucket into the face of the pony controlling the spray can. The Power Ponies unfroze and got out of their cage.

The factory turned into a no-holds-barred wrestling match and a copious amount of ass was dutifully handed to its respective owners.

Then the Mane-iac made the mistake of hurting an insect and Fluttershy hulked out. Dear Lord, that was terrifying. I won’t go into any descriptive detail, but damn. It was no more mister nice guy.

I frowned. Actually, me being Mr. Guy would have been more fitting for that pun. Then again, I hadn’t really lost my temper or gotten to blow anything up.

Anyway, Fluttershy broke the doomsday device which kind of bound up the Mane-iac’s plan as well as the mare herself. She flopped to the floor in a tangle of her own hair. It didn’t stop her giggling, though, so it was kind of nice that a portal appeared just then and spit us out of the comic.

“That was awesome!” Rainbow exclaimed as we all appeared back in the old castle.

There was a general chorus of agreement. I certainly had had a good time. The Electro-Orb I had snatched before we got transported back would make a fine addition to my collection.

Twilight turned to Spike. “Where exactly did you get that comic book?”

“I got it in Canterlot at the House of Enchanted Comics,” he said. “I didn't know it meant they were literally enchanted!”

“I’m sure you didn’t,” I said.

Twilight gave me a look. Slowly, she said, “Valiant…do you know something about this?”

“Twilight, why would you think that? Are you saying that I went to a specific comic shop in Canterlot, planted this specific comic, and somehow influenced Spike to buy it, bring it here, and discover that it was a portal to Maretropolis so all of us could be sucked in?”

She appeared to falter slightly at the illogic but then remembered who she was dealing with. “Is that what you did?”

“No.” And it wasn’t. I paid Lyra and Bon Bon to do it for me.

“But enchanted comics?” I said, changing the subject. “I think I’d like to get involved with that.”

“I’ll give you the address,” said Spike.

“Great. I’ll go to Canterlot as soon as I can and buy them out.”

“Hang on there,” said Applejack. “You mean buy ‘em out, or buy ‘em out?”

“I’ll do it with my wallet, not with arson,” I assured her.

We all went back to Ponyville. I was deep in thought most of the way. The Mane-iac was unlike any villain we had faced before, and I made sure to pay attention. I could learn a few things. Things like how to get a plan going, and how not to have a group of ponies with different opinions dismantle it. There are things to be learned even from bad guys.

The disturbingly tentacular hair the Mane-iac possessed could be an asset. I was not about to expose myself to radioactive shampoo, but it did remind me that I wasn’t taking full advantage of being a pony. Applejack, for instance, could manipulate her lasso with her tail. I had barely learned how to point my ears in different directions.

Once I got back to the library, I set about attempting to learn earth pony ways. I looked at my tail and attempted to get it to move. Trying to figure out a new limb is not easy.

I could sort of wag like a dog, but I was looking for more dexterity. I frowned in concentration. What was that Chubby Checker had said about doing The Twist? Just shake your ass?

I was in the process of doing so when Sunset walked into the room from behind me, carrying a load of books. Her face went crimson and she dropped everything across the floor.

I paused.

Our eyes met.

“You know,” I said. “This isn’t the worst thing you’ve caught me doing.”

“N-no,” Sunset agreed.

Then I remembered that I’d never given a damn what ponies thought about me and went right back to it.

Bats!

The fire in the center of the room was sweltering, and provided the only source of illumination. The walls were stacked with torture equipment and mysterious jars of pickled body parts that glinted in the flickering light. This was the back room at Sir Win’s place.

The demon himself hummed cheerfully as Guinness and I stood near the door, sweating. Rainbow Catcher lay in a baby basket on the floor. She looked around at the fire and the things Sir Win was preparing. Her evil, slitted pupils turned to Guinness and her deep voice demanded, “Father, what is going on here?”

“Just, um, a little checkup,” said Guinness.

The filly looked at Sir Win and then back to her dad. “He doesn’t look like a doctor.”

“He’s a specialist,” I put in.

Sir Win winked. “I’m special, all right.” He bent down to the basket, smiling cheerfully. “Hello there, dear. How are you feeling today?”

“Bloodlust is what I’m feeling,” Rainbow Catcher told him.

Sir Win nodded. “That’s perfectly normal for a young evil being like yourself.”

“I am older than the heavens and the soil of this miserable planet! This is not the first form that I have taken nor the first population of innocents that I have come to live among. And just like the hundreds of civilizations I have crushed before, you all will die begging for your lives under my reign!” She shook her tiny hoof at us.

“Well, that’s nice,” said Sir Win. “It’s good to have goals. In fact, I have a short term one for you. Don’t die.”

He picked up the basket and chucked it into the fire. The wicker and blanket burned away, leaving the little foal lying on the coals and giving us an unkind expression.

Guinness had started forward reflexively. Sir Win reached into the fire and picked the foal up, brushing the ashes off her. He gave her back to her father, who settled the filly on his back.

“Well Mr. Guinness, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that the exorcism didn’t work.”

“Is that what you were doing?” Guinness asked.

Sir Win nodded. “It’s pretty simple. If she doesn’t burn, she’s not exorcised.”

Before Guinness could properly process that, Sir Win went on. “The reason it didn’t work is because there’s no soul in there. I take this to mean that our little abomination filled that vacancy while the foal’s body was still developing in the womb. If the evil being didn’t invade and hold the body hostage, then we can’t remove it because the body belongs to it.”

“So no soul? Exorcisms won’t work, ever?” I asked.

Sir Win nodded.

“What’s the good news?” Guinness mumbled.

Sir Win put on a huge grin. “Your baby’s fireproof.”

Guinness and I walked back through town. The sun was just coming up. I don’t know why Sir Win wanted to work so early in the morning. He was a busy demon, I guess.

Rainbow Catcher rode on her father’s back. She stood with her forelegs on his neck, lifting her head up high to look around. She pointed at Sugarcube Corner, which was just opening for the day. “Father! Buy me cupcakes!”

“Please don’t shout in my ear,” Guinness muttered. “Also, I guess I’m not really your father, am I?”

“Regardless, you are stuck with me!” Rainbow Catcher cackled evilly.

Guinness shot me a pleading look. I shrugged. I told him not to knock up a pony. Granted, nobody could have expected that the baby would be born with ancient evil where the soul was supposed to go.

“So when are you, Trixie, and I getting together for another band practice?” Guinness asked, attempting to distract himself. “Actually, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. I know one of your exes taught you to play the guitar, but why have you been practicing so much since coming back from space?”

“I need to get better,” I said.

“Well okay, but what’s the need?”

I looked at him. “At some point in the future, you’ll be damn glad that I’m a rockstar.”

Guinness let the subject drop. We parted ways, him going to his pub, The Half Pint, and me going to the library.

I walked into the building. Sunset was there on the couch. She was laid out on her back and was absolutely stark naked.

I didn’t give her a second glance. I mean, ponies are usually naked and stuff.

She jerked awake as I closed the door. I raised an eyebrow. “Did I wake you up or something?”

She nodded.

“What are you doing on my couch?”

Sunset quickly scrambled off it. “I, um…just a nap,” she mumbled.

“This early in the morning?” I questioned.

“I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“I told you that tequila will fix that problem.” Although it might leave a bigger one the morning after.

“Maybe,” she said.

I walked by her to where my stuff was. I went back to working on the extendo boxing glove. If figured if it was going to be ridiculous and cartoony, it might as well have the whole package. I was getting it tuned so it would make a nice spring noise when used.

I heard a bell ringing. Opening a window, I saw Pinkie exit Sugarcube Corner.

“It’s the Sweet Apple Acres alert bell!” she exclaimed. “Come on!”

I shrugged and left the library, following her towards the orchard. As we went, I observed her mane doing unusual things. It seemed sort of prehensile. It looked like she had learned something from the Mane-iac, too.

On the way out of town, we passed by a group of six ponies. They were all mares; two unicorns, two pegasi, and two earth ponies. They looked kind of familiar, but I didn’t pay them much attention. Pinkie didn’t react like they were new in town, so I figured I had probably seen them before.

Fluttershy, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash were there when we showed up. Applejack let go of the bell pull cord. “Attention! This is a Sweet Apple Acres code red! Vampire fruit bats are attackin’ the trees!”

Vampire bats pretty much set the tone for the rest of the day. It sucked.

Then, someone made the mistake of asking me what I thought.

I looked at all of them. “Why should I be the one to make the decision on what to do about the bats?”

“Because Twilight ain’t here,” Applejack said. “And you seem like somepony who would be good at pest control.”

I pictured myself driving a van with Valiant’s Bug Vanquishers on the side. I shook my head. “While I’m against animal cruelty, I think the bats need to go and stop destroying your apples. Unfortunately, we have a bit of an impasse, because in this case it’s hard to have one without the other. Jeeze, when did such a moral dilemma like this come up? Usually things around here are so black and white.”

“Why don’t we just get Twilight from Canterlot and let her make the tough choices for us?” said Pinkie.

There was a general chorus of agreement. Serves her right for being a Princess.

When Twilight showed up, it was pretty much the middle of the night. The rest of us had been chasing around the bats all day and just wanted things to be done with.

Twilight said, “All right, I’ve got a spell here that will get the bats to stop eating apples. We just need them to stay in one place.”

After a little cajoling, we got Fluttershy to use The Stare on the bats. Twilight finished the spell, the bats stopped eating apples, and we all went home for the night.

In the morning, I woke up on the couch like usual. Not like usual, Sunset was draped over me on the couch.

I dumped her on the floor. “What the hell?”

She moaned and rubbed her forehead. “Ugh…what happened?”

“I think you’re hungover. Why did you pass out on top of me?”

“I don’t remember.” Her eyes had opened a crack, squinting in the morning sunlight.

I shook my head. “Well, I remember going to sleep all alone. Lucky for both of us, nothing questionable happened.”

Her eyes widened, but then scrunched again as the light hurt. “I’m sorry.”

“If you drank all my tequila, you will be.” I headed to the kitchen to check. Sure enough, the bottle was empty. I would have to go get more agave and make up another batch.

A patch of blue agave plants had been planted near Fluttershy’s house during my space absence. I headed there to gather some.

On my way out of town, I passed by the same group of six mares I had noticed the other day. There was the pink pegasus with the yellow mane, the pink-on-pink earth pony, the double purple unicorn, the yellow earth pony with an orange mane covered by a top hat, the multicolored pegasus with a blue mane, and the indigo unicorn with a white mane.

Once again, I thought they looked familiar. Hmm.

There was an unusual noise coming from inside Fluttershy’s house when I passed by. I paused to listen. Whatever it was, it sounded feral. That was kind of unusual, considering Fluttershy usually took good care of her animals. Speaking of, where was she? It’s not like Fluttershy had anywhere to go.

I walked up to the door and opened it. Fluttershy was in the center of the living room, standing among a pile of debris from things she had wrecked. Her wings were skin instead of feathers and had gained pointy edges. Her ears were big, her eyes were red, and her teeth were long.

Also, she burst into flames as soon as the sunlight from the open door struck her.

“Well shit,” I said.

I stepped in and closed the door, locking myself in a house with some sort of strange animalistic amalgamation of a pony. As soon as Fluttershy stopped burning, she leaped at me, flakes of black skin and hair scattering.

I turned around and slapped her in the face with my tail. It didn’t really hurt her, but certainly put her off her game. Tail whip lowers defense, you know.

As she was shaking her head and trying to regain her bearings, I calmly put her in a headlock. Her crispy skin seemed to cause pain, and I eased off the pressure to just enough to hold her. Fluttershy hissed.

“Well, that’s not very ladylike.” I pulled her across the room to a conveniently large cage and stuffed her inside. I pulled a sheet from her bed to cover the cage and then took it outside.

It was kind of heavy carrying Fluttershy and the cage, but I managed. I grumbled to myself as I made my way back to town and bought a train ticket. I saw five of the six sort-of-familiar mares again. The pink and yellow pegasus wasn’t with them now.

“What’s in the cage?” asked the train pony as I was getting my ticket.

“None of your business.”

“Sorry, but if you don’t tell me what it is, I can’t let it aboard.”

“It’s both a fire hazard and a big-sharp-teeth hazard.”

He nodded. “Oh, put it with the animals in the baggage car then.”

That seemed fair to me. I left Fluttershy there and went to go sit in the passenger car.

Have I complained before that the trains had gotten worse in my absence? Yes, I have.

We eventually arrived in Canterlot and I carried Fluttershy, still in the covered cage, up to the palace. The guards didn’t give me any trouble. A few of them whispered as I walked by. Good. Putting a little fear in people means you have to deal with them less.

I went to the library, put the cage down in front of Twilight, and pulled the cover off. Fluttershy was still mutated and still crispy. She hissed.

“What, you don’t even knock on the door before showing me this?” Twilight shrieked. “You don’t even stop to say hello or explain what you’re doing here?”

I looked at Twilight and pointed at Fluttershy. “Fix this. You broke it.”

Twilight calmed slightly and leaned forward, but not close to the cage. “Well…it looks like she turned into a vampire bat pony.”

“Obviously not a vampire,” I said. “Not even vampires burn in sunlight like this.”

“No, not a vampire pony, a vampire bat pony,” Twilight repeated. “Hmm, I guess this must have been caused while I was using my spell last night and Fluttershy was using her Stare. Well, let’s get this put right.”

She did some magic and Fluttershy reverted. However, she was still badly burned.

I opened the cage door and lifted her out. “This isn’t good.”

“I can’t figure out why she burned!” Twilight said. “The bats don’t burn in sunlight.”

“I’m going to chalk it up to your magic,” I said. “Alicorns do the sun thing, right?”

“I’m not the Princess of the Sun.”

“Neither is Luna, but she can move it. Could you move the sun if you had to?”

“Well…maybe, I guess.”

“Good enough for me.” I glanced at Fluttershy. “Hey, she looks back to normal except she's still got sharp teeth.”

“Oh really? I'll fix that, too. This clearly is a complicated problem and while she recovers I'll have time do everything I can to return her to normal.”

“Speaking of recovering,” I said, “we should get her some medical attention.”

“Oh, um, right.” Twilight picked up Fluttershy with her magic and whisked her away to the palace infirmary. Since I was in Canterlot, I had a different destination in mind.

I went up to Luna’s office and sat down in the chair across from her.

“What, you just come into my office and sit down without even knocking on the door first?” she grumped.

I shrugged. “So this little group you’re setting up and that you want me to be a part of. When is everything getting rolling?”

“Well, we’ve already begun a few operations,” she said.

“Really? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Compartmentalization,” she said. “Just because you’re in doesn’t mean I can or will tell you everything.”

I wanted to get indignant, but could see the value. I appreciate plausible deniability as much as the next government agent. “All right, when am I going to get to do something?”

“I actually have an assignment for you,” said Luna. She pushed a file across the desk to me.

I picked it up and read it. “Assassination, huh? In Manehattan? How do you pick these targets?”

“Intelligence is gathered from many sources,” she said.

“Do you get it from dreams?”

“Sometimes.”

“Is that legal? Are you running some kind of dream-NSA? Spying on ponies?”

Luna quickly changed the subject. “This job I want you to do, it would be best if it appeared to be an accident.”

I nodded. “I can handle that.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked curiously.

“I think maybe I’ll get in touch with an ancient underwater race that everyone thinks is dead and convince them to take their revenge on the ponies of the land for no particular reason by violently rising up and making a very public amphibious assault on Equestria’s biggest city.”

Luna stared at me. “Are you serious?”

“Do you think I can pull it off?”

She paused. “That’s why I’m worried.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

I tried to convince her, attempting to wear down her logical defenses, but not even tail whip helped.

Rarity Takes Manehattan

I was down at the train station one morning with Applejack, Rainbow, and Rarity. We had tickets for a ride to the city of Manehattan. Fluttershy was still in Canterlot at the burn center and Pinkie had dropped everything to go take care of her. Twilight and Spike would be meeting us along the way and going to Manehattan with us.

I shredded idly on a guitar as we waited. Guinness had previously asked me why I was suddenly so musical, and I knew that the others were thinking the same thing. If only they knew. Bad things were afoot, and only rocking out would save us.

Rarity mumbled under her breath as she lugged her luggage to the train. “I didn’t used to have to carry my own bags. I miss Spike being around. At least we have an entire week in the fabulous city of Manehattan to look forward to!”

“It’ll be interesting, I suppose,” Applejack said.

“I’m going to be doing something of my own business,” I said. “It's more important than Fashion Week.”

“I thought you would say something like that.” Rarity rolled her eyes and brought out a sheaf of tickets. “That’s why I got everypony else tickets to hottest musical on Bridleway, Hinny of the Hills!”

The others cheered. Apparently this was kind of a big deal.

A few minutes later, as we were boarding the train, I noticed three mares hanging out together nearby. They were part of the group of ponies I had noticed before. Like before, the pink and yellow pegasus was missing from the group, but this time the purple and lavender unicorn, and double pink earth pony were also not present. It kind of gave me pause.

I looked at Applejack, Rainbow, and Rarity, and then back at the group of three. They looked almost alike, except their coat and mane colors were inverted. Interesting.

We got aboard the train and headed to Canterlot. I played my guitar a little as we went. Twilight and Spike met us at Canterlot and we continued on to Manehattan.

The city had taller, more modern buildings than anywhere else in Equestria. When we arrived, everyone was still talking about the upcoming show.

Twilight said, “Wow, Rarity! How'd you manage to get us seats for tomorrow night?”

“Oh, I gave some designs to the costume designer, so he pulled a few strings,” Rarity replied. “That is what makes Manehattan so splendid and amazing. You do something nice for somepony, and then you never know when they'll do something nice for you!”

“I know the feeling,” I said.

Silence fell over the group for a moment. Twilight gave me a look. “Valiant, what are you up to?”

“What, I start thinking along the lines of quid pro quo and you think I’m up to something?”

They all nodded.

I rolled my eyes. “Look, I’m on official business for Princess Luna. Anything I do you can blame on her, okay?”

That shut them up, although I could see they all wanted to ask what Luna had me doing. Instead of prodding me with questions about my task, they went back to discussing the show.

“It must be good if Rainbow Dash is impressed,” said Applejack. “Normally she doesn't even like musicals.”

Rainbow chuckled. “I know; ponies just bursting into song in random places at the drop of a hat? Who does that?”

totallynotabrony stopped typing for a moment and looked pointedly at the audience.

We went sightseeing for a little while Rarity was excessively nice to ponies. I was particularly interested in the pony Statue of Liberty in the harbor. We met one guy whose talent was apparently irritable cats.

After the tour, Rarity realized she had to go and rushed off to the fashion show. The rest of us went back to the hotel.

Twilight pulled me aside, out of earshot of the rest. “What does Luna have you doing?”

I considered that for a moment. It was secret, but Twilight was a Princess too. “I'll be assassinating a pony.”

Twilight gasped. “How can you do that?”

“I’m one of Luna’s secret agents, codename Alien. And hey, I’ll bump ponies off for you too, if you make it worth my while.”

“What did this pony do to deserve killing?”

“Dunno, but I’m sure Luna has a good reason.”

Twilight opened her mouth to say something but closed it again. “I’m going to have a talk with Luna when I get back. This doesn’t feel right.”

“Well, what do you think Luna has Cheerilee doing?”

Twilight paused, a sinking expression sliding across her face. “Are you saying that you aren’t the only pony Luna has committing murders?”

“I think you’d be very surprised at the enterprise she’s set up,” I said. “So ask yourself, do you really want to know?”

Based on Twilight’s expression, the answer was no. I said goodbye to her and left the hotel.

As I was walking down the street, I swung by the waterfront. It was a calm day, but the waves were beginning to pick up. I checked the time and hurried across town to my destination.

The apartment building was old and kind of run down. I went upstairs and found the right door. I waited a few seconds, listening hard. Down at the wharf, I heard a tsunami crash on the shore.

The giant wave crashed against the seawall and the buildings that faced the water. That would have been bad enough, but as the ocean receded, dozens of seaponies were left on the shore.

They were like seahorses, but ponies. They started attacking the citizens of Manehattan, mostly with nonleathal strikes because a land-bound seapony only has so much it can do.

I heard the screams and nodded to myself. It was time.

I opened the apartment door in front of me. Trixie had taught me a few things about lockpicking. The apartment was kind of dingy, made worse by the body parts lying around. Yuck. But at least I knew why Luna wanted this pony dead.

I went up to the bathroom door where I heard water running and opened that, too. Inside, a stallion was taking a bath. He covered himself instinctively, despite the fact that ponies are generally naked all the time anyway.

“Who are you?” he yelped. “What do you want?”

“Hi, my name’s Valiant. I just saw the kind of mess and murder you’ve got going on here.” I gestured over my shoulder to the rest of the apartment. “But fortunately for you, I have a solution for your forgiveness and redemption!”

He gave me a flat look and started to get out of the bathtub. I leapt forward and tackled him. “Surprise baptism, asshole!”

We fought in the bathtub for a moment until I had him pinned underneath me. I had my hooves around his neck and held his head underwater.

I let him up for a breath. “Do you accept Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?”

“What…?” he sputtered.

“Good enough for me.” I shoved him back underwater. I hummed Amazing Grace while I waited. Pretty soon he stopped struggling.

I got up and used a nearby towel to dry off. Not wanting to leave any evidence or hoofprints behind, I took the towel with me and closed the door with my tail.

I arrived back at the hotel, dodging street battles along the way. Having my towel helped. When I got back, I found everyone holed up in their rooms waiting for someone else to take care of the threat.

“I don’t understand,” Twilight was saying. “I thought seaponies were just a myth! The scientific ramifications are amazing!”

I reminded her, “You can have your science as soon as they stop attacking.”

Not even a hostile invasion can stop drama, though. Rarity was crying about some other designer stealing her outfits. From what I gathered, Rarity had given this Suri Polomare some special fabric. In fact, a lot more of it than Suri had asked for. Also, Suri’s designs, while incorporating a lot of the same color, didn’t really look alike. Rarity apparently could see the similarity, however.

I left the building before Rarity went into ultra-bitch mode. She had her friends do work and stuff, trying to get a whole new line of garments finished before the next day.

I went to talk to Suri. I was hoping that maybe there was some kind of mistake and that Rarity was overreacting.

There was no mistake. Suri was a thieving bitch.

“Let me tell you a story,” I said. Suri sneered. Her assistant, Coco, looked apprehensive.

“Back where I come from, the natives were invaded by outsiders. Regardless of the fact of who was right or wrong there, the natives were angry about their land being stolen. So they took something of their own: the scalps of their defeated enemies.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Suri asked.

I shrugged. “I just wanted you to know why I was scalping you.”

It was lucky that the seaponies were still causing havoc outside. It helped mask the screams.

Coco dropped all her stuff and ran while I was busy. I spotted a spool of rainbow-colored thread and picked it up. It shimmered with an interesting light and I decided to take it with me. It was like “free gift with purchase of mutilation.”

I left the building. In the streets, the chaos had died down. The seaponies hadn’t lasted long out of the water and their lifeless bodies lay strewn about. Pity they hadn’t thought of that before launching their attack, but I had just asked them to do it, not how.

This is probably a good time to mention that I was in good with the seaponies since I’d helped them defeat their arch nemesis, the mermares. Long story.

Anyway, back at the room, Rarity was still freaking out and driving her friends like slaves in a sweatshop to finish the new outfits. They had already missed dinner and the show.

I got Rarity to calm down and gave her some material and advice. She was a little reluctant to take it, but everything ultimately worked out for the best.

In the morning, clothing finished, we went down to the fashion show. All the designers were there. Suri’s head was heavily bandaged and she looked with horror as Rarity’s outfits were displayed – with patches of Suri’s mane for decoration.

Rarity won the show easily. Suri slunk away, picking up her pace somewhat as I gave her a look. Coco paused, giving me an expression that might have been thankful, before following Suri.

As we exited the theater, I saw cleanup of the dead seaponies was underway.

“I wonder what they’ll use them for,” said Rainbow.

“Perhaps organic fertilizer?” Twilight speculated.

“Hmm, I wonder if I could get some of that at the orchard,” Applejack pondered.

Rarity had arranged for another showing of Hinny of the Hills, and we went to see it. I went along for lack of anything else to do.

“How did you ever get them to agree to do an extra performance just for us?” Twilight asked.

“Remember my costume designer friend who got me the tickets?” Rarity said. “Well, I offered to make all the costumes for his next show!”

“Here in Manehattan?” I asked.

Rarity frowned. “Well, um...yes. It will keep me away from Ponyville for a while.”

I thought about the mysterious like-colored ponies that I kept seeing in Ponyville. Would the Rarity-analogue be affected by her absence from Ponyville? I decided that I needed to get to the bottom of that.

But first I had to report back to Luna about my mission. She wasn’t going to be happy about the whole seaponies-invade-Manehattan thing.

Pinkie Apple Pie

I sat in Luna’s office on the receiving end of the most scathing diatribe she had ever delivered. Her amplified voice echoed off the stone walls and the windows rattled. I yawned and rolled my eyes. It had been several minutes of continuous yelling and I was getting bored of waiting to get a word in edgewise.

“I specifically told you not to invade Manehattan with ancient races,” she roared.

“Have you stopped to consider that maybe I didn’t?” I finally managed to interrupt.

Luna gave me a glare. “It was plain as daylight. Seaponies invaded Manehattan.”

“Yes, but they didn’t get very far,” I reminded her.

“If you somehow knew of the attack beforehand, why did you still let it happen at all!?” she demanded.

“One, you have to admit that it was one hell of a distraction,” I said. “Also, I did all I could to limit the damage. Who do you think advised them to only send a few dozen troops?”

Luna’s rage was now tempered by curiosity. “Again, I ask why you didn’t simply stop them.”

I shrugged. “You’re lucky that I conveniently forgot to tell the seaponies that they needed a reverse-scuba to be able to breathe on the land.”

“How did you communicate with them?” Luna asked.

“When I was in space, I invented a device that produces extremely low frequencies and is capable of traveling long distances and through water. It resonated with natural underwater crystals and had enough power to allow for two-way communication with just energy input from one side.”

Luna stared at me. “Are you serious?”

I grinned. “Remember what happened the last time you asked me that?”

She turned away, shaking her head. “Get out of my office.”

“One thing before I go. I need an audience with Discord.”

Luna looked at me sharply. “What for? The last time you interacted with him, nearly all of Ponyville was destroyed.”

I nodded. “This is more important than my personal grudge against him.”

“I have the safety of Equestria to think about,” she said. “I can’t allow it.”

“Believe it or not, I am thinking about Equestria,” I said. “Please, I need to talk to Discord.”

I think my use of the p-word rattled her a little, but still she shook her head. “I forbid you.”

I put on a smirk. “You forbid me? You aren’t my president. You aren’t my mother. Hell, you aren’t even my girlfriend.”

“I can take sanctions against you,” she said. “Your income, your possesions.”

“I only work for you because I like to. Most of my stuff is unused in storage right now, and I could just build more even if you did take it. And you forget, Luna, I just don’t give a shit. You and I both know that there’s literally nothing you can threaten me with. Now, get me Discord or I’ll do it myself.”

Luna held her poise for a moment longer before relaxing. “If I could. He comes and goes at his own whim.”

“Just let him know that we need to talk,” I said. I left the office.

While I was in the castle, I stopped by the medical wing to see Fluttershy. Pinkie was still with her. Fluttershy’s fur and feathers were slowly growing back but it would be a while before she was all better.

It was just lucky that we’d discovered the lingering vampire bat teeth before it could be a problem. Fluttershy might be a little crispy, but she was back to being 100% pony.

Pinkie was going on about something to do with genealogy and how she and Applejack were surprise cousins. I supposed it was better than with Fluttershy.

Applejack showed up just then, having gotten a letter from Pinkie. They both seemed to take to the cousin idea and I left before the sqeees got too intense.

I left the castle and headed down the street to the House of Enchanted Comics. It was closed. At least, that’s what the charred pile of wreckage indicated.

Just like I had promised, I had bought it out with my wallet, not with arson. It was only after the deed was in my hooves that I’d torched the place. It turns out that magic comic shops are insured for quite a bit of money.

The magic comics were among several reasons why I wanted to talk to Discord. A lot of weird shit – weird for Equestria standards – had been happening lately. I had a problem with that. This country, hell, this world, had never been very stable. Was it so wrong to want things to just get on with the status quo?

I was tempted to ask Twilight for a ride back to Ponyville, but I didn’t want to use her magic alicorn seatbelts. I’m not sure she would have let me anyway. I took the train.

Back in Ponyville, I left the station. Rarity’s shop was dark. She was still in Manehattan making costumes for shows.

I stopped at the The Half Pint. Guinness was serving drinks. I noticed that he was particularly focused on one couple who were sitting at the bar.

He came over. “What will it be?”

I noticed a little bit of false Irish lit in his tone but ignored it. “A beer.”

“You’re a little early for that,” he observed.

“You gave those two ponies some,” I said.

“That is different.” He grinned. “It’s love. I just say ‘Why don’t the two of you have a drink together?’ and half the time they end up dating. It’s practically a public service I’m running.”

I grunted noncommittally and took a swig of the beer. The bastard had served it warm. Authentic Irish, maybe, but kind of annoying. At least it was so dark I couldn’t see my tongue protesting.

There’s an old saying: ales come from the top of the tank, lagers come from the bottom, and stouts are scraped from the bottom.

I mentioned to Guinness about the fact that Pinkie and Applejack might be related. He nodded. “Yeah, Pinkie sent a letter. She knows about my dating service and wanted me to know so I didn’t try to hook up anypony from their families.”

I nodded. “Speaking of families, how’s your demon baby?”

Guinness winced. “Learning to walk, actually. I think she’s growing faster than a normal foal.”

“Sucks to be you.” I left him with that thought and went back to the library. Trixie and Daring were there, working on some project or the other.

“Hi dad,” Trixie called, hefting a load of books. “We’re doing some research about our next adventure.”

“‘Our?’” I asked.

“I like Trixie’s company,” Daring explained. “We’re about to head off on an adventure together.”

“I’m packing my bags,” Trixie agreed. “We’ll have a quick lunch at the pub and then depart.”

“I’ll go prep our order,” said Daring. She paused to nuzzle Trixie and then headed out the door.

“There’s something I want to ask you,” Trixie said to me. “I heard about Pinkie and Applejack being related. Guinness mentioned to me that he might have met my grandmother at one point. I guess I’m curious about where I came from.”

“Hmm.” I considered that. All adopted kids eventually wanted to know about real family, right? I wasn’t worried that Trixie would disown me – there’s no way her folks could be more awesome than me.

Trixie went on. “I’d just like to know about my biological family – well, with the mutations they probably aren’t even that anymore, but if there’s anything you could dig up I want to hear it.”

I nodded. “I’ll see what I can do while you’re gone. Have fun with Daring.”

Trixie gave me a hug and went out the door. I turned towards the rest of the library, thinking idly about what I was going to do with the rest of the day. In the back, I spotted the pegasus I had seen before who had Rainbow Dash’s same colors, if not the same pattern.

Aha, a good opportunity for answers. I went over to her and introduced myself.

“Why are you choking me?” she sputtered.

“Start talking,” I said.

“Um, I was just reading this good book. Isn’t the weather nice today? The local gossip is-”

“Start talking about something I care about,” I growled. “Who are you? What are you and your five friends doing here?”

“We’re fill-ins!” she wheezed.

Since we were finally getting somewhere, I let off the pressure so she could breathe. “Go on.”

“We’re similar to, but not the same as, the Elements of Harmony. When they get called away to do stuff, we fill in.”

“You're like some sort of B-team? Explain.”

“Okay, so Twilight Sparkle is doing her Princess thing in Canterlot. Her fill-in, Morning Matte, is busy making all the checklists and planning that Twilight Sparkle would have done if she was here in Ponyville.

“Shovelshy took over all the coal shoveling that Fluttershy would have done before she ended up in the hospital.

“When Rarity stayed in Manehattan to make dresses for the show, Celebrity took over all her drama and fancy behavior.

“After Fluttershy’s incident, Pinkie went to Canterlot to be with her. Bakey Pie took over all her pie-baking duties.

“Then, Applejack also went to Canterlot to see Pinkie. Her counterpart, Appletack, is busy seeing to all the building and mending projects Applejack would have done.

“And my name’s Reading Rainbow. If Rainbow Dash ever leaves Ponyville, I’ll take over all the novels she would have read.”

I stared at the mare for several seconds. “So you’re like some kind of backup Elements of Harmony?”

“Well, kind of. We each have the talents that are secondary to the Elements’ actual talents. Stuff they don’t have cutie marks for but are still really good at.”

Just then, Sunset appeared and saw me choking the mare.

“Hey,” I said. “Come over here and spot me.”

Sunset looked nervous but followed my command, taking over the choking of Reading Rainbow for me.

While Sunset choked her, I pondered. So…there was another Mane Six whose talents were similar to the secondary talents that the main Mane Six possessed. The new ones stepped in for when the old ones were gone, taking care of the little things that the old ones would have done.

Boy, that was convoluted. I turned back to Reading Rainbow. “Why are the secondary talents being filled in for rather than the primary ones?”

“Well, it’s better than nothing.”

“Why do all of this? Who put you up to it?”

“We just kind of decided that it would be nice. The Elements can’t be everywhere, you know.”

“It strikes me as being a little too arranged and perfect for being a spur-of-the moment thing,” I said. “Even your colors match.”

Reading Rainbow shrugged weakly.

“Let her go,” I said to Sunset.

After she was released, the colorful, literary pegasus dusted herself off and hurried out of the library.

“Something fishy is going on here,” I muttered. I turned to Sunset. “I bet you’re wondering why I didn’t kill her.”

“Um, actually that hadn’t crossed my mind,” she said. “But I'm glad you didn't.”

“It’s because that if I didn’t kill Rainbow all this time, it would be a little hypocritical to bump off her arguably less annoying replacement. Plus, if there’s a possibility I could somehow replace Rainbow with someone less annoying, I’d like to investigate it. On top of all that, if we let her go, she might lead us to who caused this new-six thing. It’s just one more cog in the machine of crazy that’s been happening around here lately.”

I sighed and rubbed my forehead. “I hope I’m not the only one who can see that something’s wrong with Equestria. Because if I am, that means I’m the only one who can fix it. That would suck.” That was another reason I needed to talk to Discord.

“Well…maybe a little light reading would calm you down?” Sunset suggested.

“Yes, I like that idea. Bring me everything you have about…” I thought for a moment, “…sailing.”

I went to grab my bottle of tequila. Perhaps rum would have been more appropriate, but I wasn’t fancy.

I positioned myself on the couch. Sunset dropped off a pile of books on the coffee table that she had collected. “Are you sure this is light reading?”

“For me it sure is.” I opened the bottle and put my hooves up on the table. “Start reading to me.”

Author's Note

150,000 words wooo

Rainbow Falls

I knocked on Sir Win’s door early that morning. I had a plan, but I needed his help.

He answered and I explained what was going on. “I’m going to need supplies for a summoning.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “What kind of summoning? What are you trying to get out of it?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well you see,” he explained, “summonings come in all different kinds depending on what or who you’re trying to summon. Plus, it helps to know why you’re trying to do the summoning and what you plan to get out of it.”

“Okay, here’s what I was thinking.” I told him my plan.

He was kind of surprised. “With an accordion? Really?”

I nodded. “It’s that serious.”

“You’d better come inside, then.” He invited me into his building and we spent a while pulling together ritual ingredients.

By the end, I think Sir Win was getting a little nervous, even for a summoning-expert demon. What I was trying to do hadn’t been attempted before. “Is there anything else we can do to prepare?” he asked.

I thought for a moment. “What do you know about Singaporean hookers?”

“Not much, I’m afraid.”

I shrugged. “I guess that really is more of my kind of thing. Anyway, thanks for the help.”

I left, lugging along the summoning ingredients. The ritual wasn’t set to go off for a little while, but I had to be prepared. Equestria couldn’t afford for me to screw this up.

Jeeze, when had I become the white knight good guy? I frowned. Why didn’t I like to refer to myself that way? Because it wasn’t true? If it wasn’t true, then why was I busting my ass to save Equestria?

I put those thoughts out of my mind and got on with the task at hand.

When I had done all that I could, I decided to take a break. Somehow, that involved me getting roped into watching the qualifications for the Equestria Games.

The Games were apparently kind of a big deal. All across the country, qualifications were held to see who would get the chance to represent their hometown.

Rainbow Dash was fast enough that she could probably qualify for a team all by herself, no matter who her teammates were. She certainly had the ego of three ponies. It was too bad that her first choice for a teammate, Fluttershy, was still recovering from her burns in Canterlot. Pinkie was still there too, so the Ponyville team was also down a cheerleader.

Still, Rainbow had managed to find a few pegasi to sign up with her for the air relay: Derpy and a bulky white stallion whose name I had forgotten. I saw the three of them practicing as I was on my way to sign up for the event.

Rainbow came over. “Valiant, what are you doing? This is for teams! And pegasi!”

“I can still sign up,” I told her. “In fact, I’m guaranteed to qualify.”

“What? There’s no way!” she protested.

I grinned. “You see, you have to compete with the other Ponyville teams to determine who will qualify and be representing Ponyville at the Games. I’m the only one here representing Milwaukee, Wisconsin.”

She rolled her eyes. “But that’s not even in Equestria!”

“You’ve got griffons and other species competing,” I pointed out.

“At least griffons have wings for the air events,” she shot back.

I shrugged. “No matter. Even if I don’t do well there, I can make up for it in the other events.”

“You can’t be on more than one team!”

“Another loophole. As sole representative of my hometown, I am the whole team.”

Rainbow looked like she didn’t like that explanation, but changed the subject. “So what other events did you sign up for?”

“All of them.”

“What?!”

I shrugged. “Somebody had to. Now if you’ll excuse me.” I left her there and went on my way.

After getting registered, I went back to the library. Instead of practicing for the qualifications, I hung out and played my guitar for a while. I still wasn’t playing quite at the level I would have liked. In fact, I was going to have to take things up to eleven very soon. The fate of Equestria kind of depended on it.

Sunset poked her head into the room, her ears flattening against her skull. Her lips moved, but I didn’t hear anything. Probably because the guitar amp was dialed to eleven.

She retreated and I played for a little while longer before putting down my equipment to go get ready for the Equestria Games qualifications.

Rarity was still in Manehattan making stage costumes, so I had to make my own outfit. It didn’t turn out so well in the first few attempts. I vaguely remembered how to use a sewing machine from middle school home-ec, but those half-remembered skills did not translate well to using hooves and producing whole garments.

Still, when you’re working with red, white, and blue, you can’t go wrong. I got a nifty jumpsuit and warmup jacket put together. I must admit, however, that Sunset helped quite a bit. She was not my first choice, but Trixie was off with Daring, Twilight was doing Princess stuff in Canterlot, and Sir Win was too gay.

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against being gay, but when you’re trying to design badass patriotic sporting outfits, gay might not be the way to go.

“Is it okay?” Sunset asked as we looked at the outfit.

I nodded and smiled. “Looks great to me.”

She smiled too. I turned away from her to put on the clothes. They fit pretty well, and they looked awesome.

I trotted in place for a moment, testing the flexibility and the possibility of hiding mechanical devices beneath the fabric.

What, you thought I was going to be using my only own muscles?

After making sure I was good to go, I boarded the train with the rest to head for the qualification grounds where teams were working in some last minute practice.

Guinness and Rainbow Catcher had come to watch Rainbow. Sunset had tagged along with me. It was a little strange to see her outside the library, but I figured that she was starting to make more decisions for herself. It was a little interesting to watch her start to come out of the shell she had been in.

I noticed that Rainbow was flying with two of the three Wonderbolts from Cloudsdale. It made me wonder where the member she had replaced was.

Derpy and the rather bulky stallion looked a little hurt about Rainbow’s team switching. I looked around. With Twilight, Fluttershy, and Pinkie in Canterlot for various reasons, and Rarity in Manehattan, that left only Applejack to see Rainbow’s treachery. Since none of the rest of them ever listened to Applejack anyway, I figured that it wouldn’t really matter who Rainbow represented.

Applejack was a little distraught about it, though. “I made all those apple brown betties for no reason!”

“Apple treats?” asked a voice. I turned. It was a blue stallion in Wonderbolts garb.

“Well, I guess you can have ‘em,” Applejack said. She gave the goodies over and walked away. After she was gone, I punched the stallion in the gut. He spit out little pieces of brown betty, wheezing and attempting to catch his breath.

I put my hooves around his neck. “I need you to do something for me.”

He didn’t respond, being choked and all, but I had the feeling he was listening. I went on. “I don’t know why you gave Rainbow Dash your position on the Cloudsdale team. I don’t care. Mostly I want to see Ponyville succeed while simultaneously seeing Rainbow on a less successful team than the Wonderbolts.”

His eyes bugged out a little, partially from being choked, but also because what I said hadn’t made any sense to him.

I nodded. “Yes, yes, I know that sounds strange. Believe me, even I know that I have a very strange sense of right and wrong. I’m hurting you for something you did to help someone I hate, in an attempt to hurt said someone while simultaneously helping a town that I kind of like.”

“Got it wrong,” he managed to wheeze. “Didn’t give up my spot. Teammates replaced me.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t your fault?”

He nodded.

“Hmm, well I guess I should make this at least look like you were a victim of a random crime.” I started going through the pockets of his suit, taking stuff like the gold Wonderbolts pin I found. I paused, however, and had a closer look at his face. “Wait a second, haven’t I mugged you before?”

“Grand Galloping Gala,” he managed. “Name’s Soarin’.”

“Oh. Nice to see you again.” I finished frisking him and handed his neck to Sunset. “Here, take this. Rough him up a little and let him go.”

She looked a little uncomfortable, standing there and awkwardly choking Soarin’, but I thought she had the situation under control.

I walked away to find the rest of the Wonderbolts. They were kind of dicks for kicking out their teammate, and they were my personal enemies for replacing him with Rainbow.

Have I mentioned that even I think my brain works in mysterious ways? Back when I kept a hit list, Rainbow was on and off it more times than I could count. Nowadays, I just wanted to see her miserable.

Guinness showed up at that moment. His evil daughter Rainbow Catcher was on his back, her hooves wrapped in his mane. “Hey Valiant, have you seen Rainbow?”

“I saw her with the Wonderbolts. I’m on my way there, myself.”

“Okay, cool.” He fell in step beside me. I saw him eyeing my outfit. “What are you wearing?”

“I’m competing in the Equestria games.”

He opened his mouth to ask how Milwaukee fit into that, but just then we spotted Rainbow, Spitfire, and another Wonderbolt.

Sunset caught up to us just then. She was slightly flustered, but said nothing. She, Guinness, Rainbow Catcher, and I walked over to the Cloudsdale team.

I said to Spitfire, “So I heard you kicked Soarin’ out because you’re a heartless bitch who hangs out with regular bitches.” I pointed to Rainbow.

Guinness said, “What?”

Rainbow looked at Spitfire. “Is that true?”

Spitfire said to me, “Who are you?”

The other Wonderbolt said, “Is there a problem here?”

Just then, the Ponyville team showed up. “What’s going on?” asked Derpy. “Are you organizing something nefarious?”

Rainbow Catcher grinned. “This is going to be good.”

“Yeah!” agreed the white stallion. He frowned. “Wait, what?”

“You can hear her, too?” Guinness demanded.

“Who, Derpy?” the stallion asked.

“Wait, I thought you were agreeing with my kid?” Guinness gestured to the filly on his back.

“That kid isn’t old enough to talk,” Derpy put in.

“Yeah,” agreed the stallion. “Just like Derpy I was wanting to know what was going on but then I was confused by her comment about organizing something nefarious and asked ‘wait, what?’”

Guinness paused for a moment to take it all in. “Okay, I get it now.” He chuckled nervously. “Of course you wouldn’t have heard Rainbow Catcher talk. She isn’t old enough.”

Changing the subject, Rainbow said, “Go back to that thing about Soarin’.”

“You’re a much better flier than him,” Spitfire replied. “And since you’re from Cloudsdale originally, you can compete on our team instead of Ponyville. Arguably, you’re even more qualified.”

“But…but what about us?” Derpy asked. Her lower lip quivered.

Rainbow suddenly looked like she realized what kind of mess had just been created. I grinned at her consternation. “Well this has been fun. Have a nice day.”

I started to turn but the other Wonderbolt said, “Wait, who are you? What city are you representing?”

“Milwaukee,” I told her.

“Where’s that?”

“The United States of America.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Trust me, it’s the best country in any universe.”

She snorted. “I doubt it.”

My eyes narrowed.

Spitfire said, “What do they do there? Teach ponies to be maniacs like you? I’ll bet your Princess is a nut.”

I replied, “We don’t have royalty.”

“I’ll bet your freedoms are restricted,” she said.

“What a terrible government,” said the other Wonderbolt.

I punched her in the face. The bones in her nose audibly crackled, her sunglasses shattered, and she immediately dropped to the ground. I pointed at Spitfire. “Sunset, choke that bitch.”

Sunset did.

Rainbow Catcher delightedly clapped her hooves together as she watched the violence unfold. Her mother stood, mouth agape, as her Equestria Games team was put suddenly and completely put out of action.

“Um, I guess there’s still Ponyville?” said Derpy.

Rainbow’s face brightened for a moment. “That’s right. I guess I should be a better Element of Loyalty. But hey, with me on the team we’ll still do really great! I’m the best!”

“Yeah!” agreed the bulky pony.

I stared at him. “Agreeing with Rainbow – that’s a choking.”

I put my hooves around his neck and squeezed. Musclebound as he was, it didn’t really work. He looked at me curiously.

I said, “Open your mouth.”

He started to say, “Why?” but didn’t get the word out before I jammed a hoof down his throat and cut off his airway. If you can’t choke them from the outside, do it from the inside.

“But now what will Ponyville do?” Derpy cried as her teammate turned blue and fell to his knees.

Guinness looked side to side as if searching for someone else to volunteer. When nobody did, he tentatively raised a hoof. “Um, I guess I could fill in.”

Rainbow grabbed him in a hug. “Thank you! You’re totally the best husband ever!”

Well shit, I had inadvertently made Rainbow’s day. The best laid plans…

Pinkie Pride

If you’ve never been there, you probably don’t know much about the multiverse. As I understand it, it’s sort of like Wikipedia. It’s huge, with many different areas and subdivisions. The actions of anyone can, knowingly or not, affect the content. Everything is constantly changing and everyone is always arguing. And somewhere out there is Kevin Bacon.

Furthering the comparison to Wikipedia, there are all sorts of connections and ways of doing things. Once you learn the multiverse’s code, you can start to tinker with it and make your own edits.

That’s why I was working on the summoning ritual. It was one way of performing the “import otherworldly being” command.

“You’re absolutely sure this is going to work?” I said to Sir Win. He and I were digging a hole in the Everfree Forest. It was early morning and the sun was still a while from rising.

“Well, you’ve got all the ingredients,” he allowed. His mane burned brightly and lit up our work. “I’ve never seen a summoning this complicated before, but I don’t see any reason why it won’t work.”

I finished mixing the proper concoction and dropped everything into the hole. I slid the dirt back in and dusted off my hooves. “That’s the last one.”

Sir Win and I had planted five talismans in a circle around Ponyville. Basically, it created a giant pentagram and we were about to do some terribly arcane things and stuff.

The two of us trotted back into town. Sir Win had done his part, and I had a few tasks left to do before the ritual could be started.

The eastern horizon was glowing with the promise of sunrise as I went into the library and prodded Sunset awake. I was already wearing my own rain gear and gave her a pair of galoshes as she blearily blinked away sleep. “Here, put on these boots. The monsters are about to get all biblical and shit.”

The two of us suited up and went outside as the first rays of dawn broke over the horizon. I made Sunset carry my guitar and amplifier. While we walked, she asked, “What’s ‘biblical?’”

“It means things have gotten ancient and badass, but also potentially violent and icky.”

She frowned. “And what monsters were you talking about?”

“The ones we might be about to unleash on Equestria if we screw up this summoning ritual that I’ve been putting together. I don’t intend to fail, but the raincoats are just in case we have to clean up the mess under a rain of blood.”

Sunset did not ask any more questions. Good, I like it when people understand the first time.

The two of us made it to the center of town as the sun came up fully. The townsponies were out and about, starting the day. Somewhere, I heard an accordion playing. My jaw tightened. We didn’t have much time left.

With a piece of chalk, I set about drawing a series of complicated runes on the cobblestones of the town square. I told Sunset to run security so that none of the ponies would mess up my work before I was finished. I drew as quickly as I could.

In the distance, I heard a male voice exclaim, “Hey everypony, who wants to party?”

That was it. We were out of time.

I turned around. A stallion with a curly mane was making his way up the street singing silly songs and getting the attention of every citizen of Ponyville. He wore a dark serape and hat, straight out of a western movie.

He stopped in front of The Half Pint pub and knocked on the door. “Rainbow Dash! Come out and party! It’s your birthday and the anniversary of you arriving in Ponyville! It’s going to be the biggest, bestest, bash anypony has ever seen!”

Rainbow stuck her head out the window. “Really? Somepony came to celebrate my… birth-iversary?”

“That’s kind of what I was already doing,” said Guinness to her, also putting his head out the window. He wore a party hat.

“But this pony isn’t married to me and still thinks I deserve a party,” Rainbow said.

“Pinkie throws parties for ponies she isn’t married to all the time,” Guinness pointed out.

Rainbow frowned. “Yeah. Speaking of, where is she?”

Pinkie arrived just then, huffing and puffing. Last I heard, she was still in Canterlot, so it must have been a long trip. “Did…did somepony say ‘party?’”

The new stallion turned to her, his hat riding low over his eyes. “Why yes, yes I did. The name’s Cheese Sandwich. I’m the best party pony Ponyville has ever seen.”

Pinkie brightened. “Oh, that’s great! I’m also the best party pony Ponyville has ever seen.”

The gathered townsfolk muttered amongst themselves. Clearly they knew that “best” wasn’t really a title that could be shared.

“Anyway,” Pinkie went on, “me and you can throw the best birth-iversary party ever!”

Cheese shook his head. “No, that will actually be me and you.”

Pinkie gasped. “Not me and you?”

“Me and you would just be pathetic,” Cheese sneered. “A real party pony should be headlining this birth-iversary.”

The assembled crowd gasped. Someone murmured, “Oh no he didn’t!”

Pinkie could hardly believe it herself. “But…I am a real party pony!”

“Not as real as me,” Cheese retorted.

“That might be true,” I said, stepping forward. “If you were actually the real Cheese Sandwich.”

The pony, who I will now refer to as Sandwich au Fromage to provide differentiation, turned to face me. “That’s a big accusation, partner. What are you going to do about it?”

We faced each other in the street. I picked up one hoof and moved it a few inches closer to my hip. “That depends on you.”

Fromage brushed his serape back, revealing the array of party favors holstered on his belt. “Well then. I reckon we got us a little standoff. What makes you think you can take me?”

“I’m going to activate a summoning ritual that I’ve been planning and setting up for weeks. It will pull into this world a being of awesome power from another universe. After that, the combined power of the summon plus my kickass repertoire will kill you. Of course, if I screw up, the backlash will probably kill us all, but at least that also means you’ll be dead.”

“Well, that escalated quickly,” said Guinness. He frowned. “Go back to that part about all of us being killed.”

“Yes please,” requested Rainbow Catcher, who poked her head through the window just then.

I ignored both of them, still staring at Fromage. The two of us were still holding position, hooves poised.

“So how about it?” I said. “You game?”

He flashed a sneer. “Draw.”

I grabbed for a piece of chalk from my hammerspace, slamming it to the ground and making one final mark, thereby kickstarting the spell. I went to my knees, throwing my hooves in the air. “Alfred Yankovic, I summon thee!”

Time seemed to slow down. The town square went blurry as everypony but me froze in place. The centerpoint of the runes I had drawn began to glow with a bright light. An upbeat male voice with an American accent said, “Hey man, what’s up?”

“I kind of need you to come and kick some ass in another world, Mr. Yankovic,” I said.

“I’ve told you before, Mr. Yankovic was my father.” The voice chuckled. “Call me Al.”

“Fair enough,” I said.

“So what’s the situation?” he asked.

“A musical party pony, if allowed to continue, will tear apart the spacetimes. That would be bad,” I explained.

“Hmm. Okay, yeah, I can help. You know the rules of summoning, though. It comes at a price.”

I nodded, even though Al hadn’t yet resolved into a form that could see me. “Name it.”

“I’ll have my standard fee, if you please,” he said.

“Hookers.”

“Yep.”

I could live with that. “Deal.”

“Awesome. Here I come.” The light flashed brighter, and out popped a pony who looked exactly like Fromage. He had an accordion strapped on, and wore a huge smile. “Let’s do this.”

Time suddenly restarted. The two versions of the male party pony stared each other down from across the town square. The new development had startled Fromage. A few seconds passed. Nothing moved. The crowd had gone quiet. The wind rustled my raincoat a little.

Fromage growled at the new arrival. “You dare? Part of comedy is not bringing reality into things to ruin the joke.”

“Part of reality is knowing the limits of good taste,” Cheese shot back. He played a quick few notes on his accordion. “I know a little something about parodies. And buddy boy, you are no quality piece.”

Pinkie, who had been sitting by and quietly (by Pinkie standards) observing the proceedings, said, “I think I know how to settle this. This calls for a goof-off!”

“No, just a beatdown,” I corrected.

Cheese nodded. “My thoughts exactly. Mr. Valiant, a riff, if you please.”

I took my guitar from Sunset and settled the strap around my shoulders. This was the moment I had been waiting for. I had practiced so hard for this one gig. I took a deep breath and hit the strings. The groove I busted out on request was the sweetest thing my hooves had ever played.

Cheese followed up with an incredibly awesome tune that I didn’t know an accordion could even play. It sounded like it had brass, woodwind, and percussion all mixed in. The vocals, however, were the real show. He’d picked an old favorite of mine, suitably modified for Equestria.

Put down that party cannon and listen to me

It’s time to join a pie fight

It’s time to let your fillies grow up to be stallions

It’s time to raise some parasprites

You better say no to homeowner’s insurance

You better kick your hooves up in the air

You better make a rhyme with a rhyme

You better get a facefull of some nice hard stairs

You better eat all Celestia’s cake that you can

When the Princess is not around

Next you’ll go to the surface of sun

To get yourself a tan

Do magic with alcohol

Fly with your eyes closed

Fly intoxicated, too

What can you do?

Dare to be stupid!

Dare to be stupid!

I was sweating with the effort of keeping up with Cheese, but it was all worth it. With one last fanfare from our mismatched instruments, Fromage was completely overpowered by the sheer ridiculousness.

Cheese’s accordion lit up like something out of a magical girl anime and blasted a beam of light across the town square, slamming straight into Fromage. He screamed, his form glowing with an overcharge of energy. All that had to go somewhere, and his body certainly couldn’t contain it. Like a piñata, he exploded. But instead of candy, it was a shower of blood. Also, a small mouse with a miniature tuba fell to the ground and ran away.

In a moment, it was all over. The pitter-patter of platelets and plasma tapered off. Cheese wiped off his face and put on a pair of sunglasses. “Looks like someone…got their mind blown.”

“Hell yeah,” I cheered and slapped hooves with him.

“Don’t forget the hookers, Valiant,” Cheese reminded me. He shot me a grin, and with a flash of light he was gone, accordion and all.

I took off my bloody raincoat and surveyed the area. The entire town square, and the crowd that had gathered, was covered in tiny pieces of Fromage.

Rainbow Catcher was the first to speak. She licked blood from her face and howled with glee. “This is the best birth-iversary present ever, don’t you think so, mother?”

Rainbow did not think so. Nor did anyone else in town. Small price to pay for saving their asses, though. While I didn’t know exactly what Fromage would have done if not defeated, it certainly wouldn’t have helped the stability of Equestria.

There was still the matter of paying the price of hookers, but it wasn’t like I had to deliver immediately. For the moment, the day was saved and we could all go have a beer.

That was apparently not a popular idea with the residents of Ponyville. Most of them wanted to just go get cleaned up and try to forget what had happened. Sunset and I were the only customers at The Half Pint.

Guinness’ hooves shook as he poured the drinks. “Valiant, I don’t know what you did to that pony, I don’t know why you know Weird Al, and I really don’t know how all the crazy things you keep doing are supposed to make Equestria more stable.”

“Answering your questions in order: we killed him, one of my exes was an extra in the video for White and Nerdy, and trust me,” I said, taking a deep swig from my glass. Sunset sat beside me and sipped her beer in silence.

Guinness glanced around at the empty pub. “Look, it’s a slow night. Please just talk to me.”

I sighed. This might take all night. Then again, clearing out Fromage was a major obstacle taken care of, so I deserved a little break. “All right. Here’s what’s going on. Let me start from the beginning. Remember when I went to space?”

“That’s the beginning?” Guinness frowned.

“Close enough. See, my exes who were running this show wanted everything to go back to normal. They thought that by removing me from Equestria, my influence would end and things would sort themselves out. I did beg them into letting me travel to outer space, and the deal was that I would go home afterwards. Obviously, that didn’t happen.”

“So…are you some kind of fugitive, then?” Guinness asked. “On the run from your exes and universal justice?” He chuckled.

“A little bit, actually,” I agreed, “but it’s not my fault. When I landed back in Equestria, things had kept getting further off track, even in my absence. Knowing that I would probably get the blame anyway, I decided that I had to stay. I know that something or someone must be continuing to make changes. We’ve already seen that this universe started out as an imaginary place like a virtual reality, but turned real. I don’t want any of it spilling over into our universe after I do eventually go home, and so I have to stop it.”

“What will happen if you don’t?” Guinness asked.

“I mentioned that things were getting out of hand around here,” I said. “Imagine that, but worse. And again, I’ll mention that the possibility of cross-universe shenanigans is pretty high. Nobody wants that.”

“But if there’s a problem, why haven’t you notified your exes?” Guinness asked. “Can’t they help? They did create this place.”

“Think of the multiverse like Wikipedia,” I said. “Anyone can edit it, but only those with registered accounts are trusted users. In an attempt to isolate the problems, I figuratively changed all the passwords. Now nobody can screw with things without my permission. I’m the mod. The god mod, if you will. That doesn’t mean I’m all-powerful, though.”

Guinness completely missed my self-promotion. “You locked your exes out?”

“I locked everyone but me out,” I said.

“Are you sure you just don’t want to ask for help?” he suggested.

I ignored him. “As the only admin, I’m the only one who can edit this universe, but for some reason it just keeps changing. It’s not outside influence that’s doing it. It’s like if a program in here is running all by itself.”

“So, uh, run a debug?” Guinness suggested.

“That’s what I’m trying to do. Taking out anomalies like what I did today – think of it like correcting code errors.” I sighed. “But I’m afraid that it won’t be enough. More faults and glitches are popping up all the time and they might eventually overpower my ability to fix them.”

“I’m not sure I like the idea of you being the moderator of the universe,” Guinness said. “Then again, if you can’t easily change things on your whim I guess you aren’t as powerful as that title makes it sound.”

“Want to get deleted, asshole?” I said. “But yeah, running a whole universe is basically a full time job just to keep some semblance of order, much less try to overhaul anything. I barely have time for anything else. That’s why lately I haven’t been doing anything that Twilight would probably call my crazy robot business shenanigans.”

“So do you have a plan?” Guinness asked.

I finished the last of the beer and put the glass down. “I think I’m going to have to do a hard reset.” I rolled my eyes. “In Equestria’s case, that would probably be more like a girly reboot. Although to be truthful, that’s the most effective option. Turn it off and turn it back on again.”

“What would happen if you did?” Guinness asked.

“Well – speaking in metaphors again – only the universe’s base code is saved to the hard drive. Everything that has happened, all the changes, are in the RAM so when it powers off that memory disappears. After the reset, everything would go back to the way it was originally.” I gestured for him to pour me another beer.

“Everything?” he asked while filling the mug. “Does that mean Rainbow and I would never have met?”

“You wouldn’t even be in Equestria,” I confirmed.

Guinness dropped the half-full glass and it shattered on the floor. He grabbed me by the neck and hauled me across the bar so I was face to face with him. “You can’t do that!”

“Why not?” I said. “I’m calling the shots around here. Let go of me before I make you.”

Guinness did release me, but stayed in my face. “You can’t just erase something like that. It’s love!”

“Rainbow only likes you because Daring put you in a book,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter how it started. Love is still love,” he said. “We’re happy together.”

“What about your demonic kid?” I asked.

“What about your kid?” he shot back. “Would you reset the universe and just give up Trixie like she was nothing to you?”

Shit. I hadn’t thought of it that way. My mouth opened and closed a few times but I couldn’t think of anything to say.

Guinness pressed on. “You know, I once met a mare who claimed she was Trixie’s grandmother. She said the rest of her family disappeared. You might be all Trixie has.”

He got another glass and poured me a beer. I still hadn’t replied by the time he set it down in front of me.

He gestured to Sunset and me. “Why don’t you two have a drink together? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

He must have really been trying to drive the love point home, as that was the same line he used when he wanted two ponies to hook up.

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered into my glass as I took a sip. “The already freaking huge task ahead of me just got more difficult. Now I’m probably going to feel guilty about relationships I damage along the way. I don’t know if I can do this.”

“I believe in you,” said Sunset.

I glanced at her. “Thanks. You know, you’ve almost started to become my assistant on this, what with the stuff you keep helping with.”

Sunset smiled at the praise but hid it behind her mug. I downed my beer and put the empty glass on the bar. “Another!”

Simple Ways

The trendy restaurant in Canterlot was far from my usual digs. I ignored the maître d’ and went to a table in the back. A yellow earth pony mare with a red mane sat there. Her cutie mark was a wheel of gouda.

“Hello Cheese,” I said, sitting down. This was Princess Luna’s discreet public alter ego.

She looked at me. Despite her disguise, it was pretty apparent that she was displeased. “You’re late.”

“I have a good excuse.”

She paused as if considering if she wanted to know why, then shook her head. “Nevermind. Here, take this.”

I picked up the envelope she slid across the table to me.

“It’s for the upcoming event,” she said. “I believe you’re familiar with Moment?”

“We’ve met,” I said. “Kicked some ass together, too.”

“Very well.” Luna nodded and changed the subject. “Is there anything new?”

“Recent news, hmm. Well, in Ponyville we killed a guy who called himself Cheese Sandwich but whom I rechristened Sandwich au Fromage.”

“Interesting name,” Luna observed.

“Now that he’s dead, I was thinking maybe you could use his name when you were feeling French.” I shrugged.

“Ms. Fromage. Perhaps it could come in handy.” She pondered for a moment and then got up. “Well, it’s been a relatively productive meeting. I’ll see you later.”

“Wait, aren’t you going to buy me lunch?” I asked.

“I’ve already eaten,” she said. “Half an hour ago.” She gave me a look and walked out.

I grumbled, but was too hungry to leave. A waiter came over and I ordered. To pass the time while I waited on my food, I thought a little about the package Luna had given me. I’d explained that there was going to be an event that needed my special attention. It was kind of serious and I needed another of Luna’s agents, codename Moment, to help. After explaining my point, she’d passed me the file on Moment so I could better make plans. Of course, this event wouldn’t be happening for a little while. I had some time to prepare.

My thoughts turned to the reason I had been late to the meeting. Since I’d come to Canterlot to meet with Luna, I’d also taken the opportunity to visit the national public data archive. I hadn’t forgotten Trixie’s request to know more about her biological family.

There hadn’t been a whole lot to find. Traveling showponies don’t leave many records, although if I could locate their hometown there might be more in the local courthouse. Maybe Guinness could tell me something. He’d mentioned that he had once met Trixie’s grandmother.

The food came and I ate quickly, probably because there wasn’t much of it. Why is it that the expensive restaurants always serve less?

After lunch I went to see Twilight. She probably wanted to know about the little shindig we’d had in Ponyville recently.

After I met her in the library and explained about summoning Weird Al, she gave me a flat look. “You spent all that time practicing guitar for one moment? Valiant, not only is that a waste of talent, but…how in the wide world of Equestria did you know a musical showdown like that was coming?”

I’d grown pretty fond of comparing Equestria to a computer program. “Think of it this way. There’s a kind of code or program that runs things around here. By looking at where it goes, you can see what the end result is when it runs its course. I’m trying my best to get rid of the errors and bugs along the way, but sometimes the efforts to do that require a lot of preplanning and drastic measures. Now that it’s all done, I don’t need to play guitar anymore. I certainly don’t have time. There’s so much to do to keep this program from coming apart.”

“And how can you see this program?” Twilight asked, looking highly skeptical.

“What if I told you I was God?”

She frowned. “If you were a god?”

“The God.”

“I wouldn’t believe you. Gods don’t exist anyway.”

“Heathen.” I shrugged. “But anyway, it’s a metaphor, like the computer program analogy I made. I’m basically the metaphysical hacker that monkeys with your existencial code.”

“I refuse to believe that you are in charge of the universe,” Twilight said. “Especially that part about being a monkey.”

“Want me to prove it?” I paused. “The code part, I mean?”

Twilight hesitated at my challenge. “No.”

“Fine.” I turned to go. “I’ll let you know when another big hurdle is cleared on the track to getting this universe back together again.”

“Hang on a second,” said Twilight. “It sounds like you really need a hobby, Valiant.”

“No time. Got to save the universe.”

She looked at me. “I’ve told you before that you’re different since coming back from space. I think you need something to keep you entertained. Try this thing I found.”

She rummaged around behind a stack of books and came out with an unusual instrument. She blew away the surface dust to reveal a chrome plated keytar. It had a full set of ivories and twelve strings. It was so metal.

Twilight turned and saw me salivating. I quickly recovered and shook my head. “Nah, I don’t need it. If I don’t need to play guitar anymore, I certainly don’t need to play that thing.”

“Just take it. We don’t need it around the libarary.” She shoved it at me. A piece of paper slipped out from the keys and fell to the floor. I picked it up.

“What’s that?” Twilight asked. “Does it say where this came from?”

I opened the folded paper. “Uh…Tiny Vamp Atoll,” I said.

“Atoll, like a small island?” Twilight said. “I wonder where that might be.” She frowned. “I’m a little worried about the Vamp part.”

“Tiny Vamp,” I corrected.

“Since when has size mattered?”

I shrugged and tried to hand the keytar back to her. “Anyway, you should probably investigate this.”

“No, you take it. I’m much more interested in doing research.” Twilight was already picking up books and trying to find reference to the mysterious island.

I stood there with the keytar for a moment. I did kind of want it, because it was awesome, but I didn’t think I would ever play it, particularly with all the stuff I had to do.

Still, I wasn’t going to just stand there waiting for Twilight to notice me. I slung the keytar on my back and headed out of the library.

Since I was in Canterlot, I went to the hospital to visit Fluttershy. Outside her room, I saw a pink pegasus with a yellow mane looking impatient. I had seen her before. This was Shovelshy, Fluttershy’s B-team counterpart. Her special talent was shoveling coal, which was Fluttershy’s hidden secondary talent.

I stopped and looked at her. “What are you doing here?”

She seemed to know who I was. “Fluttershy’s just about to get out of the hospital, so the duties I’ve been taking care of in her absence can be transferred back.” She didn’t comment on the keytar.

I stared at her for a moment and then pushed open the door. Fluttershy’s feathers and fur were still regrowing, but her burns had healed to the point that she could leave the hospital. She saw me come in and smiled. “Hello Valiant.”

“How are you?”

“The doctors say I should take it easy for a while but that I’ll make a full recovery.”

“Good to hear.”

Pinkie fidgeted in the corner, waiting for the doctors and nurses to pronounce Fluttershy fit to leave the hospital. I suppose it had been a rather long time by Pinkie standards since she and Fluttershy had spent quality time together.

Their marriage had failed. Well, not failed, more like failed to start. After so many reschedulings and disasters that forced cancelations, Pinkie had eventually decided that they didn’t need a formal marriage to be happy. She was content to just be unwed bed buddies.

As usual, nobody asked Fluttershy her opinion.

After a little while longer, the medical ponies decided that it was okay to release Fluttershy from the hospital. Leaving the room, I noticed her counterpart was no longer in the hallway.

Fluttershy, Pinkie, and I went to the train station and got tickets for Ponyville. The locomotive was one of the new streamliner units coming out of the Crystal Empire Machinery Works. They were not bad trains by Equestria standards, although being manufactured of crystal, I suspected that their psychostimulant content might be a little high.

The passing joke about the Crystal Meth Empire made by my exes and their development team had very unfortunate consequences. Fortunately, most ponies don't know anything about drugs. Most ponies. Since we’d killed the Black Twins and Post Haste, nobody had been going out of their way to get high. As long as the secret was kept, nobody would try to monetize that big ol’ city ‘o drugs.

While we waited to board the train, I noticed two stallions loudly hawking some product. Was it the Flim Flam Brothers? Yeah, it looked like them. I rolled my eyes and headed for the train. I barely heard what they were selling. Something about Powerthirst.

Back in Ponyville, plans were underway for the Ponyville Days Festival. Rarity was still in Manehattan working on stage productions, so planning the event in Ponyville had gone to Morning Matte, the B-Twilight.

Morning did not actually know much about festivals, she just knew about making lists. Celebrity, the B-Rarity, didn’t know about decorations, she just handled all the freaking out and drama.

The real Applejack had never left town, and now the real Pinkie and Fluttershy were back. Between the three, they at least had the cider, sweets, and animals corralled.

Since there was going to be a dance or something I figured I should dress up. I still had a tuxedo around and went to the library to get it. Not that I was planning on dancing, but it would help me blend into the crowd of festival-goers.

After rummaging around in the library for a while, I found it. I put the jacket on and knotted the tie. Sunset came into the room while I was looking in the mirror. She seemed a little surprised. I can’t blame her; she’d never really seen me equipped with my tux swag before.

I left the library and headed towards the town square. I saw Trixie and Daring, both of them wearing fancy things and appearing to have a good time just by being together. Turning my head, I had a look around at the rest of the festival.

There was a rag-tag band setting up in the town square. They looked like they had been called in at short notice and not paid very much. To be honest, the whole festival wasn’t organized very well. There weren’t any decorations or stuff that festivals usually had.

As the band started a slow, barely-in-key song, Trixie came up beside me. “You know, we could liven this place up quite a bit with some better music. What do you say?”

I shrugged. “Meh. I don’t have any need to play anymore since we vanquished the fake Cheese Sandwich.”

Trixie shrugged and walked away. Daring stood there for a moment, having a look at the decidedly not-hopping event. I asked, “So how are you and Trixie getting along?”

She seemed slightly surprised that I would ask, but answered, “We’re great. We’ve got another trip planned pretty soon.”

“Hmm, I hope you have fun.”

She grinned. “Yeah, and we’ll have adventures, too.”

I stared at her. “Are you insinuating what I think you are?”

“If you mean hot les-”

I cut her off, stepping closer. “Daring, what do you like about Trixie?”

She paused. “Well, the hot-”

I cut her off again. “I really hope there’s something besides that that connects you two. Because if that’s all Trixie is to you, you’re a terrible pony and should be painfully dismembered.”

Daring backed off. “Uh…”

“If you break my daughter's heart, they will never find all of the chunks of you. Tell me that you understand what I’m saying.”

She nodded quickly.

“Good.” I smiled. “Enjoy the festival.”

Daring left in a hurry. After she was gone, I stood around for a few minutes. Not much was happening. I thought about finding a quiet corner to go over the Moment file again, but I’d already skimmed enough of it. It was super secret - something I couldn’t just leave lying around, so I carried it with me.

“Hello Valiant.”

I turned my head. It was Sunset. She’d styled her mane and put on a little black dress with a silver necklace. She was wearing a touch of eye shadow and a smile.

Source

“What the hell are you wearing?” I asked.

Her eyes dropped to the ground. “I just wanted to get dressed up. Sometimes it’s nice.”

I nodded. “I guess I can relate. I don’t get a chance to look good often enough.” I slipped on my sunglasses, an involuntary smile creeping onto my face.

Sunset smiled too and tossed her head a little. Her coifed mane bobbed. “What do you like to do when you’re dressed up?”

“Kick ass, usually. I mean, I can and do kick plenty of ass when completely naked, but sometimes I just feel like doing it with some class.”

She considered that. “Would you like to...kick ass, um, on the dance floor?”

Her face flushed after she said it, but she pointed to the ponies dancing together in the town square.

I opened my mouth to reply. However, while I was standing there minding my own business and totally not mucking about with spacetime, there was a funny noise and a blue rectangular box popped into existence not far away.

The door opened and a brown stallion came out. He spotted me and came over. “Hello Valiant.”

“Doc, what’s up?” I bumped hooves with him. “You’re right on time.”

He took a bow. “Agent Moment at your service.”

“What have you been up to?” I asked. “Since you left, everyone’s been getting some guy named Time Turner confused with you.”

Doctor Whooves nodded. “It happens. Anyway, myself and a few companions have been keeping busy.” He gestured to someone inside his box.

“Cool. Well, now that you’re here I can ditch this party and we can get down to business.”

With Doc, I turned away from Sunset and strolled away.

Filli Vanilli

Making long range plans can sometimes be difficult. You don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. Then again, with Doctor Whooves, a.k.a Princess Luna’s Secret Agent “Moment,” that issue was not so serious.

There was the problem of Doc’s traveling companion. The other guy was a yellow unicorn named Nova with a four-colored mane that represented the four chemical bases of DNA. There was a fancy multifunction electronic device around one forleg. He was from the future, and formerly a human from some star colony. He was also thoroughly a dick.

Nova, Guinness, and I had once invaded Hell for some reason that’s not really important now. Sir Win and Cthulhu’s girlfriend were involved. Long story. Coincidentally, the portal to Hell was downstairs in the library basement, but we try not to talk about that.

Anyway, Nova had left Equestria by hitching a ride with Doc. Now, the dickish unicorn was back here in my universe now and that gave me significant advantage over him and his future brain. You can be an atheist, but the God you don’t believe in is the one that will get you.

I should clarify that references to “my” universe and godhood should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s me we’re taking about, after all.

So the three of us were sitting in the library discussing a few contingencies. Sunset had served tea and the Doctor seemed to like it. My cup was mostly filled with tequila, but I suppose it wasn’t bad tea.

Nova did not seem to like the tea. “Don’t any of you know the benefits of quality synthetic brew?”

I shrugged. “Suck it up, this is a backwards, backwater pony planet.”

“He’s right,” said the Doctor, agreeing with me.

Nova grumbled. Doc and I went back to planning.

The Doctor had shown up with plenty of time to spare before The Event. Said Event was going to happen and would be bad, but having help to plan for it was nice. I was keeping Luna mostly in the dark about it, but she had agreed to contact Moment to help me.

The codenames of her agents seemed to have a little bit to do with the pony the represented. Doc was “Moment.” I was “Alien.” There were a few others, too.

The planning went pretty well through the morning. As lunchtime neared, the issue of my debt to Weird Al came up.

“Prostitutes?” said the Doctor. “How many? When does he expect delivery?”

“Soon. It’s not like I don’t want to pay up, but there are some issues.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“It’s with the dimensional transit,” I said.

Doc frowned. “I can understand a problem getting back to this universe after you locked out the admin accounts and tightened security.”

“No, it’s not that.” I sighed. “I’ve kind of got some problems back home.”

“I see.” The Doctor paused, pondering how to proceed. “Is this about your exes?”

“Partially. Plus the mafia and the police. I kind did some stuff, hung out with the wrong people, skipped out on a hospital bill. The point is, they’ll be waiting for me when I go back.”

“Is that it?”

I hesitated. “Well…I guess I’ll be honest. My deal in Equestria is a hell of a lot better than it was back on Earth. Trixie is here. I’ve got more money here. And I’d hate to go to all this trouble of fixing the place and not get any benefit from it.”

“I suppose that’s a good reason why you haven’t visited recently,” Doc observed. “Are you considering formal immigration like Guinness? Permanently leave Earth behind?”

Before I replied, I drained my tequila cup. I looked into the bottom to make sure I had gotten it all. I put the cup down on the table.

The door burst open and Pinkie appeared. “Hey everypony! We’re going to Fluttershy’s to help her get ready for the Ponyville Pet Center fundraiser!”

I got up. “I’m coming.”

I left Doc and Nova behind and went outside to join the group of mares heading to Fluttershy’s cottage. Twilight had come in from Canterlot and Rarity was finally finished with her stuff in Manehattan. It had actually been a little while since I’d seen the whole group of them together.

“I’m so behind in all my work,” Rarity complained. “I did get a lot done in Manehattan, despite the city still recovering from the seapony attack.”

“Speaking of mysterious things from the ocean,” said Twilight, “I’m still working on finding out more about Tiny Vamp Atoll, Valiant.”

“Good luck with that,” I told her. I doubted very much that she was going to find anything. That keytar was going to just stay in my closet and be mysterious.

The group of us talked a little more on the way. When we arrived at the cottage, Fluttershy was outside her house and singing to her animals. She still looked a wreck, with burn scars still visible, but if she was up and moving I figured she was feeling okay.

“Wow! You were singing in the most beautiful voice ever!” Pinkie exclaimed.

I didn’t pay attention to Fluttershy’s reaction, as I was too busy staring at her pet jackalope. I’d never seen a bunny with antlers before. It was the kind of thing that I thought I would have at least heard of before.

I came back to the conversation at about the point where everyone was trying to convince Fluttershy to join the quartet.

“Wait,” I said, “since when have we had a quartet?”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Well, it was actually your idea. You suggested it back when Fluttershy was afflicted with Poison Joke.”

“Oh yeah.”

Rarity turned back to Fluttershy. “The Ponytones would love to have you sing with us. It would be great to support the pet center.”

Fluttershy tried to hide behind her mane but after the burns it was still too short. “I love the Ponytones, I'm one of their biggest fans, but I do not want to perform with them. I have stage fright.”

“No. Goddamn. Shit.”

“Quiet, Valiant!” Rarity turned back to Fluttershy. “Well, I think it's a terrible waste of an exquisite talent, but I understand that you're not comfortable.”

We went back to town. Rarity, Big Macintosh, and two other ponies named Torch Song and Toe-Tapper got their group together and did some practice.

I went back to the library. Doc had gone off to do something else, but Nova was there. It looked like he was attempting to seduce Sunset.

“Were you attempting to seduce Sunset?” I asked.

“Why is she choking me?” he wheezed.

I shrugged. “She is pretty good at it, though.”

Sunset gave me a brief smile.

Doc walked in. “There you are, Nova. Before we leave again, I’d like you to look at something. Stop cavorting with the locals for a moment.”

Sunset let him go and Nova hurried out the door. He was a scientist type from the future, so the Doctor probably had something high tech for him to work on.

I was bored and decided to go over to the pub. Leaving Sunset, I went out the door and down the street.

Arriving at The Half Pint, I walked in to overhear Guinness telling two ponies that they should have a drink together. I waited for him to come back down the bar to get me a beer.

Nova came in the door just then. Guinness saw him and paused for a moment. He turned to Squibles, his griffon business partner. “Spot me for a few minutes.”

Guinness got three mugs and gestured for Nova and I to join him at a table in the back. We all sat down. Guinness lifted his glass. “Gents.”

I picked mine up and so did Nova. The three mugs met with a clink. Despite the fact that none of us considered the others friends, you don’t turn down a toast, especially when a meeting between three humans happened so rarely in Equestria.

A few seconds passed as we all took our first sips. Guinness put down his beer and asked, “So what are you doing here, Nova? I don’t remember hearing that you were coming back.”

“Valiant asked Doctor Whooves to come back,” Nova said. “Something about a secret mission. I just want to leave again. There’s so much of the multiverse I haven’t seen yet. So many experiments to conduct on advanced civilizations.”

“I like it here,” Guinness said. “That’s why I stayed.”

“I cannot understand why Valiant is still here.” Nova shot me a look. “I thought you hated Equestria.”

“I do.” I took a long sip of my beer, thinking of how to reply. In the end, I just repeated, “I do.”

“So why are you still here?” Guinness asked.

“I might make a trip back to Earth soon,” I allowed. “For business.”

“Not to stay?” Nova pressed.

“I might do that eventually,” I defended. “I have a lot of things to take care of before I can, though.”

I’m not sure if either of them believed me. The three of us sat and finished our drinks in silence.

I went back to the library later and spent the rest of the evening there. I did a little thinking and drinking. I did make a few important decisions along the way.

The next day it was time for the fundraiser. There were pets to be adopted everywhere and the town was buzzing.

I walked over to the stage where the Ponytones were tuning up. Big Mac was late, and when he got there, he was hoarse.

I wasn’t quick enough thinking of a hoarse/horse joke, so I had to listen to the real explanation. Applejack showed up to provide it since Big Mac couldn’t do it himself.

“Wait, a Turkey Con?” I asked. “Most boring convention ever.”

“Ah said Turkey Call,” Applejack corrected.

I paused. “Wait, why are you talking like a hick? I thought we’d solved this problem.”

“Ah don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” she said, frowning.

“See, back about the time when we did that Hearth’s Warming Eve play, I found an parallel universe that was just like this one except you, Applejack, said I instead of Ah, and nobody there had ever heard of tree nuts. After I found out that you put walnuts in your special cider, I figured that I might as well move to the nut-free universe instead. So that universe is now this universe, where I’ve been ever since. And I haven’t heard you say Ah again until just now.”

Applejack shook her head. “You ain’t makin’ any sense.”

“It is a bit hard to wrap your mind around,” I agreed. “So we’ve got a serious problem. Either I spontaneously jumped back to the original universe or you’ve spontaneously decided to go full redneck. Pardon me, I should probably go consult with the Doctor about this.”

I hurried away. Back when I had discovered the other universe where Applejack spoke with less accent and there weren’t nuts for me to be allergic to, I thought it was a great idea and had abandoned my original universe for the new one. This was where I had been ever since. You didn’t notice because like I said, there were only two small changes.

But I still had to solve this problem and quickly. Either I had switched back, or Applejack’s speech had changed which could be a symptom of more bugs in the code.

I went back to the library. There was a note on the door which I read and ignored. The door was latched, so I knocked.

From inside, I heard Twilight say, “Who could that be? Don’t they see the do not disturb, doing science stuff sign on the door?”

She opened it and I shoved past her. She protested, “Valiant, I’m doing science stuff!”

“Tough, I live here. Besides, I’m going to be doing science, too.”

“This is a publically funded building where you just sleep on the couch!”

I turned to face her. “But I’m here to do science. I’ll tell you about it if you leave me alone.”

Twilight looked conflicted, but couldn’t resist. “Fine. But first, let me talk about my science. I’m putting together a spell to locate Tiny Vamp Atoll. I can’t find anything about it anywhere.”

“What do you mean by locate?” I asked.

“If it exists in this universe, I’ll find it. I’ve built the spell so that even if it’s not an actual island, I should still get a location, or even a place to find more information.”

I nodded. “I’ve got to set up a trip. Some weird things just happened that make me question the validity of this universe and I have to run a few errands on Earth anyway. I’ll be gone for a little while.”

“When are you leaving?” Twilight asked.

“It’ll take a little while to make plans,” I said. “Tomorrow, I think.”

“I should have my spell ready to go by then,” Twilight said. “I’ll wait until you’re out of the library. I can’t be disturbed while I’m doing it.”

I nodded. “Fair enough.”

I started to turn away, but Twilight called me back. “What are you planning to do on Earth? Are you well prepared? Will it be different than the last time I went with you?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m pretty sure I know what I need to do.” I started to turn again, but Twilight started talking again.

“I could help. I know interdimensional travel isn’t easy. Have you got everything you need? Are you prepared to be walking bipedally?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” I grumbled, my annoyance growing.

“That’s probably the hardest part,” Twilight prattled on. “Learning to adapt to a different body.”

“You know what? Screw this,” I said. “I’ll start walking on two legs right now just to show you.”

I stood up and balanced there awkwardly, hooves on my hips. I glared at her and turned to strut away. “Haters gonna hate.”

Doc and Nova were waiting for me in the basement. The portal to Hell glowed a dull red under the floorboards. I briefly explained the problem I was having with Applejack’s accent.

“Right then,” said Doc. “Since you’ve locked up this universe, things are going to be a little more complicated. If you’re going to get to Earth and back, you’ll need more than just your dimension-hopping chunk of basalt that you’ve used in the past.”

“Luckily you have one of the finest scientific minds anywhere here to help,” Nova said.

I grinned. “Thank you. I always knew I was smart.”

It was a poor attempt at trolling and both of us knew it, but I got him to frown disapprovingly so it worked out.

Turning back to Doc, I said, “Okay, so we’ll need something more than just the ugly rock. What else?”

“You also have to be prepared in the eventuality that this won’t work,” he cautioned. “Breaking laws of physics is easy, but breaking the correct laws of physics to achieve your goal without utterly destroying the universe is the hard part. There’s a significant risk that you might get stuck in one world or the other, and that’s the least dangerous risk.”

“Less yakking, more zapping,” I said. “If we have to break the universe to save it, then that’s what we’re going to do.”

“I always knew you weren’t very smart,” said Nova.

“I know you are but what am I?” I responded. These future guys, they just don’t know how to deal with old-school insults.

Author's Note

Nova made his first appearance in the story Science, Steam, and Beer

Twilight Time

“Sweetie Belle, maybe we should run through the steps another few times before you try it on your own,” said Twilight.

“Nope! I’m ready to give it a shot!” Sweetie stood up and focused on the broom in the corner. Concentrating hard, her magic did little except making it fall over. She might have been having trouble because only the tip of her horn was glowing.

Sweetie stopped, panting hard after straining herself. “Ugh, I think I threw my neck out.”

“You’re okay,” Scootaloo reassured her.

“A little more practice and lifting brooms will be a cinch,” added Apple Bloom.

I put in, “A little more practice at you disturbing my sleep and cinches will be the least of your worries.”

“Valiant, it’s the middle of the morning,” Twilight said, looking at me disapprovingly. “You can’t lie around all day.”

I sat up from the couch. “I’m just trying to put off everything I have to do today. I don’t know where to start.”

“I know how you feel,” said Sweetie. “I’ll never get my cutie mark for magicking brooms.”

“Maybe not,” Twilight agreed. “But I’m happy to keep helping you as long as you like.”

“Hey, Valiant said he had a lot to do. Maybe we can get cutie marks helping him!” Apple Bloom said.

“No!” Twilight and I said simultaneously.

Twilight shook her head and turned back to the Crusaders. “You girls have other things to be working on. Scootaloo, weren’t you putting together a unicycle? Apple Bloom, what about your potions?”

The fillies went back to their studies. Apple Bloom tried her growth formula on an apple seedling and I used the appearance of a sudden cloud of noxious gas to slip away. I had meant to ask Twilight what she was doing in Ponyville today, but I had so much to do.

Sunset saw me on the way out the back door of the library. “Good morning, Valiant. Do you have time for breakfast?”

“Not really,” I said and kept moving.

Making preparations for a trip to another universe should have been commonplace to me. This, however, was going to be a lot more serious than normal. Not only did I have to get into Earth, accomplish some vital tasks, and get back, but I had to make sure the pony universe I was returning to was the exact same one I was leaving.

I still hadn’t determined exactly which that one was, however. The one where Applejack didn’t have an accent and where nuts didn’t exist was too attractive to pass up. But first, I had to get a few affairs in order.

I went over to Trixie’s place. She was happy to see me, but I had to get straight to business. “We need to do something about the machinery.”

“Like what? You haven’t used it recently.”

I nodded. “Yeah, but before I make my trip I think something should be done. I don’t want this stuff to fall into the wrong hands.”

Trixie frowned. “Are you worried that you might not be able to come back?”

I paused, but then nodded. “Universe hopping isn’t as simple as it used to be. I’ve been talking to Doctor Whooves and I’m going to need his help to get this done.”

In locking up all the admin accounts on this universe, I had kinda sorta made travel to and from a lot more difficult. The magic ugly rock would help, as would Doc’s methods, but nothing was exactly guaranteed. I didn’t want to come right out and say it, but there was a chance that once I left I might not be able to come back. I’m glad Trixie was perceptive enough to realize it.

“I suppose we should get started, then,” she said.

We went to where she had been keeping all my stuff. It was all piled up and covered with dust and tarps. Trixie had done a good job of preservation while I was away, but it was almost like walking through a museum of me to uncover and examine it all.

Maybe I should set up a museum of me. Nobody else would. Then again, I had to be concerned with the universe. That might just break it.

“What are you going to do with all this stuff?” Trixie asked.

“Just scrapping it would be a waste.” My shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what else to do, though.”

A sudden thought came to me. I still owed the Crusaders a robot. Maybe letting just one loose on Equestria wasn’t too big of a problem.

But it had been ages since I’d built anything. Much as I hated to admit it, I was out of practice. I’d been focusing on so many other things lately that the robot skills had degraded. I was going to have to start small and work my way back up.

So with Trixie’s help I built a bicycle. We scavenged parts from the quiet, still machinery around us. It was not a particularly difficult task, and I found myself relaxing and going with the flow. It was just nice being around my daughter. Especially considering what I was about to do with the universe and the possibilities I might be facing.

Sir Win showed up a little bit later. He’d come with a few things to give me.

“I was feeling particularly neighborly and decided to do anything I could to help you succeed.” He gave me a few small unholy items: an upside down cross, a vial of unvirgin blood, and some uneucharist. “After that impressive bit of summoning the other day, you certainly have my faith that you can succeed in whatever you want to do.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said. I frowned. “But what’s this about faith?”

Sir Win shrugged. “Hey, just because I’m a demon doesn’t mean I can’t have faith. I just choose to have it in you.”

That was remarkably touching, for some reason.

Sir Win took out a bottle. “Oh, and since you’re planning to go to another universe, could you pick me up some orphan tears while you’re out?”

I took the bottle. “I’ll try. Thanks again for your help.”

Sir Win nodded and started to turn away. I stopped him. “Hey, do you want a bicycle?”

“A what now?”

I showed him the bike and how it worked.

“You know, there’s a reason ponies don’t have these. Four hooves aren’t really compatible.” He grinned. “Good thing I’m not really a pony. Thank you for this. It should help me move faster and quieter when I need to move fast and quiet. You know, demon business.”

I watched as he got on and rode away, realizing that I had inadvertently created Hell on wheels. I chuckled.

With my building skills brushed up, I went back to the library to collect the Crusaders. They had gone to eat lunch and Twilight was sipping tea and waiting for them to come back.

I sat down across from Twilight. I wasn’t particularly interested in the tea, but took a cup for something to do.

“The girls are really coming along on their lessons,” said Twilight.

I shrugged. “I think they’ve had fewer distractions lately. Things have been quieter around here since Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara were violently murdered and had their pulped remains spread throughout the streets.”

Twilight paused in her next sip of tea. She considered that for a moment, and then reluctantly nodded.

A few minutes later, the three fillies came back. True to Twilight’s word, Scootaloo and Apple Bloom had been getting much better with their lessons. Sweetie Belle still struggled with magic, however.

“I think I see the problem,” I said as I watched her trying to lift the broom. “You’ve only got magic on the tip of your horn.”

“Is that a problem?” Sweetie asked.

“Using just the tip never gets results,” I said.

“How do you know so much about magic?” Apple Bloom asked.

“What does this have to do with magic?” I said.

Twilight broke in. “Thank you, Valiant. I can take it from here.”

I turned to her. “But I do know a lot about magic. Remember the cutie mark debacle that happened back when you read from Starswirl’s journal of unknown magic? I briefly had Trixie’s cutie mark and learned everything she knew about magic.”

Twilight frowned. “I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”

I shrugged. “Yes, and you were also pretty sure that reading from a journal of unknown magic was a good idea.”

“Buuuurrrrrnnnnn,” said Scootaloo.

After that, the Crusaders decided that I was a better teacher than Twilight and decided to spend the rest of the afternoon with me instead.

“Well, at least I can do more research about Tiny Vamp Atoll,” Twilight muttered as the fillies and I left.

It was interesting where her interests lay. I had spotted a few diagrams Twilight had brought along today that featured the six-keyed box we’d discovered back when the Everfree Forest was trying to take over Equestria. Yet all Twilight wanted to focus on was a random remark I’d made about a keytar. Gosh, it was pretty easy to manipulate her once I’d learned how.

I headed back to Trixie’s place with the Crusaders in tow. I did some thinking along the way. Back when the cutie mark swap happened, I had been solidly against the idea, but now I had to admit that I would benefit from a greater understanding of magic. It’s kind of what this universe ran on, after all.

But that was for later. Now, I had a promise to live up to.

Back when I fought old, crazy, asshole Trixie in Ponyville I’d had to borrow a robot from the Crusaders. It had gotten destroyed and I’d promised them a new one. And damn it, I keep my promises.

When I brought them in, the three fillies reacted like they’d been given all-you-can-eat passes to the candy store. They surveyed the equipment, their little minds whirling with possibilities.

“Go for it, kids,” I said.

Trixie and I watched as the Crusaders went nuts. Everything I’d built was there and they scavenged almost all of it in the pursuit of the best parts to assemble the best robot ever.

The Monstrosity VTOL aircraft remained untouched, probably because the Crusaders weren’t trying to build a flying super awesome robot. One can only do so much. I covered the vehicle up with a tarp and left it.

In the center of the mess were the three fillies and all the parts they could want. I played supervision while they welded, wrenched, and ran wires and hydraulic lines. The robot was coming together nicely when there was a knock on Trixie’s front door. I excused myself to get it. At the door were Doctor Whooves and Nova.

“Is it time to go already?” I asked.

Doc showed me his pocket watch. “I’m afraid so.”

“Just a minute.” I went back through the house. Trixie turned as I approached.

“Do you have to leave?” she asked.

I nodded.

“I’ll watch the Crusaders,” she said.

I nodded again. The two of us stood for a few moments.

“I’ll see you later,” I said.

“Yeah,” Trixie agreed.

I started to turn away but she grabbed me in a hug. It was quick but to the point. Trixie pulled away, her face slightly flushed. I’d never taught her to hug. Then again, I was glad she’d learned. I walked back to the door with a smile on my face.

I went with the two stallions back to the library. Doc had brought his blue box inside, down to the basement. I didn’t know how it fit through the doors, but maybe it was smaller on the outside.

Sunset was in the basement when we arrived. I hadn’t seen her all day and realized she must have been working down there. Working on my project?

“I think we’ve got the converter set up,” said Doc. He pointed to a cauldron that was bubbling over a fire in the corner. It was a magic fire so there was no smoke to vent. Speaking of magic, the outside of the pot had runes and stuff scribbled all over it. That was for extra magic, I assumed.

“We put together this magic converter,” said Nova. “Since you ponies have never heard of fusion generators, this is the next best thing. You put magic—no matter what kind—in and pure energy of magic comes out. It converts everything into one force so you can use it to power anything.”

Doc turned to me. “For example, getting you back to Earth and then returning here.”

I nodded in appreciation. “That’s good. Sir Win gave me some stuff I can throw in to add to the mix.” I unwrapped his devilish talismans and added them to the pot. The bubbling brew inside flashed different colors and seemed to boil hotter.

“So you guys got this set up just for me?” I asked.

“Actually, Ms. Shimmer was the driving force,” Doc said. “Her special talent is magic, after all.”

Hmm, just like Twilight and Trixie. That was a whole lot of magic going around. Good thing I had various ways of getting all three to do things for me.

Sunset smiled at Doc’s praise. “I just wanted to help you, Valiant.”

“Thank you,” I said. Doctor Whooves and Nova were busy getting everything else set up and I had a moment alone with Sunset. She looked like she had something to say. I waited for a few seconds, but her face went through a few expressions and she stayed silent.

Eventually, she just said, “Please come back.”

I paused for a moment and then nodded.

“We’re ready,” Doc called.

I turned away from Sunset and stepped towards Doc’s box. “Let’s do this.”

Sunset took a deep breath. She turned to the cauldron and hit it with a burst of magic. The accumulated energy started bubbling into a ball of glowing light that hovered just above the pot. Manipulating the orb of pure energy carefully, Sunset shifted it towards us.

Doc carefully guided it in, adjusting some things on his control panel. “Just a little further. As soon as we’ve got all the energy, we’ll be set.”

Sunset fed the ball of energy into the intake of the Doctor’s device. He cheered happily. “That’ll do it! Allons-y!”

Reality suddenly blurred and we were hurled into time and space. It wasn’t so bad; nothing I hadn’t seen before.

“You keep saying that,” Nova said to Doc once things had stabilized. “I’ve been traveling with you for a while and it’s always the same catchphrase. What does allons-y mean?”

“It’s French for ‘let’s go,’” I said.

“You speak French?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I can insult you in two languages.”

Nova started to retort but the Doctor broke in. “Valiant, are you ready for the next step?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, we’ve got enough power to definitely fling you to where you need to go.”

My eyebrows went up. “I’m not sure I like the term ‘fling.’”

“Well, it shouldn’t be too difficult. You’re going to Milwaukee, correct? I know exactly where to go. I mean, I know where the Harley-Davidson factory is, but that’s close enough. The computer should take care of the advanced targeting from there.”

I didn’t know why Doctor Whooves knew about the Harley factory, but I supposed that was good enough. I watched as he punched in the final coordinates and then slid open the door. Time and space rushed by outside.

“When I tell you to jump, get moving,” Doc said.

“What, just…jump?”

He shrugged. “If my calculations are correct. Three…two…one…jump!”

I threw him a salute and hopped out. I thought about saying something cool. “Look out, Earth. Here I—”

My eyes snapped open. I was in my apartment. Apparently I was still dressed in a hospital gown from the last time I’d popped in. Oh yeah, and I also remember getting needles ripped out and electronic monitor wires ripped off. But at least I was back.

“Hey boss, he’s awake,” a rough male voice said.

Hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me up. Two very large men held me. Both looked unhappy to see me. A third one stood in front of me, looking even unhappier.

“You thought you could just mess with our diamond trade?” he said.

“Oh, um…about that,” I stuttered. This would take some explaining. See, my roommate was both a geologist and a discerning aesthetics snob, and therefore knew guys in the gem business. At least a few of those jewelers were fences for organized crime. Those connections had been used to track down some information for me the last time I had come to Earth. I’d needed it to find and kill the Black Twins as well as learning that my exes were mad at me. It had all seemed liked a good idea at the time but apparently it had now led to some mob enforcers coming to pay me a visit. Damn.

Actually, a four-letter word didn’t cut it. I got stuffing, snot, and shit beat out of me to varying degrees of literalness. The general idea that the men wished to convey was that if I didn’t come up with compensation for what I had done, the beatings would keep happening to me at random intervals for as long as I lived, which might not be too long.

They left after a while, a while that was a long while longer than I wished it to be. I spit out some blood on the carpet of my apartment and managed to get up off the floor.

My roommate appeared. “Well, now you’ve gone and done it.”

“Hey man, I don’t see you making great personal sacrifices for the sake of robots and a magical world of ponies.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that and kept quiet.

I attempted to stretch, but it just hurt. “Anyway, I should go. I have a lot of things to do and I really don’t need those guys finding me again.”

“You realize they’re part of the mafia, right? They’ve got deals with Yakuza, the Triads, cartels, and all the other gangs around the world. If you run, they’ll put out a contract and everyone will be after you.”

I shrugged. “Small potatoes compared to saving the multiverse. If I play my cards right, it won’t matter.”

I went to clean up. I got some fresh clothes and managed to change into them without hurting my aching body too much. As I packed a suitcase, I did some thinking. It had become pretty clear that I had backed my way into a corner and was going to have to make a difficult personal decision. This was going to suck. I decided that I wasn’t going to need to pack very much.

I came out of my bedroom to see my roommate examining the ugly piece of basalt that had come with me. “What’s this? Why is it covered with strange electronics?”

“This is probably the most important rock ever,” I told him. “Gaze with wonder and then give it back to me.”

He shrugged and handed it over. I put it in my suitcase along with the empty bottle Sir Win had given me to collect orphan tears, and went out the door.

I got in my car and drove to the airport. I parked in long term and didn’t bother keeping my ticket. Inside, I selected a credit card and bought fare to Los Angeles. I went first class. It wasn’t like I was going to be around to pay the bill.

On the plane, I spent most of my time looking at my hands. I’d made my plan, and if everything worked out like it was supposed to, this might be my last chance to have them.

I hummed a little America the Beautiful. Damn, I was going to miss this place. But given the choice between constant harassment by the mob and maybe being someone important in Equestria…

It was a tough choice. But I didn’t have many options. As much as I hated to admit it, what I was going to do was probably best for everyone, myself included.

When the plane touched down at LAX, I called Weird Al and told him where I was.

“Cool man, I’ll come down and meet you,” he said. “Where are we going?”

“You’ve got a private jet, right? I have a destination in mind.”

Al got there within half an hour. He frowned as he saw my abused face. “What happened to you?”

“I came back to Earth. This is how they greet me nowadays.”

He shrugged. “Anyway, the plane’s prepped and ready to go. Let’s vamoose.”

We went out to the jet. It was a nice—and by nice I mean super amazing—Gulfstream G650. The aircrew got us aboard and we were airborne and flying west within a few more minutes.

It was a long flight across the Pacific. Al broke out the good tequila and we got hammered and started telling each other funny stories. I don’t remember much of it, but I had apparently accumulated quite a few anecdotes. He really enjoyed the one about what I did when I got to Equestria and thought I was dreaming.

We were both stinking drunk when the jet landed in Hawaii for fuel. By that point, Al had broken out his accordion and lent me a guitar and we were (terribly) attempting to record some music. It didn’t go so well and we both passed out shortly after taking off again.

I came awake as the plane landed in Singapore. I was hungover and jet lagged, but forced myself to keep going. Now that we were at our destination, I had a few more things to accomplish.

Al and I stepped down from the jet, slipping on thousand-dollar pairs of sunglasses that he had bought. We both stumbled slightly.

“And now for hookers,” I slurred.

“Actually, it’s time for customs,” said a uniformed Singaporean airport security guard.

Al raised his sunglasses and squinted at the man who raised his hands in surprise. “My apologies, Mr. Yankovic. I didn’t realize it was you.”

Al waved him off and the two of us got in a rented limo where there was more alcohol waiting. I refrained for the moment, however. “I have a favor to ask.”

“Sure,” said Al.

“Can we stop by the seaport? I have a little business to take care of.”

Al gestured to the driver and we were off. In just a few minutes we were at the port. Singapore is a very small city-state, you see, about one quarter the size of Rhode Island.

I stepped out of the car, dragging my suitcase, and made my way into the lines of intermodal containers and cargo ships. Past a chain link fence and a few security stations I encountered the naval piers.

You may be wondering how I got past the fence and the guards. Being drunk off my ass, I kind of wondered that myself. Maybe they didn’t see me as a threat. I surely didn’t look like your average terrorist. Maybe I just got lucky. Every so often, life owes you one.

I meandered my way down the row and stopped in front of a warship. I checked the number painted on it and the name at the stern. Yes, this would do nicely. I dug into my suitcase and pulled out the rock.

I punched a few buttons. I hoped they were the right ones. There wasn’t anyone around to ask for help. Being that there was no one around, nobody minded that I gave the rock a toss and it landed on the deck of the ship.

I nodded in satisfaction. Good, that was one part of my plan set in motion. Now just another hundred or so and I would be set to save the universe.

Turning around, I made my way back to the limo. Al had dozed off waiting for me, so I directed the driver where to go to find the best, highest class brothel in Singapore.

As we drove, I lounged in the sunroof, a bottle in my hand and sunglasses on my face. Singapore is a really, super-sweet place to go. It’s just north of the equator, has one of the five busiest ports in the world, the fourth-biggest financial center, and the third-highest per capita income. Basically, if you’re going to be drinking and hanging out of a limo sunroof in Southeast Asia, you might as well do it in Singapore.

When Al woke up, we were at our destination. We got out of the car and went inside. If you thought Singapore itself was awesome, you can only imagine what the best brothel in the nation was like.

So Weird Al and I got hookers. He gave me a fist bump. “Your debt is officially paid.”

“Cool.”

That put me in a good mood, because at that moment debauchery commenced. Despite being a brothel, they catered to other kinds of sin as well, including but not limited to alcohol, psychoactive substances, and Chinese food.

Hours passed and everything was still kind of going on. All in all, if this was to be my Going Away from Earth party, I couldn’t have asked for a better one.

During a momentary lull, I lay on my back catching my breath. One of the hookers had her arms wrapped around me. We were both a little tired and she tried some conversation to ease the moment. “So, where are you from?”

I considered that. What should I say if I was supposed to be leaving soon? I shrugged. “I’ve been a lot of places.”

“Hmm, that’s nice. Anyone waiting for you back home?”

I started to reply, but my mouth came to a sudden halt. Who was waiting for me? Anyone?

“I’m sorry, was that a bad question?” she asked.

“Pretty goddamned bad,” I said, a little louder than I intended.

She jerked back, obviously sorry for asking. “We can talk about something else.”

Her manner, almost like a kicked puppy, reminded me a little of Sunset. Sunset, who, before I left had said to me, please come back.

I shook my head and relaxed a little bit. “Sorry for yelling. What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?”

She paused, appearing to fight for her emotions. “I…I don’t have another choice. My parents are both dead and I had to do something to survive.”

Tears started to leak out of her eyes. She sniffed. “I’m sorry. This is supposed to be about you. It’s just that no one has ever asked me about myself before.”

She blinked. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t mind me,” I said, holding the bottle. “I just need some orphan tears.”

It Ain't Easy Being Breezies

As far as lives go, drunk and covered in hookers is not a bad way to end one. That was the first thought that greeted me as I woke up on the couch in the Ponyville library tree. My life on Earth was effectively over and now I only had Equestria to look forward to.

I sat up and sighed heavily, putting my head in my hooves. I wasn’t hungover, but I had a lot to take in. I’d effectively made my final jump, and would do no more visits outside this particular universe. End of the line, last stop. Enjoy the rest of your life.

So, faced with the prospect of creating a fresh existence, and not having had a drink that morning, I got up and went to find the tequila. I wasn’t exactly sure if I could do this sober.

On the way, however, I got sidetracked and suddenly found myself with Twilight & Co. outside in the street waiting for the Breezies to show up. I honestly don’t know how that happened. Like I said, I hadn’t yet had a drink that morning.

A mariachi band was playing and the street was crowded with ponies. Rarity wore a glittering cloak that required sunglasses to look at properly. Seemed like a lot of trouble to go to for a group of insects. I mean, Changelings were Godless bug-Communists and we didn’t go to that kind of trouble for them.

I was standing there pining for a drink when Fluttershy began speaking. “Okay everypony, as you know, the adorable creatures known as Breezies are about to come through Ponyville.”

I raised a hoof. “Why do I care?”

“Well, they’re small and cute and lovely, plus they are on a mission to carry pollen from our world back to theirs. It’s very important that we help them by providing breezes to activate their magic so they can return through the portal before the pollen goes bad.”

“So let me get this straight: there’s a portal out there that nobody told me about. On top of that, for some reason we’re providing artificial assistance to a species that can’t properly help itself. Sounds like unnatural selection at work. And Fluttershy, isn’t it already bad enough to be forcing bears, rabbits, and whatever else you keep at your place to live together and not eat each other?”

“Um, well…” Fluttershy faltered. “I meant to get all this planned out already, but I didn’t get a chance to visit with the Breezies when I was in the hospital.”

Twilight jumped in. “Come on, Valiant. The Breezies are small and so cute. Let’s just help them out.”

I turned to her. “So we help them because they’re cute? Basically the Rarity strategy?”

Rarity looked equal parts pleased and insulted, which is what I was going for. Before I could go on, however, a cloud of Breezies began to appear on the horizon. The air grew thick with them as they swept over Ponyville, the fluttering of their gossamer wings and colorful bodies gently maneuvering in the air.

“Didn’t the residents of Ponyville learn a lesson about swarms in the past?” I said. “I thought it had been made pretty clear that we don’t put up with swarms.”

Lost in awe at the fluttering Breezies, everybody ignored me. I muttered under my breath and pushed my way through the crowd back to the library.

I met Sunset at the door. Surprisingly, she spoke first. “Valiant, can you watch the library? I’d like to go see the Breezies.”

“Sure,” I nodded. Sunset gave me a smile and went outside.

I stood there for a moment, trying to remember how to be a substitute librarian. It had been so long since I’d done that duty. I frowned. Watching the library probably meant that I should stay sober.

I sighed and sat down on the couch. I could page through a few of the manuscripts that Daring and Trixie had given me to preread. Having come to the end of all Daring’s published novels, it was basically the only reading material I had left.

My eyes turned to the other shelves, wondering if there anything else I cared about. Hmm – what was that?

I got up and pulled a magic textbook down. I still retained some of the knowledge of magic I’d gotten from the cutie mark switcheroo, but maybe a little research could further that.

The fact that I was even thinking about learning more about magic told me just how strange my already bonkers existence had recently gotten. I put the book back and went to get the tequila.

Still, my mind kept working even as I drank. Drinkthinking. My thoughts may have turned to other topics, but I grabbed a piece of paper and began scribbling on it.

I was already well into the bottle when there was a commotion outside. Glancing out the window, I saw Fluttershy cuddling with a small group of Breezies who had somehow gotten separated from the main group.

That was her problem. I went back to drinkthinking.

I’m not sure how much later it was, but I awoke to Sunset touching my shoulder. She wrinkled her nose at the reek of alcohol. “Valiant, are you all right? I think you passed out.”

“Probably.” I groaned and sat up. The desk where I had been working was covered in empty bottles and paper with scribbles on it. I looked at one piece, trying to figure out what I had been thinking while drinking.

Track universal transit progress of USS Milwaukee

Keep training for Equestria Games to represent Milwaukee

Speak to seaponies - Re: failed conquest of Milwaukee Manehattan

Do something with that stuff I stole

Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes also into you

Create more anagrams to confuse Twilight

POWERTHIRST = CRYSTAL METH IN A CAN

I didn’t remember writing most of it, but it seemed like a to-do list. The first couple of items were fairly straightforward before delving into the vague line about doing something about stolen things, the strange philosophical quote, and the excellent idea of confusing Twilight.

That last thing on the list was the hardest to figure. Where had I heard of Powerthirst before? Oh yeah, the Flim Flam brothers were selling it.

“While you were here, Fluttershy rescued some Breezies who got stranded,” Sunset said. “She’s nursing them back to health before sending them on their way.”

“Good to know.” I got up and stretched, ignoring the pain in my head. “I’ll stay away from her place, then.”

Unfortunately, Rainbow Dash showed up looking for me, which would have been bad enough, but she wanted me to do stuff. “The Breezies have to go! I know Fluttershy wants to take care of them, but we have to get this breeze going so they can get out of here!”

“Tell me why I should care, and also why I should help you,” I said.

“You want the bugs gone too, right?” she said.

I sighed. “Fine.”

And so I went to Fluttershy’s place and evicted the Breezies.

“What are you doing?” squeaked one of them, a pink and blue guy with a black coat.

I briefly switched off the leaf blower I had gotten from the hardware store. “Oh Lord, they can talk? Now somebody might actually care if I kill them.”

The rest promptly hid in any place they could reach around the inside of Fluttershy’s cottage.

The rest of the crew showed up then and Twilight was a little displeased with my methods, even if she agreed that the Breezies had to go.

“But do we have to do it now?” asked Fluttershy. “I don’t want them to feel that we're abandoning them to the cruel world.”

Twilight said, “But they're not going to a cruel world, right? They're going home.”

“Gee Twilight, I’m standing right here,” I huffed.

She frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I just sacrificed my home on Earth to permanently move to Equestria and none of you have even expressed gratitude for what I did. It’s not like I’m giving up my old life to be your universe’s savior and messiah or anything.” I rolled my eyes.

Twilight blinked. “Messiah? What?” She shook her head. “Never mind. We’ll talk about this later. Right now, we need to focus on the Breezies.”

While we were arguing, though, an argument had broken out among the Breezies. The one who had talked to me, Seabreeze, apparently wanted to go home but the rest of them didn’t. I don’t know what would happen if they didn’t get back through the portal to their home. None of them seemed to care, or more likely weren’t smart enough to realize the implications. One of them was playing a small saxophone, though, so you never know.

Anyway, we did manage to get them outside, but there was a problem. Apparently there weren’t enough Breezies for the amount of wind or something. I was distracted by Time Turner and Rose passing by on their way to the 3-D movie.

When I turned back to the conversation, Twilight had come up with a solution. “There’s a spell I think can help us.”

I sighed. “Of course. Magic. The solution to all. Why oh why did we not think of that sooner.”

“Magic isn’t the solution to everything,” Rarity said.

I stared at her. “Name one solution Twilight came up with that didn’t involve magic.”

“Well…”

I cut her off before she actually provided an example. “Whatever. So what’s this crazy plan you have, Twilight?”

She smiled the confident grin of an alicorn who is about to do something I wasn’t going to agree with. “This is probably going to feel a little funny at first, but you're going to have to trust me.”

I started to say “Hell no!” but before I could finish we were all turned into Breezies.

I glared at Twilight, my tiny high-pitched voice sounding not so intimidating. “Remember how I used to want to kill you, Twilight? You’re on thin ice.”

She chuckled nervously. “Um, well then. Back to getting the Breezies home.”

We fluttered away, pushed by the wind. I suppose it was good that I already had fluttering practice from that one time when Twilight gave me butterfly wings during the disaster that was her brother’s wedding.

The mares all thought it was funny and pleasant. They looked better than they really needed to, good enough to be the basis of dolls and other paraphernalia to sell to the rabid masses of consumers. I figured it was only a matter of time before some large toy company copywrited the image and began to sell Pony Breezy Dolls with Advanced Sparkling Girly Action. Such a merchandizing opportunity would not surprise me in the slightest.

Hmm. Was that a moneymaking idea I had just thought up? Heh heh heh.

Oh wait, why the hell would I do something so blatantly materialistic? I’m not that much of a money-grubber.

Anyway, we flew all the way across Equestria until we got to the portal that led to the Breezy world.

We all went through and took a look around. It was a little more ethereal than the pony world. I frowned as I made my observations. “If they have flowers and stuff here, then why do they need our pollen?”

“Well, we control the sun and moon, the weather, and the growth of plants and animals,” said Twilight. “We might as well control the migrations of sapient creatures from other worlds, too.”

I stared at her for a long moment and then shook my head. “Whatever. Let’s just go.”

We made it back through the portal before it closed. Twilight reversed the spell and we all returned to regular size. While the others were distracted, I kicked a large rock into the hole where the portal emerged. There, another leak in the universe plugged.

“Valiant, what’s this flower in your mane?” Fluttershy asked.

“Huh?” I twisted until I could see where a small blue flower had been stuck. “No idea where that came from.”

“It doesn’t really suit you,” said Rarity.

“Then screw you, I’m wearing it.”

“I just wish I could have said goodbye to Seabreeze before we had to go,” said Fluttershy. “I didn’t see him before coming back through the portal.”

“Well, that’s over with now,” said Twilight. “We should go back to the library so you can record what you learned in the friendship journal, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy frowned. “I’m not sure what I could write.”

“Let’s go!” exclaimed Pinkie. “You totally have to go to the library and everypony else has to come with!”

That seemed extraordinarily pushy, but I was going back to the library anyway so I went with them. On the way, Rainbow berated Twilight about her spell. “So, I’ve always kind of wondered what it would be like to be a griffon. What about a dragon?”

Twilight was understandably reluctant to let Rainbow loose with that kind of power. Still, it provided something to think about while we traveled.

It was quite late by the time we got back to Ponyville. Fluttershy had finally decided on something to write. She explained it while we approached the library. “I learned that it’s possible to be too nice. I kept coddling the Breezies and we almost ran out of time to return them home. We had to eventually get forceful and only then did they listen. Once you've exhausted all other opportunities to be civil and polite, sometimes you have no other choice. At the same time, you can’t just go straight to being mean like Seabreeze did.”

“Sounds like you learned about the concept of escalation of force,” I noted. “Back home on Earth we had a saying: ‘War is the continuation of politics by other means.’”

“Escalation of force sounds like a lesson you could learn,” noted Twilight. “Starting small before going up to more potent means.”

I shrugged. “Hey, I’m American; I believe in the power of heavy munitions. It’s not my fault that sometimes they don’t come in smaller sizes.”

I opened the door to the library and waltzed in, completely unprepared for the surprise party I walked into.

“SURPRISE!” cheered everyone amid decorations and food that filled the interior of the library.

I stopped in my tracks. “What the goddamned hell…”

“I threw you a party!” said Pinkie. “I know back when you first arrived here we let you party with Twilight and it was like a joint Welcome to Ponyville Party for the two of you, plus a Night Before the Summer Sun Celebration Party and you had a good time and everything, but now that you’ve officially decided to come live in Ponyville and immigrate from Earth I thought we needed to throw you a super awesome Congratulations on Your New Home Party!”

“How did you set the party up if you were with us being Breezies?” I asked. It was Pinkie, of course, so anything was possible, but I felt that I had to ask.

“I helped,” said Trixie, stepping forward. “Taking you along with the Breezies was a reason to get you away from the library so we could set all this up.”

“Who’s in the mood for quality comfort food and beer?” called Guinness from the back of the room.

“And who wants a piece of this absolutely delightful giant cake I made?” added Sir Win.

“I’ve got the tequila,” said Sunset.

The party was pretty much a whirlwind of awesome. I’d never been the sole subject of a Ponyville Pinkie Party before. Not even getting hookers with Weird Al came close.

Toward morning, I was happily full, heavily sugared, and more than a little buzzed. We were over the hump of prime partying, but things were still moving along well enough.

The six Element bearers plus Trixie were sitting with me around the coffee table either on the couch or chairs that had been pulled up. I was still coming to terms with what they had done for me. It was a lot more than I had expected, and also surprisingly thoughtful.

“We want to be your friends,” Twilight was saying.

I nodded, but then came up short. “Wait, what?”

“Valiant, you’ve never been the most friendly pony,” said Rarity.

“But now if you’re going to be living here—permanently—then it would be best for everypony if you were a little more on the level,” added Applejack.

“We’re asking you to be our friend,” said Twilight. “For too long you’ve isolated yourself.”

“I get along fine by myself,” I retorted. My pleasant level of intoxication was beginning to lose its edge.

“But you don’t have to, dad,” said Trixie. “I know you don’t want to be alone.”

She had a point, I reluctantly had to admit. “But why do you want to be friends with me? You know I’ll probably backstab you at some point just for laughs.”

Awkward glances went around the group. “Er, but that’s not the point,” said Twilight. “We’re just trying to offer you a place in the group. We’ve hung out together quite often, but I don’t think any of us ever formally accepted you. There are probably a lot of reasons for that, maybe because we all figured you would eventually go home, but now that it looks like you’ll be here forever, we want to make you feel welcome.”

“So what would I have to do?” I said.

“You have to be open with us. No more secrets,” Twilight replied.

I shook my head and got up. “Nope. That’s a deal breaker.”

“Wait, why do you think that?” called Twilight as I started to walk away.

I turned back. “It’s too important. If I’m going to finish saving the universe, I need my space and my secrets.”

“But why do you want to do it alone?” argued Twilight. “We can help! You wouldn’t have to do it all by yourself!”

“You don’t understand,” I said, more of an edge appearing in my voice. “You’re going to have to trust me that I know what I’m doing.”

“Trust is a two way street,” Twilight retorted.

I stared at them for a moment and then spun around, heading for the kitchen. I grabbed a bottle of tequila out of Sunset’s grip and prepared to down it.

“I could put that in a glass for you or something,” she said.

I paused but shook my head. “Nah, I want to black out as quickly as possible.”

“I was told what happened with the Breezies,” Sunset said quickly. “I also overheard that conversation you just had a moment ago. If you want everypony to cooperate with you, you have to give the same thing back, like Twilight said. Seabreeze didn’t get respect from the other Breezies because he didn’t give it in return.”

Speaking of Seabreeze, I wiped the bottom of my hoof on a napkin. I’d forgotten about him until then.

I turned back to Sunset and heaved a sigh. “Do you really think I should give in?”

“You shouldn’t think of it like giving in,” she said. “Rationalize it however you want, but being friends is never a bad thing. Believe me, I once tried to zombify a high school and turn the students into my personal army. This is better than that.”

In spite of the situation, I chuckled. “Wow. Okay, I see your point. Thanks.”

Sunset smiled. I turned around, carrying the bottle, and went back to the party. I walked up and put the tequila down on the coffee table. “Okay, friendship is a two way street. That’s what you’re saying?”

“That’s right,” Twilight confirmed.

“I have to both receive and give?”

“Yes.”

I picked up the bottle and poured myself a helping. “Well, I suppose I can understand. I’ll drink to that. You’ll all drink with me, right?”

I looked expectantly at the rest of them. They each worriedly glanced at each other, but reluctantly lifted their glasses to receive a helping from the bottle.

I held up my glass. “Friendship is magic.”

We all toasted and then had a drink together, everyone but me gagging on tequila.

I set my glass down. “Another round!”

As the sun came up that morning, everyone was still in the library. The widespread drunkenness probably had something to do with it.

“Ughh…” Twilight moaned. “I wanted to be friends with you, Valiant, but drinking to blackout is not what I had in mind. Friendship is a two way street, but you can’t drag ponies along on things they don’t want to do.”

“Like how you dragged me along on the Breezy trip?” I said.

She rolled her eyes, but winced in pain at her hangover. What a lightweight.

“Fine,” muttered Twilight. “We’ll let you be friends.”

I grinned. “Oh, it’s not a question of who’s going to let me. It’s who’s going to stop me.”

Somepony to Watch Over Me

Great Aunt Pine Apple was all upset. I could practically hear her displeasure through the words written in the letter. Nobody had told her Granny Smith was dead, and now that she’d invited Granny for a visit we’d had to break the bad news.

But that was okay. It wasn’t like she was going to come visit us. I set the letter down and sat back in the chair.

Applejack came into the room and stopped short. “Valiant, what are you doing in my kitchen, reading my letters?”

“Taking care of business,” I assured her. “Just less things for you to worry about, friend.”

“Friends don’t break into each other’s houses and read mail addressed to other ponies.”

“Well excuse me for being especially proactive in this relationship,” I huffed. I got up. “Oh, by the way, I’m having a meeting in the library tonight. Be there.”

I went outside. Big Macintosh was loading pies into two wagons. Both of them were decorated with a large springloaded pie on the roof, like a bobblehead. Bobblepie?

Applebloom watched, somewhat sad. “What’s up, kid?” I asked.

“Well, with AJ and Big Mac going to deliver pies, I have to stay home all alone,” she pouted.

I cocked an eyebrow. “That’s a bad thing?”

“Well, ever since Granny Smith died, I’ve had to stay home alone more and more often.” Apple Bloom scuffed the dirt with one hoof.

“So…why not invite Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo over? Your family doesn’t mind if you hang out with them and no other supervision. You three hang out with just each other all the time.” I paused. “Or did Applejack and Big Mac specifically say that you had to be alone?”

“No, I guess they didn’t.” Apple Bloom brightened. “Hey, maybe we can get the robot going and help deliver the pies!”

I nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

Turning towards town, I started walking. There were other ponies to visit that morning.

Fluttershy was not quite back to perfect condition yet, but she was mostly healed up. When I knocked on her door, Angel the bunny answered.

“Is Fluttershy here?” I asked.

Angel rolled his eyes and pointed upstairs. He pantomimed two mares going at it.

“So Pinkie’s here, huh?”

Angel nodded.

“Great, that means I don’t have to track her down individually.” I started through the door, but Angel put up a paw and stopped me.

I stared at him. “What?”

He gestured, evidentially not pleased that I was about to walk in on Fluttershy and Pinkie.

“Well, it’s not like I care.”

Angel gave me a flat look.

I pushed past him and started up the stairs. I opened the bedroom door and walked in. There was a startled squeak and bed covers went flying. Fluttershy ended up somewhere at the bottom of the pile, while Pinkie lounged on the bed, grinning. “Hey Valiant.” She was caressing a jackalope, possibly the one I had seen around Fluttershy’s place before.

I nodded to her. “Pinkie. What’s up?”

“Oh, Fluttershy and I were just having a good time when this jackalope wanted to join in.” She grinned. “He’s…horny.”

I stared at her. “Actually, I think those are considered antlers, not horns.”

Pinkie blinked. Her mouth opened and closed. “Wha…but…I spent all that time setting things up. I convinced Angel to hook up with that doe. I made sure they got it on. I sinned against nature itself to produce a rabbit/deer hybrid. I spent all this time, all the months it took for the jackalope baby to be born and for him to mature so making sex jokes about him was legal. I went to so much trouble for a joke, and you ruined it!”

“I…um…ha ha ha?”

Pinkie grinned, her manner instantly changing. “That’s all I wanted to hear!”

Fluttershy roused herself out of the pile of blankets where Pinkie had apparently shoved her when she heard me coming. “I suppose I can appreciate the play on words, Pinkie, but you could have asked me about the difference between antlers and horns and saved yourself some trouble.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Pinkie rolled over onto her back and scooted up the bed a little. “So Valiant, what brings you here this morning?”

“I just wanted to tell you about a meeting I’m calling at the library this evening.”

“Ooh! Okay, I’ll bring refreshments!” Pinkie cheered. Fluttershy merely nodded in response.

Having delivered my message, I left the bedroom and walked downstairs. I passed Angel on the way. “Cute kid,” I said.

Leaving the cottage, I continued into town. My first stop was Rarity’s boutique.

The bell over the door tinkled as I walked in. I heard Rarity call from the back of the shop. “One moment!”

She walked out into the main room. “Hello Valiant.”

“Yo. I’m having a meeting this evening at the library. Everyone’s coming.”

“Everyone?” she asked.

“Your group of friends,” I clarified.

“I have a lot of friends.”

“The others that are Element bearers.”

“You could have said that to start with.”

“Well sorry. I was just hoping that maybe you’d get my meaning and I wouldn’t have to spend extra words detailing an explanation.” I rolled my eyes. “Like I just did.”

Rarity rolled her eyes too, and for a second I thought we were about to kick off an eyerolling competition. However, she broke the moment. “I’ll come to the meeting.”

"Good." I said goodbye and left. A short jaunt down the street was The Half Pint. It was still early and they were open for breakfast.

I walked into the pub. While I knew that they didn’t have real bacon on the menu, Guinness had figured out a passable substitute and it was a popular breakfast item.

I saw Rainbow behind the counter, taking orders and waiting on customers. Waitressing did not suit her and she looked miserable, which was just fine with me. Then I saw Guinness pass by. The two of them traded smiles and a kiss. Rainbow looked happier after that.

I sat down at the bar. Rainbow glanced at me and grudgingly came over. “What’ll it be?”

“Give me the special,” I said, indicating a particularly tasty-sounding platter listed on a chalkboard behind the counter.

Rainbow grunted and wrote the order down on a ticket. I said, “I’m having a meeting at the library tonight. You and the other Element bearers are invited.”

“Having a meeting…”Rainbow muttered around her pencil. She paused, glanced at what she had just written, and frowned. She spit out the pencil and turned to me. “Yeah, okay, I’ll be there.”

She turned away and I heard her calling for Guinness. Something about him watching the foal that evening. Guinness did not look pleased.

Speaking of the foal, I saw Rainbow Catcher in a high chair in the corner of the room. She’d grown noticeably since birth, although was still very young. She caught me staring and made an unkind gesture that a young filly shouldn’t know.

When my breakfast arrived, I chowed down. Rainbow said nothing and let me be. When I was finished, I paid the bill with exact change. On the ticket I wrote, PROTIP: Better than a regular tip.

Leaving the pub, I went to post office and got a letter sent to Canterlot addressed to Twilight Sparkle. It was the same invitation that I had given the rest of the Element bearers.

I stepped out into the street after sending the letter. A white and red unicorn stallion was at the café across the street. He was fiddling with some sort of device. Occasionally, sparks of electricity would come out of his horn. He was humming, and quite melodiously, I might add.

I’d never seen him before, but decided I didn’t care. Then again, new faces around Ponyville could potentially spell trouble. In fact, they usually did. I paused and gave the stallion another look. Eh, whatever. If anything happened, I would handle it.

I passed Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo on their way down the street. They told me they were on their way to Sweet Apple Acres.

I went over to the library. Sunset was standing near the basement door when I walked in. She looked a little nervous.

“I wanted to talk to you about the meeting tonight,” she said.

“Okay.”

“Is this a good idea? The basement-”

I held up a hoof. “Yeah, I know. You don’t have to hang around if you don’t want to.”

Sunset appeared to relax slightly. “I’ll stay, but I appreciate the offer. I’m just not sure what you’re doing is absolutely necessary.”

“Oh believe me, the meeting tonight will accomplish a lot.”

Sunset nodded. “All right.”

I went to do a little tinkering. The extendo boxing glove I’d been thinking of for a while now was almost completely done. I tested it a little bit. It made a sproing noise every time it punched.

I got bored after a little while and decided that maybe I should go do something else. I wandered around the library for a little while and eventually decided to walk back to Sweet Apple Acres to see if the Crusaders had left to deliver pies.

When I got to the farm, the robot was still there. I pushed open the house's front door to find an enormous mess of food products in the kitchen. A lot of it was jam and preserves.

“What the hell…has Hugh Jelly been here?”

“That stallion who’s strangely obsessed with tubs of jelly?” asked Scootaloo, coming into the room. “No, we were just having fun, and, um, one thing led to another.”

“Ugh,” grumbled Apple Bloom as she appeared with a mop. “Makin’ messes is always more fun than cleanin’ them up.”

“I’ll say,” added Sweetie Belle.

Having not been apart of the mess making, I thought it only appropriate that I abstain from the cleaning, too. The Crusaders finally finished up, some of the mess having migrated from the floor to them.

“I gotta go change my bow,” said Apple Bloom. She disappeared for a moment and came back with a fresh ribbon in her mane.

“You’ve got more than one?” I asked.

“Got a whole closet,” she said.

Strange thing to have a whole closet of. Whatever.

“Well, we’ve got everything fixed up,” said Apple Bloom. “Let's go catch up with my sister and help deliver those pies.”

The three of them got in the robot and lumbered away. I helped myself to an apple from the orchard and walked back to Ponyville. I took my time. It was that kind of slow day.

Jeeze, maybe I should have set the meeting for earlier. There’s nothing like organizing an event and then having to wait for so long before it begins.

So I went back to the library and asked Sunset to read to me.

“I could just recite a few books from memory,” she said. “Like those nautical books you had me read.”

I shrugged. “Do what you feel. I’m planning to fall asleep to the sound of your voice anyway.”

So she started reading and I started napping. Before I knew it, it was early evening and the time for the meeting was drawing near. I yawned and got up. Sunset herself had fallen asleep. I didn’t disturb her.

Twilight was the first to show up. She arrived in town with a burst of magic. Coming into the library, she spotted me. “Valiant, I got here a little before the meeting to speak with you. I’d like to take another look at that keytar you have. I’ve found literally no other reference to Tiny Vamp Atoll and I’d like to see if I’ve missed any clues.”

I grinned. “Uh…Tiny Vamp Atoll?”

She gave me a flat look. It was the You were trolling me all along, weren’t you, Valiant? face. “You were trolling me all along, weren’t you, Valiant?”

“I just told you what I found on the note attached to the keytar. Not my fault how you interpreted it.”

Twilight sighed. “So I may have just spent countless hours looking for an island that doesn’t even exist. But I don’t know for sure, because you won’t confirm or deny that it was some elaborate ruse on your part.”

“Hey, don’t put this on me.”

Twilight was about to say something else when the sound of the Crusader robot came from down the street. There were some townsponies hanging out in the pleasant evening, and they got out of the way of the oncoming robot.

The three fillies appeared to be giving Applejack a lift. AJ didn’t look too secure, but was apparently putting up with it to reach the meeting in time.

“Valiant! You missed an awesome time!” called Scootaloo.

“There were flame geysers and stuff!” added Apple Bloom.

“And there was this camp of ponies we delivered the pies to. I don’t know if they were gypsies or hillbillies.” Sweetie Belle frowned in thought.

“And oh yeah, we killed a chimera!” Apple Bloom said. “Kinda weird, though. I didn’t think tigers and snakes could talk, so I wonder why a creature made of a tiger, a snake, and a goat could?”

One of the robot’s manipulators swung forward, holding the limp body of a creature that was apparently made of a tiger, a snake, and a goat. “Who wants to study this thing for science?”

While the Crusaders bickered about that, Pinkie and Fluttershy arrived. Rarity came a few moments later, followed by Rainbow. All of them gave the dead chimera a wide berth.

Since the gang was all there, I turned to lead them into the library. Just then, the electrical stallion from earlier hurried up. “Hey, Sweetie Belle!”

“Oh, um, Biospark. What are you doing here?” Sweetie asked.

Up close, I saw that the stallion’s cutie mark was warcraft engineering. It looked about like you’d expect.

To Sweetie, he said, “I just finished some interesting pieces of equipment. I was hoping I could talk to you about a distribution network.”

“Now hang on,” I said, butting in. “I heard ‘equipment,’ and ‘distribution network.’ This sounds like something I’d be interested in. How do you know Sweetie Belle?”

Biospark gestured. “Oh, I trained under her in the ways of the ninja.”

The heads of all the nearby townsponies turned.

“Oh, thanks!” shouted Sweetie. “I worked for so hard to keep that secret, and you just blurt it out in the middle of Ponyville!”

Her head fell into her hooves. “I always wanted to be the only ninja in town, but now that my cover’s blown I’m going to have to leave to keep everypony I love safe.” She pouted.

The Crusaders left, comforting Sweetie Belle. The Element bearers stood quietly. It was the kind of shocked silence that comes with a surprise ninja reveal.

I turned to Biospark. “Dick move, bro.”

He looked at me. “Things are different here. Back on Earth, I answered to no one.”

“Wait, you’re from Earth?”

“Indeed. I was a Thunder Mage. However, my power here, as a unicorn, is just as strong as if I was wearing the Alicorn Amulet. I spend my time building doomsday devices, working for the highest bidder, and sleeping. It’s quite a good life here in Equestria.”

I let out an extended sigh. “A freaking wizard. Great. Trixie, come deal with this guy.”

I paused. Oh yeah, Trixie was off with Daring on some quest. Whatever, I’d take care of him myself.

“GTFO,” I said.

Biospark blinked. “What?”

“This universe ain’t big enough for both of us,” I said. I took a little bit wider stance. “Now leave.”

He began to charge his horn, electrical sparks building. “I don’t think so.”

Storm clouds began to gather in the sky. Lightning crackled. I began to realize that maybe this guy was good with electrical magic.

The first lightning bolt didn’t hit me, but it singed my tail. That was my cue to move. I leaped forward, hitting Biospark in a tackle. He was pretty solid, but stumbled, and I wrapped up his legs with mine, taking us both to the ground in a tangle.

He raised his head, more lightning charging. I reached for my switchblade, but decided that it wouldn’t do the job. I needed something longer. I grabbed a metal tent stake and swung it as hard as I could, stabbing all the way through Biospark’s neck and into the soil below.

He shrieked as all the built up electricity discharged harmlessly into the ground. He stopped shrieking as he bled to death.

I got up and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. I carefully put them on. “Go to your room, sonny, because you’ve just been grounded.”

I turned around. “Anyway guys, time for the meeting.”

None of them moved. After a moment, Applejack asked, “Valiant, are you carrying a whole tent in that hammerspace doohickey of yours?”

“I’m a little more concerned about where Biospark came from,” said Rarity.

“Yes I am,” I said. “As for Biospark, I’ve never seen him before, but it’s further evidence that something is wrong with the universe. As part of being friends with me, you wanted to help me fix it. That’s what I called the meeting for. Come on.”

Sunset had somehow slept through the lightning strike right outside the building. I draped a blanket over her and quietly led the rest of the group through the basement door and started down the stairs.

“Pinkie, do you have the refreshments?” I asked.

“Right here!” she giggled, pulling out bagels and coffee.

I raised my eyebrows. “Not what I was expecting from you.”

“Well, it seemed like a business meeting.”

“It’s fine,” said Twilight, taking a bagel.

We got down to the basement and the crowd stopped short. On the walls, six mares were chained. They were all eerily similar to the six that I had just brought through the door, except with swapped colors.

“Valiant! What in the world!” shouted Twilight, dropping her bagel.

I lifted a hoof. “See, strange things that shouldn’t be keep appearing in the world. When you all were gone from Ponyville for various reasons, these six took your places. The whole story is a lot more complicated than that, but you get the idea. I believe it’s part of a wider problem, like with the Thunder Mage today. I’m trying to plug the holes and keep bad stuff out, but to get to the bottom of things we need more information.

“So I asked you all, my friends, to help me decide how we’re going to proceed. These six I captured are at the root of the problem. You can threaten them. You can forcibly coerce the information out of them. You can dissect them.”

I pulled out my switchblade and snicked the blade open. I grinned and spun it around my hoof with a flourish. “So who wants to go first?”

Biospark property of biospark120

Maud Pie

I offered the knife to the group, but none of them stepped forward to take it. “Who’s first? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?”

The ponies chained to the wall and the ponies standing in front of me were all dead silent. Even the ones who weren’t being threatened with a knife didn’t look very pleased with the situation. I let out a long sigh and threw up my hooves. “I should have known. Well, if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself…”

“I just remembered that my sister is coming for a visit and we should all go taste-test two hundred pounds of rock candy before we make necklaces out of it!” said Pinkie.

“Oh my gosh, that sounds so important!” Twilight blurted. “Let’s go!”

They all vanished from the basement. I charged up the stairs after them. “But what about getting answers and finding out what is so badly screwed up with this universe?”

None of them looked back or answered me as they fled out the door. I came to a stop in the center of the library, feeling very displeased. Some friends they had turned out to be.

Well, at the very least I could go meet Pinkie’s sister. I did like rock candy, after all.

However, apparently I didn’t hurry fast enough and it was a while before I finally caught up with the group. They had calmed down and had organized a pet playdate outside of town.

Well, luckily I was qualified. I brought along Admiral Falcon. Trixie also decided to show up with Rexy.

I had a minute to talk with her privately. “How have you been?” I asked.

“It’s been fun traveling with Daring,” she said.

“I’m glad you’re happy.”

Trixie smiled. “Thank you for approving. You know, I could help you find a special somepony, too.”

“Trixie, we’ve been over this.”

“I know, but I don’t want to see you alone and bored. It might not hurt you to loosen up a little.”

I gave her a look. “Are you saying that you want your dear old dad to shack up with a hot piece of ass?”

“No, not a donkey,” said Trixie. We both chuckled.

I turned my eyes to the rest of the group. Rarity was wearing a hat covered in diamonds the size of baseballs. A few sequins go a long way; even I knew that. However, I had more important things on my mind. I was going to strike up a conversation with the group about cowardice, particularly in the face of enemies who were chained to a wall, but Pinkie, Gummy, and Pinkie’s sister Maude arrived just then.

Maud had brought a pet of her own, a small rock who she introduced as Boulder.

“But wait,” I said. “A boulder is technically defined as a rock that is more than ten inches in diameter.”

“It’s an affectionate ironic name,” Maud explained, her voice monotonous. “I am impressed that you got the joke, though. Most ponies don’t know the difference between a rock and a boulder.”

“I used to live with a guy who was a geologist,” I explained. I knew that would pay off eventually.

“Maud’s about to go off on a trip to get her rocktorate in rock science,” Pinkie put in. “She know so much about rocks! She even discovered this special kind of rock that I put in my special rock candy!”

“So you know about rocks?” I asked. “Know where I can get uranium?”

Maud nodded. “Yes, but why would you want that?”

“Don’t ask,” said Twilight, hurriedly changing the subject. “How about we all sit down and have a snack?”

I guess I couldn’t really turn down free food. We all sat on the picnic blanket.

“Maud, would you like to try one of the Apple Family’s famous apple spiced muffins?” asked Applejack.

Maud looked at the basket of muffins and then picked out a large diamond that had apparently fallen off Rarity’s hat. She ate it, crunching in what I assumed was bored pleasure. Everyone stared. Tough teeth, I suppose.

I took my share of muffins. The conversation turned to fun and games. Maud suggested a game where she hid her pet rock and everyone else had to find it, picking through all the other rocks in the field.

“I’m not sure my pet T-Rex would be suitable,” Trixie said. “Little arms, you know.”

“I’ve seen a lot of fossils,” Maud said deadpan as she eyed Rexy, the animate dinosaur skeleton. “Although not usually outside of rocks.”

“Wait, fossils?” I paused. “Hmm, you probably know a lot about evolution then.”

“What about it?” she asked.

“Well, we can basically prove then that the Princesses aren’t really the god-rulers that they’re made out to be.”

“Princesses aren’t god-rulers!” Twilight shouted.

“Yeah, and now I can prove it!” I exclaimed. “This planet is millions and billions of years old!”

“Something like that,” Maud agreed.

“So…this universe wasn’t just created by your exes?” Trixie asked quietly.

I shrugged. “When it turned into a real universe then maybe a history was created, too. Either way, this is propaganda I can use. Excuse me.”

I left the group and went back to Ponyville to scheme.

The rest of the day, I saw Maud around various places, hanging out with Pinkie’s friends. She made a fool out of Rainbow Dash by showing an impressive amount of strength in rock-throwing, so of course I liked her.

I stayed in the library. The ponies chained up downstairs stayed quiet, thankfully. I worked more on my extendo boxing glove. It was pretty much perfected, but I hadn’t gotten a chance for field testing. It still made the amusing sproing noise.

It was kind of boring just hanging out. I’d already gone through the library’s fiction books, the magic books, the nautical books, and whatever else that I cared about. I was on the verge of having to resort to more inspired entertaining of myself, but luckily Pinkie came by and mentioned something about a Pinkie-Rainbow-Rari-Twi-Apple-Flutter-Maud Fun Time.

Whatever it was, it sounded better than hanging around the library and doing nothing. I went with Pinkie to the edge of town where she had built a huge obstacle course.

“It combines everypony's interests into one giant activity that we can all enjoy together and that will totally bring my sister and all of my bestest friends together as bestestest friends!” Pinkie explained.

“Nobody likes obstacle courses,” I said.

“Really?” Pinkie frowned. “I think Rainbow Dash does.”

“My statement stands.”

Regardless of what I thought, everyone came out in an attempt to be friends with Maud. Concurrent with my opinion, most of them seemed reluctant to do the obstacle course. Pinkie seemed dejected, but donned a snorkel and demonstrated the course for her friends. She was almost all the way through when a giant boulder tried to crush her.

There was a pile of rocks and Pinkie was stuck halfway up. Everyone freaked out as the biggest rock on top the pile started to fall, but none of them actually did anything. Twilight could have used her famous magic, Rainbow could have swooped in, Applejack could have used her earth pony strength to kick the boulder away.

Instead, it was me who sprang into action, taking out my long range extendo boxing glove and pummeling Pinkie out of the way. Sproing!

I was a little worried about hurting her, but luckily, she bounced. See, Pinkie is a lot like a balloon, right down to the cutie mark. She even makes weird noises when she rubs on things.

With Pinkie out of the way, the boulder continued its slide down the rock pile, straight towards the rest of us. I calmly stepped aside, cooler than Indiana Jones in the face of an oncoming boulder. The rest scattered, all except for Maud. She gave the boulder about to crush her a bored look, and then raised a hoof, punching it in half.

There was a stunned silence as Maud brushed some dust off her coat. I was the first to speak. “They teach you some good stuff at rock science school.”

“Actually, they won’t let you in unless you can do that.” Maud shrugged. “It’s just an application of earth pony magic.”

“You don’t say,” I mused. My thinking gears were fully engaged. Damn right I wanted to learn how to break boulders.

“How in Equestria did you do that?” asked Rarity, as the rest of them joined the conversation.

“And how did you move so fast?” said Rainbow.

Pinkie arrived just then, at some point having swapped out her snorkel for an imperial German helmet. “Wow, everypony! Who knew the obstacle course would bring you all together so quickly!”

“We’re not all together,” Maud said. “I’m only friends with Valiant. He’s the only one who knows anything about rocks.”

“Suck it, bitches,” I laughed at the rest. That kind of made them angry. All except for Pinkie, who giggled.

“This is the best thing ever! I don’t think I’ve ever seen Maud so excited to make a friend!”

We all looked at Maud. She blinked and stared back.

“Um, really?” Twilight said.

“I don't know if you've noticed, but I don't show my enthusiasm for things quite in the same way my sister does,” Maud said. “Valiant is a good friend. He actually does things, for example springing into action when my sister’s life is in danger. I think you could learn a lot from him.”

“Learn friendship from Valiant?” Twilight sputtered.

“Well, it’s not like you already know everything there is to know about friendship,” I said.

“Of course I do!” Twilight retorted. “I’m the Element of Magic! I ascended into alicornhood!”

“Big deal.” I waved a hoof. “My ex girlfriend was an alicorn just because she wanted to be. Post Haste, that bad guy we killed, was evil and yet still evolved. We know evolution is a natural process; just ask Maud about fossils. Besides, if you knew everything there is to know about friendship, then why does Celestia have you keep writing in that friendship journal? Furthermore, I was involved in the spell that gave you those wings. And I can take them back if I wanted - I'm the admin-moderator-god of this universe. Face it, Twi, you’re only an alicorn because I allow you to be.”

I dropped the microphone and walked away. I made a mental note that I would have to pick up another mic to drop for the next time that I needed to do so. They were handy to have around, such as when you really wanted to have the perfect end to a verbal beatdown.

I went back to Ponyville to the library. I was feeling pretty good about myself. Any day when I bested Twilight in a battle of wits was a good day. However, as I reached the library and went inside, I was greeted with something that took my good mood away. Princess Luna was there, and she wanted me to work.

I rolled my eyes. “Fine, what do you need?”

Luna indicated Sweetie Belle, who was also there. “This young filly came to me about finding a new home. Due to circumstances, she tells me she has to leave Ponyville. Since you know her, I'd like you to help.”

Oh right, Sweetie's cover as a ninja had been blown. I said, “Okay, fine. Anything specific?”

“I'll need you to stay here in town just in case other business comes up,” Luna said. “So you wont't be able to physically accompany her.”

“So...what do you want me to do?”

“As you know, I have the ability to visit dreams,” Luna said. “We can use this same process for you to set up a connection in order to assist Sweetie.”

I looked at Sweetie. “Are you okay with this?”

She shrugged. “I guess. I mean, I don't really have much choice. I just wish I could get back to some sense of normality. Things have been so hectic lately.”

“I can sympathize,” Luna said.

“Not really,” I said. “You're a princess. She's a filly who is being forced to move away from home. Not much similarity there.”

“I meant that things have been hectic for me,” Luna said. She paused. “Maybe...maybe I could use a vacation.”

“We can all use some vacation now and then,” I agreed.

“But who's going to take care of dreams while you're gone?” asked Sweetie.

Luna frowned. “I would have to choose carefully, as the dreamscape is no easy place to understand, much less command. It would have to be somepony with a strong mind and advanced knowledge of intangible metaphysical concepts.”

“Like Valiant?” Sweetie suggested. Luna looked at her, surprised at first, but then thoughtful. They both turned to look at me.

“Uh...” I said.

But anyway, that's how I became Mr. Sandman.

For Whom the Sweetie Belle Toils

There’s no academy for Dream Police. Not that I would have gone anyway, because I do what I want. Despite that, the proper policing of the pony dreamscape was going to go on regardless.

Just as soon as I could convince Luna to entrust me with the task.

“It’s not like I’ll be alone,” I argued. “Sweetie will be with me.”

“Adding a filly assistant to help you doesn’t necessarily mean less trouble will happen.” Luna stared at me. “Perhaps agreeing to this was a bad idea.”

“Well, you can either do that or I’ll offer a little incentive,” I said.

Luna’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”

“I was recently contacted by a few ponies that you may have heard of,” I said. “They’re the Flim Flam Brothers.”

Luna’s face only grew more suspicious.

I went on. “See, they have this product called Powerthirst. I don’t know what the active ingredient is, but they said it would make everyone so energetic that it would practically wake the dead. I figured if I dump enough of it in the water supply, nopony will ever sleep again.” I stared at Luna. “No sleep, no dreams.”

Luna carefully composed herself before replying. “Valiant, do you realize that you slip closer and closer to being a terrorist every time you open your mouth?”

That hit me like a punch to the gut. How dare she! But…

“Then I’ll have the Flim Flam Brothers destroy the supply of their beverage that is poised to enter the municipal water facility if you grant me access to the dream world while you are on vacation.”

“That’s the exact same offer, except worded more positively,” Luna protested.

“It’s better than the alternative,” I pointed out. “Like I said, I didn’t ask what the stuff is made of. It could be hazardous. Nobody wants that around.”

“Hey,” said Sweetie Belle, breaking in, “Taking care of the dream world; somepony has to do it, right? I mean, I think I can keep Valiant from doing anything crazy. I know the two of us get along well, and I’m more capable than most ponies, especially my sister, think.”

“Rarity on you about something again?” I asked.

“She’s just so vocal about me having to leave Ponyville because of the ninja thing.” Sweetie sighed.

“I can sympathize,” Luna said.

“Not really,” I retorted. “You're a princess. She's a filly who is being forced to move away from home. Not much similarity there.”

I frowned. “Wait, didn’t we already have this conversation about sympathizing?”

“I meant that both of us have sisters that can sometimes be slightly overbearing,” Luna said.

“So take a vacation,” I prodded.

Luna stared at me for several seconds before sighing. “All right, I will. But if I come back and the dream world is in shambles, I will be holding you accountable, Valiant.”

That was nothing new, being held accountable for something. Sweetie and I waited while Luna packed up her things. She filled her suitcase, and put on a hat and sunglasses.

“Now then,” said Luna, coming over to us. “Let me perform the spell that will allow the two of you to roam the dreamscape.” Her horn lit up, and she cast a spell.

“Oh, okay,” I said, recognizing some of the tell-tale things from the library books I had been reading recently. They were some from Twilight’s special extra-secret magic section. “That’s just a simple keying spell, that sort of lets us through the proverbial locked door that keeps everypony else out of dream control.”

“You weren’t supposed to know that!” Luna groaned. “This was just supposed to be a temporary pass to let you in!”

“Well, it’s not my fault your security sucks and now I know how to recreate the spell.” I shrugged.

Luna gritted her teeth. “You’d need somepony with a horn to cast it.”

“Trixie would. Sunset would if I told her to. Twilight would if I conned her.”

Luna looked like she was about to say something, but changed her mind and stalked away, carrying her suitcase.

I turned to Sweetie. “You ready?”

“I guess.” She frowned. “But I’m not sleepy. It’s also not even night.”

“That is a problem.” I frowned. “I wouldn’t feel right giving a kid tequila for relaxation and sleeperation purposes. Plus, it might affect my dreams and I would want to be at my prime for this.”

“So…food coma?” Sweetie suggested.

I nodded and smiled. “Let’s go to Joe’s.”

We left the castle and went across the street to the donut shop. While a food coma was a great way to visit the dream world, we only had donuts to work with. That would give us a sugar rush that would only eventually lead to a blood glucose crash. My poor pancreas had seen worse, although it wasn’t like I was going to let one organ hold me back anyway.

Sweetie and I chowed on donuts. Joe kept bringing them, although I could see he was suspicious about a filly and a grown stallion who clearly weren’t relatives eating snack food together.

I picked up another donut that had little colored decorations all over it and stuffed it in my mouth in one bite. I looked at Joe, who was staring disapprovingly.

“Really rustles your jimmies,” I said.

Through my mouthful of donut, Joe somehow understood. Maybe he was used to customers talking that way. He shook his head. “You cannot even imagine how unrustled my jimmies are.”

“Wait, I thought they were called sprinkles?” said Sweetie.

“So does it wrinkle your sprinkles, Joe?” I asked.

He stared at me and gestured at the rack of pastries behind him. “It doesn’t even jitter my fritters.”

“So if you were in the potato chip business it might jingle your Pringles?” I thought for a moment. “Eh, copyrighted name. Let’s go back to the fritters. Applejack makes fritters. How can we make fun of her in this conversation?”

“Or maybe make fun of my sister and her clothing?” Sweetie suggested. “It would really stem her hems.”

“We could do something with Fluttershy,” I said. “Who do you call to pet-sit when you’re away? She’ll sitter your critters.”

“I swear I’ll hammer your head open if you keep going,” threatened Joe.

“Oh, a sledge pledge?” I asked.

We went on like that for a while before Joe threw us out. Totally worth it. Especially when I got to the part about how if Trixie ever got insultingly low pay for a magic show inside a prison, I’d need something that monitored her anger and gave the results on a nice paper printout – a stage mage cage wage rage gauge page.

Anyway, after all that Seussing, the dreams turned out to be relatively tame. When we got to sleep, that is. I rented a hotel room with two beds, and Sweetie and I dropped into our sugar comas right on schedule.

The dream world was at first hard to tell from the real one. You first had to realize you were dreaming and then start putting some mental effort into making changes. With a little practice I was able to get the hang of manipulating things.

The dreamverse spread out like a great starmap, plotting out nebulas of dreams. I could sort of see why it was Luna’s domain. It did bring up a good question of what had happened to the place while she was Nightmare Mooning it up.

I did pick out a few dreams that I really wanted to check out. I glanced around for Sweetie. “Hey, do your ninja tricks work here, too?”

“I guess.” She shrugged. “I mean, this is like the ultimate in lucid dreaming. We can basically do whatever we want.”

Yay!

So we did whatever we wanted. There was trolling in large amounts.

Well, maybe only in little amounts. Had to maintain the semblance of responsibility, after all.

Time passed. It being a dream we could go as fast or slow as we wanted. More dreamers began to appear as the sun set and ponies began going to sleep.

It was an incredible boon to intelligence gathering. Here before me, I had access to the inner thoughts of every pony. Some were on the surface, like Rainbow Dash, who dreamt of being a dragon. Some I had to dig for, like Twilight, who after I prodded her subconscious long enough admitted that she didn’t really like books themselves but instead adored the information they contained.

While the revelation about Twilight wasn’t particularly surprising-get her some internet, folks-the fact that I uncovered nothing embarrassing was kind of surprising. Guess she didn’t have any dirty secrets. Or maybe they were just really well buried. Could she do a memory spell on herself so that something wouldn’t even show up in her subconscious?

Although speaking of secrets, I soon stumbled on Sunset Shimmer. She was dreaming of…me.

Maybe I shouldn’t have stared. That did feel rather self-indulgent of me. Luckily, Sweetie came along just then. “Wow, that’s so touching! She’s really got a thing for you, Valiant!”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Sweetie turned to me. “When you get back to the real world, you should ask her on a date or something.”

“But…won’t I have to explain why I thought it would be okay? She wouldn’t like that I was snooping around in her dreams. What makes you qualified to give relationship advice anyway? How old are you, ten?”

“I’m just saying, she’s clearly interested in you.” Sweetie shrugged. “You’re the manipulative type. Get her to ask you out instead.”

“Hey, what’s that over there!” I pointed and galloped away across the dreamscape.

It turned out to be Trixie…who was also thinking about me. In a family sort of way, though, which made it way less awkward.

At a glance, I could see that she wasn’t having such a good time of it. As little as she wanted to do with her biological family, she still wanted to know that they were all right.

Hmm. Well, I did have this super big dreamscape in which to locate ponies…

I didn’t know who or where Trixie’s parents were. In fact, all I had to go on was the tip Guinness had given me about Trixie’s grandmother. He’d only vaguely described where she lived, but I did manage to find her.

And when I got there, she was dreaming about Trixie, too. Granted, she hadn’t seen Trixie since she was a little filly, but it would have been heartwrenching as hell, if I actually cared about that sort of thing.

I do have a heart, but it doesn’t give a damn either.

Anyway, I did drop some calming mojo into Trixie’s grandmother’s dream. Old folks need their rest. However even as she relaxed, I wasn’t able to learn anything. She didn’t know where Trixie’s parents were, though there was a faint clue about Trixie’s brother.

Trixie had mentioned her brother to me once. She’d gone looking for him because she’d thought he was in danger. Then she got all caught up in other things like revenge against Twilight and nuclear radiation and never completed her search for him.

I took another look at her grandmother’s dreams. She knew Trixie’s brother might have been in Trottingham at one point, but it had been so long since anyone had seen him.

I made a mental note to act on later, in the real world, and moved on. Trixie would be happy to learn that I’d found her grandmother. I’d have to do more digging for the rest of her family.

Not much else happened. Sweetie and I had just about decided that it was going to be a boring night in the dreamscape. She’d entertained herself trying to decide on a place to relocate. She’d already officially left Ponyville and still had yet to find a new home.

Looking around, I spotted the dreams of Rainbow Catcher. Intrigued as to what a demonic young filly might be up to, I popped in for a look.

Catcher turned to stare at me. “This is my dream.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m not just a part of it?”

She turned to face me fully and spread her little wings to look bigger. She snarled, “I’ve been alive for more centuries than you can count. I have mastered the technique of controllable, lucid reveries. I know when one intrudes upon my dreams, mortal.”

“Pardon me, but the name’s Plymouth Valiant, and I killed a lot of people to get the respect and distinction to be addressed as such.”

“Um, since when does killing people merit that?” Sweetie asked.

“You have to agree, most of them were bad and/or monsters and therefore not really people,” I said. “I just used ‘people’ to signify all their collective lives that I ended.”

“Then why didn’t you just say that you took a lot of lives?” Catcher asked.

I gritted my teeth. “Shut up, that’s why.”

“Mortal, you are cruising for a bruising,” Catcher growled, baring her hellish totally-not-fit-for-a-baby teeth.

“Wait, where did you learn a phrase like that?” I asked.

“Tom Cruise is part of my religion. Why does it matter? I’m going to tear you limb from limb.” She was positively reeking of anger now, and her eyes had started to flow red.

I shrugged. “You know, you’d be intimidating if you were, well, intimidating.”

For future reference, that’s the exact trigger it takes for a demonic filly to leap at your throat.

Sweetie and I ran. I was still kind of getting used to this whole dreamy thing and hadn’t yet experimented with the fighting aspects. Catcher apparently knew quite a bit about that, given her age.

Luckily, by the power vested in me by Luna, I was still the dream master, and had some tricks up my sleeve. I took note of our surroundings, which was a dreamified version of Ponyville. I figured it was easy for Catcher to dream that, being it was where she currently resided. Luckily, I too knew Ponyville very well.

So she chased us all around the dreamy town. I guess she was too busy focusing on the hunt to dream up some NPC ponies to populate the dream town, so it remained utterly silent and still except for Catcher, Sweetie, and I.

Catcher had her tricks, and we had ours. She threw fireballs and tentacles and stuff, while Sweetie had summoned her katana and I was doing pretty good with my extendo boxing glove. Maybe not so badass, but this was a dream – the sillier the better.

I used my tail to zipline from one building to another. Sweetie briefly lost her weapon and made due with a swordfish. We did that thing with a hallway that has lots of doors and everyone is going in and out but never in and out of the doors they were in originally. It was all pretty Scooby Doo. I even hummed the chase music.

We eventually ended up at the school, which was filled with the normal classroom items. The large mechanical adding machine, the thing that would be replaced if ponies ever invented small solar cells, liquid crystal displays, and integrated calculator circuits, was knocked to the floor as we burst into the room. Papers and homework flew everywhere.

Catcher had somehow obtained the swordfish and went back and forth across the room in a duel with Sweetie. The two of them were locked in intense concentration. Neither noticed when I picked up the adding machine and brought it crashing down on Catcher’s head. She was knocked out stone cold and I hope she woke up in her bed screaming. That would serve her, Rainbow, and Guinness right.

After conking someone in the head with an old-school calculator, there was really only one thing to do. Sweetie and I slipped on our sunglasses and I said, “I guess Rainbow Catcher wasn’t counting on that.”

And then, this being a dream, David Caruso appeared in a fanfare of The Who.

So I woke up.

Of all the things I wasn’t expecting to see on my bed in that hotel room in Canterlot, it was Twilight.

As my eyes opened, she threw a hooful of paperwork in my face and shouted, “I give up! There is no such place as Tiny Vamp Atoll!”

I sat up and stared at all the notes she’d taken. Twilight had apparently ordered translations on every geography book ever written and nowhere in any of them was mention of an island with that name. She’d also crossreferenced everything else that might have to do with tiny things or vamp things.

“First off, why are you here?” I asked.

“I was so frustrated that I reached a breaking point and simply couldn’t continue!” she complained. “So I used a tracking spell to try and find Princess Luna, but apparently it needs tweaking because it brought me to you instead.”

“Well, you know why you didn’t find anything, right?” I said. I yawned. Man, I was still tired and not really thinking straight.

“Why?” Twilight demanded.

“Well, you remember when I first found that note on the keytar. It said that it came from ‘Uh…Tiny Vamp Atoll?’”

“Just ‘Tiny Vamp Atoll,’” Twilight corrected.

I shook my head. “No, the ‘uh’ was an integral part of it. It was on the note I found. I even tried to correct you. Remember when I invited you guys to the basement? Just before that you were talking about your findings and I repeated verbatim what the note said.”

Twilight’s eye twitched. “So I’ve not been looking for an island at all? Or I’ve been looking for an island called Uh Tiny Vamp Atoll?”

I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Go be neurotic somewhere else.”

Twilight let out an extended frustrated grunt and teleported out. I rolled my eyes, sighed, and then lay back down to reenter dreamland.

Leap of Faith

“Why do you wear your hat when you swim?” I asked.

Applejack frowned. “Well, why would I take it off?”

“Oh, I don’t know…it might get wet or something?”

“Well yeah, but so does the rest of me.” Applejack shrugged. “I mean, it takes my fur a little while to dry, and it takes the hat a little while to dry too.”

“Hair,” I said.

Applejack looked at me. “Huh?”

“Ponies have hair, not fur.”

“Says who?”

“Says me. We can argue all you want about terminology, but at the end of the day there is no overwhelming evidence to prove that I’m wrong.”

“Any overwhelming evidence that you’re right?” Applejack asked.

Clever girl. “Shut up.”

Applejack turned away and went back to swimming with her family. She, Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh liked to come to the swimming hole. Apparently it had been a favorite of Granny Smith.

Granny, before she died of supercancer, had apparently been into aquabatics and had discovered the family swimming hole. She’d also been a high diver and had once jumped six stories into a deep dish pie pan.

I left the Apple Family farm and headed back towards town. I’d really only been there long enough to ask about Applejack’s hat. That might tell you how bored I was today.

Fortunately, a welcome distraction presented itself. I noticed a large tent set up outside of town. Music was playing gaily from inside. I headed in that direction.

When I got to the tent, I encountered Sir Win coming out. He looked a little disappointed.

“The music was playing gaily, not gayly,” he said.

“Sorry to hear that.”

He went on his way and I stepped into the tent.

It wasn’t a circus, but that didn’t hurt my feelings any. Aside from not being a fan of clowns, I might have had to pay an admission fee. Instead, the tent had been set up for selling things. Near the musical calliope at the front, there was a curtain behind which bottles of green liquid were stacked. They were all labeled “Powerthirst.”

Just then, the Flim Flam Brothers stepped out onto the stage. I had seen them around before, and I knew that they had helped Trixie defeat an evil alien a while back. They were generally okay guys, but you always had to be wary that they were about to scam you.

Just like you, Valiant, said my conscience.

“What the hell? Since when do I have a conscience?”

“Quiet,” shushed a pony in the crowd. Just then, the Flim Flam Brothers began their little song and show routine.

“Do you sometimes feel tired?” asked one of them.

“Do you wonder if there is some way to give yourself a little boost of energy?” said the other.

“Or maybe a biiiig boost!”

“Well, ladies and gentlecolts, we have the solution!”

“It’s Powerthirst, our patented formula for giving you unsafe levels of energy!”

“Hang on, what do you mean by ‘unsafe?’” asked one of the audience members.

“I’m glad you asked,” said Flim.

“Because it just so happens that we have a long time Powerthirst user here with us today,” responded Flam. “Mister Blaster, come up here, please.”

A grey stallion with big sunglasses and a long flowing mane came up on the stage.

“Tell the nice folks what Powerthirst has done for you.”

“It’s totally the best, brah,” said the guest. “It gives me energy and stuff. The unsafe thing is how many mares it attracts. They’re all over me. Radical, brah.”

“And there are no side effects!”

Mister Blaster showed off his teeth, which were all pearly white and perfectly straight.

“So it’s just an energy drink?” some other pony called.

“It’ll make everypony so energetic that it can practically make the dead get up and dance!”

“Does it do anything else?” questioned another member of the crowd.

“Oh, it does much more than that!”

“Like what?” the townspony asked. “Can it disinfect?”

“If you say so.”

“Alcohol does that, too,” I commented to myself.

“Does it make your breath fresher?” someone asked.

“Sure, why not?”

“Can it make me musically talented and famous?” said someone else standing nearby.

“As it happens…” The Flim Flam Brothers suddenly swapped outfits, eschewing their traditional boater hats and striped shirts for do rags and sagging pants. One did the beat and the other dropped the lyrics.

Powerthirst! Make it big!

Powerthirst! Have a swig!

Powerthirst! It’s for you!

Powerthirst! Nice and smooth!

Powerthirst! Pumps you up!

Powerthirst! You’re not a chump!

Powerthirst! Makes you fast!

Powerthirst! You won’t be last!

Powerthirst! Makes you strong!

Powerthirst! All day long!

Powerthirst! Makes you sweat!

Powerthirst! It’s the best!

Powerthirst! All the time!

Powerthirst! Outta rhymes!

Powerthirst! Energy!

Powerthirst! Give your bits to me!

Ponies in Ponyville were not fans of rap.

Having said that, they still bought the shit out of the Powerthirst.

I decided not to buy any. I mean, if I was energetic, somebody might ask me to do something. Work, probably. Besides, something else was on my mind. I couldn’t quite remember what it was, but something about Powerthirst didn’t seem right.

The Flim Flam Brothers had pitched me the product and I’d used it to threaten - I mean convince - Luna into giving me control of the dreamscape. Despite that, and them showing up in Ponyville to sell it, I still didn’t know much about the stuff.

I headed back to the library. I found Sunset down in the basement. She was working on the magic converter that we had used to create a charge big enough to send me on my last trip to Earth.

“Do you have my notes somewhere?” I asked.

She looked up from her work. “What notes? I didn’t know you kept any.”

“I don’t, usually. I’m talking about anything I may have written down, as a reminder to myself or whatever.”

“Well, let me see…” Sunset walked across the basement laboratory, carefully avoiding the loose floorboards that covered the portal to Hell. Digging in a box, she produced several hoofuls of writing paper that bore my distinctive scribble.

“You kept all this?” I asked. “Like…obsessively keeping everything I ever wrote as some sort of memento of me?”

“Um…” Sunset’s face flushed.

“Thanks!” I grabbed the page I wanted and set it down on the lab table. I had written it during a drunk spell back about the time of the breezy incident. My eyes scanned the list.

Track universal transit progress of USS Milwaukee

Keep training for Equestria Games to represent Milwaukee

Speak to seaponies - Re: failed conquest of Milwaukee Manehattan

Do something with that stuff I stole

Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes also into you

Create more anagrams to confuse Twilight

POWERTHIRST = CRYSTAL METH IN A CAN

I facehoofed. “Powerthirst is crystal meth!”

“Is that bad?” Sunset asked.

“Very bad,” I confirmed. “I just let the Flim Flam Brothers sell narcotics to the whole town. ‘It’ll make everypony so energetic that it can practically make the dead get up and dance’ my ass.”

“What do we do?” she asked, concerned.

“Well…methamphetamine isn’t illegal here. Hell, the whole Crystal Empire is made of the stuff. I guess I’ll just have to run a massive, nationwide public health campaign and educate ponies on the dangers of drug use.”

I shrugged. “Or something. I’ll get to it eventually.”

I passed the ponies who I’d captured and were still chained to the basement wall and went upstairs. Since I was in the library, I thought I might do some research.

When in the dreamland, I had discovered Trixie’s grandmother and the fact that her brother’s last known location was Trottingham. It was easy enough to find a Trottingham address book on the shelf and look up the residents.

I browsed for a few minutes, eventually coming across a name. My eyes narrowed in suspicion, but then widened at the implications. Trixie’s brother was named Glimmer Spark. He’d stolen my identity a while back.

It was not really a huge blip in my personal memory. I’d tracked him down. After that, things got fuzzy, but he stopped posing as me.

Still, I would have thought that I would remember personally taking care of him. I mean, obviously whatever I had done had worked because I never heard from him again.

But then it hit me. Literally. I’d been bucked in the face and that’s why I couldn’t remember so quickly. Glimmer, a unicorn, had been magically posing as me. He had used the trick to get close to Cheerilee. I don’t really know why he did that or her personal beef with him, but she ripped out his throat. Then, when I came to congratulate her on taking care of my problem, she kicked me and I blacked out.

Aside from suddenly remembering that I owed Cheerilee a literal headache from that, the consequences were huge. I knew who Trixie’s brother was, I knew that he hadn’t been on the level, and I knew that Cheerilee had murdered him.

Talk about family affairs.

Quite obviously, this raised a host of problems. Did I tell Trixie, have her get mad at Cheerilee, and ashamed of her brother? Did I just keep quiet, keeping a secret from Trixie and not giving her closure?

Well damn, this sounded like a problem for tequila.

On the other hand, what if I went to talk to Cheerilee? At least then I could feel better about rubbing it in her face.

With that plan in mind, I gathered some equipment and happily trotted out the door. It was already afternoon and school should be getting out for the day.

When I arrived at the schoolhouse, I saw Cheerilee inside grading some papers. I came in and bolted to the floor a stout metal box with speakers on it. Around it, I set up an electric cage with a powerful charge.

“Valiant, what are you doing?” Cheerilee demanded. Several times.

“You’ll find out later,” I said. “Now, do you remember Glimmer Spark? He was a unicorn stallion, silver with a blue mane. He was posing as me and you killed him.”

“Yes, I remember,” Cheerilee said. “Why?”

“He was Trixie’s brother. Tell me how I’m going to explain to my little girl that you murdered her relative?”

Cheerilee shot me a look. “He was a bad pony.”

Oh. I paused. That changed things. “Yeah, I guess that is pretty good justification. I actually agree with you. Thanks for agreeing with me.”

Cheerilee did not appear to like the idea that we might have the same opinion on something. That was okay; it didn’t happen very often.

I turned to go. “Thanks. Anyway, this is for kicking me.” As I walked out the door, I pulled out a remote control and clicked the button. The equipment I had set up inside the school began to blare a deafening noise at about three kilohertz, the most common alarm clock frequency.

The player was sturdily built and the electric fence around it would make it harder to get to. Cheerilee might have been a vampire, but the shock would forcibly lock up her muscles if nothing else. Meanwhile, she would have to endure the piercing screech.

What can I say? When I owe someone a headache, I don’t screw around.

I walked back through town. Something strange had happened while I was gone. There was the swim meet that afternoon and the display of aquabatics, but that wasn’t the weird thing. Sure, synchronized swimming is one of the strangest sports I’d ever seen, but I’m talking about strange on a whole other level.

It was ponies on meth.

I stopped and stared. Sure enough, the Flim Flam Brothers were selling a product that gave you energy. Of course, they didn’t mention the side effects of psychosis and rotten teeth. In a town where everyone ate tons of sugar, it was hard to believe dental problems could get worse.

Oh, and the addiction. Flim and Flam were making money as fast as they could sell bottles of their beverage to repeat customers. The drugged ponies, those that weren’t failing badly at synchronized swimming or jumping six stories into a deep dish pie pan, were all gathered around the brothers’ wagon, trying to get more Powerthirst.

“Everypony just be patient!” I heard Flim call.

“There’s enough for you all, so stop pushing!” added Flam.

Both of them sounded a little flustered, and with good reason. The crowd was pushing closer and becoming more demanding.

The large tank of Powerthirst in the back of their wagon must have been very tempting, because a couple of ponies skipped the line and began trying to help themselves. Flim and Flam swatted the first few away, but their efforts were soon buried by the onrushing wave of meth heads.

The wagon rocked back and forth, threatening to tip over. The crowd shoved harder and the tank came loose, hitting the ground and rolling away. The addicted ponies tried to chase it, but were unsuccessful.

The tank rolled away down the hill out of Ponyville, gaining speed. It reached the precipice that overlooked the valleys below and shot into the air, flying away in a graceful arc that put it on course for the cemetery.

Even from so far away, I could hear the crash as the tank hit the ground among the headstones and burst apart. The green liquid inside splashed out, covering the earth in the cemetery and quickly soaking into the soil.

And suddenly nothing happened. Meth doesn’t bring the dead back to life. That would be stupid. In fact, research shows that it actually kills people. Don’t do drugs.

The crowd was silent for a long moment as they watched their stash disappear. Then, like ponies they were, they quietly went to the hospital and checked themselves in for rehab.

Although if you knew anything about ponies, you’d know that was a lie and that they actually freaked the hell out.

The Flim Flam Brothers, for all their flaws, had excellent self-preservation skills and began to sneak out of town as soon as they saw that there was going to be a problem. I intercepted them.

“Where did you get that stuff?” I asked.

They both choked and were unable to answer. I let up the pressure of my double headlock a little until they started to talk.

“We just found a natural spring of it,” gasped Flim.

“Where?” I asked.

“Crystal Empire,” wheezed Flam.

That made sense. “So it just bubbles up naturally? How come I never heard about this before?”

“Only just started. Something might be seeping into the local water supply. That spring was the strongest source of it, though.”

I let them both go. “Stay out of my territory.”

They skedaddled. The alleged Mister Blaster hurried after them. He made the mistake of getting too close to me and I punched him right out of his sunglasses and wig.

I picked up a golden bit that he had dropped and moseyed off towards the library, idly flipping the coin. Ponyville had become a massive den of meth addicts with no supply to sate them, and I knew where the source of that supply was.

So I said nothing and let them all go to rehab. So then, when even commoners were going, it make celebrity trips to rehab a lot less cool and several tabloids went out of business due to lack of readers.

All in all, not a bad day’s work.

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3

When I awoke that morning, I knew there would be problems that day. For starters, Rainbow was in the library. I got off the couch grumpily.

All I wanted to do was tackle the problem of the meth in the water supply, and Twilight was forcing Rainbow to study or something. In passing, I caught them talking about a Wonderbolts history exam. Heh, the Wonderbolts were history thanks to yours truly. That’s what they got for disagreeing with me.

Something about that thought seemed a little strange, but I was still too much in morning mode to give it a proper amount of pondering. I went to the kitchen for breakfast. Sunset was there, already setting up the stove.

“Good morning,” she said, turning to look at me as I entered.

“If you think so,” I replied. “Why the hell is Rainbow here?”

“She’s studying to be a Wonderbolt. I hear that they, um, need new recruits.” Sunset looked guilty about something. I wondered what it was.

While I tried to muddle through my morning state of mind, Sunset cracked some eggs and made some toast. By the time she set a steaming plate of breakfast goodness down in front of me, I had a reasonable idea what was bothering her. By the time I had finished eating, I was sure.

“Are you feeling sorry for what happened to the Wonderbolts?”

Sunset nodded. “A little bit, yes.”

I paused and thought a little more. “Do you like beating ponies up?”

“Er…” Sunset stalled, looking conflicted. “I mean, I wouldn’t have been a bad pony if I didn’t enjoy some part of it. I keep using as an example that one time when I tried to enslave a high school, but honestly it’s a good illustration for a lot of things, including my love of tormenting others.”

Sunset paused. “But I know it’s not something that is socially acceptable and I haven’t done anything like that since. Except for the times when you told me to.”

“Oh, okay.” I grabbed some more toast and was halfway through buttering it when I stopped, a sudden thought occurring to me. “So…should I tell you to beat up some more ponies? Can I depend on you to do that?”

“Uh…” Sunset looked lost. “I mean, I’d do it, if you asked. I know society as a whole wouldn’t approve, but… but I’d love to be somepony important to you.”

“Thanks. That’s good to know.” I went back to buttering the toast.

After finishing with breakfast, I left the kitchen. Twilight was instructing Rainbow on how to properly highlight. I was a little surprised Twilight would condone defacing a book, but more surprised that she would be okay with using a highlighter held in one’s mouth. The fumes so close to Rainbow’s nose might turn it into a highlighter.

However, Twilight did eventually relent and move on to other methods of study. She rolled out a chalkboard and proclaimed that she was going to give Rainbow a history lecture, just like in school.

“Is it snack time? Or recess?” Rainbow asked.

“No.” Twilight looked annoyed. She hadn’t even started talking yet. While Twilight didn’t often talk about herself, she did like to talk in general, and interrupting her might have dire consequences.

“Can’t we just watch the history of the Wonderbolts movie?” Rainbow asked.

“No!”

“Hang on, why not?” I asked. “I mean, it’s especially designed to teach the history of the Wonderbolts. Heck, if it’s an official production it might even cover the exact answers that the test will require.”

My comment successfully inserted, Twilight and Rainbow got into an argument over the validity of the movie. It was basically like a lecture, except given by a movie projector. Twilight probably just resented that it wasn’t her doing the talking.

The rhythm of their banter inspired Spike and Owlowiscious to form a little backup group that provided a beat to the bickering.

Eventually, Twilight decided to just move onto another form of study. Her most favorite study method of all: flashcards.

If I had hands, I would have waved them all about in a jazzy style. “Aw shit, now it’s getting real.”

Twilight was not amused. “Valiant, don’t you have anything else to do today?”

“No.”

Twilight sighed and turned away, closing her eyes to begin reciting from memory. “Colonal Purple Dart, the leader of the Wonderbolts in the fourth Celestial Era, was known for his-”

Rainbow shot down the card with a spit wad.

Twilight jerked in surprise and glared at me. “Valiant, what did you do?”

“What? It wasn’t me!”

“Oh yeah?”

I rolled my eyes. “Twilight, when was the last time I straight-up denied something? If anything, I would have been intentionally vague. Also, I wouldn’t have used a spitwad. Come on, you know me.”

Twilight frowned and then looked at Rainbow, just in time to stop another spit wad right in front of her face. “Agh! Rainbow Dash, you could have hurt me!”

“With a spit wad?” Rainbow said around the straw in her mouth.

“A spit wad to the eye would have been no laughing matter.” Twilight crimped the straw and dropped it. Now that was cold – crimping someone else’s straw.

They started arguing again. Rainbow completely failed a pop quiz that Twilight gave her.

So they argued some more. This time, Rainbow was taking shots at Twilight’s famous study methods. “I don’t see why I have to take this lousy test anyway!”

“Knowing history actually is beneficial!”

“Yeah,” I added. “That’s how we know Communists can never be trusted.”

I’d hoped to derail both of their trains of thought, but mostly Twilight and Rainbow ignored me and kept trading verbal barbs back and forth.

I got bored – finally – and went back into the library. Sunset was reading a book on theoretical physics and had a few diagrams spread out in front of her.

“I was hoping you could help me with something,” she said. “I’m working on a little project.”

“What is it?” I asked, stepping closer.

“Remember the magic converter in the basement? I’m trying to engineer a more compact version. At the same time, I hope that I might enchant it in such a way that it can convert matter into magic, instead of just changing magic items into a more cohesive magic.”

“This sounds exactly like the kind of project that I should be working on,” I said. I paused to listen. It sounded like Twilight and Rainbow had quit their arguing and gone off somewhere. At that moment, Spike walked past us and exited the library wearing a director’s beret. Something was clearly afoot.

“Hold that thought,” I said to Sunset and headed for the door.

A stage had been hastily constructed nearby. Fluttershy and Spike had apparently put together a pet pageant purported to proliferate Rainbow’s understanding of the Wonderbolts’ past.

Oh, that was it? Just a benefit for Rainbow? Not interested, I turned around and headed back towards the library. From somewhere behind me, I heard Pinkie’s voice.

The world suddenly shifted to a narrow box format and went slightly blurry. Pastels and horrible clothing were everywhere. It looked like an out of date music video.

A simplistic, repetitive beat filled my ears and rapid scene changes flashed in front of my eyes. It was over in less than a minute, but it left me gasping for breath and confused. I stumbled into the center of town, catching myself on a cart that Big Macintosh was standing beside.

He looked at me curiously. I shook my head, managing to clear it. “Sorry. Flashbacks to the Great Hip Hop War of ’96.”

Filthy Rich approached just then, and Mac’s attention shifted away from me. Filthy was carrying a briefcase. “Mr. Macintosh, I believe this is what you were looking for.”

He opened the briefcase and a golden light spilled out. Mac said, “Eeyup.”

“Hang on,” I said. “What are you doing with Marcellus Wallace’s briefcase?”

Both Filthy and Mac stared at me. I shook my head. “Nevermind. I don’t want to know. Just if anyone asks you if you think he’s a bitch, say no.”

I went back towards the library. Along the way, a thought hit me. “Mr. Macintosh” could have been a reference to something else. However, I dismissed it. Filthy Rich was just stinking rich, not a villain. I’d already checked him out, me being suspicious of suspiciously wealthy people.

I spotted Pinkie, who was practicing rhymes and wearing an alarm clock on a rope around her neck. Other than the fact that she didn’t look like it, didn’t know how, and wasn’t really coming close at all, she could have been mistaken for Notorious P.I.E.

I got back to the library, but a whup whup whup noise distracted me. I looked up in the sky and saw Cherry Berry flying by in a pedal-powered helicopter. It was an upgrade from her usual hot air balloon, but the fact that she had a helicopter in the first place was a little unusual. It was quite a bit more sophisticated than Pinkie’s machine. Although, of course not as sweet as my own aircraft.

Still, ponies in helicopters pissed me off – not in general – just that day. I muttered under my breath a note to self to invent surface to air missiles.

Twilight came running up just then. “I’ve got a great idea to get Rainbow learning! We just have to set up reminders for her everywhere in town and have her fly over them.”

“Sounds complicated. Why do I care?”

“Well, since Sweetie has gone to live in parts unknown, I can’t really enlist the Crusaders to teach Rainbow about the EUP. We’d be short a unicorn.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not hard to remember. I mean, it’s only the three biggest pony races that you’ve lived with forever and interact with on a daily basis. Heck, you could even make up other things that EUP stands for just to drive home the point that it’s so simple.”

I cleared my throat. “For example, EUP could be the Extra Upper Peninsula, like Canada is to Michigan. If someone is really riding your ass about something, they could be Extremely Up your Pooter. That bad breakfast place down the block is Ernie's Undercooked Pancakes.”

“Rainbow already came up with that last one,” Twilight said.

“See, the system works.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Correlation doesn’t imply causation.”

“When was the last time something was just a coincidence around here?” I asked. “Does the phrase on the longest day of the thousandth year, the stars will aid in her escape ring a bell?”

Twilight looked like she wanted to argue, but instead shook her head and went off to organize the thing for Rainbow.

I went into the library. Pinkie was there, still dressed in her strange getup.

“Hey fool, you lookin’ for some love?” she asked.

I stared at her. “No.”

“Aw come on, Valiant,” she said, shedding her persona if not her outfit. “I’ve got to do something with all this rap culture I just now accumulated. I can at least be a pimp or something.”

“Are rappers normally pink lesbian mares who make candy?” I asked.

Pinkie thought about that. “No, I guess not.” She threw away all her rap stuff. This pleased me.

“But I can still do the whole love thing!” She grinned. “You know, Valiant, Sunset is really interested in you.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“You should get to know her better.”

I stared at Pinkie. “We’re roommates. We eat meals at the same table. We’re both keeping six mares chained to the basement wall.”

“Yeah, and you should get to know her better! Sure, you hang out a lot. Sure, you work well together. Sure you both do hardcore research on new and potentially destructive technologies. I’m just saying, maybe you should take it up another notch. At the end of the day, don’t you want to know that everything worked out for the best and you can…” she winked and nudged me “…ride off into the Sunset?”

I stared at her. “That was a lot of buildup for a pun.”

“Yeah. Anyway, have a super cool day, Valiant!” Pinkie bounced out the door.

“Who was that?” Sunset asked, coming into the room.

“Pinkie,” I said. “She says you and I should bang.”

“Oh, um…” Sunset flushed bright red and disappeared around the corner.

Later that day, Rainbow returned from her history exam. She came into the library to show off her results. She’d missed the question about EUP. Despite not being perfect on her history, the Wonderbolts had been forced to give her a passing grade.

“Guess you can’t be a dragon now that you’re going to be a Wonderbolt,” I said.

“Hey, how did you know about that?” Rainbow’s eyes narrowed.

“I think it’s wonderful that you attained your goal,” said Twilight.

Distracted, Rainbow chuckled. “Well, yeah, I am pretty awesome. Maybe I’ll even be promoted to a high level position. The Wonderbolts are looking for new recruits.”

That last sentence was true, even more so than she realized. After seeing what a dangerous job it was, many had abandoned their posts.

It was a little humbling, knowing that the mere threat of me could cause almost all of a military force to go AWOL. But then, that’s what they got for disagreeing with me.

Huh. There it was again, the faint sense that something wasn’t right. I thought about it a little. Hurting people because they didn’t share my point of view…

Oh, right. That was a bad thing to do and totally not in line with democracy.

Shit.

Here I’d spent so much time trying to get the universe to conform to my own vision that I’d forgotten to take into account basic decencies and rights. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I was kind of a dick.

No, actually, I was kind of a war criminal, if you wanted to be perfectly honest about it. Man, that was just the thing to ruin my day.

It wasn’t every day that I found out I was the villain in my own story. I mean, it had happened before, just not very often. Of course somebody had to be bad, but I just never expected that it would be me. However, this wasn’t the first time that this realization had happened. The ponies had run interventions for me before.

They hadn’t this time, mostly because I’d kept things under wraps and in the shadows. In a way, I was proud of that, learning to cover my tracks. At the same time, though, why was I hiding? That was what terrorists did – never showing their faces and attacking from the shadows.

“Valiant, are you all right?” asked Sunset. “You’ve been standing there with a glazed look on your face for five minutes.”

I shook my head. “I should…go camping. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. Just me and the great outdoors. Something to clear my head.”

I left the library. Twilight called after me. “Don’t you need camping gear?”

“Already got it. ‘Be prepared’ and all that.”

I walked for a long time, not bothering to look back. Those heavy-duty mental revelations can be a real bitch.

As it got dark that evening, I found a nice place and pitched my tent. One of the stakes was a little bent, but it wasn’t a big problem.

It had been a while since I’d gone camping, so I made sure everything was in order. The stove, oven, microwave, and all the kitchen appliances were good to go. I checked the closets and mattresses. It was really a very big tent, but I liked my space.

I was coming back downstairs when I heard a knock on the door. I unzipped the flap and saw Sunset standing there.

“Hey,” I said. “Did you follow me all the way out here?”

“Well, you just walked in circles around Ponyville for a few hours before pitching the tent right outside of town,” she said.

“My question stands.”

“I just thought you looked upset about something when you left and I wanted to make sure everything was okay.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, I’m good. I made my peace. I kind of realized that I need to be a little more understanding and less quick to murder. Also possibly relabel ‘murder’ as a more socially acceptable term.”

Sunset shifted her hooves as a cool evening breeze blew by. “They’re using the library to hold a ‘Congratulations on passing the Wonderbolts history test’ party.”

“That sucks.”

Sunset nodded. “I’m glad we think the same. I don’t know if I want to go back there tonight.”

She smiled as if an idea had just come to her. “Maybe I could share your tent.”

“Damn right you can. I didn’t get the extra large size for nothing.”

Trade Ya!

I heard Sunset come into my room. Her hooves on the canvas floor of the tent were quiet, but it couldn’t have been anyone else. I would have heard them unzip the tent’s front door flap.

I rolled off the bed and reached for the battery powered lantern; I didn’t trust the firefly ones. However, it didn’t turn on as I flipped the switch. I said, “Sunset, give me some light, will you?”

She stopped awkwardly and after a moment her horn lit up with the teal glow of her magic. She was just steps from my bed.

“Thanks,” I said, sitting upright. “What’s up?”

“I, um, was just thinking about you,” she said.

“Understandable. I mean, it’s not every day that you have to spend a night in a tent with me because of a wild party at the library.” I shrugged, but then stopped. “Unless there was some other reason?”

Sunset looked uncertain for a moment but then nodded resolutely. “Yes.”

“Oh really?” I said, my attention distracted.

She took a step closer. “That’s right.”

And then we screwed the battery cover back onto the lantern, after replacing the batteries.

“So why were you thinking about me?” I asked, setting the lantern down as I turned it on. “Hang on, wait.” I frowned. “Pinkie might not have even thrown a party. It could have been a plan to get the two of us together.” I jumped up and laughed triumphantly. “And now that I’ve figured it out, it won’t work! Pinkie, you think you’re so clever!”

From somewhere out in the darkness I thought I heard someone faintly reply, “Curses! Foiled again!”

“Anyway,” I said, turning back to Sunset, “thanks for the help.”

“Um, right,” she said.

I checked the time on the wall clock. “Hmm, maybe I should go back to sleep or maybe I should work on my gadgets. Actually, is that even a choice?”

I promptly started tinkering with my extendo boxing glove, getting that nice sproing noise from it.

Sunset sat and watched me, looking glum but occasionally making conversation. “So that magic converter I was talking about. I think it can be adapted for weaponry.”

She was trying hard to get my attention, I could tell, but if it was important I would either remember it or she would bring it up again. I was in the zone, so to speak.

In the morning, we packed up the tent and went back to Ponyville. It was time to take a train or something. As we walked, Sunset told me about a fashion show Rarity was going to be holding later.

“I’m going to be in it,” she said. “You should come.”

“Why?”

“Um, free snacks?”

“Cool. I’m in.”

Sunset went back to the library and I met up with the group who was going to Rainbow Falls. Pinkie was excited. Granted, that was a given for just about any situation you could think of, but the fact that I’m pointing it out should give extra emphasis to the fact that excited Pinkie is goddamn annoying. She’s a great baker and she really does love her some Fluttershy lovin’, but Jesus Christ on a chicken’s ass, Pinkie can be annoying.

This is the shit I had to put up with on the train to Rainbow Falls.

“Yes! Best day ever!” Pinkie squealed. “We’re all going to the Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange! And not just going – we’re accompanying a princess on an official royal duty!”

“Shut up!” I demanded. “We already know!”

“There always has to be a princess at the Exchange,” Twilight explained, perhaps trying to get a word in edgewise. “Last year was Princess Cadance, this year it’s me. It's just a formality. I'm sure none of the other ponies will even notice I'm here.”

“I can…guarantee they won’t notice,” I offered.

Twilight stared at me for a second and then shook her head. “I think I’ll take my chances.”

We continued on into the Exchange. Fluttershy found a small statuette of a bunny to fawn over. “Oh, my goodness!”

“You said it,” Rarity replied. The Rainbow Falls Traders Exchange is simply divine. You can get anything you want here!”

“Don’t I know it,” I said happily.

They all threw me suspicious looks, which I ignored. I noticed that I had been doing a lot of that lately. Maybe I had been giving less and less of a damn lately. Perhaps at this late stage in the game I knew my plans were going to come to fruition and had begun to relax and rest on my laurels. The game was still on, but the ball was in my court. I had basically constructed the most elaborate game of all from the ruins of the universe and was just about to score the winning move. It was the greatest game.

And you just lost the game. Lulz.

Anyway, at the Exchange I split off from the main group and went looking for stuff. A young filly wearing a headscarf and sunglasses waved me over.

I stopped at her stall. She lowered her sunglasses. “Hey Valiant. It’s me.”

I nodded to Sweetie Belle. “How’s it going?”

“I set up in the Crystal Empire under an assumed name.” She shrugged. “It’s not the best, but I’m making do.”

“Good to hear that. Oh, and I have a tip for you. Don’t drink the water there.”

Sweetie looked confused, but nodded. “Okay. Good to see you.”

“You too, kid.”

I moved away, looking for things that I wanted from other vendor stalls. I happened on a pony with a vat of thallium to trade.

I squinted at the label and asked, “What’s pony thallium? Is it any different than the regular stuff?”

“Well, I mean, it’s nothing like dragon thallium or buffalo thallium,” he said.

“Yes, but what’s the difference?”

“Um, I’m not sure.” He shrugged. “I got this stuff in trade myself.”

“So if I take this pony thallium and use it to make electronics for a T-1000 liquid metal terminator robot, will it come out pony shaped by default?”

“Um…”

I shook my head. “I guess I don’t really care. I mean, a T-1000 liquid metal terminator could easily reshape either way so it doesn’t really matter. Good enough for me.”

I rejoined with Twilight as Pinkie was trying to auction off her books. I arrived dragging my newly acquired pony thallium vat. Twilight glanced at it. “Where did you get that?”

“I traded for it. That’s what everyone is supposed to do here, right?”

“I didn’t see you carrying anything to trade.” Twilight facehoofed. “Oh, you were probably carrying it in your hammerspace, right?” Her face took a harder expression. “I swear, Valiant, one of these days you’re going to drive me mad and I think we all know how that turns out.”

“No, I didn’t trade anything for it. I bought it.”

Twilight frowned. “As the Princess on duty to make sure trades are fair, I don’t think I can allow that.”

“Why not? Buying things is just trading money for goods and services.”

Twilight did not have a snappy comeback to that. Both of us tuned back in to whatever it was Pinkie was saying just in time to catch, “-double Princess!”

“I think I’m going to get out of here,” I said.

“Wait, before you go,” Twilight said, “What do you need that much thallium for?”

“This pony thallium vat?” I asked. “Well, I could certainly use it for advanced electronics. I was thinking about getting into quantum circuitry and computing.”

Me with a quantum supercomputer clearly was a troubling thought to Twilight. She knew I was a hardware guy, and maybe guessed that once I conquered software I would be unstoppable.

I dragged the pony thallium vat away, humming under my breath. “I’ve got a lovely pony thallium vat, dum dee dum. A twist of the wrist, a flick of the stick, and that’s all right with that.”

I spotted Fluttershy and Rainbow at the In-N-Oat burger stand harassing a handicapped pony. But then they made him lunch, which totally didn’t excuse their earlier actions but was a nice gesture, I guess.

I wandered around a little more, taking in the Discord-lamp stand, the chicken statue stand, and a few other oddities that I couldn’t see why anyone would trade for. Along the way I found a bear call that someone had dropped. “Hey, neat.”

It worked pretty well. I hadn’t intended for bears to maul several ponies, but it’s not like I wanted it to happen.

The Exchange after that was a huge mess. Twilight got called to clean it up. Princess duties can be a pain.

I saw an orthrus running free with a chain dangling from its collars. A big two-headed dog causes quite a stir.

Somewhere in all that commotion, Fluttershy got traded into slavery. I swear, the situation kept getting more and more ridiculous.

Fortunately, through copious magic and probably a little brainwashing, Twilight got things sorted out. It took some bartering to get Fluttershy back since the trade had been legal and all, but Rainbow Dash eventually had to give up her prized special edition Daring Do book.

I knew Equestria was an evil diarchy, but I hadn’t realized it was the kind of society where you could get a slave for the price of one book. Sigh. I really should talk to Luna about this and maybe go threaten Celestia.

“Well, I was only supposed to stay with that pony until the orthrus was properly trained,” Fluttershy said as we rode the train back to Ponyville. “Really, it was more like an indentured servitude than slavery.”

“Ugh, worse than that, I’m stuck with this stupid dog!” Rainbow complained. The orthrus gave her two sloppy licks. Pets were not normally allowed on the train, but no conductor was brave enough to throw the dog off. Or the orthrus, either.

“At least you finally have a pet of your own so you can come to our pet meetups,” Fluttershy reminded her.

“But I didn’t get the book I wanted!” Rainbow whined.

“Well, what do you know?” said Twilight, digging through her stash. “I found my copy of Daring Do and the Sapphire Statue.”

“I’ll give you five bits for it,” I said. “It’s a long train trip and I’m bored.”

“What?” Rainbow demanded. “I want that book, even if it’s not a special first edition!”

“Valiant makes a very reasonable argument,” Twilight replied. “He has need of it and has proposed a worthwhile exchange.”

“Great,” I said with a grin. “We’ll convert you to capitalism yet, Twilight.”

Twilight stared at me for a long moment and then tossed the book out the window. “Oops.”

We rode the rest of the way back in relative silence, arriving in Ponyville after the moon had come up. Getting off the train, Rarity invited us to the fashion show she had set up. It was apparently going to be lacking something because she hadn’t managed to find anything suitable at the Exchange. Neither had Applejack. The bear incident had kind of put a damper on trading.

“I have to figure out what to do with this thing,” Rainbow grumbled, tugging at the orthrus’ leash.

“Hey, where’s Spike?” Twilight asked. “I hope the bears didn’t get him.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” I said.

Rainbow had to take care of the orthrus and Twilight hurried away to make sure Spike hadn’t been eaten or something. The rest of us followed Rarity to the show.

Most of the models were just locals. It wasn’t one of Rarity’s super fancy shows. Then Sunset appeared.

She was wearing a dress that was similar to the little black one I had seen her in previously but cut more elegantly and more revealing. It was accented with complementary accessories and carefully crafted jewelry.

As she walked the runway, a stallion standing near the stage grinned and eyed her up lustily. It was clear that he had practically popped a stiffy at the mere sight of her. Sproing!

That, by the way, is the sound of someone getting knocked the hell out by an extendo boxing glove.

Sunset blinked in surprise but then looked down at me from the stage with a smile.

“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t control this thing.”

Far out on the eastern ocean, well out of sight of land it waited. It paid the waves and moonlight no heed. Small ocean creatures approached curiously, but knew not what to make of it. The seaponies kept their distance, fearful of the consequences to sapient beings of meddling in the affairs of things they did not understand.

It waited there, giving no indication of its purpose. Time would tell, but how many days or weeks would pass were unknown. It simply waited. It would wait until the time was right. Nopony knew it was there.

Of course I knew about it. I knew everything.

Hahahaha, no, of course that statement won’t come back to bite me in the ass.

Inspiration Manifestation

The Ponyville Foal and Filly Fair was today. Of course, I only knew that because Pinkie told me, but it was nice to know and all. It would help everyone stay out of my way. I had a whole lot to do. The Equestria Games - and other things - were coming fast and I had to be prepared.

My outfit and warmup track suit for the games were prepped, but I thought that maybe Rarity had a spell or something that would make them better. Usually I’m not into magic, but spandex can only do so much.

Um, I mean, mandex. Yes. Something manly. Good thing Rarity was usually discrete.

Over at her shop, Rarity was building a puppet theater while Spike looked on. I asked, “Are you done?”

“Just about,” Rarity said. “It was a lot of work, but I’m finally finished. I couldn't have done it without the help of my dearest and most supportive friends!”

“Who?” I asked. “Spike’s the only one here.”

“Er, yes,” Rarity agreed, turning to him. “You are my favorite dragon.”

I was about to point out that it should have been obvious, because Spike was the only dragon that had never tried to physically injure Rarity, but Rarity and Spike whisked the puppet theater off to the puppeteer.

I followed after them, feeling a little like a puppy tagging along and waiting to be noticed. That kind of pissed me off. I don’t usually play second fiddle to a freaking puppet theater.

Luckily, Rarity hadn’t built what the puppeteer needed, so she needed a new project to distract her. That was fine, because the puppet guy was creepy as hell and I didn’t want to spend much time around him.

“But I wanted to leave my creative mark on the fair, and I failed!” Rarity cried.

“Well, work on my uniforms,” I prodded. “Just do what I tell you and you won’t need to use any of your creativity.”

“But how will that help?” she sniffed. I noticed that she was magically reaching into the kitchen to get a gallon of ice cream.

“Well, you can picture it like a nice relaxing project where you don’t have to think and can save all your great ideas for something else.”

“I…suppose that makes sense,” Rarity allowed, opening the ice cream.

Not really, but whatever totes your goats. I turned to go.

Spike was by the door. Rarity still hadn’t quite bounced back enough to actually go to work and he was forlornly watching her eat ice cream.

“Wish she’d save some for you?” I asked.

“No, that’s not it. I don’t like seeing her this way.” He frowned. “I’m not into fatties.”

Spike’s expression changed. “Maybe there’s a spell or something that could help us. After that cutie mark swap incident and all the multiverse stuff you’ve done, you know about magic, right?”

“It’s a possibility.”

Spike grinned. “Close enough. Let’s go to the old castle. It’s got a better library than the one in town and there’s bound to be something we can use there.”

I checked my watch and shrugged. “I’m not doing anything else for a while.”

Spike looked at me as we went out the door. “What happens in a while?”

“Well, at the Traders Exchange, remember that pony thallium vat I picked up? I’m using it to develop new and better circuits for my keytar. There was a little thallium in it before, but now there’s going to be a whole lot, thanks to my pony thallium vat. Maybe I can go work on it if I get some time today.”

“Why are you working on your keytar?” Spike asked. “I thought you didn’t have your band anymore. You were…disbanded.”

I shrugged. “Do I really need a reason to work on my instruments of glam metal?”

The two of us headed towards the old castle, joined by Owlowiscious. I don’t know why the owl wanted to join us. If I knew any owl jokes I would tell one. It kind of bothered me that I didn’t know any.

After wading through the Everfree Forest, we reached the castle and started poking around in the library. Spike worked quickly. “I’ve got to help Rarity! She really, really, really wants to make a creative contribution. I really, really, really want her to stay away from the ice cream. There's got to be some kind of spell that'll do the trick.”

“For which one?”

Spike shrugged. “I’m not picky.”

I frowned. Sure Spike seemed smitten, but was he a little more overt than normal? It was either dragon puberty or I would have to watch him more closely. Hopefully the Crystal meth Empire hadn’t been spreading further than I thought.

Just then, Spike pulled a false book and a secret door opened. I love secret doors and was immediately there looking over his shoulder. There was a set of padlocked bars, and beyond them, a book on a pedestal.

“Well, the lock’s been there for a thousand years. The statute of limitations for breaking and entering has run out,” I said.

Spike’s brows furrowed. “I think that clock only starts after you do the crime.”

“What are you, a lawyer?” I pulled out some bolt cutters and applied them to the fragile old lock.

Spike grinned. “Wow, it’s like you’re always prepared to break in!”

“Yeah, like.”

The lock fell away and we walked forward. I immediately felt that the stone was loose and stopped. Spike, with his lighter weight, kept going. Owlowiscious hovered nearby, not looking pleased with anything. I wished I could think of an owl joke to tell right about now to distract him.

Spike grabbed the book and raced back, the steps beneath him falling away like something out of a Daring Do book. He arrived back beside me breathing hard, but with the old book clutched in his claws.

I glanced down at the deep dark pit where he almost fell and remarked, “Hope it’s worth it.”

“It was hard to get and has these protective spikes on it,” Spike puffed. “Of course it has to be worth it!”

We opened the spell book and scanned the pages. Spike found one he thought would work for Rarity. All the way back to the boutique he ruminated on what it might accomplish.

Eventually we got there and Spike presented the old book to Rarity. She managed to come out of her fit long enough to read the spell. “From in the head to out in the world, every thought to action. Hold close this book and through its spell, you'll start a chain reaction. Projecting forth whatever beauty you see, only when true words are spoken will you finally be set free.”

Her magic turned green and there was an immediate change in her attitude.

“Yeahhhhh, we’re putting a stop to this right now,” I said.

“Well, does color matter that much? Twilight’s magic and eyes go white when she’s really powered up,” argued Spike.

Rarity grinned. “I feel great! We must find the puppeteer right away, so that I may provide him with the most fantastic theater he's ever imagined! Or, should I say, that I’ve ever imagined.”

I noticed that while I’d been gone she hadn’t gotten around to fixing up my mandex. So, I had to follow her out of the shop again like a lost puppy.

I’d been trying to get better about violence lately, but honestly it just left me following ponies around until they made time for me, instead of my usual making them make time for me.

The puppet master was again creepy as hell. Even more so now that Rarity had pleased him with a proper theater.

As we left him thankfully behind, I said, “Okay, she got what she wanted and everything is all fixed up. No more ice cream, no more pouting, and Rarity can finally work on my things.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Rarity. “I’ve made my creative contribution as I’d hoped to do, and all is well! Uh, then again, perhaps I should keep it just a skotch longer... You don't mind, do you?”

“Yes I-”

“Of course not!” Spike interrupted. He gave me a look. It was one of those nonvocal bro signals that guys know. The one that says, Dude, I’ve got this. Kindly don’t cockblock me.

You can’t really disrespect the bro code and I backed off.

Owlowiscious was nearby and gave me a disapproving look as Spike and Rarity disappeared. I turned away and headed for The Half Pint.

I walked in and sat down at the bar. Guinness came over, beer already in mug for me.

I said, “Guinness, tell me an owl joke.”

He thought for a moment. “What's the difference between an owl and an Irish funeral?”

“What?”

“One's awake in the night, the other’s a wake in the day!”

“That’s barely funny.”

He shrugged. “So what’s up?”

“Rarity’s mixed up in some strange magic. It’s probably going to lead to something bad, like the destruction of the town. I would have already stopped it if Spike didn’t invoke the bro code.”

Guinness frowned. “What’s the bro code?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to know, husband.”

Guinness frowned as the comment reminded him of something else. “Speaking of the family, I still can’t believe Rainbow brought home an orthrus.”

“What did you name it, er, them?”

“I don’t know what to settle on. Right now, Fluffy McGee is a placeholder.”

“Wouldn’t that be more like Fluffy McGees?”

“Eh, maybe. I don’t know, maybe I could name them after a pair of famous generals. Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. George Patton and Erwin Rommel. Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower.”

“Doug and Ike has a nice ring to it,” I agreed. “What does your kid think of getting a pet or two?”

“What do you think a demon thinks of a mythological two-headed dog?” Guinness slumped a little. “I just wish Rainbow Catcher wouldn’t think of it as a present. Maybe she wouldn’t think of me as her father.”

I finished my beer and left him with that thought. I headed to the library. Sunset was there and we talked about unimportant things for a few minutes. I mentioned the puppeteer and the thing with Rarity.

I glanced out the window. Across the way, I could see flashes of magic coming out of the boutique windows like a rave show.

“Shit!” I jumped up and dashed out. When I arrived in the boutique it was practically overflowing with stylish clothes.

“I've completed my fall line for the next fifteen seasons!” Rarity announced happily.

I gave Spike an irritated look. It was the With great power comes great responsibrolity, bro look. He’d screwed up and let Rarity get too creative.

“Why stop here?” Rarity was saying, oblivious to the silent broversation Spike and I were having. “We shouldn’t even tell anypony that it’s me who’s behind all the fabulous changes I’ll be making around Ponyville!”

She paused to giggle and toss around some more green magic. “Won't that be a fun little secret for the four of us to share.”

“Four?” I asked.

“Me, Spike, you, and the book, of course.”

“Okay, when you start referring to an inanimate magical object as an equal partner in the conversation, you’ve got a big freaking problem. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know where this is going.”

Rarity’s eyes widened. “I know you can’t break promises, Valiant. Promise you won’t say a word?”

“I can’t.”

She looked distraught. “But I know you always keep your promises.”

“I have to actually make it first,” I reminded her. “Stop trying to take advantage of me.”

“But I need every benefit!” She argued. “I won’t stop until every inch of Ponyville has benefitted from my creation!”

“From personal experience, I know that ‘I won’t stop until…’ is a statement that generally leads to bad things.”

Meanwhile, while I had Rarity talking, Spike snatched the spellbook from her saddlebags. It was part of our bro plan that we had quickly concocted on the spot and it worked amazingly. Having a wingman can be useful for more than just picking up chicks.

Spike, not knowing where to stash the book so Rarity wouldn’t find it, simply ate it.

Rarity hadn’t noticed yet and continued to stare at me. “Valiant, perhaps I could…persuade you to look the other way.”

Her horn was still putting out green magic. Aw crap, it looked like getting rid of the book didn’t work. I backed up as Rarity came towards me. I tripped over a chair near her writing desk and ended up falling into it.

“What’s wrong with creativity?” Rarity said, grinning as her eyes glowed green. “We could festoon the trees and bushes with diamond ornaments like it’s Hearth’s Warming in July. We could put a six-piece string band on every street corner, every day, every minute. We could do gold-plated rooftops for everypony. We could spread this to the whole country while traveling by chariot, or, as everyone will soon be calling them, ‘Rariot.’ We’ll keep working until there isn't an inch of the country that hasn't been utterly transformed by my creative genius!”

“No, that’s stupid.” I zinged her so hard that I even followed up by blowing off the tip of my hoof.

Rarity jerked as if actually punched. “What? How could…”

A little swirl of green magic flew away into the air. Spike said, “Hey, that’s the cure! ‘Only when true words are spoken will you finally be set free.’”

“Neat,” I said.

“What am I supposed to do now?” Rarity asked.

I shifted my position in the chair and said, “Well, go back to fixing clothes, right? I mean, it’s what you do.”

“But…but I’ve lost my mojo!” Rarity wailed. Clearly the overall problem wasn’t fixed and she wasn’t about to let it go. I needed an escape.

I head-desked so hard my forehead erupted in China and destroyed the Communist regime. Or it would have, had I not knocked myself unconscious.

“The puppeteer was found dead with his dolls stuffed in his mouth and their strings wrapped tightly around his neck. It almost looked like the puppets had killed him.”

“He was a unicorn. His puppets didn’t have strings.”

“Trust me, they had strings.”

“It’s a dreadful thing to hear. I’m surprised it wasn’t in the newspaper.”

“It won’t be in the paper.”

I blinked and opened my eyes. I was looking up at the ceiling in the Ponyville Hospital. I would know; I’d been there enough.

I turned my head to see Sunset and Twilight conversing quietly beside my bed. They noticed I was awake and turned their attention to me.

Sunset asked, “How do you feel?”

“A little dizzy,” I admitted. “Better than the alternative, listening to Rarity whine.”

“Spike told me something happened,” said Twilight. “He wouldn’t say what, but he looked kind of sick.”

Yeah, eating a spellbook would do that to you. Bro code and all, I wasn’t about to say anything. Instead, I changed the subject. “Hey guys, did you know I got a boat?”

Both Twilight and Sunset blinked at the sudden shift. Sunset asked, “What’s it like?”

“Well, we can take a trip on it if you want. Let’s just get me out of this hospital.”

After a brief exam, the nurses allowed me out of bed and I checked out. Twilight said she would gather the others, leaving me with Sunset.

“So what’s the story with the dead puppeteer?” I asked.

“You said he was creepy,” she said. “Lucky for you, he’s dead now.”

I paused. After a moment the faint hint of a smile crept onto her face.

I looked around before asking, “Sunset, did you kill that creepy puppet guy for me?”

Her smile widened. “Are you proud of me?”

Welllllll shit. Still better than having a psycho who disliked me, I suppose.

“If mildly creepy was a murdering offense, there would be a genocide on clowns,” I said.

Her ears drooped. “You don’t want me to think for myself?”

“I don’t want you to murder for yourself. I am touched that you would do it in the name of me, though.”

That seemed to cheer her up a little. “Okay. I…I just wanted to do something nice for you. You always seem so focused on things. I just wanted you to notice…”

She struggled with words, but then lunged forward and kissed me. My eyebrows went up as high as they would go.

Just then, Trixie appeared. She waited patiently, grinning, until Sunset noticed her. Sunset pulled back, her face flushing.

“Twilight said something about a new boat?” Trixie said. She was still grinning.

I nodded. “Oh yeah. It’s super awesome. I love it so much I have to resort to flower-based nouns of affection. It’s my hot naval tulip.”

Twilight came back just then, leading the rest of the mares that made up the social group. Rarity appeared to have recovered from her little episode. The amazing thing about Equestria was the size of the problems, but also the brief time it always seemed to take to bounce back.

“So where are we going?” Twilight asked.

“Far out on the eastern ocean, well out of sight of land,” I said. “Teleport us there.”

“Taking us somewhere out in the middle of the sea seems like it would be a little crazy,” she said.

I rolled my eyes. “No, crazy is tugging on Superman’s cape, spitting into the wind, pulling the mask off that old Lone Ranger, or building DC-8’s for Xenu. I know exactly where we’re going.”

I gave the unicorns some coordinates. With management from Twilight, they synced magic and were able to gain extra precision for the spell. With a flash of light, we were gone.

In the next instant, we came to rest on a flat deck. It was coated with nonskid material and was quite new.

The group - Twilight, Rainbow, Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie, Spike, Trixie, and Sunset - looked around, spotting nothing but open ocean and the helicopter pad of the sleek gray boat we had landed on.

Well, okay, maybe it was a ship. It was bigger than your average boat.

“Valiant, what is this?” Twilight asked. “It looks so much different than any ship I’ve seen before.”

Rainbow flew a short distance away to see the whole ship a little better. She squinted at the number 5 painted on the side.

I cleared my throat. “Let me present the Freedom-class littoral combat ship of the United States Navy, USS Milwaukee.”

Twilight turned to me with a suspicious look. “Where did you get it?”

“I could tell you, but it would involve a long story revolving around hookers.”

“Please?” begged Pinkie.

Ignoring her, Twilight took a deep breath. “Valiant, please have a good answer for my next question. Why?”

“Well, she’s got a pair of thirty millimeter chain guns, a fifty-seven millimeter autocannon, point defense missiles, torpedoes, and she can go like fifty miles per hour. She doesn’t need to be heavily armored because nothing here in Equestria is really a threat to a metal ship. She’s my hot naval tulip. Sexy.”

“Why don’t we just go home?” Rainbow said, unimpressed.

“We could,” spoke up Sunset. “All those nautical books you had me read, Valiant, really prepared me for sailing something like this.”

“Wait, you still didn’t answer my question,” Twilight said. “Why!?”

“Because before this is all over, we’re going to need this boat,” I replied. “Now, let’s get back to the shores of Equestria. I hope we get there in time.”

Equestria Games

“That was quite the little song and dance number you did,” Twilight commented. We were in the process of securing the good warship Milwaukee in the port of Hoofsen Bay, one of Equestria’s northernmost seaside cities.

“What can I say?” I replied. “I had my keytar that I upgraded with the pony thallium vat I bought, I have my hot naval tulip that we’re sailing on, and I got to needle you again about…” I paused for effect “…what was it again, uh, Tiny Vamp Atoll.”

Twilight gave me one of those disapproving librarian looks that she had practically perfected by that point. I had almost learned the best way to bask in them.

The ship edged closer to the pier with Sunset on the bridge. I hopped across the gap and grabbed one of the ropes to tie up. The others helped, using some of the experience they had gained from that one time we sailed around the world. Honestly, we were a pretty effective crew despite being small in number. Good thing Milwaukee had been designed to be highly automated and required few people to operate.

The locals of Hoofsen Bay had never seen such a ship before. I gave them all a hard look. “Nobody touch this or I’ll kill you. Capiche?”

All of them hurriedly dispersed. I paused to write a quick note, dropping the paper in the water when I was finished. A flipper just beneath the surface of the water snatched it.

My message received, I walked off the pier with Twilight, Pinkie, Rainbow, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, Spike, Sunset, and Trixie and headed for the train station.

“I’m so glad that trip didn’t make us late for the Games!” Rainbow said, urging us forward. “We can still grab a train and get there on time.” She faced forward, reality appearing to strike her. “This just got real!”

I chuckled quietly to myself, knowing both the feeling and a similar statement.

The train got us to Canterlot where we were lucky enough to change trains and board the one the Equestria Games team from Ponyville was already on. Guinness looked uncomfortable sitting there with Rainbow Catcher on his lap. Apparently the train ponies said the demon lord was too young to sit in her own seat. Guinness’ mood brightened upon spotting Rainbow.

The rest of the Ponyville team was also there. I glanced around. “Isn’t this team a little pegasus-heavy, especially for a town known for earth ponies?”

“We’re the best athletes,” Rainbow proclaimed.

“Yeah, well this earth pony is going to kick your ass at the Games anyway,” I retorted.

“Don’t fight before we get there,” Guinness urged. “Save the aggression for competing and stuff.”

“Yes,” I said. “And stuff.”

Everyone looked at me. Twilight said, “Valiant, what are you planning?”

“Oh, I’m already done planning. Shit’s about to go down.”

They all suddenly looked around fearfully, searching for an attack. I facehoofed. “No, not right now. Like…in the near future. Relax. For a while.”

“It would really be easier if you just told us what was going on,” Twilight insisted.

“What makes you think I would do that?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh right. You put yourself and personal gain above the fate of an entire universe.”

“Hey now, I wouldn’t say it was above. They’re pretty equal, really.”

The group conversation tapered off after that. I saw Sir Win had accompanied the team and went over to talk to him.

Sir Win smiled. “I haven’t seen a good Equestria Games in quite some time. I love watching the athletes. Their doped-up souls always taste so hormonal.”

“That’s, uh, great. Anyway, can I ask you about something? I’m going to need another industrial-grade arcane spell.”

“Another summoning?” Sir Win asked.

“No, but it’s still going to need to be super powerful.” I lowered my voice. “Maybe even a devilish unholy demon sacrifice ritual.”

That got his attention. Sir Win grinned. “I’ll see what I can do.”

When we got to the Crystal Empire, the train pulled in and we got off, heading to the Crystal Palace where Cadance was relaxing while crystal ponies wafted air with palm fronds.

I took an immediate stand on the issue. “Why not use air conditioning? I know you guys don’t have any concept of advanced technology like that, but just put a block of ice in front of a fan. You’ve got lots of ice in the frozen wasteland around the Empire. Or better yet, just open a window and let some of that cold air in. That way these slaves don’t have to stand here fanning you.”

“They aren’t slaves,” said Cadance. She didn’t look particularly pleased. I guessed she was going through some kind of mood swings. The various mounds of junk food around were another indicator. She looked like she may have put on a little weight.

I shrugged. “Not a very fulfilling job then, just standing around and fanning. Do you get a cutie mark for that?”

“Regardless, I’m feeling warm,” said Cadance.

“Ah.” I nodded knowingly. I don’t think anyone else noticed.

The rest of the conversation was not nearly so engaging. We left the palace and went to a hotel to leave our stuff. I made sure to drop off everything I wouldn’t immediately need. While hammerspace is generally not a physical weight, I figured everything I emptied out of it might help me compete at the games and/or get through security. Twilight had said that in light of recent events, security was going to be tight. I thought that it might not be tight enough.

“Sunset, can you say here and watch these things?” I asked. I wouldn’t want any of my stuff to go unattended. Some of it was pretty important to the whole universe-saving endeavor.

Sunset nodded reluctantly. “I can do that, but I wanted to watch you compete.”

“It’ll mostly be me dominating,” I said. “Pretty boring, really.”

“Hey!” protested Rainbow.

“But if you really want,” I said to Sunset, “come by in the evening. The closing ceremony will be then.”

“I’d love to watch it with you.” Sunset smiled.

The rest of us left for the stadium. Trixie forgot something and went back to the hotel to get it. I myself was already sporting my uniform and gear – everything I would need.

We passed a statue commemorating King Sombra’s final defeat. I would have thought it should have been a statue of yours truly throwing himself through the air to clash with the evil dude. Heck, maybe even Spike riding along as I must admit he was probably more photogenic. Instead, it was a statue of King Sombra himself.

I was happy to see that it was after I had punchsploded him. Almost like signing my work. Although it did raise a few questions about the overall mental state of the Crystal Empire residents if they would sign off on public art like that. I’d better hurry and figure out the meth problem fast.

Ms. Harshwhinny met us at the stadium gate, shooing Twilight away to sit with the other Princesses, forcing Rarity to go through a magic detector, and pulling Rainbow, Guinness, Spike and me to the side.

“Athletes will get a moment to meet with their teams in the locker rooms,” Ms. Harshwhinny commanded. “The opening ceremony torch will need to be lit in ten minutes by our special guests.”

The way she said special made me think her definition of the word might be different from mine. The group of us headed towards the lockers.

Guinness and Rainbow met Derpy and started getting their Ponyville uniforms on. Guinness seemed a little nervous, although that was balanced out by Rainbow’s usual brashness. Derpy just smiled her little smile and didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular, which was about normal for her.

Spike and I spotted a schedule on the wall and went over to read it.

Opening ceremony – torch lighting by guests of honor, the vanquishers of King Sombra, Plymouth Valiant and Spike Thedragon

“Thed-ra-gon?” I said. “I didn’t know you had a last name.”

“I didn’t know that either,” said Spike. “Huh. I suppose that has an interesting sound to it. I wonder what it means?”

“Guests of honor, if you please,” called Ms. Harshwhinny.

Spike and I walked out to meet her. She ordered us into position. “Mr. Valiant, Mr. the Dragon.”

“I believe it’s pronounced ‘Thed-ra-gon,’” said Spike.

Ms. Harshwhinny gave him a look, but at that moment trumpets and other fanfare began and I heard Shining Armor’s amplified voice echo around the stadium welcoming everyone.

“Time to go,” said Ms. Harshwhinny. We walked out to where the torch was set up and she gave the signal to go up and light it.

Spike and I climbed the ladder. At the top, leaning over the bowl like a giant barbecue, Spike took a look around at the crowd, filling the stadium. Sweat instantly popped out on his brow. “I…I don’t think I can do this.”

“It’s cool,” I said. I tossed a match into the torch and it instantly lit with bright fire.

“Wow, good thing you’re not somepony who gets stage fright about setting things on fire,” Spike muttered as we descended.

“You got that right.”

“I…I froze up,” Spike admitted. “The pressure was too much in front of all those ponies. I feel terrible.”

“Spike, suck it up and stop being an emo bitch.”

“Gee, Valiant, when you put it that way, nopony wants to be called emo.” He grinned. “Thanks, I stopped.”

I took a moment to glance around the stadium, seeing the four Princesses high up in a box of their own with personalized thrones that matched their coats. Except for Cadance. Hers wasn’t pink. I noticed that her mood also seemed somewhat darker than the others. Interesting.

“This is when Shining Armor is supposed to call, ‘Let the games begin!’” said Spike.

“Yes,” I said, grinning and steepling my hooves. “Let them.”

“Hey,” said Spike. “I know the schedule is probably set and everything, but I’m feeling really confident in myself right now. Do you think they would let us have an impromptu rock concert? We could say it’s part of the opening ceremony.”

“Hell yeah.” While I had lightened the load considerably to compete, I wouldn’t be caught dead without my keytar.

Without another word, we started the show. The two of us shredded it out right there in the center of the stadium. Spike went through the Ponyville anthem and started in on those from other places. He didn’t know the words to any of them, but he was pretty good at freestyle, his confidence riding high. I thought that maybe he should go into the rap business with Pinkie.

There is only so much you can do with one keytar and one set of vocals. Still, we made it through the entire lineup and with a last fanfare from me, Spike shouted, “Let the games begin!”

The crowd applauded dutifully, many of them not seeming to be aware of what had just happened or that it wasn’t scheduled to. Spike and I exited the field to the scowling face of Ms. Harshwhinny.

“You interrupted the schedule,” she said through clenched teeth. “We’ve had to cancel every event except the last one, archery.”

“Cool,” I said. “That’s pretty much my best sport.”

And in fact, it was. You expected me to be bad at using pointy things to shoot stuff?

Myself and the other competitors took the field. The point of this particular event was not pure accuracy but covering the whole surface of the target with magic ice-creating arrows. Simple enough. I noticed that I was the only archer to stand up and hold the bow like a man, both literally and figuratively. The rest of them stared at me.

I stood there on two legs and grinned. “Haters gonna hate.”

My distraction didn’t last long, however. The event began and everyone started slinging arrows. Everything was going all well and good until some moron fired an ice arrow into a cloud and suddenly we had a spikey ball of death slowly descending into the stadium.

“Okay,” I said. “I know that I usually plan ahead for everything, but even I didn’t see that one coming.”

“Stop staring at it and run!” shouted Shining Armor, who had appeared on the field.

“Well, it’s moving kind of slowly,” I said. “I guess I’ll start walking now.”

“How are we going to take care of this?” he fretted. “We have to stop it!”

“Gee, it sure would be nice if there was a unicorn around here that was good at casting protective spells,” I replied.

He glared at me. “Unicorns are no longer admitted to the stadium without a disabling spell. It’s to ensure fair play.”

“They didn’t even let the Prince and Captain of the Royal Guard come in without being neutered?” I shook my head. “So you care so much about fair play, then why didn’t someone clear the skies before the event? Maybe a pegasus could hide up there and surreptitiously help one of the competitors. Or perhaps sabatoge. If I was a pegasus, I would definitely put a sniper nest up there.”

Shining blinked in stupefied realization. I watched as the cloud slowly landed on his head. He winced and dropped to the ground, belly-crawling out from under the ice cloud before it crushed him. The cloud landed on the field with a crackle, resting there and taking up space.

“We didn’t even manage to complete one single event,” muttered Shining. It’s like the Games didn’t happen at all.”

“So…redo?” I said.

He again blinked in realization. “Okay, yeah, that could work. We’d just have to get this ice melted and get the events set up again.”

“One problem,” I said.

A scream split the air. Shining’s head jerked to the royal box seats where my hoof was already pointing. Cadance had fallen to the floor, lying on her back in pain.

I saw Shining’s horn flash and I grabbed his tail as he teleported. We both arrived in the royal box an instant later. He rushed to Cadance’s side. “Darling, speak to me! What’s wrong?”

“Hey, I thought you said no magic!” I yelled.

“The security applied a spell that indicates if you do magic, it doesn’t stop magic. You can’t take away a pony’s magic completely or horrible things could happen,” said Twilight. Most of us ignored her.

Sunset appeared just then, flashing into the box. She looked tired and was completely covered in blood and other stuff.

“I came for you; I’m here for the closing ceremony,” she said to me, breathing hard as if she’d had to hurry.

“I’m glad you're here, but there’s been a change of plans and we’re doing this instead,” I said. I raised an eyebrow and was about to ask where all the blood and stuff had come from when Cadance’s stomach clenched and she gasped. “Oh no! The baby’s coming early!”

Shining once again blinked in stupefied astonishment. “You’re pregnant?”

“Surprise!” I said.

“What do you know about this!” Shining screamed, grabbing me by the shoulders and shaking me.

“It’s not my kid,” I felt the need to emphasize.

“Whose is it?” He demanded.

“It’s not yours?” I asked.

“I, um…”

“Please pay attention to the important issue here!” Cadance reminded through her contractions.

Shining released me and looked around wildly. “Is there a doctor in the house?”

“I got this,” I said.

He looked at me, face suspicious. “There’s no way you’re qualified.”

“Listen, even if I weren’t qualified to deliver this baby, wouldn’t you want me to do it because I knew it was coming ahead of time?”

“It’s true,” confirmed Cadance.

I nodded. “Good, because I’m not qualified. Sunset, get that switchblade ready to cut the cord.”

Before anyone else could protest, right there in front of God and in full view of a stadium filled with startled onlookers who had expected to instead be entertained that day by a sporting event, Cadance gave birth.

Author's Note

Just in case you were wondering why Sunset was covered in blood and stuff

Twilight's Kingdom - part 2

“Valiant, you’re a princess?” said Fluttershy.

I glared at her and she burst into flames.

“Oh shit!” I exclaimed in sudden regret. I tackled her and we both went over the side of the ship into the sea. Coming up for air and spitting some water out, I said, “Sorry Fluttershy. I have to get used to this new power.”

“It’s okay, it’s not the first time I’ve been on fire.”

I pulled some mane out of my eyes to check on her. The hair was a lot longer than usual – some serious Fabio shit going on. I hadn’t expected that, but then I’d never been an alicorn before.

Fluttershy seemed to be okay, just marginally singed. Sunset helped me out of the water and I pulled up Fluttershy. I stood on the deck dripping wet. I got stared at by everyone again.

“You took away Twilight’s alicornhood,” said Celestia slowly.

“Well, it’s not like she wanted or needed it. She said so herself.”

“I guess,” Twilight reluctantly agreed, “but did you have to take it on yourself? That strikes me as being very selfish.”

“I’m sorry, but didn’t you guys just ask me to save the world? That’s about the least selfish thing I can think of. Speaking of…”

I turned to Sunset, who hadn’t taken her eyes off me since the spell. “It’s time to get this show on the road. Tirek needs his ass kicked.”

“On your six,” she replied cheerfully. She followed me to the edge of the deck.

I leaned over the railing and shouted, “Yo, seaponies!”

Sunset leaned over the railing as well, putting a hoof around my shoulders for balance. Below us in the water, seaponies started poking their heads up.

“Are you finally ready?” one of them asked.

“Yeah, yeah, just had to take care of some things,” I said. “I think what’s more important, are you ready?”

“Hey bro, you’re the one that called upon the seaponies.”

I shrugged. “I’ll take that for a yes.”

“Then simply signal SOS!”

I turned to Sunset. “You know Morse Code, right?”

She explained, “SOS is a distress signal, but I think they just used that phrase to rhyme and inject some levity.”

I shook my head. “As long as they don’t start singing. Anyway, we’re getting ready to go. I’ll need you on the bridge. Someone has to drive.”

Sunset nodded. With her foreleg around me, her face was pretty close to mine. “I’ll do anything you want, Valiant.”

“Thanks.”

Sunset hesitated for a moment longer and then moved forward, lips puckering. Whatever she was doing, she didn’t make it, though, because our horns got in the way and she ended up being all adorkable.

Just then, the ship gave a lurch as the water beneath it began to bubble. I pushed Sunset towards the bridge. “It’s starting.”

Her face turned red, but she hurried away. I glanced over the side again, seeing the seaponies hard at work, raising the ship.

“Can you lighten the load any?” demanded one. “This isn’t the tonnage we agreed on!”

“What are you talking about?” I shot back. “It’s exactly the same ship I said that I would have!”

“But there’s so much extra!” he protested. “That magic equipment you brought on board, the ponies that are hanging out on deck with you, and that flying machine! You have to get rid of something or this will never work!”

Shit.

“Really?” I asked.

“Hey buddy, if you could bend this much water you’d be doing it. Get rid of some weight.”

I turned my eyes to the group. “Well, looks like I have to do this alone. Nice knowing you all.”

“Hang on,” protested Twilight. “I thought you needed all the help you could get? Why don’t you get rid of something else, like your flying machine?”

I looked at Monstrosity parked on the aft deck. “But I don’t wanna…”

“Valiant, I don’t know what sort of ill-advised plan you’re about to enact, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made,” said Luna.

“I just made one,” I pointed out, indicating the burned ring where Rainbow Catcher had been quite literally sacrificed. “Do you want to be next?”

Her face blanched as she realized her error. “I meant to say that sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do.”

Oh, okay. I already wanted to stab her, so that meant I had to do something else. I looked at my aircraft again and sighed.

With more strength than I remembered having, I pushed Monstrosity over the side. It would suck not having it for combat, but I was comforted by the fact that being submerged in water probably wouldn’t hurt it very much. It had been through worse.

Turning to face the rest of the group that stood with me on the deck, I felt like I had to give a speech or something.

“None of you are strangers to combat,” I began. “That’s good – we’ll need all the help we can get. Rainbow is a dragon right now, but I’ll need all of you to be in top form today, especially if Tirek can take away magic.”

Everyone began looking for suitable replacements for magic. Celestia and Luna both wore their heavy jewelry, which might be used as armor. Applejack had her rope. Rarity had a few sharp sewing supplies. Pinkie pulled out her battleaxe, the same one that had been used to execute Post Haste. I saw Sweetie Belle unsheathe her ninja sword. Trixie focused for a moment, growing into her eight-legged fighting form and pulling her M60 out from under her cloak. Daring carried Trixie’s spare ammo belts. Twilight watched Spike test his fireballs. Fluttershy unpacked her first aid kit. Guinness shifted the strap of the bass guitar he was still carrying and looked despondent. Sir Win was there.

I put on my sunglasses and nodded. Everyone looked ready. “Let’s go kick some ass.”

“All right, we’re good to go!” called one of the seaponies. He and his mates thrust the ship into the air on a column of frothy seawater. We slipped sideways, landing on shore and still supported by a cushion of water. Milwaukee was now a land boat.

I heard the diesels and the turbines spin up as Sunset started them. She punched the throttle and we zoomed away at fifty knots over the ground.

The seaponies were kind of useless on dry land, but if they brought moisture with them then they were good to go. They kept the bubble of water around the ship’s hull and responded quickly to changes in propulsion.

Pleasant breeze whipping my mane out and drying the water from my coat, I headed forward to examine the autocannon. It had been partially modified with Sunset’s matter-to-magic converter. The converter had come a long way since we’d used it to get an extra charge to send me home. Now it could convert regular matter to magic, and if we, say, fitted it to the end of a gun barrel, suddenly we had magic bullets. Magic 57-millimeter autocannon bullets fired at 220 rounds per minute. Aw yeah.

As we surfed along, I saw quite a few ponies come out to see us. It wasn’t every day that a nearly 400-foot ship cruised by on land. They stared, dumbstruck.

It probably helped that a large rainbow-colored dragon was flying in formation with the ship. Rainbow apparently got her fill of exploring her new self and landed on the aft deck. “Hey, while I was flying I noticed some strange clouds a ways out there.”

I grabbed my spyglass and looked where she indicated, noticing dark clouds. Nodding in agreement, I said, “Aye, it be a shitstorm on the horizon.”

“Like…literally?” Rainbow asked, looking worried.

“God, I hope not. I’m guessing that what we’re seeing is just the Crystal Empire burning. We’re headed in that direction, so I guess we’ll find out soon.”

“Wait, how can the Crystal Empire burn?” asked Twilight, butting in. “It’s made of crystal!”

I spread my forehooves. “Magic, of course.”

Twilight stared at me. “And how are you shrugging like that, with both front hooves off the ground yet still standing perfectly as if you were still on four and not falling forwards?”

“Same answer.” I grinned. You haven’t trolled until you’ve alicorn trolled.

Unfortunately, as we got closer to the Crystal Empire, I had to quit my messing with Twilight and put on my serious face for serious business.

Continuing further north, the salt water the seaponies pulled from the ocean didn’t have a problem with freezing in the snow. Up ahead I could see the bubble of better weather that surrounded the Empire. Through my spyglass I could see that the city was in fact on fire. Nobody was fighting it. Now that I noticed, there didn’t seem to be anybody around at all.

Milwaukee slid into the streets, cruising between buildings and just barely fitting. I glanced around, still not seeing any sign of the local citizens.

The stadium was also deserted. The banners outside read “Equestria Games – rescheduled” with today’s date. Sunset brought the throttles back and the ship came to a halt.

“Why are we stopping?” asked Twilight.

“Well, the Games are today,” I pointed out. “While we’re here we might as well compete.”

“Why not solving the mystery of where all the crystal ponies are?” she suggested.

“Won’t take long,” I explained. “There are only two teams here.” I pointed at myself, Rainbow, and Guinness.

And it didn’t. I won gold for the glory of Milwaukee. All of the gold. The Ponyville team got silver – all of them.

“You cheated!” accused Rainbow.

“There’s nothing in the rulebook that says an alicorn with mechanical sports enhancement equipment can’t compete,” I said. “Besides, you’re a dragon. You couldn’t even fit through the hoops in the aerial obstacle course.”

“It doesn’t mean very much,” Guinness observed, looking at his medals. “Silver is nice, but when nobody’s getting bronze…”

“Anyway,” I said, the shiny gold bling of dozens of medals jangling around my neck, “back to the problem of where all the crystal ponies went.”

“And more importantly, Cadance and Shining Armor,” Celestia added. The way she used the phrase more importantly reminded me that nobody really cared about crystal ponies. Not only had I recently had a discussion with Shining about that very subject, but Celestia’s last brush with the common Crystal Empire residents had happened while we were gunship rescuing the Element Bearers and the universe development team from Post Haste. I remembered that Post had been mind controlling or whatever the crystal ponies and Celestia and Luna had seemed to have no qualms about blasting the sparkly zombielike hoards. I suppose it’s not every day you get a good excuse for target practice on your loyal citizens.

We got back aboard the ship. Sunset, who had watched the Games from her duty station on the bridge and cheered at my every victory, got the ship moving again at my order. She didn’t miss firing some burst shells over the stadium for a nice little fireworks fanfare as we departed. The cannon thundered quite pleasantly.

We cruised over to the castle, which showed less damage than the surrounding city. Stretching out my wings I flew up towards the top of the palace. It was lucky that I’d had so much practice flying. From my aircraft to the Equestria Games to that one time Twilight had given me butterfly wings, I was no stranger to the air.

I found Cadance sitting alone in the top room of the palace. She was watching the smoke and looking sad about something.

“Hey,” I called, “what happened to everyone?”

She blinked, staring at me. After a moment she said, “Gone.”

“No shit. Where?”

“I think they followed Tirek.”

That question answered, I flew back down to the ship and gathered everyone. “Tirek has an army now.”

There were a few gasps. Twilight said, “How are we supposed to fight an army?”

“Well, at least they won’t be very strong. They’re just crystal ponies. The meth might make them crazier and more pain-tolerant, though.”

“But…we can’t just fight them! They’re fellow ponies!” Rarity protested.

“Rarity, would you slap a bitch, or even an asshole, to protect someone who deserved it?”

She looked away. “I suppose yes.”

“Can we reform the crystal ponies or something?” asked Applejack.

I shrugged. “Got to give them a reason first. That might include defeating them in battle first.”

“Will there be fighting?” Fluttershy asked.

“Probably. Tirek strikes me as the kind of guy who will send canon fodder out first before we can get to him. At the very least he might surround himself with children so we’ll hesitate to attack.”

“But why would the crystal ponies be helping a meanie like him?” Pinkie asked.

“I’m guessing he has them under a spell of either meth or magic. Regardless, we need to be prepared. We need to discuss some strategy. We’ve got all the fire support we could want right here on this ship, but we might have to engage tactically.”

None of them, except for perhaps Sunset and Trixie, had any idea what I was talking about. Twilight asked, “Wait, how can we be discussing strategy when you just said something about tactically? Those don’t mean the same things.”

I rolled my eyes. “Do what I say when I say and that’s tactics. Me telling all of you to do things is strategy because it’s part of a larger picture. You guys are using tactics to get results for me strategically.”

Twilight started to say “That doesn’t—” but I cut her off and went on.

“Celestia, Luna, you’re packing some serious magic and I remember how you shot up the population the last time we had to do an op against crystal ponies. Find a place on deck and get ready.”

I gestured to Guinness, Rarity, Applejack, and Spike. “You guys get the M2 fifty caliber machine guns that I found in the ship’s armory set up. There are mounting points fore and aft.”

I turned to Sir Win and handed him my spyglass. “Spot targets for the heavy weapons to take out.” I also indicated Twilight. “You help Sunset with the trajectories and magic calculations from the matter converter.”

Trixie and Daring stepped forward. I said, “You two are roving with the M60 and ammo. Go where you’re needed.”

Pointing to Pinkie and Sweetie, I ordered “You two are on boarder detail. If anyone gets on the ship, cut ‘em.”

Pinkie saluted. “Aye, aye, cap’n!”

With that, we headed out to find Tirek.

He was surprisingly difficult to locate, even being a big centaur with a crystal pony army. I mean, Equestria isn’t that big, but it’s bigger than, say, Wisconsin. We had a little while to kill before any action happened.

I spotted some rocks and practiced my boulder breaking as we drove by. Pinkie’s sister Maud had been nice enough to teach me and alicorn power made it easier than ever.

Twilight interrupted me and started grilling me about Tiny Vamp Atoll. “What does it mean, Valiant? At this point I don’t even care that you purposely invented a ponyfeathers riddle that probably doesn’t have an answer just to give me headaches. Just tell me what it means!”

I pulled out my keytar. “Well, the first step was leaving this for you to find. If you’ll recall, the note on it indicated that they were related.”

Twilight nodded.

I kept talking as I plugged the instrument into the ship’s intercom. “So the next step was upgrades in the form of the pony thallium vat I got at the trader’s exchange, among other things.”

“Wait, what other things?” Twilight asked.

Ignoring the new question, I kept answering her first one. “So finally, that brings us here to my hot naval tulip, on this fine day in the Equestrian countryside.”

I riffed off a sweet keytar solo and finished with a flourish. Twilight was still staring at me. “And how does that tie together?”

I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they were going to start spinning like Derpy. “‘Uh, Tiny Vamp Atoll,’ ‘pony thallium vat,’ and ‘my hot naval tulip’ are all anagrams for ‘Plymouth Valiant.’ And I thought you were good at puzzles.”

Twilight blinked. “Valiant, that is…so you.” Her body began to tremble. “I mean, literally in name, but also so incredibly self-centered, and…” Her eyes were twitching and some smoke had started to come out of her mane.

“And you couldn’t figure it out,” I prodded.

Twilight went full apeshit. “VALIANT! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH I HATE YOU!?”

“There,” I said. “Just like that. Hold it.” Twilight had burst into flames, she was so angry. I gave her a little shot of magic to preserve her burning self. She was currently even more of an inferno than Sir Win.

“What did you do?” she demanded.

“I spent so much time setting up this riddle with the anagrams to piss you off because I knew this final battle was coming. I figured you would fight better angry. I need you to kick ass.”

Twilight paused and looked at herself. She was still on fire, even if her expression had cooled somewhat. “Seriously?”

I nodded, and said through the intercom, “Hey Sunset, what does the scouter say about her power level?”

“It’s over nine thousand!” Sunset replied.

“Perfect.”

“Valiant,” Twilight said, “let me get this straight. You spent so long inventing a riddle just to make me angry just so that when you became an alicorn you could cast a spell to keep me on fire so that I would be able to fight Tirek more effectively? You planned that far ahead?”

“Yep.”

“WHY DIDN’T YOU JUST TELL US?” she screamed. “IF WE KNEW ABOUT THIS WE COULD HAVE PREVENTED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE!”

I grinned. “Who says this is the endgame?”

Twilight froze. “This…this is still all part of your plan?”

I booped her on the nose. Alicorn powers and all, I didn’t get burned. “Just hang around and I’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

“Tirek ho!” interrupted Rainbow, who had been scouting ahead of the ship.

“Who’s his pimp?” I asked, walking away from Twilight. She grumbled, not under her breath, but went off to do her assigned task of calculating trajectories.

Rainbow frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

“As much as you hang out with Pinkie, you don’t know that?” I shook my head. “Whatever. Let’s do this.”

We had ended up near Ponyville. Of course. Final showdowns always happened there.

I stood on the bow, watching as we approached. Guinness, manning one of the machine guns to my side, said, “I don’t remember that guy Tirek from when we went to Tartarus.”

His mood seemed to have improved slightly since that whole Valiant-killed-your-baby incident. I said, “Yeah, neither do I, but I’m sure he was there. There was a lot going on and maybe we just didn’t see him. Tartarus is a big place.”

“I wonder who sells the real estate,” he said, attempting a little bit of humor.

“Who wants to buy property there?” I asked. “Or worse than that, trying to sell time shares in Hell.”

Guinness frowned. “Kentucky?”

“No, Michigan. Freaking Tartarus, where do you think? I use ‘Tartarus’ and ‘Hell’ interchangeably.”

Guinness shifted the strap of the bass he was still carrying to the other shoulder. “They aren’t really. See, Tartarus is Greek, and-”

He kept talking, but I was thinking about something else. Like that big fireball coming our way.

It smacked the deck just behind us. Jerking in surprise, Guinness dropped the bass.

I turned around and scanned the horizon. The fireball was no match for the steel deck and soon petered out. I was a little more concerned with where it came from.

“Spotted,” called Sir Win.

“Counter-battery fire authorized,” I ordered.

“Calculated,” said Twilight.

“Ready,” announced Sunset.

“What are we-” Guinness started to say, but caught sight of the forward gun turning and elevating. He dove to the deck, covering his ears.

BOOM

Having magic alicorn hearing protection was a plus, but Guinness had definitely made the right decision for a regular pony. Spike, who had been on the machine gun mount opposite of Guinness, said, “Wow, that was kind of loud. Good thing dragons don’t have external ears.”

I watched as a streak of red magic arced from the muzzle of the cannon to the distant horizon. From up top, with the spyglass, Sir Win reported, “Hit! We just killed a whole bunch of crystal ponies and their fireball catapult.”

I shrugged. “Well, that settles it. They’re working with Tirek. Guess that means it’s open season on crystal ponies.”

I saw a gleam in the Princesses’ eyes. Twilight looked more than a little aghast.

On the field of battle outside Ponyville, we met the adversary. Thousands of crystal ponies stood in our way. From up close, they didn’t look quite like the demagicked zombies I expected.

“Hmm, interesting,” I commented.

“Like I told you at the original date for the Equestria Games, you can’t take away a pony’s magic completely or horrible things could happen,” said Twilight.

“Well, Tirek’s been taking magic regardless of what you think. But maybe these ponies have been inspired by the magicless efforts up until recently of yours truly and won’t just keel over.”

“That seems very unlikely,” Twilight said.

I shrugged. “Then it’s probably the meth.”

Behind the army of drug zombies was Tirek. He sure was getting big. I could even see him without the spyglass.

I pulled out my sword. I hadn’t needed it for a long time, and probably did not need it now. It sure looked cool, though. I belted it on right next to my Desert Eagle. I hadn’t needed the pistol for a long time, either. In fact, the last time it had been fired was when Twilight had shot that guy in the head. Interestingly enough, that was also the last time she’d been dealicornified.

I looked out at the battlefield again. I couldn’t hear Tirek’s voice in the distance, but he made a gesture and his army started forward.

I pulled my sword and thrust it into the air. “Charge!”

Sunset hit the throttles and the ship surged forward. I checked my stash and found a couple of the old magic communicator earmuffs Twilight had enchanted. I passed them out among the crew because things were about to get loud.

Let’s see…an autocannon at the front, a pair of chain guns at the back, point defense missiles, torpedoes, a total of five machine guns, and two Princesses eager to kill their subjects. Admittedly, the torpedoes might be useless on land, but that was still firepower out the wazoo. And with any luck, we’d be putting it in Tirek’s wazoo. I’ve heard that’s unpleasant.

The ship sliced into the thick of crystal ponies. Copying Celestia and Luna, I took a few potshots with my horn. Hey, this was fun. Maybe they were onto something.

Deciding to make things more interesting, I grabbed a bear whistle from my stash. I’d found it at the trader’s exchange and it worked pretty well. Even over the sound of gunfire, it brought loads of bears out of the Everfree Forest to maul crystal ponies.

Rainbow was overhead trying out her sparkly magic fire. Apparently thinking that it wouldn’t burn things because it didn’t feel hot to her, she was spitting it all over the crystal ponies. Being Rainbow, she wasn’t looking back to see them actually writhing in pain and burning to death.

We continued to lay waste to Tirek’s army. Along the way I had a thought. Based on the empty Crystal Empire we’d seen, Tirek might have recruited the whole population. If that was true, and we won the battle as handily as I was expecting us to, there might not be any crystal ponies left anywhere. Hmm. Maybe the Princesses would just write this off as a failed treason of a citystate and that’s why they were so eager to take care of business. Plus, since I'd never seen a crystal pony foal before, they would probably never repopulate. I love the drama of high-stakes politics.

A small party of crystal ponies used the fallen bodies of their comrades to cover behind, climbing up the pile to leap on deck. My wings gave me extra maneuverability as I engaged, spinning and twisting through the group. Some got shot, some got cut. For an awesome special move, I stabbed one guy with my horn. I was just turning to flow into attacking the last guy when a ball of energy sizzled over my head and slammed into the superstructure so hard the entire ship rattled.

“Combo breaker!” I spat, turning to face the direction the blast had come from while pointing my gun behind my back and shooting the last pony in the face. At least I got the no scope bonus on that one.

It was Tirek who had thrown the magic at us. I glanced at the ship, seeing an area of buckled metal and blackened paint a few feet in diameter. It wasn’t severe damage, but the fact that he was able to do anything from such a range was troubling.

Celestia appeared next to me. “We have to take down Tirek. His desire is magic, and that includes alicorns! If we don’t defeat him, then we’ve brought three right to him.”

I nodded and called, “Shift fire - all available weapons on Tirek.”

He knew what we were doing and threw up a shield. It was a hell of a spell. Anything that can withstand a barrage of magic propelled cannon rounds would be. In fact, it took so much power that Tirek had to hunker down and could do little except protect himself.

I grinned and shot a few more crystal ponies. With Tirek suppressed, this would be easy. We’d just drive over and kill him up close and personal.

Of course, Discord appeared just then and ruined things just like Discord always did. With a snap of his claws, I got yanked. Off my hooves, off the ship, into the air, over to where Discord was standing near Tirek.

“You’re such a dick,” I accused Discord. “You say you want to be friends and then do shit like this. Seriously bro, we’ve had this conversation before.”

He shrugged. “Surely you saw this coming. It’s in my nature.”

“Yeah, asshole, but you’ve forgotten something. Humans like me are the best at screwing with nature.”

Discord looked nervous, although that could have been because of the 57-millimeter magic cannon shells hammering on Tirek’s shield just a few feet away.

Seeing me so close to where steel was raining, Sunset ceased fire. The ship screeched to a halt, everyone onboard facing down Tirek and Discord with me unavoidably hanging out in front of them as an unwilling shield.

“What are you doing?” I shouted. It was a little bit louder than normal and I figured this was me growing into the alicorn royal voice.

“I can’t let you get hurt!” shouted Sunset over the ship’s external PA system.

“I’m pretty confident in the fire control systems to be precise enough to miss me,” I said. “But just in case…”

I turned my head to Discord, who was still holding me hovering out front of he and Tirek. “Position me so that it’s like I’m strung up on a cross as a sacrificial messiah.”

“Messiah? Messiah?” shouted Twilight. “Valiant, does your arrogance know no bounds?”

“This is a little more important than me,” I reminded her. “I thought we all agreed that there was going to be some dying today.”

“No!” shouted Sunset.

“Discord,” said Tirek quietly. “While they’re arguing about how that orange unicorn loves that orange alicorn, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Sure,” said Discord. "What's on your mind?"

“Wait,” I interrupted. “Sunset loves me?”

Tirek gave me a look. “Even I can see it.”

“Ohhhh,” I said. “That explains so much!”

“You didn’t know?” Discord asked incredulously.

“It never came up in conversation,” I admitted.

Discord shook his head and turned back to Tirek. “So what did you want to talk about?”

“Well, I was going to distract you and then steal your magic, but while we were talking I already did it.”

I tumbled to the ground as Discord realized his power was gone. Discord himself tumbled over and fell on the ground beside me. Tirek, now even larger, towered over us. He leered down at Discord and me and a fireball of magic began to form between his horns.

“H-hold me?” Discord squeaked, eyes begging me for solace.

So I held him. To the ground. With a tent stake through where I guessed his heart was.

“Seriously?” he croaked. Even if his crazy body didn’t have the organs arranged logically, he could at least bleed to death.

“Surely you saw this coming, asshole.”

Discord died. Hopefully this time forever.

Tirek chuckled as he stared down at me. “How does it feel knowing every unicorn, pegasus, earth pony, and alicorn will bow to me?”

Still lying on my back, I glared at him and thought of a way out of this. I mumbled under my breath.

“What was that?” said Tirek. He stepped closer.

“I said mumble mumble mumble…”

He approached until his massive forelegs were on either side of me and leaned down. “Speak up!”

Instead, I kicked him in the junk. I mean, he had a handy arrow right there in his fur pointing to his crotch.

Tirek sucked in a breath and his knees went wobbly. I followed up my alicorn dick kick with an extendo boxing glove to the face. Sproing!

Tirek stumbled backwards just enough so that I managed to get up and face him. He took a few deep breaths and seemed to work through the pain. Apparently he was a gelding centaur as quickly as he recovered. Makes sense; he did spend a lot of time in Tartarus prison.

Everybody apparently wanting a piece of dat ass aside, when he was able, Tirek’s eyes went back to me. “That was impressive.”

I had expected him to launch into a murderous rampage or something. Tirek went on. “You’re certainly the most interesting being I’ve ever encountered. Not like these ponies who can’t even help themselves or Discord who is so predictable. I see a lot of similarities in how we do business, Valiant. You’re not afraid of anything. You know what you want and how to get it. You plan so far ahead, outsmarting everyone.”

“Less teeth, more tongue.”

Tirek frowned as if he’d misheard. “What was that?”

“I gave you an order, bitch. I like to be in control when someone’s sucking my dick.”

“Oh no he didn’t!” I heard Pinkie faintly exclaim.

I kept talking. “I see what you’re doing. You’re trying to flatter me. And why is that? Why are you suddenly interested in talking?” I grinned, all teeth and putting extra effort into crazy eyes. “I think it’s because you’re afraid of me.”

Tirek roared, “I have captured the magic of ponies everywhere from Canterlot to the Crystal Empire! I have the magic of Discord himself! I am the most powerful being in the universe! I don’t fear anypony!”

I grinned. “You mad?”

“He mad,” I heard Sunset agree cheerfully.

I glanced back at the ship. Sunset was practically pressed against the bridge glass, trying to reach me. She had done so much for me. Just today alone she’d commanded the guns that had slaughtered Tirek’s army. All for me. I think I was in love. And I had the perfect thing to show that I cared.

I turned back to Tirek and stared him down. He really was mad.

“So you claim to be in charge of this universe?” I said. I held up a hoof and gestured him forward. “Then come at me, bro.”

The magic Tirek had been holding ready surged brighter and hotter – straight at my face. I met it with a spell of my own, but all I succeeded in doing was deflecting it. I was still figuring out this alicorn thing and now I was going up against somebody with at least two cities’ and a draconequus worth of magic plus thousands of years of experience.

In other words, one false move and Tirek would flatten me. Ganking him wasn’t going to be so easy. Sure I’d planned everything up until now, including unlocking Twilight’s battle form, but Tirek was a problem. I couldn’t plot the weaknesses of someone unless I’d actually had a chance to study them.

So, I was locked in combat with the deadliest thing I’d ever faced, too close to him for Sunset to chance a shot, and nobody else was equipped to do much more than piss him off. Shit.

Worse, he got in a lucky hit almost immediately. I threw up a shield but the raw volume of energy in his attack knocked me over on my back again.

Tirek loomed over me, although not quite as close this time. “Now I will take your magic!”

He opened his mouth to suck it in and I promptly spit tequila in his face.

Not only did it get in his eyes, but since he was inhaling it also went into his lungs. Choking and in pain, he stumbled away.

Sunset immediately resumed the fusillade. I ducked under the flying cannon shells and leaped back aboard the ship. Turning to look over my shoulder, I could see Tirek was staggered, but eventually he would work himself out and attack us again. Right now, his shield was managing to deal with the firepower we were putting out while he recovered.

Sunset met me on the deck with a tight hug and a kiss on the lips. “I was so worried about you!”

“That means a lot, thank you.” I hesitated. “I’m sorry if I ignored you.”

I was about to say more, but Tirek managed to get off a weak shot of magic that hit me. It was enough to knock me across the deck and slam into the main gun hard enough to disable it.

While I was mostly unhurt, the impact was so severe that my stash had gone everywhere-small trinkets, camping gear, spaghetti-had spilled out of my pockets. There was also a limp rainbow among the detritus.

Twilight picked it up. “Valiant, what is this?”

“I got it from the harmony box. I guess I kept it too long and it got stale.”

“You had a pocket full of rainbow this whole time and didn’t tell anyone?” Luna asked.

“Why, is it important?”

Twilight shook out the rainbow a little and it suddenly exploded into a shower of light that covered the Element Bearers. It looked like a particularly gay acid trip. There was rainbow everywhere – some really crazy technicolor magical girl shit.

“This is pretty gay, right?” I said.

“It is,” confirmed Sir Win.

Luckily, the ponies working on the fifty cals hadn’t let up and Tirek was still just barely pinned down. We had to do something fast.

I got up and shook out the aches. “Okay, we’ve seen that magic attacks haven’t worked well against Tirek. That’s okay because we’ve been planning to kinetic kill him all along. However, if this rainbow power thing can strip his shield off it’ll be that much easier.”

“What can we do?” Sunset asked. “The main gun is down.”

“I’ve got something bigger in mind.” I took a look around the ship’s decks and sighed. “Everyone off. Abandon ship.”

The Element Bearers jumped down and started doing their thing, which involved more rainbows. I turned to the Princesses. “I’m going to need help with some heavy lifting."

Celestia and Luna nodded. I gestured to Sunset. “Grab the anchor chain and tie it to me.”

With her magic, Sunset made a neat little knot of chain around my waist. She then climbed on my back and buckled my magic alicorn seatbelts. With a nod to the Princesses, I flapped my wings and got airborne.

Lifting a ship, even when you’re an alicorn and with two alicorns to push from the bottom, is incredibly difficult. Sunset clung close to my neck, breathing words of encouragement in my ears. I don’t think I could have done it without her.

I heard a shout from the ground. Tirek’s shield was down. I hadn’t managed to fly very high, only a few hundred yards. Still, it would have to do.

“Now!” I called. Celestia and Luna ceased their support. Sunset jerked the anchor chain loose and Milwaukee started to fall like a rock. The acceleration of gravity can be a real bitch.

I grabbed the ship with my magic to point the bow downwards to make it more aerodynamic. A burst of blue flashed past my ear as Sunset added her own efforts. With our magic pushing, the ship went even faster, streaking towards the target like the world’s biggest lawn dart.

Tirek had been distracted by the ponies near him and only looked up when they began to. That was just in time for him to catch a ship in the face.

He was crushed beneath three thousand tons of American steel moving at more than one hundred miles per hour. Milwaukee went down with her flag flying.

Then the magazines detonated to add further overkill. The shields that had been stripped from Tirek made handy dying prevention devices to those standing nearby.

The fireworks from exploding shells, flames from burning fuel, and little rainbow sparkles where shrapnel hit the magic shields were spectacular. They should be - it cost several hundred million taxpayer dollars.

Sunset and I landed. She stepped off my back and kissed me. I let it go on for a while. Long enough that everyone else started to get uncomfortable.

Sunset came up for air when Celestia cleared her throat. “Valiant, your methods are extreme as always, but I thank you for saving the day.”

I nodded. “You’re welcome. Now let’s discuss payment.”

“Payment?” asked Luna.

I gestured to the rainbowfied Element Bearers, Discord’s body, my alicorn self, and the smoking crater in the ground. “All this don’t come cheap. Valiant gots to get paid.”

“What do you want?” Celestia asked carefully.

I thought for a moment. “How about…the moon?”

They all stared at me. Luna said, “Absolutely not.”

“Come on, it’ll give me a place to go. You want me gone, right?”

“No. I mean, yes, we’d like you leave us in peace, but no, we’re not giving you the entire moon.”

“How about just the dark side, then? I’ll even promise not to mess with your tides or deface the place.”

Luna and Celestia glanced at each other. Luna sighed. “On one condition. You leave right now.”

I nodded. “Done. Hey Sunset, do you want to go to the moon with me?”

She smiled. “I’d love to.”

She mounted up again. I activated my horn and began to rise from the ground. Getting to space would take a lot of effort, but I knew I could manage. I slowly drifted upwards.

“Valiant, you can’t ascend to the heavens!” shouted Twilight. “There are still six mares chained in the library basement!”

With magic, I created a middle finger and pointed it over my shoulder at her. Sunset nuzzled my neck. I smiled as the sky began to darken. A personal air bubble I created around us kept everything comfortable as we left the atmosphere and headed for the moon.

Creating our super awesome lunar space castle fortress of solitude took up the rest of the day. Sunset happily gave me a helping bit of magic now and again as we bounced across the lunar surface.

That evening, or as much of an evening as you can have when you’re already on the moon, I was inspecting the inside of our new home. It had really turned out great. I was just in the middle of some cosmetic touches when Sunset came into the room.

She was wearing a low cut black dress that she’d conjured. Her mane was down and she was smiling. We kissed. Several times.

She pulled back for a moment, still wearing that smile. “I was hoping you could come help me say goodnight.”

I nodded and smiled. The two of us walked to the bedroom door. She stepped in, turning to look at me.

“Goodnight,” I said cheerfully, and shut the door in her face.

The Cutie Map - part 1

Author's Note

Welcome to a new season of A Dream.

Stuff you may have missed:
Check out More Dreams and read the chapters "MEANWHILE" through "Contingency."
Or don't. I'm not your mom.

The Cutie Map - part 1

“And another thing, which one of you featherbrains decided to let my little Skyla drink?!”

It was rare to see Rainbow Dash so angry. It didn’t help that she was currently a fire-breathing dragon taking up most of the library common room.

Guinness, hiding behind a piece of furniture, tentatively raised a hoof. “Uh…it’s basically grain in liquid form, has antiseptic properties, and she likes it.”

Rainbow turned on him. “Alcohol is an incredibly irresponsible thing to give to a filly!”

“A filly that Valiant gave us,” Guinness reminded her.

Groans went up from the other ponies hidden around the room.

“I thought we agreed not to mention Valiant!” Rarity protested.

“Like how we said we wouldn’t talk about how Princess Skyla is the new kid Valiant gave to Guinness and Rainbow Dash to replace the demonchild he sacrificed to become an alicorn,” Pinkie added.

“Now you’ve just gone and done both at once!” Applejack shouted.

“And the part about Skyla being a princess, we haven’t confirmed that,” Twilight added.

“She’s an alicorn filly,” Fluttershy said.

“Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily imply royalty,” Twilight argued.

“Name one alicorn that wasn’t a princess,” Applejack countered.

“Valiant!” Pinkie replied.

“Now you’ve gone and done it again!”

Guinness stood up, holding his hooves above his head. “Dashie, please, I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.”

Rainbow gave him a hard look, but reverted back to her pony form. Everyone silently let out a breath. Rainbow could tear up enough without weighing a couple of tons and having the ability to spit fireballs. They all decided not to mention that it was Valiant who had been the catalyst for her gaining that ability.

Applejack got up. A couple of duplicates of her were already cleaning up the scattered books. Due to mysterious circumstances involving cannibalism, she was able to produce protein-based doubles of herself. Valiant had been involved.

One of the meat puppets swept up a thin trace of salt from the floor. Rarity had been shedding. She’d started doing that ever since a magic, equinimorphic bible had turned her into a literal pillar of salt and back again. The book had formerly belonged to Valiant.

Fluttershy emerged from her hiding place. Her head was down, her mane covering one eye, but not the horn that sprouted from her head. After accidentally eating Discord – long story – she had started swapping races every time she sneezed. In addition, she had slaves. This was also a matter Valiant had been involved in, as he had stabbed Discord with a tent stake in the place where Fluttershy had later planted a vegetable garden.

Twilight looked glumly at the library. Little damage had been done, but she was irked that it had happened at all. Princesses probably didn’t have to put up with this, and Twilight was no longer a princess, again. This was directly Valiant’s fault. Again.

Rainbow had gone over to the baby carrier to retrieve the young alicorn. The filly was pink with a yellow and lavender mane.

“Yay!” had been her first word, and she happily said it once more as Rainbow picked her up.

“At least we’re lucky I’m still milking after the last kid,” Rainbow said. Most of the gathered ponies winced.

The door opened and a brown unicorn came in carrying a bag full of fruit. He had a white underbelly and a gold cross for a cutie mark. “Hello everypony, I brought some lunch. Twilight said it would be good for me to learn the importance of eating.”

This was Bible. He used to be a book and was just now getting used to being a pony. Twilight had a crush on him.

Distracted by food, everyone gathered around. Within minutes, the argument over raising pints with babies had been forgotten, and the group was enjoying a meal together.

As they were eating, Trixie and Daring stopped by. The two of them were dressed in adventure gear, which is to say the regular clothes they wore all the time because they were now pretty much adventuring 24/7.

“We’re about to head out,” said Trixie.

“Something about a mysterious such-and-such up in the northern plains,” added Daring.

“That seems remarkably unspecific,” Twilight observed.

Pinkie stage-whispered, “I bet they’re sneaking off to have HLS in a new, exotic location!”

Neither Trixie nor Daring commented, instead turning for the door. On the way out, however, Daring paused and said, “Hey, I heard something about a weird equals-sign place out in the wasteland. Sounded weird. You guys do weird, right?”

“What did that mean?” Twilight wondered aloud as the door closed.

“Sounds like business,” said Rainbow.

“Business?”

“You know, the stuff we do all the time?” Rainbow said. “Fighting ninjas and pirates and lasers and stuff.”

Applejack said, “Well, usually that stuff comes to us a little bit more direct.”

“Yeah, but I’m bored,” Rainbow said.

“Bored with being a mother to a wonderful foal?” Guinness asked.

“I could never be bored with that.” Rainbow waved a hoof. “I’m talking about my day job.”

“Wait, you have a day job?” Rarity asked.

“The weather patrol?” said Fluttershy.

“Nah, I quit that to be an Element of Harmony full time,” said Rainbow. “Way more interesting. That is, when interesting stuff happens.”

Twilight glanced around the library. “I hate to say it, but after doing this for a while, being a librarian again does sound kind of dull.”

“Spike did want us to become a superhero team,” Fluttershy reminded them quietly.

“Speaking of, where is he?” Pinkie asked.

The door burst open. Spike ran in, breathless. “Everypony…we’ve got tanks.”

A collective “huh?” went around the room. Gesturing to follow him, Spike led the rest out of the library.

Parked outside were six brightly painted armored vehicles. Twilight, who had once visited a museum in the human world, knew what she was looking at. “Oh, this is bad!”

“What are they?” Rainbow asked, flying over to check out the one that was painted like her.

“They roll on tracks and have large cannons,” Twilight summarized.

“Where did they come from?” Applejack wondered.

All of them were silent. They all sort of suspected, but nobody wanted to say it.

The tanks were parked in a neat row in front of the library. If anyone had bothered to ask Guinness, he might have told the girls that they resembled M4 Shermans. However, Guinness was smart enough that he would have instead told them that the tanks resembled M4 Shermans.

“Well, what are we supposed to do with them?” Rarity asked after a while. The others were busy exploring the internals of their individual tank. Rarity didn’t, because it looked greasy.

“I think it’s pretty clear that they were some kind of weird gift,” said Twilight. She quickly emphasized, “But I think we should explore every option first and definitely not jump to any conclusions.”

From Fluttershy’s tank, they heard “AchooKABOOMeeeeeek!”

She had sneezed, inadvertently setting off the cannon with her restored wings.

The shell left the barrel and flew through the center of town. It punched a neat hole through the statue in the fountain in front of city hall, breezed right through the wooden walls of the public building, and through a few more things behind it that were susceptible to getting hit with a lot of force in not a lot of surface area.

When they pulled Fluttershy out of the tank, she was dazed and blinking away the smoke from the main gun. Twilight dropped down into the tank, fanning away the fumes. She found the expended shell and compared it to a few others that were stocked along the wall. The designation stenciled on them was vague, but it looked like they contained tungsten darts. A few others were marked “high explosive.”

“So are we going to take these things on a joyride or what?” said Rainbow. “You heard Daring, we should totally go check out that place she mentioned.”

“Until we know how to drive them and not destroy Ponyville, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” replied Applejack.

Pinkie waved a hoof. “Psh, everything destroys Ponyville.”

“Which is exactly why we should go on some adventure instead!” Rainbow insisted.

“Looks like it's time for a road trip,” Twilight agreed.

Rainbow left Skyla with Guinness. His pub, The Half Pint, was still open for business, and in fact, business was booming. Squibles, his griffon business partner, could take up some of the slack. Skyla was very well behaved, for Rainbow at least. For him, the little alicorn foal was a troublemaker. Still, Guinness was secretly delighted by the fact that this new foal Valiant had found somewhere wasn’t hellspawn, although hadn’t mentioned it to Rainbow.

While they waited for Rainbow to come back, the Cutie Mark Crusaders came by. Their number had expanded by a few as of late. One of them was a blue and white filly named Cordoba, who spoke Spanish about half the time and had been involved in some hilarious misunderstandings, like that time the CMC had launched an actual religious crusade.

“What are those things?” Scootaloo asked.

“Never you mind,” Rarity replied. Nobody wanted the CMC to get their hooves on tanks. Robots had been bad enough.

The kids ran along. Next to stop by were Daisy, Lilly, and Rose. They clustered around Fluttershy, who looked uncomfortable.

“What can we do for you today, master?” Daisy asked.

“Anything at all,” added Lilly.

“Um, fix the damage that this tank did with the cannon, if that’s not too much trouble?” Fluttershy said.

“Oh, anything for you!” exclaimed Rose. The three flower ponies went off to do Fluttershy’s bidding.

Rainbow rejoined the group. She raised her eyebrows at the reaction of the three mares, but by now the news that Fluttershy had slaves wasn’t new anymore. Just one of those things.

The girls headed out to find the mysterious equals-sign place. It took a while because none of them knew where they were going. Partway there, they managed to find a map shop and purchased a rough sketch that was not really helpful, but did feature an equals sign on it.

They knew they were in the right place when at long last, they crested a ridge and found the town below them.

Twilight looked up from her navigating. “That's it! That's the place on the map!”

“Right, let's get down there and find the spa,” Rarity grumbled. It had been a longer journey than it really needed to be. Dirtier too.

The rest started forward, but Twilight cautioned, “Wait, we don't know anything about this place. We shouldn't just walk right in. It could be dangerous.”

“Yes!” Rainbow exclaimed. “That’s exactly why we should walk right in!” She punched the air a few times. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”

“Or maybe they’re regular law-abiding ponies and would take offense to some featherbrain stirrin’ up trouble where there wasn’t none,” Applejack deadpanned.

“If they’re regular law-abiding ponies then they could use a party!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Stay behind me, everypony! I'm on it!”

She skipped down the hill and into town. The rest followed. The buildings were set up in two straight rows and all were exactly alike.

“Ugh,” Rainbow grumbled. “It looks like the most boring place in Equestria.”

“It looks like just an ordinary village full of ordinary pony folk,” Applejack said, although she agreed.

“It could certainly use a few more architectural flourishes,” Rarity decided. “Or any architectural flourishes.”

Pinkie frowned. “I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. I know smiles. And those smiles? They're just not right.”

Twilight’s eyes popped open wide. “Forget the smiles. Look at the cutie marks!”

Every pony in town, regardless of race, gender, or other, had exactly the same equals sign cutie mark.

“Okay, that's weird,” Rainbow acknowledged.

“Welcome!” said a stallion trotting by with a huge grin on his face. So did a few others, with identical, super-creepy grins.

“I’ve seen enough movies to know what we should probably do when we’re new in town and need some information,” said Applejack. “Let’s go have a bite to eat and met with some locals. They can tell us a little more about the situation.”

“Plus, I’m super hungry after all that traveling!” Pinkie emphasized.

Applejack stopped one of the ponies in the street. “‘Scuse me, where’s the best restaurant in town?”

“Best?” she said. “Why would we need more than one?”

“Competition,” Rainbow said.

“Variety,” Rarity added.

The mysterious equals-sign pony blinked, as if those words were foreign concepts. “Anyway, it’s down the street.”

“Which street?” Pinkie asked.

“Why do we need more than one street?”

“It was a joke,” Pinkie said. “You…you have jokes, right?”

“We have one joke.”

The rest dragged Pinkie away before she could ask.

At the restaurant, they found seats and the waiter came over. It turned out there were only a few things on the menu: black bread, borscht, potatoes, and blintzes for dessert.

Twilight, who knew the history of many types of food from around the world, began to get a bad feeling.

That intensified when the meal was over. The waiter came to clear away the plates. Applejack asked, “How much do we owe ya?”

He paused, as if considering it. “Owe? You mean like money?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Rainbow.

“I’ll just leave this,” Twilight said, putting out what she thought was appropriate, plus a generous tip. The waiter stared at it and was still staring when they left.

“Okay, this place is getting weirder by the second,” Applejack muttered as they walked down the one street.

Twilight glanced at the drab architecture. There was only one kind of everything, one restaurant, one grocery store.

“What’s the deal with these guys?” Rainbow asked. “Nopony tries to outdo anypony else, they don’t seem to know what to do with money, everything is so dull.”

“I have a theory,” said Twilight. “Valiant warned us about this.”

“I thought we agreed not to talk about him!” Rainbow protested.

“Yes, but this place is remarkably like how he described them.”

“Described who?” Rarity asked.

Twilight glanced around and lowered her voice. “Communists.”

The Cutie Map - part 2

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Castle Sweet Castle

"Twilight, have you ever thought about expanding?" Spike asked.

Between a pile of books, some pillows for comfort, and a few empty teacups, Twilight looked up from the text she was currently reading. "Spike, if this is going to turn into a joke about my posterior..."

Spike shook his head. "No, the library. Since you came to Ponyville, this place has gotten so many more books. That, plus the crime-fighting business, means we're running out of space."

He had a point. The common area in the center of the library was about the last open space in the whole tree-building. Well, there was the basement, but between the portal to Hell and the half-dozen ponies chained to the wall, nobody really wanted to go down there.

Twilight instead elected to focus on the crime-fighting aspect. "This is a library. It's supposed to be full of books. It's too bad that it doesn't make a very good secret headquarters."

"We've been using it for meetings ever since you and your friends became the Elements of Harmony," Spike reminded her. "Since we started doing more stuff outside Ponyville and needing supersuits and gadgets, we don't have enough room."

Twilight frowned. "We've never actually used supersuits and gadgets."

"And you're missing out!" Spike threw up his claws, gesturing at the closet where said superhero suits sat in storage.

"I suppose it'll be the next time we get tipped to a crime but can't intervene as our true identities," Twilight said. "Which is probably never, because saving Equestria is kind of what we do and nopony has ever complained. What are they going to do, arrest us for vigilantism?"

Spike looked disappointed. "Yeah, okay."

Still, he had a point. Twilight looked around. A lot had happened at the library. There were a lot of memories.

Like the memory of how Valiant had once slept on the couch and been a terrible roommate.

Twilight stood up. "Spike, we're going to find a new HQ."

He jumped to his feet and pumped a fist. "Yes! Where?"

Twilight paused. "I have no idea."

"So...get the team together and have a superhero summit?"

"A meeting with the girls might be nice," Twilight acknowledged.

"A...super meeting?"

"Mmm, probably just a talk over lunch."

Spike grinned. "That works too."

Later that day, the left Bible to watch the library and met the girls at The Half Pint. It was not the best place to eat in town, but the pub food had been steadily improving and it certainly wasn't a bad place for a chat.

Guinness got them a room in the back. The midday tavern was quiet, but it was even quieter in the private room. It was furnished with a long wooden table and decorated with a parchment map of Equestria behind glass on the wall. Guinness called it the World Room.

It was perhaps slightly fancier than the rest of the place, but in Twilight's mind not enough to really merit a special designation. She didn't say anything, though, and fortunately neither did Rarity.

The six of them and Spike met around the table. Guinness and Squibles served lunch and then let them be, closing the door behind them.

"I called this meeting to discuss a new place to meet," said Twilight.

"So we need a new place to meet and you had us all meet here to talk about where to meet?" Applejack said.

"That's the long and short of it," Twilight confirmed.

"Well, we're meeting right now," Rainbow said.

"Yes, but we need a meeting location to meet at," Twilight corrected.

"What's wrong with this one?" Rarity asked.

"We need a place to meet in the future," Twilight explained.

"Can't we meet here in the future?" Applejack asked.

"This is just an intermediate meeting place for meeting to discuss meeting in the future." Twilight was beginning to grow a little agitated.

"So we're here to talk about where we're going to talk about stuff when, should it become necessary, we need to talk about stuff?" Pinkie asked.

"Right."

"Well, why didn't you say so?"

The tinest curl of steam wisped off Twilight's mane. These ponies were as dumb as bricks sometimes. It was hard out here for an egghead. "Well anyway, now that we're all on the same page, does anypony have any ideas?"

"What's wrong with the library?" Pinkie asked.

"It's getting crowded with too many books," Twilight replied.

"How about the old castle in Everfree Forest?" Fluttershy suggested.

"Not a bad idea, but a lot of disadvantages," said Applejack. "Needs a lot of work."

"We're six of the hardest-working ponies in Equestria," Rarity said.

"Rainbow included?" Applejack snickered.

"Hey, if you can make duplicates of yourself at will, then why should I have to do all the work?" Rainbow protested. "Plus, we've got two unicorns that can do whatever they want without breaking a sweat."

"Be that as it may," said Twilight, "The old castle is also a long way from town."

"We could move it," Pinkie suggested.

It sounded ridiculous. Then again, after some of the things that had been moved across the land - an Ursa Minor, a ship called Milwaukee - maybe it wasn't so crazy after all.

Rarity rejected the idea, however. "Do you have any idea how garish a castle would look in the middle of all these average homes?"

"We could dress it up," Pinkie offered.

"That would only make the difference worse," Rarity countered.

"We could dress up all the houses in town."

"Valiant stopped me from that once," Rarity said. "I was possessed by a magic book."

As if on cue, Bible poked his head into the room. "Twilight? There you are. A telegram for you just arrived at the library."

"What's it say?" Twilight asked.

Bible held up a card and read from it. "'Attention Twilight, stop. Man up and learn to drive a tank, stop. It'd be badass, not to mention sort of important to the fate of Equestria, stop. Stop, hammertime, stop.' It's not signed."

"Doesn't need to be," Applejack muttered.

"I didn't know they had telegram stations on the moon," Pinkie said.

"We don’t know that Valiant is actually on the moon," Twilight admonished.

"Well, he did rise up into the sky and didn't come back," said Rainbow. "Aside from the risk of potentially running into him someday while I'm flying, I'm pretty happy with the arrangement. He isn't here."

"But what if he is?" Pinkie began giving the rest of them suspicious looks.

"If he was, I'm pretty sure he would announce himself," said Twlilght flatly. "This is Valiant we're talking about, after all."

There was a general murmur of agreement and the conversation turned back to finding a suitable meeting place.

"I'll say it again," suggested Applejack. "Why can't we meet here, in this room? We met here for lunch today because it's a good place to meet."

"It's centrally located," Rarity added.

"With food," appended Pinkie.

"I'm sure Guinness would be a bro and store our superhero stuff," Spike said.

Twilight looked around. "All in favor?"

Hooves went up around the room.

"Very well. We'll meet in the back room of The Half Pint from now on."

"Well then, if it's going to be our little place, we should make it a little more homey," Applejack said. "Coat racks, hat racks, boot racks..."

"And definitely decorations," added Rarity.

Pinkie showed Rarity where the emergency-remodeling-stash-for-remodeling-emergencies was kept before announcing, "We should celebrate! I'll get the cake!"

She ran out of the room. They heard Squibles squawk in surprise as she invaded the kitchen.

"If we're making this place an awesome place to hang out, we should hang some awesome posters and get a radio," Rainbow said. "So we can listen to awesome programs."

"You told me there haven't been any awesome programs since the Wonderbolts were decommissioned," Twilight argued, but Rainbow had already gone to get the radio from the other room.

Twilight shrugged and began summoning reference books from the library, teleporting them in. She got a few dozen, just the ones that might come in handy for any superhero situations that might arise.

Between Applejack's duplicates doing carpentry, Pinkie coming back with cake, Rainbow trying to find a place with good reception to situate the radio, Rarity placing table centerpieces and starting on new wallpaper, piles of heavy books piling up, and Fluttershy sneezing and rapidly changing races because of dust, the room was filled with busy activity.

Guinness tried to see what was going on, but between sawdust and spare lumber, buckets of paint, and a mound of reference books, the door wouldn't open. He knocked. "Hey, what's going on in there? Rainbow? Guys?"

Nobody heard him. He knocked louder, and shouted, "I want to come inside, Rainbow Dash!"

Pinkie giggled as she opened the door for him. "I thought you already did!"

Guinness entered, looking around. "What's going on here?"

"We're moving in, apparently," said Spike.

It looked like they were already well on their way. The place already looked nothing like the slightly-nicer-than-average back room of the pub.

"You can't do this!" Guinness protested. "This is a fine dining and ale house!"

"Says your brochure," Applejack corrected. "You also serve cider."

"Yeah, and lager too, but that's not that point! You can't just decide to take this room over for yourselves!"

"So how much does it cost to rent?" Twilight asked.

Guinness paused and frowned. "Uh..."

"Whatever he comes up with, it'll be fine," said Rainbow. "We're married, so it's just like renting to ourselves, which is like no rent at all."

"Sounds legit," said Pinkie.

"Now hold on-" Guinness tried to break in, but everyone was already talking over him again. He shook his head and retreated from the room.

The decorating went on, and went splendidly for each of them. Taken all together, however... Well, it sucked. The rustic country feel mixed with the sophisticated designer touch, the awesome accoutrements, the miniature library, and cake frosting everywhere did not lend itself to a sense of harmony.

However, since Applejack was a hard worker and so were all her meat puppets, wood paneling won out. It was accented by heavy varnish and polished brass that trickled down from Rarity's efforts. The plush armchairs were Rainbow's doing because they were perfect for snoozing. A command center with live radio inputs, a projector, video teleconferencing to Canterlot, and a rack of reference material had been installed by Twilight. The conveyer belt from the kitchen was all Pinkie.

In the end, it came out sort of like the library, but more sophisticated, higher-tech, and just plain nicer. Somewhere along the way, the walls had been surreptitiously armored and an electronic biometric scanner installed on the door.

"Freakin' sweet!" said Spike.

"I told you not to say things like that!" Twilight scolded. "Do you want to end up like Valiant?"

"As an alicorn living on the moon with his devoted girlfriend?"

"As a psycho forced out of Equestria due to his inability to get along with society," Twilight retorted.

"I guess not." Spike looked around. "You gotta admit, though, it is a really cool meeting place."

"It totally is, you guys," totallynotabrony confirmed. "Think like Google headquarters combined with a war room combined with a smoking lounge. Like my home office, basically."

Guinness opened the door again, blinking in surprise at the transformation. "This is actually not all that bad."

"We'll need permanent reservations," said Twilight. "Twenty four/seven."

"We're not open those hours," Guinness started to say, but the girls were talking excitedly again.

"I'm honestly surprised how well it works together," Rarity said. "There's a bit of all of us in here."

"Are these your trophies?" Fluttershy asked Rainbow.

"I prefer to think of them as everypony's trophies but with my name permanently etched onto them," Rainbow replied. She grinned and gestured around the room. "This is gonna be so cool! It's like a super awesome HQ with all the comforts of home yet all the equipment we need to find and stop crime anywhere in Equestria!"

"And a supply of food limited only by the speed of this conveyer belt!" Pinkie added. Squibles looked at her in disgust from the kitchen as she placed her open mouth at the end of the line, but dutifully placed a tray of cupcakes on it.

It was then that an angry rabbit and half a dozen foals burst into the room.

"We...we made a huge mistake!" Sweetie Belle cried.

The fact that the CMC were admitting their errors either meant that they'd learned something heartfelt, or that something truly horrifying had happened. Everyone was immediately on the alert.

"What do you mean?" Applejack asked.

"Well, we had an idea to get cutie marks in pet grooming," Apple Bloom began.

Angel glowered at them and crossed his paws in front of his chest.

"And a few of the others had the idea to get their cutie marks in spa treatments," Scootaloo went on, gesturing to some of the new recruits.

"Which, since they seemed so similar, it seemed like a good idea to have a pet spa," Sweetie Belle added.

"You didn't..." Rarity gasped.

"It was a horrible accident!" Apple Bloom burst out. She covered her eyes. "Blood everywhere."

Nobody wanted to know, but somebody had to ask. After a long silence, Applejack said, "What's the damage?"

"You've been looking for a soprano for your quartet, right?" Sweetie asked Rarity. "You might want to talk to Bulk Biceps."

"Um, also, Thunderlane's in the hospital. He tried to help," said another foal, Strawberry Glaze.

"To be fair, he kinda deserved it," said Inkspot.

"El burro negro," muttered Cordoba.

"Now now, let's not play the blame game," said Twilight. "We all know who's at fault here."

"Sure do," said Apple Bloom. "Angel."

There was a general chorus of agreement around the room. Whether or not he was actually guilty, the bunny deserved it.

The CMC left, taking Angel with them. Only Fluttershy seemed concerned about their intentions.

"Well, it's been a productive day," Twilight observed.

"Yeah, we got so much done!" said Pinkie through a mouthful of cupcakes. "Got this sweet pad and all. It's still only early afternoon and I haven't even banged Fluttershy yet today."

Fluttershy's cheeks went as pink as her mane.

"Pinkie, we are all very well aware of your interpersonal habits, but please try to limit their discussion during polite conversation," Rarity admonished.

Ignoring her completely, Pinkie went on. She elbowed Applejack. "Maybe I could borrow one of your meat puppets for a while, with extra meat puppet, if you know what I mean."

Applejack stared at her. "Aside from the fact that I don't know if that's possible, no."

Unperturbed, Pinkie then wink-wink-nudge-nudged Rainbow. "How about a threesome? I'll make an extra special exception for Guinness. I'd love to take a big, hot-"

A party cannon went off with a perfect headshot, knocking Pinkie ass over teakettle. She shook her head and got up from the floor giggling, shaking glitter and confetti out of her mane. "Oops. I forgot that I hid party cannons all around this place while we were decorating."

"Well, we could use some security," Applejack allowed. "Not that we've got a whole lot of secret stuff going on now, but you never know."

"Now that the CMC know the location of our secret HQ," Rarity grumped.

"They can be remarkably oblivious kids," Twilight pointed out. "They probably didn't realize what we were doing here."

"I'm so glad HLS doesn't cause kids," said Pinkie.

So were the rest of them. Pinkie would be a terrible parent. Fortunately, Fluttershy would probably be pretty good, albeit reluctant.

Speaking of one parent that balanced out the other, Guinness came in. "Hey girls, Trixie just stopped by. She said something cryptic about a party."

"What party?" Twilight asked.

"Any party!" Pinkie exclaimed.

Rainbow cocked an eyebrow. "The Communist party?"

Guinness shrugged. "Just something about a party coming up soon."

"I think I know what he means," Applejack said.

They all crowded around to hear her explanation.

Bloom and Gloom

“Cousin Babs got her cutie mark,” Applejack explained to the others as they stood around in the recently redecorated back room of the pub. “They’re having her cute-ceañera party in Manehattan.”

“I could do with a trip to Manehattan,” Rarity said.

“A weekend trip could be nice,” Twilight agreed.

“Looks like we’re going to Manehattan this weekend,” said Rainbow.

“We are?” Guinness asked.

“Well, you aren’t. Somepony has to watch Skyla.”

“We could always take her with us,” Guinness pointed out.

Rainbow rolled her eyes and executed a long sigh. “Uuuuuugh, okay.”

“Traveling on a train with a baby?” Pinkie said. “No thanks.”

“Come on, she isn’t that bad,” Rainbow explained. “She just says ‘yay’ sometimes. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen her cry.”

Guinness nodded along with her. Skyla could be a handful, but at least she wasn’t constantly bawling.

They made plans. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo were also invited. Squibles got the nod to run the pub while they were gone.

“Who’s going to feed Doug and Ike?” Guinness asked.

Owning an orthrus was mo’ heads, mo’ responsibility. Rainbow still wished she hadn’t picked up the two-headed dog at the trading meet. Guinness, however, didn’t mind.

The train ride to Manehattan took hours. Skyla was quiet, but the CMC were not.

“Didn’t this train used to be faster?” Rainbow groaned, looking out the window at the scenery slowly passing by.

“I thought they used to have jet engines and stuff?” Guinness asked.

“They used to. Nopony knew how to fix ‘em,” Applejack replied.

Guinness looked like he wanted to ask a question, but didn’t.

The girls talked over a few of their recent adventures, especially discussing at length the one where a perhaps-Communist town was actually found out to be something else.

Guinness listened with rapt attention. He looked like he wanted to ask a question, and this time did. “So were they a cult or something?”

“I suppose that would be a reasonable description,” Twilight acknowledged.

“I mean, wow,” said Guinness. “I didn't realize that the magic of friendship involved toppling the leader of a cult of communist equines. As you were telling that story, I almost thought they were gonna go full Jonestown. And you never, never, go full Jonestown.”

“Sounds like something Trixie would say,” Applejack commented. “She hates cultists.”

“We know, we all read Daring’s book about it,” Twilight reminded her.

“Isn’t Daring working on something new?” Rarity said.

“I think the title is You Gave Birth to the Antichrist, Rainbow Dash,” said Fluttershy.

“She kind of did,” Guinness agreed.

Rainbow swatted his shoulder. “I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”

“There’s so much stuff we agreed not to talk about,” Applejack said. “Pretty soon we’re gonna start running out of things to talk about.”

Fortunately, they arrived in Manehattan and made their way to Babs' party. Leaving the train station, they passed a message board. It was fortunate that none of them noticed. Many of the postings were written with poor grammar. Some were racist or otherwise inflammatory. One read, "Valiant did nothing wrong."

Babs greeted them at the door when the group made it to her family's apartment. "Hey everypony! Come in!"

The CMC swarmed her, gasping and chattering like little machine guns as they fawned over her cutie mark, a pair of scissors. Also slightly belatedly, her stylish new haircut.

"Wow, it looks like you found out that you're really good with manes!" Sweetie exclaimed.

"But if you spend all your time cuttin' hair, who's gonna run the Manehattan branch of the CMC?" Apple Bloom asked.

"Well, not Babs," observed Scootaloo. "She can't be a Cutie Mark Crusader if she's already got her cutie mark."

"Oh, wow. I guess you're right," Apple Bloom allowed.

"I'm glad Babs is happy," Sweetie said, "but I sure wouldn't want to be up to my flank in mane hair all day. Can you imagine getting stuck with a cutie mark you didn't like?"

Apple Bloom frowned. "No...or at least I hadn't..."

"Drama incomin'," muttered Applejack to the other girls.

Babs went off with Sweetie and Scootaloo to get some food. Apple Bloom was still looking distressed. "I guess I just spent so much time worryin' about how to get a cutie mark, I never even thought about what would happen after. There's just so many things I never considered."

"I'm sure there are," Applejack tried to comfort her, "but you don't need to— "

"What if I finally get my cutie mark and I don't like it?" Apple Bloom interupted. "What if I get my cutie mark and nopony likes me?"

"Well, that's just ridicu—" Applejack tried to say.

"What if the Crusaders break up because we no longer have anything in common?" Apple Bloom wondered.

Applejack paused, and then glanced at the others. They all shared a quick nod and Applejack turned back. "AB, we're going to help you get your cutie mark!"

It was nearly midnight by the time the CMC finally calmed down from the news. The party had come to an end but they were still bundles of hyperactive energy that practically resulted in ADHDHD, the high-definition cousin of ADHD.

Babs' parents had found bedding for everyone to stay the night, despite the small size of the apartment. Regardless of the oncoming late night, the Crusaders were still awake. The older girls hadn't yet figured out exactly what they were going to do for cutie marks, but that didn't keep the fillies from freaking out about it.

They went up to the roof to enjoy the night air, having been ordered to stop disturbing the neighbors. The city lights dimmed the stars a little, but fortunately Manehattan was a pony city and therefore not all that industrialized and smog-producing. Valiant clearly hadn't worked on it hard enough.

The three fillies took a moment to contemplate their existence and comments from earlier in the day. Apple Bloom said, "We've all worked really hard to get cutie marks. We've done so much stuff. But...what if we all get cutie marks and they turn out to be something bad?"

"I couldn't even imagine." Sweetie shuddered.

"No kidding," added Scootaloo. "A bad cutie mark would be...well, bad."

"Why should you have to keep it, then?" asked a mysterious voice.

The three of them looked around to see an equally mysterious figure in the shadows. They spotted a silhouette with a pair of glowing red eyes and an equally illuminated crimson smile. All three of them remembered very well what Valiant had taught them about bad guys. Good guys might sometimes wear black, but they usually didn't have dark miasmas or suddenly appear with a too-good-to-be-true offers.

"Who're you?" Apple Bloom asked.

"I can make unwanted cutie marks disappear," the figure replied.

"Well, first we have to get some," Scootaloo said.

The figure sounded delighted. "It so happens that I can help with that, too."

"Crusader huddle," called Sweetie Belle. The three fillies put their heads together.

"Doesn't seem legit," Scootaloo began.

"Yeah, free cutie marks?" said Apple Bloom. "Heck, after all the work we put in, I'd be ashamed to admit to anypony that we worked so hard, didn't get cutie marks, and then just found somepony givin' 'em out for free."

"Plus, the obvious weird and creepy stuff whoever that is has going on," said Sweetie, throwing a glance at their mysterious visitor.

Suddenly, the red-glowing face of the shadow looked up in alarm and jumped away just before a blast of blue magic smacked into the roof right where it had been standing. Princess Luna dropped down onto the roof, looking cross. "Begone, foul creature!"

"Wow, thanks!" said Scootaloo.

"Yeah, whoever that was seemed kind of shady," Apple Bloom said, pun not intended because she was a country hick and was also like eight years old or something with an elementary school education that she hadn't paid attention to half of.

"I didn't even know we were asleep and dreaming," said Sweetie.

"Dreaming?" said Luna.

"What's going on up here?" Twilight called. She led the others up onto the roof. They all looked grumpy as if pulled from sleep. “What kind of commotion – oh, hello Princess.”

Luna nodded. “I was just passing by.”

Rainbow yawned. “That’s nice. Did it have to be in the middle of the night?”

“It’s comments like that that probably caused her to become Nightmare Moon,” Applejack muttered.

Luna looked uncomfortable and changed the subject. “I saw some nefarious character here earlier.”

“It’s Manehattan,” said Rarity. “That’s to be expected.”

“Wait a second,” said Twilight. “Exactly how nefarious are we talking?”

“A shadowy figure with red-glowing features,” Luna replied.

“Oh, okay, the usual.”

“Who was it?” Applejack asked.

“If I knew that, I would have identified them,” Luna said.

“Could it have been Valiant?” asked Pinkie. “He liked to be all dark and mysterious when the mood suited him.”

“At the same time, I believe he also referred to that as ‘emo’ and avoided it when he could,” Rarity replied.

“I am not sure he would have appeared in disguise at all,” Luna allowed. “He does not seem to be around much lately.”

“Except we’ve gotten some messages and things from him, wherever he is,” Twilight said. “He’s around, but we haven’t had any direct contact with him.”

“I am reminded of what he told me once,” said Luna. Her voice lowered into a vague mimic of Valiant. “‘Princess, for the right price, I'll be a goddamned ghost.’”

They were all silent for a moment. Finally, Fluttershy asked, “But who would pay him?”

That only led to more silence. Valiant seemed to have all the money he needed. Besides, as an alicorn with a moonbase, what else could he want? Certainly nothing money could buy. They also couldn’t see him working for anypony but himself.

“Well, that’s about enough annoyance for one night,” Twilight said. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going back to bed.” The rest of the girls followed her back downstairs.

Luna thought about warning the CMC to stay safe, but decided that it wasn’t worth the breath. These fillies had been through the Canterlot invasion, multiple robots, and several other schemes of Valiant. They would be fine. She bid them goodnight and flew away.

The trip back to Canterlot Castle gave Luna some time to think. The mysterious figure offering to remove cutie marks was disturbing, but didn’t seem particularly dangerous. Still, it was better to be safe than sorry. She decided to check in with Celestia when she got back.

The castle was dark, with only lights for the night servants. Luna entered her office window, but paused as she was folding her wings. Something was not quite right.

She moved towards the light switch, but something crunched under her hoof. Luna paused, engaging thermal vision. Broken shards of glass littered her office.

Now that she was on guard, she also noticed that some papers from her desk had been scattered. An ornamental vase that she was quite fond of had been smashed.

Flipping on the lights to see everything in full color, Luna took a closer look at the glass. It was the remaining shards of a tequila bottle.

Luna tapped a small box on her desk. It had a hole in it and had been enchanted to carry her voice to another box just like it. “Duty officer, please send me a capable guard for a special mission.”

“At once, Princess,” came the reply.

In just a few moments, the door opened and a batpony stepped in, wearing the traditional Night Guard armor. She saluted. “First Lieutenant Dandy Sprite, Princess.”

She looked like most any other Night Guard, with the slit pupils and the fangs and the batwings, and it took Luna a moment to recognize her. “Thank you for coming.”

“Yes Princess.” The guard looked around at the mess. “Did something happen here?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Luna said. “Now, I have a special mission for you. I need you to go to Ponyville to keep watch over the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony.”

“Is something going on?” Dandy Sprite asked.

“Perhaps,” Luna said. She could have mobilized other assets, such as Cheerilee, but for the simple task of reporting on what was going on around those mares in Ponyville, it was easier and a better use of resources to just send a guard to observe. If Valiant – or anypony/thing else – did something, Luna wanted to know immediately.

“You can count on me, Princess!” Dandy Sprite quipped. “I’ll make sure to keep tabs on all of them all the time, no matter what!”

Luna nodded. “Good luck.”

Tanks for the Memories

The hospital was quiet in the late evening. Princess Luna walked through the halls until she found the correct room. The tag on the door read Dandy Sprite.

Entering, Luna saw the mass of bandages that swathed the crippled Night Guard. Dandy was asleep, and mercifully so. She looked more like a worm than a pony now, having had all her appendages ripped off.

“That didn’t last long,” Luna murmured. She held back a lump in her throat. It might as well have been her fault that this had happened. She’d sent Dandy to Ponyville.

Luna sat quietly in the chair by the window. Closing her eyes, she slipped into the dream world.

Dandy was right where Luna expected to find her. Apparently the reality of the situation hadn’t caught up with her yet and she still had four legs and two wings instead of stumps.

“Hello, Princess!” Dandy said. She looked around and asked, “Is this a dream?”

“It is,” Luna acknowledged. “I have come to speak with you about the events of the previous day. Please tell me what you remember.”

Dandy frowned in thought. “Let’s see…after you gave me the job, I headed straight for Ponyville. Everypony was nice and hospitable. Well, except for Rainbow Dash.”

“What was the problem?” Luna asked.

“Rainbow was being super aggressive. It’s like regular aggressive but with extra malice. Rarity would have described it as regular aggressive but with a cape, but she’s not a medical professional so her opinion doesn’t count for this diagnosis.”

“You were prior acquaintances with Rarity, correct?” Luna asked

Dandy nodded. “That’s right. We went to fashion school together. When I got to town, she introduced me to the others.”

“Tell me everything,” said Luna.

Dandy began.

The day had started off with a businesslike tone. It was time to begin winter and all of Ponyville was pitching in.

Rainbow, as head of the weather team, was pushing everypony to finish as quickly as possible, as was her way. Guinness was at the pub, watching their kid and their orthrus.

Doug and Ike the twin-headed dog panted with anticipation, noses pressed against the window and watching the townsponies go about the business of laying winter on Ponyville.

“Yay!” exclaimed Skyla, sitting on their back, nose equally pressed to the glass. Her eyes were on the sky, where the city and weather factory of Cloudsdale had recently moved in.

Rainbow landed outside, stomping into the pub. “Hey Guinness, do you have anything to wake ponies up and get them to move faster?”

“Like coffee?” Guinness asked.

“Anything stronger?”

“This is a pub. It’s about unwinding.”

“Ugh,” Rainbow grumbled and turned around to go back out. Guinness frowned as he watched her go. Rainbow had been rather more callous than usual lately.

Applejack and Fluttershy came by a few minutes later, asking about Rainbow.

“She went off to motivate the weather team,” Guinness said.

“I can only imagine what that’s going to involve,” muttered Applejack.

“She’s been…intense lately,” Fluttershy added.

Just then, Rarity came up the street with a batpony beside her. The two of them were talking and laughing, both wearing extravagant scarves to ward off the chillier weather.

“Good morning, everypony,” said Rarity. “This is my old friend, Dandy.”

“First Lieutenant Dandy Sprite, Night Guard,” the batpony introduced herself. “Princess Luna sent me here to be a little extra protection. She wanted me here to tip her off in case anything ever happened.”

“We get along just fine by ourselves,” Applejack said.

“I understand,” Dandy said. “I’ve heard all about the stuff you girls have done. But the Princess is just a little on edge right now.” She lowered her voice. “I think somepony broke into her office recently.”

“Who would do that?” Guinness wondered.

“Who could do that?” Applejack said.

Dandy shrugged. “One of the most secure rooms in one of the most secure buildings in Equestria? No idea.”

“Dear, perchance, have you ever heard of somepony named Valiant?” Rarity asked.

“Who?”

“Nevermind,” Rarity said, changing the subject. “Well, now that you’re here, we can get on with setting up winter,” said Rarity. “It’s a Ponyville tradition. Fluttershy here is in charge of the animal team. Applejack is in charge of the plant team.”

Fluttershy had her slaves, Rose, Daisy, and Lilly with her. She was still uncomfortable with the idea, but they did want to help with the animal team.

“What are you featherbrains doing? Faster, faster!” came a distant voice.

“And that must be Rainbow Dash, the weather team leader,” Rarity finished.

Rainbow dropped down out of the sky, still grumbling about something. “Bucking weather team can’t make things happen fast enough. It’s not like they do this for a living or anything.”

“Darling, this is my friend Dandy Sprite,” Rarity introduced. “She’s a Night Guard.”

Rainbow glanced at the batpony. “Yeah, whatever. Unless she can buck clouds I don’t care.”

“I’m a quick learner,” Dandy said.

“But would the Princess be okay with that?” Applejack asked.

“No, she probably wants me to stay with the rest of you,” Dandy allowed.

“So you’re not going to get off your lazy flank and bring the winter?” Rainbow asked.

“I can’t, sorry. No.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” said Rainbow. She grabbed Dandy by the foreleg and hauled her into the sky.

“I’m pretty sure Valiant would have something to say about forced labor,” Fluttershy commented.

“If he hadn’t already terrorized poor Dandy himself,” Rarity said.

“Nah, she seemed pretty down to earth,” said Applejack. “I don’t think he’d find much to pick on her about. Rainbow, however…”

“She does seem a bit more pushy than normal,” Rarity observed.

“I don’t know what’s come over her lately,” said Guinness.

“Why don’t we make it Twilight’s problem?” Applejack suggested. The rest of them agreed.

Dandy, meanwhile, was struggling to keep up. Her skin wings conducted heat a lot differently than feathers would have, and simply weren’t the same for handling clouds. And Rainbow kept driving her.

“I’ve never done this before!” she protested. “I’m a guard! I live in Canterlot!”

“I don’t care,” Rainbow snapped.

Before leaving the castle on Princess Luna's orders, Dandy had read up on all the Element bearers. Rainbow was a hothead, but she hadn’t expected it to be this bad. It was almost as if there was something wrong with her.

She was no shrink, but even then, Dandy couldn’t make a diagnosis while Rainbow kept pushing her and the rest of the weather team to work harder, better, faster, and stronger in bringing on winter. They were working, making, and doing it, but even after hour after hour, the work was never over.

Rainbow was losing her mind with impatience. She ended up in the center of Main Street in Ponyville screaming at the sky. “Move those clouds over! More snowflakes! I want those chilly breezes chillier!”

The girls, having heard how her hectic hate had happened, showed up with their concerns. Rainbow was intense by anyone’s definition, but she certainly seemed to be laying it on thicker than normal.

“Rainbow, we need to talk,” Applejack said.

“You’re scaring us,” Twilight added.

Rainbow whirled around. “I don’t have time for this. Winter needs to come now and nopony seems to get it! I’m busting my rump here!”

“You need to calm down,” Rarity said. “We’re worried about you.”

“You need to shut up and mind your own business!”

“You shouldn't take your anger out on your friends,” Pinkie retorted.

Rainbow swelled up with rage. “Who said anything about anger?! I didn't say anything about anger! I'm not upset! And I am not angry! Do I look angry?!”

The girls looked at each other and then nodded.

Rainbow kept swelling. That description from two paragraphs ago wasn’t figurative. She was having a runaway dragon transformation. Ponyville citizens began running for cover.

Roaring, Rainbow soared into the sky. Guinness slammed open the pub door and ran out into the falling snow, staring upward. “What happened?”

“Your wife lost it,” Pinkie said.

“Guess we’d better go get her,” Applejack commented.

“How are we going to do that?” Rarity asked. “None of us can fly.” Fluttershy was not currently a pegasus.

They watched Rainbow streak into Cloudsdale. Weather ponies scattered in all directions. Puffs of snowflakes and water vapor poofed out of the cloud chimneys and the usual rainbow trails streamed over the side. When the technicolor dragon slammed into the weather factory, however, the cloud-based building exploded.

Far above Ponyville, there was an enormous airburst of snowflakes.

Twilight shouted up the street at everypony who was not yet shut securely in their houses. “Brace yourselves! Winter is coming!”

Six feet of snow fell in two seconds. And it was winter.

They all stood around blinking and shivering in shock. Guinness finally had the presence of mind to look up and asked, “Where’s Rainbow?”

Pinkie whipped out some balloons and fashioned a pair of binoculars from them. “There she is! She’s back in pony form and falling!”

“That explosion must have knocked her back to her regular self!” Twilight exclaimed. “I hope the snow will give her a soft landing, but we have to go after her!” She paused, looked at Pinkie, and asked, “Where did you get those binoculars?”

“Party Favor, from that crazy equals-sign town, showed me how to make balloon stuff,” Pinkie said. She grinned. “I learned a lot about balloons.” Fluttershy winced.

Back to the matter at hand, Rarity said, “How are we going to get to Rainbow with all this snow?”

“We could put a plow on a couple of my duplicates and trade them out whenever their muscles tear from the strain,” Applejack suggested.

“Maybe a little less destructive, Twilight could do a rotary spell,” Rarity said.

“If Rarity would bat her eyelashes a little, I’m sure Spike could melt our way there,” Pinkie contributed.

“Rarity could melt it with her salt," Applejack said.

“Definitely not,” Rarity retorted.

“I have an idea,” said Twilight after a moment of thought. “Over by the library, we have six vehicles with enclosed interiors, strong engines, and high-flotation treads.”

They all considered it. Applejack said, “But how are we supposed to learn how they work fast enough to get to Rainbow before she freezes to death?”

Guinness held up a hoof. “I think I can help.”

As it turned out, he had read old human historical documents on maintenance and operation of tanks. Guinness was a history buff and a nerd, so it was only natural. Twilight, however, noted with some concern that reading technical documents had been a characteristic of Valiant.

However, at the moment she couldn’t afford to complain. Guinness paused to grab Skyla, and then hurried with the rest through the deep snow as quickly as they could to where the tanks were parked. Guinness cleared the snow off the top of the rainbow-painted one with a few quick flaps of his wings and then opened the hatch. “Okay everypony, watch and learn!”

After a surprisingly quick training session they all knew the basics of how to turn on the engine and get moving. Guinness led them out of town.

Twilight, and to a somewhat lesser extent, Rarity, were able to summon enough magic to control most aspects of their tanks all by themselves. Pinkie, being Pinkie, could simultaneously serve in all the crew positions. Applejack had no problem filling the seats with her duplicates while Fluttershy reluctantly accepted the help of her slaves.

The engines rumbled as the six tanks ground over the fresh snow. With a spread formation, they eventually located a hole in the snow with a comatose Rainbow at the bottom of it. The insulation of the snow had probably helped her stay alive as long as she had.

Guinness dove into the snow and pulled her out, hauling her into the interior of the tank and into the warmth of the engine. They all sped back to town.

Back in Ponyville, at the hospital, Rainbow was put in for a full medical exam. She’d regained consciousness and warmed up, and protested being in a patient bed, but was too weak to do anything about it.

The girls and Guinness sat in the waiting room for the report. The mood was tense, but not anxious. The worst part was over, but the news could still be bad. Guinness did his best to keep Skyla entertained.

In the exam room, Doctor Stable delivered his diagnosis. “You’ve got early-onset menopause, Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow's jaw dropped. “You've got to be kidding me.”

The doctor went on. “I believe it is the cause of your recent mood swings and irritability.”

Rainbow didn’t take it well. She screamed. But mostly she cried.

Doctor Stable decided that a few friendly faces would help and went to get Rainbow’s visitors.

Rainbow was still weeping when they came in. Applejack touched her shoulder. “Alright, alright. There, there.” She whispered to Fluttershy, “How do we get her to stop?”

“She’s got to be about done by now,” Fluttershy whispered back. “Can’t be too much left in there.”

Rainbow paused and took a breath.

“Feeling better?” Fluttershy asked.

Rainbow sniffed. “Uh-huh.” She suddenly started crying again.

“Oh, you poor, poor thing,” Fluttershy whimpered. She started sympathy crying.

Like a chain reaction, Rarity said, “I can’t bear to see Fluttershy cry!” She started crying.

Pinkie joined them. “It’s just heart-wrenching!”

Rainbow, Fluttershy, Rarity, and Pinkie kept crying, their weeping feeding back into each other. They all piled onto the bed, tears streaming everywhere.

Applejack took off her hat. Twilight looked at her. “You too?”

“Nope, I'm good,” Applejack replied.

Twilight sighed. “Look everypony, I know how hard this is-”

“I’m mostly sad because you’re not sad!” Pinkie accused through her sniffles.

“What? Me?” said Twilight. “What about Applejack?”

“Applejack cries on the inside, Twilight!” Pinkie said.

“It’s true,” Applejack allowed.

“But what do you mean I’m not sad?” Twilight asked.

“You probably care more about the cool science of armored vehicles we just discovered than about Rainbow!” Pinkie said.

“I’ll grant you that losing her ability to have foals is terrible, but that doesn’t excuse her recent behavior,” Twilight said. “Don't forget that she blew up the weather factory while trying to get her way. Valiant would probably call that eco-terrorism. I truly hate to borrow an expression from him, but…Rainbow is a bitch.”

“That’s my wife you’re talking about!” Guinness protested.

Twilight turned to him. “She’s a bitch.”

Guinness opened his mouth, paused for several seconds, and then closed it again.

Back in Dandy Sprite’s dream, Princess Luna asked, “But this doesn’t explain what happened to you.”

Dandy said, “I was run over by a tank.”

Appleoosa's Most Wanted

They got Rainbow out of the hospital the next day. She wasn’t quite back to one hundred percent, and the doctor prescribed rest and relaxation. That wasn’t easy to find in Ponyville in the winter. The girls decided that perhaps the desert would be a better climate.

“I hear that Appleoosa was recently reinforced against buffalo attacks,” Applejack said.

“Danger and excitement?” Rainbow asked hopefully.

“No, not for you,” Doctor Stable advised. He gave the rest of them hard looks.

“I suppose we can do that,” Twilight said.

They left the hospital with Rainbow. On the way out, Rarity paused with a gasp. “Dandy Sprite! How did she get here?”

Rarity started to enter the hospital room with 1st Lieutenant Dandy Sprite on the door, but Nurse Redheart pushed her out. “This patient is resting. She is not to be disturbed by order of Princess Luna.”

“What happened?” Rarity asked.

“Multiple dismemberment.”

Rarity went whiter than usual. The rest pulled her away.

“She’s resting, you heard the nurse,” said Applejack as they walked out of the hospital. “We can’t do anything else to help her right now. What we can do is help Rainbow.”

“That’s right, we need to get her out of town until the heat wears off,” said Pinkie.

“I think you’re right,” Twilight agreed. She frowned. “Although, what are we going to do about it? She is kind of responsible for a lot of property damage, both in Cloudsdale and down here where so much snow fell at once.”

“We can annoy her a little,” suggested Pinkie. “She knows she deserves it, and it’ll be fun.”

“I got an idea,” Applejack said. “Appleoosa’s havin’ a rodeo soon. We’ll take her there for the desert climate and she can watch me compete but won’t be allowed to enter the competition herself.”

“Why are we suddenly doing everything you want to do?” Twilight asked. “We went to Babs’ party.”

“You got a better idea?” Applejack challenged.

“Well, no,” Twilight allowed. “We wanted to go to the desert anyway. I was just wondering why you seem to be taking charge all of a sudden.”

“It isn’t because before he left Valiant said I was becoming a better leader,” Applejack quickly pointed out. “I’ve just been exploring myself a little more lately, getting in some good one-liners, and trying to take a more active role. That means I…”

Applejack trailed off as they came within sight of the library. She muttered, “Don’t look, but I think we have company.”

“Don’t look where?” Rarity asked.

“At the tanks. There’s an extra.”

“A seventh tank?” Twilight asked. “Where could it have come from? Whose is it?”

They carefully filed by and into the pub, heading to the back room before Applejack replied. “The snow was all disturbed around it, like it plopped down from the sky. It was painted kind of a dull grey.”

“Valiant’s got to be trolling us,” Rainbow said, speaking for the first time since leaving the hospital.

“I think that’s likely,” Twilight grumbled as everyone took a seat around the table. She frowned. “Who is it for, though? The others were painted pretty distinctively.”

“Let’s just go to Appleoosa and worry about it later,” Applejack said.

Guinness stuck his head into the room. “Anypony for eats?”

“Yeah, we could use some lunch,” said Rainbow. “We’re just about to leave on a trip to Appleoosa. You’re watching Skyla.”

“You just get out of the hospital and that’s the first thing you say to me?” he asked.

Rainbow shrugged. “You asked if I was hungry. And anyway, I’m not so bad off. Dandy Sprite, that guard who was in town the other day, is in the hospital right now.”

“I wonder how she caught a disease like 'multiple dismemberment?'” Pinkie said.

Twilight frowned, but added, “Regardless of how she got several limbs ripped off, I would think we would have heard about an accident like that.”

“Well, there was the blood,” said Guinness.

They all stared at him.

“You know, on the tank?” he said. “It must have happened during the snowstorm. I was in such a hurry to get Rainbow to the hospital that I didn’t think about it when I saw it.”

“Which tank?” Applejack asked urgently.

“The grey one,” Guinness said. “Why, who was driving it?”

All the girls let out a sigh. Twilight said, “None of us. It wasn’t there a while ago.”

“Hmm. Then where did it come from?” Guinness wondered.

“That also sounds like your problem,” said Rainbow. “Girls, let’s get going.”

They grabbed the food to go. Stepping out of the Half Pint, Twilight asked, “How should we get there?”

“Seems like a good opportunity to keep learning about the tanks,” offered Applejack.

“Will we have enough fuel?” Rarity asked.

“Shouldn't be a problem,” said Twilight. “I happen to be the majority stockholder in Valiantco™. That is something decent Valiant left behind.”

“But we can’t eat and drive at the same time,” said Pinkie. “It’s unsafe.”

So they took the train.

Appleoosa was much the same as the newspapers described it: a dusty, rebuilding shantytown. It hadn’t yet recovered from the stomping the buffalo had given it. The rodeo arena might have been the nicest part of town. Everypony seemed to be on edge, and the Sherriff’s eyes constantly scanned every new arrival to town.

Braeburn the cyborg and his marefriend Cherry Jubilee had shown up. Braeburn was not allowed to compete, but he’d known Applejack was entering the rodeo and came to show his support. It was AJ that had first suggested Braeburn get out of town and start a new life elsewhere, also pointing him to Cherry.

The metal that coated a lot of Braeburn’s body had gained a few scratches since Applejack had last seen him, but he seemed to be in good spirits with Cherry by his side. When Applejack commented that Valiant had gone to the moon, that seemed to lift his spirits even more.

“Can we enter the rodeo and get cutie marks?” the CMC begged. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo had somehow tagged along.

“This place is a cutie mark gold mine!” said Scootaloo.

“If we can get into some of these events, we could all three walk off the train back in Ponyville with brand spankin' new cutie marks!” Apple Bloom added.

“I don't know... all these events look a little, well, dangerous,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Plus, you’d be competin’ against me,” Applejack quickly said.

“I thought you only practiced haybale stacking and roping?” Rainbow said.

“Rainbow, please. You really think I wouldn’t be competitive?” Applejack flexed, showing off her recent protein gains. She also threw a subtle gesture towards the CMC to get her point across.

“Alright, everypony, listen up!” interrupted the Sherriff. “We need a big law enforcement presence at this here rodeo! I want that low-down varmint to know we mean business!”

“A cutie mark-apalooza and a low-down varmint?” gasped Apple Bloom. “This is shapin' up to be the most excitin' rodeo ever!”

“Cutie Mark Crusader low-down varmint catchers!” the fillies cheered.

“Second thought, you can compete in any rodeo event you want,” Applejack said.

Twilight pulled the Sherriff aside and quietly asked, “Who is this varmint you’re talking about?”

“Trouble Shoes,” he replied. “The Equestria rodeo circuit has been plagued by the dirty dealin's of this notorious outlaw.”

“What has he done?” she asked.

“He knocked barrels every which way at the Hoof City rodeo. He sabotaged the steer pen at Pinto Creek rodeo.”

Twilight frowned, remembering something Valiant had once said about steers. Back to the topic at hand, she said, “Could we cancel the rodeo as a matter of public safety?”

“Appleloosa ain't gonna be intimidated!” the Sherriff insisted. “Trouble Shoes has caused enough trouble and his reign of terror ends here, today. Everypony in town is prepared.”

Twilight wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that, but nodded and went back to the girls to find seats for the rodeo.

As it turned out, the town was completely prepared when Trouble Shoes appeared. Midway through the first event, the pile of bales the rodeo ponies were stacking wobbled and came tumbling down.

One of the biggest stallions any of them had ever seen landed in a heap of hay, right out in the middle of the arena. It was all the more comical because of his tiny hat.

“That’s him!” someone shouted.

Everypony in sight pulled out a katana.

“Now this is a cutie mark activity that I can get behind!” Sweetie exclaimed.

They all surrounded Trouble Shoes with sharp pointy blades. He looked around, ears drooping. “Must be my lucky day.”

“Well, that was easy,” muttered Twilight from the stands. “But…well, the obvious question is where did all those swords come from? Did they get them from the Neighponese railway laborers?”

“That's racist,” Pinkie stage-whispered in her ear.

“The crate they were in crashed into the ground a few days ago,” explained the Sherriff. “Looked like it was a lost shipment or something.”

“A lost shipment to where?” Twilight asked.

“Let’s see if I can find it,” he said. He gestured for Twilight to follow. Behind one of the temporary tents, there were a few scraps of wood. Stenciled on one of them was:

Plymouth Valiant

1 Valiant Street

Valiantopolis, Dark Side of The Moon

“Oh dear Celestia,” Twilight muttered.

She hurried back to the rodeo. The crowd was huddled together, talking in hushed whispers.

Twilight found her friends and announced, “We have a problem.”

“No kidding. Who’s going to move a big lug like that?” Rainbow replied.

Seeing Twilight’s confused look, Rarity explained, “As they were trying to take him to jail, Trouble Shoes tripped and landed on a katana. This is after he was caught by clumsily knocking over a pile of haybales. He was so unlucky, perhaps the worst criminal ever.”

“Well, about those katanas…” Twilight said, “they’re Valiant’s, or they were. I don’t know why he ordered a whole crate of them or who he ordered them from, but apparently they ended up here in Appleoosa instead of on the moon.”

“Is he going to be mad?” Fluttershy asked.

“I think that’s a safe bet,” said Rarity. “The question on my mind is why he was ordering them at all. I know he was a good craftspony when he wanted to be. He always liked to do things himself, especially when it came to weaponry.”

“And so many of them,” added Twilight, looking around at all the townsponies still carrying their swords. “Was he preparing for something?”

“What could one pony possibly need so many swords for?” Rainbow laughed for a little while and then stopped. “Oh right, this is Valiant we’re talking about.”

“You can say that again,” Pinkie giggled. She looked around. “That was funny, but not all my friends were here to hear it. Where’s Applejack?”

“Right here,” Applejack called, jogging over. The crowd had begun to disperse and she’d been dodging ponies to get to them.

“Where did you go?” Twilight asked.

“Well, somepony had to get Trouble Shoes’ body out of the street. Nopony but yours truly had a hope of liftin’ a dead weight like that.”

Pun intended or not, that was a fair enough excuse. Applejack had been getting well and truly jacked lately. Twilight thought she saw Rainbow ‘mirin.

It was hard to top the swordplay, and the rest of the rodeo wasn’t much of a show by comparison. Applejack collected her awards and they said goodbye to Braeburn and Cheery.

The CMC complained the whole way home. They’d gotten no chances for cutie marks. Applejack had even deprived them of the opportunity for body disposal.

A successful outing demanded a good get-together to celebrate. They all, minus the fillies, met up at the Half Pint.

Squibles took their orders, although Applejack wasn’t hungry. Twilight shot her a knowing, though somewhat disgusted, look.

Guinness came in with a tray of mugs. “Did you all have a good day?”

“It was great!” exclaimed Pinkie, seizing a pint and downing it.

Guinness started to protest. “Hey, those were for the other tables…” but the rest of the girls had already taken glasses. He shrugged and left the room.

Twilight wasn’t quite sure what she was drinking. It tasted a little like grain with a pleasing fizziness. They all seemed to enjoy it.

Guinness went to get another round of beer. In the moment, he’d forgotten to mention what he’d discovered earlier that day, although the girls hadn’t seemed interested anyway. He’d taken a look at the mysterious grey tank and noticed some strange symbols on it. When he’d come back later, however, it was gone. Also, a strange grey haywagon had appeared in the town square. Guinness wasn’t exactly sure what it all meant, but he had a feeling that something more than met the eye was going on.

By the time Guinness got another round of beer and arrived at the table of the intended recipients, they were a little cross. Fortunately, they were drinking beer so all would be forgiven soon. After dropping off their order, he went back to the bar.

The front door opened and a battered Night Guard wobbled in. Guinness realized it was Rarity’s friend from the other day, the one who’d apparently been run over by a tank.

The batpony’s limbs had been replaced by crude metal prostheses, just barely visible under her hospital gown. A nurse hurried into the pub after her. “Ma’am, you really mustn’t be up and about! You’ve had a serious injury!”

“Okay, okay, just let me grab a sandwich or something before we go back. Hospital food is killing me.” The Guard stumbled over to the bar.

Guinness thought for a moment and then a wide grin appeared on his face as he greeted her.

“Lieutenant Dandy, you got new legs!”

Author's Note

Dandy Sprite was only introduced for a three-episode buildup to a Forrest Gump reference. I currently have no plans to include her in the story again.

Make New Friends but Keep Discord

It surprised the heck out of the rest of the girls when Fluttershy called a meeting.

Curious as to what their timid friend had to say, they met in the back room of the Half Pint. Fluttershy showed up with a hippy.

“Girls, this is my friend, Tree Hugger,” Fluttershy said when they were all gathered around the table in the comfortable command center.

“Um, where are we?” asked the guest. She had been blindfolded in before being allowed to enter accordance with a quick vote among the girls. The super secret seminar spot that the meeting room provided had to stay super secret.

“So who is this pony, Fluttershy?” Twilight asked.

“Tree Hugger is a member of the Equestrian Society for the Preservation of Rare Creatures,” Fluttershy explained. “I met her on a trip to the Breezy Memorial. She has a problem and I think we can help.”

“Well, I wouldn’t really call it a problem,” said Tree Hugger. “More like an upset in the balance of nature.”

“Um, just tell them what you saw,” Fluttershy advised.

“Something blazed up in the Everfree Forest,” Tree Hugger said.

Applejack cocked her signature eyebrow and glanced at the others. “Blazed up, you say?”

“Yeah, like burned some holes in nature. Total bummer for the plants and animals that live there.”

“That does sound concerning,” Twilight said. They’d all experienced forest fires before. “I suppose we’d better check it out.”

“Will we have time?” Rarity asked. “We need to prepare for the Grand Galloping Gala.” She shot a look at Applejack.

Applejack shot a look right back. It wasn’t her fault that she didn’t fit her old dresses anymore. Well, okay, it kind of was, but Valiant getting her to eat pony wasn’t, and that was what had been the trigger for her bulking up.

They all left the room. Fluttershy screwed up her face with concentration and managed to remove the blindfold from Tree Hugger’s eyes with magic. She’d been getting better despite the limited practice she got during time spent as a unicorn.

Tree Hugger led them out of town and towards the Everfree Forest. On the way, they passed a suspicious grey haywagon. Up close, it bore a strange symbol on the side. Guinness stared at it, frowning and trying to remember where he had seen it before.

As they entered the forest, Twilight asked, “So what are we looking for?”

“There’s big burned places in the forest. Can’t miss ‘em,” Tree Hugger replied.

“What could have caused something like that?” Applejack asked. “Foals playing with matches?”

They all knew which foals she referred to.

“Dunno,” Tree Hugger said. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“I’m sure we’ll find the cause, Treezie,” Fluttershy assured her, though her voice quavered at the implications. The Everfree Forest had a habit of producing things that nobody had ever seen before.

Sure enough, they soon came to a place where the trees were blackened and burned to ashes. There was a surprisingly precise divide between undisturbed forest and charred wasteland. The burned area seemed to be a narrow corridor that made sharp ninety degree angles with other segments.

The seven of them spread out, hooves sinking into the ash. It was slightly warm to the touch, but only slightly. Applejack frowned. “I figure this must have happened yesterday. Seems to have flashed a hot fire and then died down.”

“But what could have caused such a precise burn?” Twilight asked.

“There’s more over there,” said Tree Hugger, pointing a hoof. The group pushed through some still standing trees to another burned clearing. It was also a long straight line, however this one had three segments branching off in the same direction.

Twilight tapped her chin with a hoof, inadvertently smearing ash on her face. “Rainbow, can you fly up and take an overhead look at this?”

Of course they had brought Rainbow Dash. Getting her out of town as often as possible had proven to be a reasonable method to ensure that she wasn’t seen, recognized, and charged with the destruction of the Cloudsdale weather factory.

Rainbow soared into the air above the forest. “Hey, it’s like letters!” she called.

“What are they?” Twilight asked.

“The first one we found is an ‘H.’ The one you’re standing in right now is an ‘E.’

“What does it spell?” Applejack asked.

“It says ‘HELP.’”

“Girls, I have a sneaking suspicion,” said Twilight. “We have letters burned into the forest. Who do we know that has the potential for high powered lasers and a secure place high above the land from which to fire them?”

“But what would Valiant be burning messages into the forest for?” Rainbow asked, landing nearby.

“I’m curious as to why he’s asking for help,” said Applejack. “This doesn’t seem his style, burning messages into the forest when he could just ask.”

“But it doesn’t seem like his style to ask,” Pinkie pointed out.

“Perhaps he was embarrassed, and by causing large scale property damage it made him feel better about requiring our assistance,” Rarity speculated.

“Sounds like him, except for the part about bein’ embarrassed by somethin,’” Applejack said.

They all lapsed into silence for a few moments of thinking.

“So what are we going to do?” Fluttershy asked.

“Can we…not help him?” Rainbow asked.

“I don’t want to help Valiant, oh Celestia no, but… I worry that the alternative might be worse,” Twilight said.

“Who knows what could happen if he gets into trouble,” Applejack agreed.

“There’s the problem of figuring out what he needs help with and where he is,” Rarity pointed out.

“I thought he went to the moon,” Pinkie recalled. “We can just ask Princess Luna when we go to the Gala.”

They all agreed that was the best plan. Twilight said, “At least we can get a party in before plunging into the unknown to assist a psychopath.”

“Righteous!” Tree Hugger. “Count me in!”

“She’s my plus one for the Gala,” Fluttershy explained.

“Rarity, and me are taking our sisters,” Applejack said. “Rainbow’s taking Guinness.”

“We’re getting Spike to take along Scootaloo since Rarity already has a ticket of her own,” said Twilight.

“Who are you going with?” Rainbow asked.

Twilight blushed. “Er…”

“Wow, Fluttershy gets a date and you don’t!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“It’s not like this is a date date!” Twilight protested. “My not getting a guest to go to the gala with me isn’t based on sexual attractiveness!”

Pinkie threw a hoof around her neck. “Oh Twilight, we’re just kidding. We know it’s not because you’re destined to be forever alone.”

Twilight grumbled under her breath.

“So getting back to the Gala, we should probably get going if we’re going to arrive there on time,” Rarity suggested.

She was right. Between the train and getting dressed and rounding up the CMC, they were cutting things a little close.

“Ohmygosh!” Pinkie exclaimed. “I forgot that Maud was coming!” She rushed off. The rest took her cue and went to get ready.

Back in the library, Twilight packed her bags. The door opened and Bible came in. A solution to her single status suddenly appeared to Twilight. “Bible, can I ask you something?”

“Certainly.” Bible laid down the books he was carrying and looked up.

“Would you…like to go to the Grand Galloping Gala with me?”

“I don’t know what that is, but all right.”

“It’s a fancy party in Canterlot,” Twilight explained. “We might be cutting it a little close to get you an outfit, but I’d like you to go.”

“I’m sure I can find something,” Bible said. “Thank you for inviting me.”

The group of Gala goers met at the train station later that day and headed for Canterlot. Twilight looked around. “Where are Trixie and Daring?”

“They said something about having an adventure,” Rarity provided.

“Did they mean having an adventure, or having an adventure?” Pinkie asked, wiggling her eyebrows.

“We were all thinkin’ it, you didn’t need to say it,” Applejack grumped.

The others made ready to board the train. It was perhaps unwise for Guinness and Rainbow to bring Skyla along, but Rainbow had publically stated that she didn’t trust anypony else to watch the filly, and Guinness was too nice to inflict her upon anypony else.

But speaking of infliction – Bible’s getup! Twilight’s jaw dropped when she saw him.

“What?” Bible said, seeing her face. “Is there something wrong?”

“You’re wearing leather! Twilight accused.

“What’s wrong with being covered in leather? I’m a book. Even though I’m a pony now, I’m still made of skin.”

“It’s a social taboo. Where did you get that?”

“From Sir Win.” Bible frowned. “Yes, in hindsight I can see the problem with this.”

“Just…at least take off the mask and the spiked collar,” Twilight said.

Bible did, leaving himself in just the long leather trenchcoat. It was better, although still not the kind of thing someone would wear to the Grand Galloping Gala.

The train arrived in Canterlot and they headed for the castle. Princess Celestia greeted them as they entered the ballroom.. “Ah, hello everypony, so glad you could make it. My, my, Bible, that’s exactly the kind of thing I was hoping somepony would wear to the Grand Galloping Gala. These events are ever so dull.”

“Well, then you’ll be happy to know what we plan to do for an afterparty,” said Rainbow.

Celestia smiled. “I’d love to hear about it.”

They partied. It was a pretty standard Gala. The aristocrats were horrified by the yokels from Ponyville. Monocles popped. Swoons were had.

Applejack’s dress had been refitted, but it still stretched tight over her muscles. Other guests were alternately horrified and mesmerized, depending on their individual fixations.

Or as Pinkie would say, “You’ve got lesbians and submissives all over your tail, AJ!”

Pinkie didn’t say that, though. She preferred to watch.

That is, when she wasn’t watching something else. Her eyes fell on the desert table. “B-R-B, I’m going to go eat cake,” she said.

“What kind of cake?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie gave her a look. “Twilight, please. All of the cakes.”

The rest turned to other entertainment.

The Gala was designated a no-politics zone. It was the closest thing the Princesses got to partying, and they tolerated no work. That didn’t stop a few minor platforms from launching an unofficial forum.

Walking through the crowd, one could hear a variety of ideas and motions that may or may not ever make it to official government correspondence.

“We really should do something about these immigrants.”

“Governent healthcare? More like government shmealthcare!”

“Taxes are too high.”

“We need more funding.”

“Valiant did nothing wrong.”

There were a few familiar faces from Ponyville. Cheerilee was there, looking alert and not enjoying herself at all. Filthy Rich made an appearance. Cordoba, one of the kids that had been hanging around the CMC, seemed to be missing an escort.

Later that night, the girls eventually located Luna.

“I was told that you’re planning an afterparty,” the Princess said.

Twilight confirmed it. “We want to go to the moon.”

“Wait, what?” said Guinness.

“Yeah, I didn’t want to tell you because you’d want to go,” Rainbow said. “Somepony has to stay here and watch the kids.”

Guinness looked around at Skyla and the CMC. He shook his head. “No. Screw that. You need me to go to the moon. As a member of the only country from the only species to ever travel there under the power of chemical rocketry, I understand better than anypony the kinds of things Valiant might have done up there.”

“Good point,” said Twilight. “Spike can watch the kids.”

“What?!” demanded Spike, but everyone was already talking over him.

“It will be quite a large group,” said Luna, counting heads. Applejack, Rainbow, Guinness, Rarity, Twilight, Bible, Pinkie, Maud, Fluttershy, and Tree Hugger made ready.

Luna concentrated, closing her eyes and building magic, showing just how much power the spell would take, even for the Princess of the Moon.

“Twilight,” she murmured, “could you please help me out with the air supply?”

“Right,” Twilight agreed. She quickly cast a spell of her own, encasing the rest with head bubbles.

“And here…we…go…!” With a flash of blue magic, the eleven of them teleported out of the castle.

They landed on the moon, hooves sinking into the grey dust. As far as the eye could see, the surface extended like, well, a moonscape.

“Far out…” breathed Tree Hugger.

Maud bent down for a close look at the lunar ground. Not satisfied with a few pebbles she found, she announced, “I’ll be right back,” and tunneled into the surface.

The rest displayed various degrees of excitement. Bible crossed himself. Guinness was wearing a grin from ear to ear. Pinkie discovered that she could bounce even higher in the lower gravity.

To Rainbow’s consternation, she found that with no air, she couldn’t fly. Fortunately, in space no one can hear you bitch about things.

The group wandered around in amazement for a few minutes before any of them remembered their purpose. Twilight asked, “Princess, do you know where Valiant’s place is?”

Luna nodded. “The dark side.”

They made the trek around the moon. It didn’t take long, the moon being so small. Guinness noted that it seemed to be scaled down from Earth-moon, just like the planet was scaled down from Earth.

In the darkness of the other side of the moon, it was difficult to see, but in the distance a hulking structure was silhouetted. They knew they were in the right place when they passed a set of gates that bore Valiant’s cutie mark.

The gates and the wall they were set in carried strange speckles. Twilight paused and used a light spell, going for a closer look. There were pockmarks all over the stone. Frowning, she rejoined the group.

The moonbase they approached was dark. It was possible that Valiant was sleeping, but the unusual totalitarian darkness seemed odd. At the very least, they should have expected a courtesy light at the front gate.

Applejack was the first to notice something suspicious with the landscape. “Do y’all notice that it looks like the lawn is all torn up?”

The moondust had been groomed perfectly flat inside the walls of the compound. Yet here and there were craters that looked like recent explosions rather than meteor strikes.

There was still no indication that their presence had been noted. Even if Valiant was asleep, as they got closer to the main building, they expected something to happen. It was simply inconceivable that he would construct such a secure fortress and not have any kind of security system.

That, combined with the chunks of concrete blown out of the walls of the main building, indicated that something was seriously out of sorts.

“This smells fishy,” Pinkie commented. “And not even in the good space-fish kind of way.”

“Space-fish?” Applejack asked.

Pinkie nodded. “Don’t you know that space is an ocean?”

They circled around, looking for a way inside. The walls were peppered with impacts, but they still seemed secure.

“Perhaps whatever happened didn’t make it through the defenses,” Luna said.

That hope was dashed when they came upon a gaping hole in the wall, objects strewn around it that had been blown out during the depressurization.

“Should we go inside?” Rainbow asked.

The reinforced concrete walls began to rumble and the scattered stones started to vibrate.

“Enope,” Applejack decided.

They were all on their way back to the front gate when a great glut of goo poured out the hole in the wall.

“Smooze!” Fluttershy screamed.

None of them had any idea what that was, but it seemed like a great idea to GTFO.

They ran while Luna gathered power for the spell. Running through powdery dust was difficult, but blobs don’t move very well, either.

However, the Smooze still seemed to be gaining on them. Its green gelatinous mass loomed larger and larger like a tidal wave. Ironic because the moon makes tides, eh?

They kept running into the light side of the moon. Looking back seemed futile, but if any of them had, they would have seen a blob big enough to Smooze them all.

That was when Maud burst from the ground out of a tunnel directly in the Smooze’s path. Even with a huge boulder in her hooves, the low gravity sent her soaring into the air.

The Smooze was going too fast to stop and plunged into the hole. Maud slammed the boulder down on top, sealing it off.

“Wow, Maud!” Twilight exclaimed. “You saved us! How did you do that?”

“The moon rocks,” Maud said. Everyone stared at her. “That was a pun.”

Pinkie cracked up laughing.

Safe now, everyone took a moment to sort themselves out. Applejack happened to glance up. “Hey y’all, do you see what I see?”

“Oh,” whispered Fluttershy. “I’ve never seen the planet like this before. So beautiful.”

“I noticed something,” Applejack said. “Check out the forest near Ponyville.”

They all spotted what she was talking about: the message that had been burned into the forest. What they had originally thought it spelled was incomplete. It actually said “HELPLESS” and featured an arrow pointing towards Ponyville.

Twilight turned to Rainbow. “Really? You just stopped reading after help? Once again, your short attention span has resulted in shenanigans.”

“This series of events only gets more confusing,” Rarity observed. “It seems that Valiant wasn’t actually asking for help, but now that we’ve arrived here it seems that he does actually need it.”

“But the impacts on the walls of his stronghold didn’t seem to be caused by anything the Smooze could do,” Luna pointed out. “It must have been some other kind of attack.”

“And where is Valiant, anyway?” added Applejack.

Guinness clapped his hooves together. “Well gang, it looks like we have a mystery to solve.”

“No,” said Rainbow. “I’m pretty sure all of us are ready to go home and never visit this place again.”

Everyone else agreed. “Let’s go home,” said Twilight.

However, just then there was an enormous bloom of light from the planet above that made them all shut their eyes.

“What in the-“ Applejack blurted. The others murmured mild exclamations or confused questions.

The light started to dissipate, giving way to a mushroom cloud that obscured nearly the whole continent.

Guinness gulped. “Houston, you have a problem.”

The Lost Treasure of Griffonstone

Daring took off her reading glasses and leaned back from her desk. She’d been poring over an old map for hours.

Trixie came in with a tray of tea. She set it down and leaned close to Daring, looking at the map. “Any luck?”

Daring leaned her head into Trixie’s shoulder. “I think so. The treasure might be somewhere around Griffonstone.”

“Is it enough to go on?”

“I think so. If we leave now, though, we’ll miss the Grand Galloping Gala.”

“I’d rather be on an adventure with you than stuffed into some dress and pretending to care about dancing,” Trixie said.

Daring smiled. “Me too.”

So they ditched their tickets and suited up.

In Daring’s expansive closet, the overhead light clicked on, theatrically illuminating her from above. She stood upright, her khaki shirt dropping down around her shoulders. Spreading her wings, she poked them through the holes. She flipped her hat onto her head, and saluted.

Meanwhile, Trixie was also getting dressed in a most dramatic way. Her cape billowed in an imaginary breeze and she ran a hoof along the length of her hat to the point, ensuring the material sat just so on her head. She dropped a pair of sunglasses on her nose and picked up her machine gun.

The two of them emerged from their place. The sun was shining and it was a perfect day for adventure. It was a good thing they were feeling adventurous. Daring ran a few feathers over Trixie’s back and winked. Trixie grinned in return.

They took the train to the closest terminus and started their journey from there. As the train lumbered towards their destination, they planned the rest of the trip.

Griffonstone, as Daring explained, was in Griffon Gorge, south of the Hyperborean Mountains. It was one of the few places in Equestria where she’d never been before, but she was at least aware of the general area.

“So what are we looking for?” Trixie asked. “The treasure?”

“The mysterious golden Idol of Boreas,” replied Daring. “It’s said that it was made from the dust of golden sunsets, blown across the mountains by the north winds.”

“Hmm.” Trixie nodded. “What makes it valuable?”

“In history, possessing the Idol of Boreas filled the griffons’ hearts with pride. The history books say that the great treasure of the Idol is responsible for turning Griffonstone into the most majestic kingdom of all the land. One of the early kings, Grover, ran the place. A few kings later, a monster called Arimaspi tried to steal the Idol and it fell into Abysmal Abyss.”

“What’s the Idol look like?”

“It’s a stylized golden goblet.”

Trixie shook her head. “That's it? just a cup? Griffons. No sense of style.”

Daring shrugged. “Gold’s gold, as the griffons say.”

“And what about this Arimaspi?” Trixie asked.

“Descriptions are sketchy,” Daring replied. “Ironic, then, that pretty much all we have to go on are sketches. He sort of looks like a cyclops goat thing with fingers.”

“Dangerous?”

“Aren't they all.”

They both shared a chuckle. Daring and Trixie took no shit, and their definition of danger was not exactly in line with everyone else's. Valiant would be proud.

They walked into Griffonstone. From high up in the mountains, a masked figure watched them through a high powered telescope. That wouldn’t have surprised either Daring or Trixie, however, you as the reader should be informed for purposes of later narration.

Griffonstone was not nearly up to the standards of an average pony city. It was sort of built in a tree and all the houses were shitty.

“Wow, all these houses are shitty,” said Trixie.

“Don’t judge a treasure by the fecal material it’s buried under,” Daring advised.

“I didn’t think you were into butt stuff,” said Trixie, eyebrow raised.

Daring blushed, but before she could reply, someone bumped into them.

“Watch it!” huffed a griffon.

Trixie had already put a hoof on her M60, but Daring stopped her. “Glad we, ah, ran into you. We’re looking for someone to speak to about local legends.”

“Go feather yourself,” the griffon shot back.

“Now, now, Gilda, don’t rush them off just yet,” said an older griffon with a fez and a scarred eye. He hobbled over.

“Grandpa Gruff, they haven’t even offered to pay,” said Gilda.

“We’re looking for the Idol of Boreas,” explained Daring.

Gilda laughed. “Don't tell me you really believe in that thing.”

“You'd better believe in it!” Grandpa Gruff retorted. “It was the best thing to ever happen to us griffons! I'll tell you the whole tragic tale...for a couple of bits.”

It seemed worth the price, and they paid. Grandpa Gruff narrated them through a short history of Griffonstone and explained how the Idol had come to be lost. It seemed that Arimaspi had fallen into Abysmal Abyss with it.

“What happens if we go down there and run into him?” Daring mused.

Grandpa Gruff shrugged. “No refunds!”

“Whatever,” said Trixie. “If he gives us trouble, we’ll kill him.”

Gilda burst out laughing. “Here we go, typical pony hero complex. None of us care about that dumb old idol. Don't you get it? We don't care about anything, and that's the way we like it!”

“That’s the way you like it, huh?” said Trixie.

“Uh-huh,” Gilda replied. “That’s the way I like it.”

Daring hmm’d. “I just thought of a great scene for the book. Where’s the nearest disco club?”

“We don’t have any,” Gilda told her.

“What kind of a kingdom is this?” Trixie demanded.

“We don’t have a king, either, losers. I mean, disco, seriously?”

“What are you supposed to do when you want to get your musical groove on?” Daring asked. “A pony city would implode if we weren’t able to vent with music. It’s like we have a town-wide singalong every week.”

Gilda rolled her eyes. “Yeah, that's Griffonstone's biggest problem, the lack of uplifting musical numbers.”

Trixie shook her head. “This place truly is shitty. Like, since there’s no king of Griffonstone, maybe the Princesses will want to annex the griffons in the name of Equestria. Then they would quickly run into problems like unsafe housing, inadequate food supply, and general lack of functioning infrastructure. This would lead to massive public works projects on the taxpayers’ dime with griffon subcontractors falsifying expense reports to bleed the Equestrian government dry.”

“Yeah, well, no refunds,” Gilda advised. She paused, and said, “Earlier, you mentioned something about a book.”

“It’s a novelization of our adventures,” Daring said.

“What are you paying me for royalties for helping out you chumps?” Gilda asked.

“First, why don’t we negotiate services?” Daring proposed. “If you guide us to Abysmal Abyss, I’ll give you a named appearance in the book. Based on relative celebrity factor, we can determine the worth of the exposure.”

Daring had been in the publishing business for a long time. She knew how to doublespeak like a pro when necessary.

“This had better not be a trick,” Gilda decided. “But I’m in. Money first.”

Fortunately, it didn’t take many bits to just get her to walk over to the Abyss. The fissure in the ground was deep and dark. Daring peered over the edge and asked, “What hasn’t anypony flown down there to pick up the treasure?”

“The winds are too strong,” Gilda said. She held out a claw and was paid for services rendered.

“Well, guess this has to be done a little more manually,” said Trixie. She took off her gear. After a deep breath, she changed to her eight-legged form. With a quick spell to make her hooves sticky and a good luck kiss from Daring, Trixie went over the edge.

“That was messed up,” said Gilda.

“You get used to the legs after a while,” Daring replied.

“No, I’m talking about you two.”

“Does the concept of homosexuality not exist in Griffonstone?” Daring asked.

“Homo-sexua-lity.” Gilda sounded it out, a heavy look of thoughtfulness on her face. “So… it’s like two females in love instead of the standard male-female pairing? That can happen?”

Daring covered her eyes. “Dear Celestia, am I really having this conversation?”

In the Abyss, Trixie was going deeper. The rough stone walls didn’t provide much traction, even with her enhancements. Getting back up might be a challenge, but she was nothing if not persistent.

Free-climbing a deep canyon wall would have been difficult without the harsh winds or the building darkness as she went further down. Trixie got a light spell started and kept her eyes moving to spot anything she could cling to.

After what seemed like forever, she hit bottom. The depths of the pit contained several skeletons, probably those who had fallen in and been unable to get out. Notably, Trixie noticed that one of them seemed to be wearing a fedora. It was clutching a stylized golden goblet in its hooves.

There was also what appeared to be a cyclops goat thing with fingers. Hard to tell from the skeleton, but that’s what Trixie figured it was.

Trixie picked up the Idol and had a look at it. It certainly seemed to be exactly what she was searching for. There was a nice jewel set into it.

A mysterious masked figure stepped out of the shadows, probably a mare by the sound of the voice she spoke with. “You seem to be trapped here. But I have a solution. All you need to do is swear loyalty to me and I’ll help you get out of this pit. You can even keep that goblet.”

Trixie blasted the pony with a full strength-attack.

Her reasoning was solid. No mysterious figure ever offered a suspiciously good deal without strings attached, Trixie could get out of the Abyss on her own, and Valiant had taught her that while showbiz was great and all, there was also a time and place when mincing words was just boring and took away the advantage of surprise.

The mysterious figure managed to get a shield up ahead of Trixie’s magic attack but screamed with the effort, just barely managing to cast a teleportation spell.

Trixie shrugged. She wondered why the mysterious figure hadn’t targeted any of the griffons, instead waiting until a ponies arrived in town. But whatever. It wasn’t the first random encounter she’d ever dealt a one-hit victory to, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. It was just part of the deal when you were a certified badass.

Her certificate, by the way, had been issued by Valiant. It hung on her wall back home.

There was the sound of rope and Daring rappelled down into the bottom of the Abyss. “I heard noises. Did something happen?”

“Well, sort of.” Trixie showed her the Idol and explained what else she had encountered.

“Oh, so no big deal, then,” Daring said.

“If it wasn’t a big deal, then why did you come down here?” Trixie asked. She grinned. “Do you have a save-the-girl complex?”

Daring grinned wider. “You know it, princess. Now as the hero, I think it’s your obligation to show me a little gratitude.”

Why yes, they did have HLS. At the bottom of a deep Abyss surrounded by skeletons. As Daring would later admit, it was way better than having to explain the gay birds and bees to a griffon.

They eventually came to grips with the situation, however. The strong winds prevented Daring from flying out. Trixie might be able to climb the walls with her and the Idol in tow, but there had to be an easier solution.

It was always a good idea to plan for exit strategies. Daring had learned that during her many adventures and liked to have an exit strategy ready to go for everything. That was why she preferred paperclips over staples – they came with exit strategies.

The two of them brainstormed. “I could try a spell,” Trixie said. “Although teleporting that far carries risks if I don’t stick the landing exactly right.”

“Didn’t you say that mysterious figure teleported?” Daring asked.

“She probably knew the area really well,” Trixie replied. “Either that or she was so powerful that she could deal with any trouble that she got into, and I can think of fewer unicorns like that than I have hooves. I could probably get us out through teleportation, but the both of us, plus the Idol, makes it tricky. Instead, I’ve got an idea. It involves more HLS.”

Well, that was easy enough. With the energy of the activities, Trixie found the extra boost of power she was looking for. She’d also had the idea to focus the spell through a gem, a little trick Twilight had taught her. The Idol was convenient, and she and Daring worked out a system. The climax – pun very much intended – was a spell that fired them out of the Abyss on a column of golden light.

At ground level, they rolled out of the column of light and ended up on the ground. The spell didn’t stop, though, bleeding off the excess power in a gigantic mushroom cloud that could probably be seen from space.

Gilda stood there at the edge of the pit, eyes bugging out of her head. “I…I think I’ll stick to being straight, thank you very much. That was…not the show I was expecting.”

“No refunds,” said Daring.

“So this is the Idol?” asked Gilda, eyeing the golden goblet. “I didn’t think it actually existed. We haven’t had a king since it disappeared.”

Daring thought for a moment. “I was planning to keep this thing and put it in a museum or something, but I think giving it back to the griffons would make a nice heartfelt ending for the book.”

Trixie shook her head. “I see what you mean, but we shouldn’t have to. This is such a shitty place. The government falls apart if a one piece of jewelry goes missing.” She turned to Gilda. “Couldn’t you guys have just replaced it with a duplicate from some Manehattan souvenir shop or something?”

Gilda thought for a moment. “I could ask the office there to pick a few up and sell them to tourists. That’ll work especially well now that we have the actual Idol.”

“What office?” Daring asked.

“The Manehattan office of my scone franchise,” Gilda said. “I own a chain across Equestria. Honestly, it’s a little surreal how quickly my success happened. The last time I was in Ponyville, I got a cake thrown in my face. As it turns out, it was a cake made by Pinkie Pie, regarded as one of the best bakers in Equestria. I reverse-engineered the mixture and discovered ways of making my scones better.” Gilda shrugged. “And now I’m the owner of a successful, country-wide network of scone shops.”

“We’ll give you the Idol in exchange for scones,” Trixie offered.

Gilda considered it. “Why don’t I give you a discount card good for 10% off at any shop?”

Daring shrugged. “Eh, whatever.”

“Now, what about the book royalties?” Gilda asked.

“Eh, whatever,” Daring repeated. “We’re giving you the Idol.”

“And a free education on lesbians,” Trixie added. “That’s worth its weight alone.”

Gilda shook her head as if trying to get her head around the meaning. “Weight in what? Nevermind. Just…go make fun of our shitty town or something.”

They felt they should tell her that making fun of the disadvantaged was not necessarily a homosexual trait, but didn’t feel that it was worth the effort.

The two of them headed down the mountain. Daring grinned at Trixie. “Well, that’s another adventure down. We’re awesome.”

“We totally are,” laughed Trixie. “I wonder what everypony else is doing at the Gala?”

Slice of Life

The meeting had been called in the pub's back-room command center.

Twilight got things started. “I must admit, I’m a little jealous of Trixie and Daring.”

Applejack quirked an eyebrow.

Pinkie grinned like a maniac.

“It’s wonderful that you’re considering a serious relationship,” said Rarity. “Although I think you could do quite well in the dating scene, rather than settling for a statistically-more populous mare.”

Pinkie grinned wider. “Come to the lesbian side, Twilight. I have cookies.”

“Well, I don’t consider myself a lesbian. I’d just like to have a significant other that who shares common interests,” Twilight explained. “Unlike Flash Sentry’s marriage.”

Rainbow shrugged. “All I know is that it must be awesome for Trixie and Daring. Who wouldn’t want sex that can be seen from space?”

“You’d need a telescope for that,” Guinness muttered into his beer. He paused and frowned, thinking deeply about something. “Telescope in space…?”

“I guess, all things considered, I’m okay with not having sex that can be seen from space,” Fluttershy allowed.

I decided that I would congratulate Trixie and Daring the next time I saw them. That had to be some kind of record.

I’d also have to advise the rest that the walls of their super secret meeting room were pretty thin.

They kept talking. Twilight said, “In other business, I’m a little suspicious of the factory that was built recently at the edge of town.”

“What factory?” said Rainbow.

“It only went up today,” Twilight explained.

“Wait, somepony put up an entire building in one day?” Applejack said.

“How is that possible?” asked Rarity.

“I don’t know, but there’s something very suspicious about it,” Twilight said. “I think we should go take a look.”

“I knew the whole relationship issues thing was a ruse,” complained Pinkie. “You lured us here with false expectations of homosexuality and then asked us to go on a mission.”

“Do you mind?” Twilight asked.

“Nope!”

I got up from the bar and paid Squibles for my drink. He looked busy, too busy to try and figure out if he knew me. My sunglasses and jacket helped with that.

The jacket was black and leather. I got a few strange looks, but I doubt most ponies had ever seen the material before or had any idea what it was. I looked awesome.

Outside the pub, I headed down the street, moving with a purpose. I had a destination in mind.

Twilight had accurately described the factory at the edge of town. It had gone up fast and there was something suspicious about it. Of course, I knew what was going on – I knew everything that happened in Ponyville and had been narrating the story of it all – but I could see how the others could get such impressions of the building.

I was already inside the fence when the six of them approached. Apparently they’d left Guinness at the pub. That was good. He might have recognized what was going on.

They all paused outside the gate, not noticing the subtle camera watching them.

“How are we going to get in?” Rarity asked.

“Let me check,” Twilight replied, scanning the perimeter.

The fact that they all seemed to be in agreement about breaking in showed how far they’d come. Nice.

“I got it,” Pinkie said before the others could get too far. She spit on the padlock. The metal fizzled and melted.

Twilight cringed and glanced at Fluttershy. “I still find it amazing that you’ve built up a resistance.” She shook her head. “I can fix the lock with magic on the way out. Let’s go.”

The six of them cautiously walked into the compound and then in the front door of the factory. None of them noted the sign on the front that read Hoofnmouth Industries, a nice ironic little touch.

The inside of the building was dark. Twilight got a light spell going and they all immediately gasped in shock at the sight of a brain floating in a tank of liquid.

Distracted, it took them a moment to notice the metal machine at the other end of the building. Picking their way across a floor filled with tools and support equipment, they approached.

“That looks like a drawing Valiant made once,” Twilight noted. “Let’s see, I think it was called an airplane.”

“What’s it do?” Applejack asked.

Twilight shrugged. “I have no idea. I think it flies, but I don’t see rotors for hovering or a place to store hydrogen.”

Most ponies, even Twilight, are not really great with technology.

“It seems rather low-production for a factory,” Rarity noted, looking around. “I see only one of these so-called airplanes.”

“I hope that’s a good thing and not an omen of things yet to come,” Fluttershy whispered.

The rest of them seemed to agree and turned for the door. Twilight, with her somewhat above average powers of perception, stopped short. “Where’s the brain?”

“The brain from the tank?” Pinkie asked.

“Which other brain would I be talking about?” Twilight pointed. “The tank’s empty!”

All six of them gulped at once. Twilight said, “I…think we should get out of here and leave this mad science behind.”

Mad science? Bitch, this is mad engineering!

But whatever. They left and locked up behind them.

After watching them go, I headed down another street. I spotted Doctor Whooves talking with Vinyl Scratch about something. The way he was making circles in the air with his hooves, maybe it was buttholes.

Nah, probably not. That would be more the speed of Sir Win, who came down the street at that moment riding a sea monster. Not riding a sea monster, mind you, although knowing the two of them that wasn’t outside the realm of possibility for behind closed doors. They were both pretty gay.

And speaking of a somewhat different kind of gay, I heard there was a wedding in town. At least it would be the joyful kind of gay if it wasn’t currently a disaster. Matilda ran by freaking out about it. With her was a purple-on-purple planner.

I walked over to find out what was going on.

“Why are you choking me?” Morning Matte sputtered.

“Why are you not chained to a library basement wall?” I asked.

“Twilight and her friends are busy fighting some sort of bug/bear monster. Matilda needed plans made. She’s getting married but there was a mistake with the invitations and the event had to be moved to today.”

“What about the rest of them?”

“Shovelshy is at the station filling up train coalcars to fuel the extra trainloads of ponies that came for the wedding. Bakey Pie forced her way into Sugarcube Corner to start making the cake. Appletack is over at the town hall making sure the construction is solid so nothing will knock it down in the middle of the ceremony. Reading Rainbow is working on the vows and updated invitations just in case the event has to be rescheduled. Celebrity should be here shortly to handle the fanciness and freaking out that a wedding entails.”

Hmm. The first time the B-Team gets out of the library, they start helping with a wedding, rather than, say, escaping. Stockholm Syndrome is a bitch.

“When is the wedding?” I asked.

“In half an hour.”

Satisfied, I let her go and she hurried off with Matilda.

There seemed to be some commotion down the street and I walked that way. It was a little difficult to concentrate on writing and walking at the same time, but I scribbled notes as I went.

I stood up on two legs to get my head above the crowd. Sure enough, Twilight & co. were fighting a bugbear. I shook my head and turned around. One of these days they’d either move the town or obtain more potent deterrents. It was just a little ridiculous how often things attacked Ponyville.

Okay, no, it was freaking ridiculous. It happened like every week.

I went over to the town hall and walked in the door. For only having half an hour to replan and redo a wedding, it was going pretty well. Not that I would know what a good wedding looked like.

Reading Rainbow was at the podium, busily working on some papers. I went over and held up the notes I had written. “I think you dropped this.”

“Thanks,” she said distractedly, taking the paper and adding it to her pile.

It wasn’t the same as messing with Rainbow Dash. In fact, it wasn’t messing at all. I actually wasn’t trying to ruin the wedding. Cranky and Matilda were arguably the most normal ponies in town and they weren’t even ponies.

While I was there, I stopped by where Appletack was working and advised her to install heavier insulation at the pub. I also instructed that a proper command center should have a whiteboard as a step up from a chalkboard.

Outside, I got out of the way as Bakey Pie approached, pulling a huge wedding cake towards the building on a cart.

The bugbear came flying down the street after taking a particularly hard blow and landed on the cake, knocking the cart across the street.

Well, there went that. Good thing I was on the scene with a Plan B.

While Bakey Pie freaked out, Celebrity helping her, and Matilda crying, I got out of their way. Assuming everything worked out correctly, it wouldn’t be a problem.

I heard Matilda sniff. “Well, at least everything else is ready.”

I decided to wait around outside the town hall until the ceremony. Matilda went back inside, still drying tears but forced to go on with the show anyway.

I suddenly heard something that made me freeze. I put my hoof to my ear, hardly believing what my earpiece was telling me. Bon Bon was actually one of Celestia’s super-secret anti-monster agents and her real name was Sweetie Drops. Well, actually, I guess that made sense. Luna had her own agents, like Cheerilee.

I sure was glad the sophisticated spy satellites had been installed in orbit around the planet. It made eavesdropping and collecting intelligence way easier.

Pleased with the information, I remembered something else I wanted to do. I still had time before the event.

Just a short walk away sat seven tanks. The Element Bearers didn’t really know what to do with them, particularly the grey extra one. It had some symbols on the side.

I paused while crossing the street to let Vinyl and Octavia go by on a cart full of electronics. They mashed some kid’s toy shark that was lying on the cobblestones.

I went over to the tank poked it. “Hey.”

Nothing happened. I tapped on it with my hoof. “Come on, I know you’re a robot in disguise.”

This time, mechanical noises came from inside and it shifted a bit. An automated voice that sounded a little like the perpetually condescending tone of Alan Rickman growled, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Just wanted to let you know I’m onto you. We don’t need your kind around here.”

“Oh? And what are you going to do about it?”

“This and that. If we have to, asshole, the lethal option is always on the table.”

“Quite a little mouth on you, isn't there?”

“Powerful things have a track record of ending up dead around here. You stay out of our business and we won’t have a problem.” I did the I’m watching you thing pointing from my eyes to my conversation partner and walked away.

There were still three minutes before the wedding was scheduled to begin. Feeling a little trollish, I walked around the back of the town hall. Not seeing any prying eyes, I pulled out a can of spray paint and wrote VALIANT DID NOTHING WRONG in big letters.

As I was heading back to the front door, I spotted a shady-looking figure in a cloak hanging out. I shook my head. Starlight Glimmer sure was concerned with revenge and stuff. At least she had the good grace not to hang out around the school trying to deal cutie marks like some sort of combination pedophile/drug pusher.

I thought about stabbing her in the ass with a switchblade. Ever since I’d heard that the gluteal muscles, as the largest muscles in the body, were the last to go into rigor mortis, I’d always kind of wanted to test that theory somehow. Plus, that way both her ends would be deformed.

Continuing on, I walked into the town hall, shutting the door and locking it. I heard six thumps as six mares ran nose-first into it. They weren’t late, their enhanced combat prowess ending the fight with the bugbear before the wedding started, I just secured the door early.

I heard a quick conversation outside. Applejack was constantly getting ever more pumped, and probably could have just leaned hard on the door to take it down, not to mention what Rainbow could do in either of her forms or what Twilight could do with magic. They decided that between property damage costs and possibly interrupting an in-progress wedding, it was a better idea to just watch through the window.

Across the room, I spotted Trixie and Daring and headed over to them. I smiled when I got close. “Hey, I heard about your reverse solar flare. Nice work.”

“Thanks!” said Trixie. She hugged me. “Good to see you again.”

Daring looked curious, but said nothing. I didn’t need to talk to her anyway. A very special satellite had been tasked to directly monitor her.

We found our seats. Nearby, Lyra and “Bon Bon” were making up after an earlier argument. Lyra admitting to cooking and eating, and I didn’t pay attention to the rest. If I needed them for a clandestine job or something, their loyalty could be bought. Assuming Bon Bon wasn’t just taking mercenary jobs for money as part of her cover. Even if she was, I could just up the price.

Speaking of corrupt government employees, Celestia and Luna were having a whispered argument about the gift they meant to bring. Luna had left it on the counter.

The gift was a china set made from the finest Neighponese materials. That wasn’t part of the conversation, I just had the intel on it.

I decided to throw them a bone and have Cheerilee fetch it and bring it for the gift table before Cranky and Matilda started unwrapping things. If an order came, or at least appeared to come, from Princess Luna, I was confident that Cheerilee would get it done.

Celestia’s mood seemed even more sour as she tried to fix her mane. It was difficult to see with the naked eye, but she’d recently had it replaced with artificial. Apparently it was much easier to put it on every morning instead of trying to get the damn flowing thing sorted out after sleeping on it.

Luna thought her sister wearing a hairpiece was funny, although she privately acknowledged the utility.

Behind the Princesses sat two ponies in long robes and hoods. It was Shining and Cadance, and they were quietly sobbing. Couldn’t blame them. They’d seen some shit at weddings.

Their whole Obi-Wan getup was kind of interesting. I made a mental note to keep an eye on them.

Ahead of me, there was a blue and white filly named Cordoba swearing in Spanish and being a nuisance. I chuckled. Little tyke.

I saw the stallion known as Bible. He had a sweet leather trench coat. Despite looking badass, he seemed a little nervous. Maybe he was afraid that every time ponies gathered in meeting places, they would place their hooves on him and say some kind of pledge. Glad I didn’t have that problem.

The music came up and the Mayor stepped to the front of the room. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today-”

“Um, hang on, interrupted Reading Rainbow. “That’s not how the script goes.” She squinted at a piece of note paper and said, “The ordination is to be carried out by Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor.”

Cadance and Shining were perhaps more surprised than the rest of the crowd, but they dutifully went to the front of the room. The two of them being super-ordained guaranteed that Cranky and Matilda would stay married. I considered it my gift to the couple. Well, that and the golden Twilicane I had found in the street and wrapped up.

Cadance and Shining weren’t prepared, but managed to stumble through enough lines to call it official. Matilda and Cranky kissed and the deal was done. The crowd broke into joyful cheers.

Outside, looking in through the window, Twilight was brimming with emotion. “You know something, girls? We are so lucky to live in this town. I love you all! I…I’m even tempted to say that I wish Valiant was here, because I think it would do him some good.”

I smirked. All around the hall, balloons were falling and banners were unfurling. One near the window read Congratulations Cranky and Matilda!

On the backside, where only those looking in through the window could see, it read, How do you know Valiant isn’t here?

There was no proof of that to any of the other guests. After all, it’s said that if you’re doing your job right, it’s hard to tell that you’ve done anything at all. Fortunately, there was a distraction. A surprise replacement cake had just been wheeled in. The calling card with it was anonymous.

I went with Trixie to get a piece. On the way, I stopped by the guest register to sign.

I took a moment to decide exactly what impression I wanted to make, but then shrugged and decided to just go with the truth.

Sunset Shimmer

Author's Note

Remember that part about Celestia wearing a wig. It’ll be funny later.

Princess Spike

“Welcome to the Grand Equestria Pony Summit!” Princess Luna introduced.

“You delegates have traveled far and wide to represent your cities as we seek to celebrate and learn from all the unique places that make up our wonderful land of Equestria,” Princess Celestia continued. “The two of us are happy to see you all. Despite rumors to the contrary, there are only two Princesses of Equestria.”

In the crowd, Twilight frowned. “I guess I can understand confidence in government, but I’m not sure what to think when it conflicts with truth in government.”

“Don’t say that too loud,” Applejack reminded her. “Besides, after what happened, it's arguably true.”

The pair of Princesses politely waved and smiled as if they weren’t hiding terrible secrets. The crowd gave them their due.

“Why are we here again?” Rainbow asked. The rest of the mares and Spike looked like they also wanted to know.

“Princess Celestia said she had something important to discuss with us and wanted to use the summit as cover,” Twilight said. “She seems to be very security conscious lately.”

“We meet with her all the time,” said Applejack. “Why would anypony care?”

It was a good question. Either way, they would know soon enough.

While Luna handled the guests from around the country, Celestia met the Element Bearers.

“Spike, could you go fetch some donuts from Joe?" Celestia asked.”

Spike was more than happy to, and hurried away. Celestia escorted the rest into a back room. The walls were soundproofed. It looked a little like their command center in the back room of the pub, but a little more formal. Against one wall was an enormous radio, appearing to be custom built.

“What’s this about, Princess?” Applejack said.

“I’m glad you asked,” Celestia said. “I’ve been considering the role you all take, and I’ve decided to make suggestions for reorganization. Applejack, have you ever considered a leadership role?”

“Huh?” Applejack said. “I mean, Valiant said something about that once.”

“Wait a second,” Twilight broke in, “Why would you pick Applejack? No offense, AJ, but that’s exactly what Valiant wanted.”

“Well, Applejack knows the value of hard work and honesty, and she’s the biggest.” Celestia was quick to add, “In addition, I believe the last thing Valiant would expect us to do is the thing he wanted us to do.”

“How do you know what Valiant wants?” Rarity asked. “He’s been gone a rather long time.”

“Classified ways,” Celestia said. “I want your promise that nothing we discuss here leaves this room.”

Everypony agreed, and Celestia revealed her source, the radio. “We have proof that Valiant is alive and well.” Celestia tuned the receiver and sure enough, picked up Valiant’s voice.

“Operational simulation test number three hundred sixty-seven. Tin Mare, do you copy?”

“Affirmative,” replied a robotic voice.

“Systems check,” Valiant ordered.

“Green, all.”

“Very well. Simulate target acquisition.”

“Target acquired,” the so-called Tin Mare replied immediately.

“Are you sure?”

“Any mistake I make is a function of your design.”

Valiant chuckled. “Oh sure, blame me. Go screw yourself. All right, simulate engaging target.”

“Weapon selected: gun. Simulate engaging. Simulated target neutralized.”

“Simulate damage assessment.”

“The target is simulated dead.”

“A little more specific?”

“There are make-believe large holes in it.”

“Awesome. “

“Strange as it sounds,” said Rarity, “I feel like I’ve heard that voice before.”

“The robot?” Twilight asked.

“Now that you mention it, I think maybe I’ve heard her before too,” Fluttershy said.

And now that Fluttershy said her, the girls agreed that it did sound like the mysterious Tin Mare was in fact female. But who was she? It didn’t sound like anypony they remembered associating with Valiant.

“It’s not the first time we’ve heard Valiant talking to this Tin Mare,” Celestia said. “We still know very little. It’s not the first time we’ve heard them discuss weapons. She seems subservient, and without much personality.”

“Do you think she’s a real robot? Like some sort of artificial intelligence that Valiant created?” Twilight asked.

“I don’t know,” Celestia said.

“We can triangulate the signals and find out where they are,” Twilight said. “In fact, why haven’t you done that already?”

“We’ve tried,” Celestia told her. “You aren’t the only smart pony in Equestria, Twilight. However, we haven’t had any luck. The signals are too ambiguous. We think that they’re going through the satellites, so we’re only able to track it when one passes over.”

“Wait, what’s a satellite?” Rainbow said.

“We’ve recently discovered that there are metallic objects in orbit around the planet,” Celestia revealed. “These satellites seem capable of transmitting images and audio. We strongly suspect that Valiant is responsible and is spying on us.”

“It…sounds a lot like him,” Applejack agreed.

“We were able to hack into the system and download our own feed,” Celestia said.

“Hacking?” Twilight said, confused.

“It’s a new term we had to invent,” Celestia said. “It’s all very high-level computer business. Almost like finding your way through a digital jungle with nothing but a machete: hacking. Now that we’re in, we’re able to get our own data, and it’s been monumentally helpful to our global awareness.”

“But does he know that we know?” Applejack asked.

“I think not,” Celestia said. “We’re able to spy on Valiant, after all.”

“So where is he?” asked Rainbow.

“We are only getting the information secondhand,” Celestia reminded her. “Efforts to track the meager signals of his that we pick up have been unsuccessful.”

“Going back to the idea of discovering where the signals are from triangulation, could we somehow travel to a satellite in order to get a stronger signal and see where it’s coming from?” Twilight asked.

“It would be more difficult than going to the moon,” Celestia said, “attempting to teleport to a small quickly moving object in outer space. I think it’s theoretically possible, however.”

“Or, y’know…starting a space program,” suggested Applejack. “Valiant’s already laid the groundwork.”

It was true. The launch pad in Ponyville hadn’t been used for anything else since his departure.

“That’s insane,” Twilight argued. “Riding a tube full of thousands of pounds of rocket fuel on the way to intercept a tiny target in the depths of outer space?”

“I think you mean it’s insanely awesome,” said Rainbow.

“Totally!” agreed Pinkie.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Twilight said.

“Let me tell you something,” said Celestia, adopting a more candid tone. “As a pony with dozens of centuries of life experience, I adore tradition, but I also realize that occasionally things must change. Why, just the other day I had my mane replaced because it’s easier to manage.”

To make her point, the Princess deactivated her trademark wispy mane and removed it. She showed them the wig. Off her head and not animated, it had the consistency of cotton candy.

“I want Princess Celestia’s toupee in my mouth,” Pinkie whispered to herself.

Replacing her mane, Celestia went on. “I’m not saying a mission to space is the right answer, but if it’s the best way to get results, I don’t want it to be discounted simply because it’s new and different. Or because it’s Valiant’s fault. We've discussed the groundwork here today. I'd like you all to bring me ideas about moving forward.”

She left them with that thought. The meeting over, the girls filed out of the room.

“So if we want to find Valiant, we just have to figure out how to get a pony close enough to one of these “satellites” in order to use as-yet-uninvented technology to locate and track his signals, and the easiest way might be to invent a space program,” Rarity summarized. “Lovely, just lovely.”

“I think we might want to explore other options, too,” Applejack said. “While a rocket might be easier than teleportin’, maybe there’s something even easier.”

“Maybe we could find a quiet place to put our heads together,” said Fluttershy, the only one who actually remembered the confidentiality agreement Celestia had made.

“That’ll be a little difficult with all these crowds around,” Rainbow observed.

“We can use the bedroom in the tower where I stayed when I lived here,” Twilight suggested.

They headed there, but it wasn’t quite quiet. Quiet enough for casual conversation, but not quiet enough for the kind of high-level science brainstorming that was required. There was road construction, chainsaw tree-trimming, polo-playing, and a mime. Not that the mime was loud, it was just a really terrible mime.

In addition, everyone who had come for the summit was keeping the two Princesses busy with their incessant chatter.

“We have to figure out a way to get some peace and quiet,” Twilight said.

“We could have a pony-powered pump-action palooza!” Pinkie explained, grabbing Twilight and lifting her tail.

“Pinkie, you may not use me as a machine gun!” Twilight shouted.

“Er, yeah, a machine gun,” said Pinkie, letting her go.

“Why don’t we just go back to Ponyville?” Applejack suggested. “I’m sure we can find some peace and quiet there.”

They all agreed that it was a good idea and headed for the train station. Spike met them along the way with donuts.

Meanwhile, Princesses Celestia and Luna were up to their eyeballs in ponies who wanted something. The two sisters glanced at each other across the crowded room. Instead of solving their own petty problems, ponies everywhere always wanted Princess advice. Maybe two Princesses weren’t enough. Maybe they should let ponies think for themselves.

They found both ideas equally horrifying.

The girls and Spike rode the train back home to find something equally horrible: a stallion that called himself Justin Bee Bear.

He had come to town to talk to the residents about the recent bugbear attack during Matilda and Cranky’s wedding. Based on his name, he seemed a likely candidate to talk about ursine/insectoid hybrids.

However, there was something that immediately made the girls suspicious. It was the mare wearing a jacket and sunglasses that was choking him.

Party Pooped

“Um, what’s going on here?” Twilight asked, eyeing the struggle going on in the middle of the street.

“Oh, he just seemed like he deserved it,” I explained.

Justin Bee Bear made gagging noises under my hooves.

“I think we’d at least like to hear what somepony named Bee Bear he has to say,” Applejack suggested. “We did just fight a bugbear.”

I sighed and moved my sunglasses to above my horn so they could see me roll my eyes. However, they were distracted by the rest of my face.

“Sunset Shimmer!” the group gasped

Rarity got her surprise under control first and asked, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m choking Justin Bee Bear,” I said.

The startling logic baffled them for a moment. Justin was starting to turn blue, so I let him go. “Well, it’s been fun. See you all later.”

I teleported.

“Aw darn, she’s gone!” Pinkie said. “I was going to thank her for coming to the wedding!”

“She came to the wedding?” said Twilight.

“Sure. In fact, now that we know her disguise, I realize that we’ve seen her all over Ponyville. I even threw her a welcome to Ponyville party.”

“And yet you didn’t get her name or realize who it was?” Rainbow said.

Pinkie shrugged. “I just care about making ponies happy, not cracking their secret identities.”

“I wish you’d gotten here in time to make me happy with not being strangled,” Justin Bee Bear wheezed.

“Well, can’t win ‘em all!” Pinkie said. She threw a foreleg around his shoulder. “So what’s up with you? New to town? I heard you like bugbears.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that I like bugbears. Nopony does. And I wouldn’t call myself an expert. My name is merely Justin Bee Bear and so I travel from town to town spreading awareness of bugbears.”

“Well, it’s too late,” said Applejack. “We not only know about ‘em, we’ve fought one.”

“So you’re kind of useless,” added Rainbow.

The rest of them looked at her, but couldn’t disagree.

“Oh, well…I guess I’ll be on my way, then,” said Justin. He started to walk away. He looked over his shoulder, slowed down, and looked over his shoulder again.

“I think he wants me to throw him a party,” said Pinkie. “And I might, but we have more important things to do right now. The delegation from Yakyakistan is coming.”

“I’m glad you reminded us,” said Twilight. “We should go meet them.”

“Why are they comin’ here again?” Applejack asked.

“Well, Yakyakistan is north of the ruins of the Crystal Empire,” explained Twilight. “Obviously we couldn’t hold the diplomatic visit in the Empire, so Canterlot was next on the list. They’re passing through Ponyville on their way there.”

“But if Yakyakistan is north of the former Crystal Empire which is north of Canterlot, and Ponyville is south of Canterlot, why are they coming through here to get there?” Rarity inquired.

“Well,” said Twilight, “I wanted to surprise Princess Celestia with planning a diplomatic meeting and had to do a few creative routings to get my hooves into it.”

Everyone else burst out laughing.

“Wow, Twilight, I knew you were desperate for attention, but this takes the cake!” Pinkie giggled.

“She actually cares about politics!” Rainbow chuckled.

“Makin’ things more complicated just for a chance to make ‘em less complicated…” Applejack was nearly crying with laughter. “Oh Twi, never change.”

Twilight, face red, muttered, “Maybe we can start planning the event.”

The others agreed to help, because it was the right thing to do, even if they still thought it was hilarious. They prepared the food and the town hall for the meeting.

Later that afternoon, the yaks arrived. Prince Rutherford and two of his advisors showed up.

“Ponies! Greetings, ponies!” Rutherford’s voice boomed as he came in.

“Prince Rutherford, your Majesty,” greeted Twilight. “On behalf of all of us, I welcome you to Equestria.”

“Me honored,” Rutherford said. “Yaks hope for great friendship between ponies and yaks. Friends for a thousand moons!”

It was a little strange, but maybe it was just the yak way. Twilight said, “You must be hungry after a long journey. We've prepared a banquet of traditional yak foods.”

“If things not perfect, yaks get mad,” Rutherford warned. “Yaks always get mad when things not perfect!”

I grinned and sat down in front of the radio. Casting a spell to pop some popcorn, I settled in. This was going to be good.

Rutherford tried the food and spit it out. “This no taste like yak food! Fake pony food make yaks mad!”

They trashed the town hall.

The girls stood idly by, watching nervously.

Applejack said, “Them yaks sure have a funny way of sayin’ howdy.”

“They're different, that's all,” said Rarity. “Very…different.”

“I think they broke my record for most stuff broken in under a minute,” Rainbow admitted. “It’s probably a good thing we didn’t have this event over at the library or they might have broken the trophy.”

“All we have to do is show them how great it can be to have friends before we send them to meet with Princess Celestia,” said Twilight. “Now, who read the seven-volume cross-indexed history of Yakyakistan I recommended?”

Pinkie waved her hoof in the air. “I did, I did! Did you know they live so far north of the Crystal Empire that it’s cold all the time? Yaks have yak fur to keep them warm.”

Applejack did her eyebrow thing. “Pretty sure that's what fur’s always for.”

The yaks kept breaking things. Twilight said, “Pinkie, can you show them around town? They’ll need somewhere to stay.”

“Hey, maybe they can stay on hay in the barn of AJ!” Pinkie giggled.

“We could do that,” Applejack said. “Tell me what I need to do.”

“They have a very specific way of sleeping,” Pinkie said. “I’ll help you get it just right.”

“While you’re doing that, I could set up an animal show,” said Fluttershy. “Although I’ll have to find a lot of horns.” She took out a small pouch of pepper and sprinkled a little on her nose. A quick sneeze later and she was a unicorn. “That’s one.” She looked around and blushed at her own joke but none of the rest were listening, too busy with everything else and too not expecting Fluttershy to say something like that.

At Sweet Apple Acres, Pinkie and Applejack threw the sleeping arrangements together in authentic Yakyakistan style. However, when they brought the yaks to the barn to show them, there was a problem.

“This not yak hay!”

“Well, we didn't have actual hay from Yakyakistan,” Pinkie explained, “but we tried our best to make it just like yours.”

“Not perfect! Yaks destroy!”

The other girls had come to the farm to see how it was going and stood watching in mute horror as the visitors trashed the barn.

“Um, far be it from me to put our guests in an uncomfortable situation,” said Fluttershy, “but have we tried asking them not to do that? They’re from another country. Maybe they just don’t know that ponies don’t like having their hard work destroyed.”

“Wow, I’m surprised you’d come up with something so assertive, asking a guest to behave themselves and conform to local standards to avoid making a scene,” said Twilight. “Then again, you did eat Discord, so maybe that’s the chaos talking.”

“I agree with Fluttershy,” said Rarity. “Has anypony tried telling the yaks that their behavior isn’t satisfactory?”

“It does make a lot of sense ,” said Rainbow. “And if I’m the one saying that we should try talking, then it must be the obvious answer.”

“Excuse me, could I get your attention for a moment?” Twilight called. The yaks looked up from their destruction and came out of the barn.

“We wanted to help you make the best possible impression when you meet with Princess Celestia,” Twilight said. “To that end, we wanted to ask you not to destroy things. We understand that things may not be perfect, but nopony’s perfect. And sometimes due to circumstances, perfection is simply not possible. For example, trying to perfectly duplicate Yakyakistan here in Ponyville. I think we can agree that neither you nor us enjoy having your things destroyed.”

Rutherford stared at her. “We demand destroy! Destroy now or yaks no friends!”

Twilight put up a hoof. “Wait! We’re just trying to explain how different our cultures are. We’re trying to accommodate you, but for diplomacy to work compromises have to be made on both sides.”

“How this for diplomacy?” Rutherford said. “Yak leave now, go to train, return with more yaks! We declare war!”

“Wait, like, really?” said Rainbow. She grinned, excited at the prospect.

“No!” Twilight insisted. “Hang on, none of us want to do this. How could diplomacy go so badly?”

“Dear, war is just diplomacy by other means,” Rarity said. She frowned, trying to remember where she’d heard that quote before. A creeping horror spread across her face as she remembered that it was Valiant.

As the situation unraveled, I grabbed the microphone, trying to keep my voice from being too excited. “Tin Mare, I need you ready to go. Live weapons authorized.”

“Copy that, ma’am.”

Meanwhile, at Sweet Apple Acres, the situation was still going downhill.

The yaks, making good on their promise to go home and return with a fighting force, started to head for the train station, but Applejack got in their way. “Hold on there. If you really want to declare war on ponies, you’re going to have to accept the consequences.”

“Out of way!” Prince Rutherford shouted. “Yaks destroy!”

“You really want to declare war with just the three of you?” Applejack said.

Rutherford apparently did. He charged, but Applejack was faster. One hoof with the power of a meteor crashed down on the yak’s head. Applejack pile-drove him so hard that, though she didn’t know it, the reverberation traveled deep into the ground and triggered a resonance in a distant mountain peak, shaking loose an avalanche that buried Yakyakistan.

“Yaks destroyed,” quipped Applejack. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so flippant if she knew she’d killed a species, instead of just their prince, but it was still a really cool one-liner.

The other two yaks surrendered. It would go down in the history books as the shortest war to date, save the one where Valiant declared war on a bottle of tequila.

Well, with the war called off, I reluctantly got back on the microphone. “Cancel that, Tin Mare.”

“So soon, ma’am?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll come up with a suitable live-fire test soon enough.”

With the war over, Pinkie decided to throw a party to celebrate VY day, though being Pinkie she didn’t need much of an excuse to celebrate VY if you know what I mean.

It had been so long since Equestria had participated in a war that nopony knew the procedures for victory celebrations. Luckily, Pinkie had a party already planned, as she revealed when the girls visited her in her party cave in the basement of the upper floors of Sugarcube Corner. None of them said anything, but they were all a little suspicious about how Pinkie lived in the upstairs of the building but managed to have a subterranean hideaway all the same.

Applejack discovered the plans Pinkie had made for events far in the future, including Pinkie’s parents’ one hundredth and five hundredth anniversaries. It reminded Applejack of her lack of parents and grandparents, and that was just sad.

Fortunately, the party helped cheer her up again. Pretty much everypony who was anypony was invited. Justin Bee Bear wasn’t, but since he showed up Pinkie decided to also roll his party into the event.

The party had been thrown at the Half Pint, as it had room and hadn’t been trashed by yaks. Both Princesses showed up, and were delighted to hear the war news. With Equestria victorious, Prince Rutherford dead, and Yakyakistan wiped free of yaks, the territory was clearly up for grabs.

Celestia pulled Twilight aside. “You remember Luna and I were having a few crowd control problems during the Grand Equestria Pony Summit.”

“That’s right, Princess,” Twilight said.

“And now we’re going to need somepony to run the former Yakyakistan.”

“Are you considering me?” Twilight said. “Why not get Cadance and Shining to run it? It’s not even that far from the Crystal Empire.”

“Cadance is not fit to rule,” Celestia said. “Not only wouldn’t the public trust a Princess who lost her land, she told me herself that she doesn’t feel up to it. After misplacing her foal-”

“Wait, you mean miscarriage?” Twilight interrupted.

“No, the baby disappeared,” said Celestia. “You were there at the birth, after all. Don’t you remember?”

“Oh, right, that whole scene at the Equestria games.” Twilight shook her head in embarrassment at forgetting. “Sorry, a lot of stuff has happened since then and after the Crystal Empire was reduced to rubble I haven’t had many reminders of Cadance. I haven’t really seen her since then. I heard that she might have come to Cranky and Matilda’s wedding, but I wasn’t able to catch up with her.”

“Which is exactly what I’m saying. Out of sight, out of mind. Cadance would not be fit for the job. That’s why I’d like you to oversee what will become of Yakyakistan, Twilight.”

“But I’m not a Princess!” Twilight argued. “Well, not anymore, but-”

“And you won’t need to be. Yakyakisan was a small enough region that it can be administered as a citystate. You could be a governor.”

Twilight considered it. “Okay, I think I would be up to the challenge, but didn’t you say that Applejack would make a good leader?”

“Running your team is one thing when there’s just six of you and you’re fighting monsters,” Celestia said. “Running a government is quite another. Applejack is great at kicking tail and spouting one-liners. You’re great at careful planning and deliberation.”

“But if I went to run Yakyakistan, there wouldn’t be a team anymore,” Twilight said.

“Haven’t you noticed the recent lack of monsters?” Celestia said. “There have been a few, but you girls haven’t been called on to save the world very often as of late.”

That was certainly true, Twilight allowed. “Do you think it’s because of Valiant?”

Celestia’s eye twitched, but she said, “It could be.”

Twilight took a moment to decide and eventually agreed. “I accept the position of governor of Yakyakistan.”

“You’ll need to come up with a new name for it,” Celestia reminded her. “No yaks live there any more, after all.”

“I’ll think about it,” Twilight told her. She said goodbye and went to find her friends to break the news.

Meanwhile, I was getting in touch with Trixie.

“What?” she said through the connection.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“I’m kind of busy right now on this adventure.”

“Well, this is important. Disengage from HLS.”

“How did you know?” Trixie said. In the background, I faintly heard Daring say Lucky for you, I always have an exit strategy.

“Look, we have a problem,” I told her. “Do you have a laser pointer with you?”

“Well no, but I can cast one with my horn.”

“Good. You know that last railroad bridge up north, near the Yakyakistan border?”

“Yes.”

“Get there. We’ve got work to do.”

Switching channels, I said, “Tin Mare, it looks like I have something for you today after all.”

Back at the party, Twilight found her friends and asked them to talk. They headed for the command center.

Once they were all sitting down, Twilight made the announcement. “Girls, Princess Celestia wants me to take charge of the land formerly known as Yakyakistan.”

“What’s it currently known as?” Pinkie asked.

“I’ll have to come up with that name,” Twilight said. She laughed nervously. “I’m not sure what I should call a frozen wasteland populated only by dead yaks. I’m not even sure why I’m going if there aren’t any ponies there to govern.”

“We can help you set it up,” offered Rainbow. “It’s not like we have anything else to do.”

That settled, they went to break the news to Guinness.

“What do you mean you’re going to the cold north to build a new citystate?” he demanded. “Why do we care about expanding this already great country into inhospitable territory, and why are you going?”

“Because Princess Celestia appointed Twilight,” Rainbow said.

“I was talking about you,” said Guinness. “Don’t forget we’ve got this foal to raise.”

“Yay!” contributed Skyla.

Oh right, thought Twilight. That’s where Cadance’s foal went.

Actually, she probably wasn’t thinking about that at all. I’m not sure how many ponies had actually figured out what happened to the baby alicorn.

Guinness sighed. “So what’s this place going to be called?”

“We’re still working on it,” Twilight said.

They left the pub. Rarity was already talking about the fancy clothing they were going to need in order to travel north. Of all ponies, Applejack was least interested, however she was extra distracted by her cousin Braeburn coming down the street.

His metal-clad hooves shuffled in the dirt and his electronic eye visor was downcast. He didn’t realize the girls were in front of him until he saw Applejack’s orange hooves.

He glanced up. “Oh, hello AJ. Glad I found you.”

“Braeburn. Is something wrong?”

“Yeah.” Braeburn glanced around and sighed. “Cherry Jubilee passed away. Her wagon went off a ravine.”

The six of them expressed their sympathy. Braeburn muttered, “I had to get out of Dodge Junction. I…I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

“If you’re looking for something to do to get away from things, you could come with us to establish a new settlement in the far north,” offered Twilight. “It’s about as far from anywhere as you can get.”

“I might just do that, thank you,” said Braeburn. “What’s this place called?”

“We really should come up with a name,” said Twilight.

Author's Note

hint hint

Amending Fences

The girls stood at the edge of a ravine. The train trestle that had previously spanned the void had been reduced to splinters of a suspiciously small size.

“What could have happened?” Rarity asked. “Bridges don’t just collapse.”

“Yeah, usually the train is in the middle when it happens,” the stallion working on the nearby locomotive commented. “We’re lucky we saw it in time.”

“Well, I guess we aren’t going to Yakyakistan today,” said Twilight. None of them had managed to come up with a better name for it yet.

The conductor walked by. “We’re going to be reversing the train to Canterlot soon.”

“Let’s go there and hang out until we can find another way around,” said Applejack. “Maybe we can find an airship or somethin.’”

They got back on the train. Spike was asleep and Braeburn looked forlornly out the window. Cherry’s sudden passage had left him more of a wreck than usual.

The rest of them talked on the way to Canterlot. The admittedly businesslike adventure of setting up a new settlement in the former yak lands was at the forefront. Mixed in, however, were questions about the brief appearance by Sunset “choke the shit out of them” Shimmer, Valiant’s ongoing anonymity, the spying technology he’d developed, and the mysterious Tin Mare. There were a lot more questions than answers.

In Canterlot, Twilight needed to go to the castle to report the delay in plans. After getting an audience with the Princesses, she broke the news. “The train bridge leading towards Yakyakistan is out.”

“Twilight, we talked about this,” Celestia said. “You need a new name for the place.”

“We’re still working on it,” Twilight told her.

“Work harder,” Celestia said. “You can’t still be calling it that by the time you get there.”

“Uh,” Twilight fretted. “I mean, it’s a little hard to name it having never been there.”

“Being up high in the snowy mountains could count for something,” Rainbow said.

“The mountains are nice terrain,” Rarity agreed.

“I imagine it’s peaceful up there, said Fluttershy. “Quiet.”

“Well, now that everything’s buried in a pile of snow.” Applejack looked guilty.

“A lot of vertical terrain covered in heaps of snow and with no life to make a noise…” Pinkie began. Her eyes lit up. “Let’s call it Silent Hill!”

They were all agreeable to that. It sounded like a nice, peaceful place to live.

With the matter settled, they said goodbye to the Princesses and went to find a blimp for hire. The stallion they found who owned an airship was okay with taking them to the new territory, but it would have to be the next morning.

In Canterlot, with time to kill until the next day, they went looking for something to do. Except Braeburn. He was emo and stayed by himself at the hotel.

At the mall, the girls and Spike walked around, ponywatching and window shopping. They passed two colts fighting over the last of the latest model of whiz-bang gotta-have-it toy on the shelf.

“Now, now,” Twilight stepped in. “There’s no need to resort to violence. Tell me what the problem is.”

She moderated the issue and got it resolved. Almost immediately, however, other parents and children in the toy shop took notice and demanded the responsible-looking pony solve their problems for them.

It was a little overwhelming, but not anything too out of the ordinary for Twilight. She’d been a major part of a Super Friend Team for a while and was up to the task.

Between ponies, Spike commented, “It's kinda funny, isn't it? All these ponies coming to you for advice about friendship?”

“What’s funny about that?” Twilight asked.

“You know, because you used to be famous for being such a bad friend.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight asked. “I had good friends in Canterlot.”

Spike crossed his arms. “The fact that you know what I’m talking about shows that you know what I’m talking about.”

Twilight had one of her little freakouts. “This is a disaster! All my old friends! I can’t remember any of their names right now! But do you really think that they think I’m a bad friend?!”

“Well, we’re here in Canterlot right now,” Applejack pointed out. “We can go find them.”

“Great idea.” Twilight brightened. “Let’s go!”

The pony she had been just about to help, a blue and white filly named Cordoba, kicked Twilight in the shin and spit a curse in Spanish.

Valiant and I cracked up laughing. “I love watching this kid,” he said. “She hates Twilight so much and Twilight doesn’t even know.”

I patted his shoulder. “She will.”

“So where should we start to find your old friends?” Rarity asked as the girls and Spike left the mall.

“The only logical place to start is at the beginning,” Twilight said. “My quarters here in Canterlot, back before I moved to Ponyville.”

None of them could come up with a better idea. Theyy made their way to the building and walked inside. “I know we were just here for the Grand Equestria Pony Summit,” Pinkie said, eyeing the furnishings, “and I meant to say something then, but this place isn’t as dusty as I pictured considering you haven’t lived here in so long.”

“Well, did you expect me to just leave the place and drop everything literally where it was?” Twilight said. “I’ve been back to Canterlot several times since moving to Ponyville. It would be very irresponsible and forgetful of me to just let the place sit and collect dust.”

“It was kind of irresponsible and forgetful of you to abandon your old friends,” Spike pointed out.

“Just because I can’t remember…uh…”

“Minuette, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, Lyra Heartstrings, and Moon Dancer,” Spike provided.

“Yes, them, just because I forgot their names doesn’ t mean I’m irresponsible and forgetful,” Twilight argued.

“Princess Celestia made me the de-factoid leader of this team for some reason,” Applejack said.

“De-facto,” Twilight corrected. “And she did it because you’re apparently a badass who can crack wise under pressure, not because I’m a terrible friend.”

“Instead of mussing up more friendships, perhaps we can work on fixing the old ones?” Rarity broke in.

“You’re right,” Twilight acknowledged. “Now, where can we find these ponies?”

“Lyra lives in Ponyville,” said Pinkie. “As for the rest, my Pinkie Sense is tingling.”

There was a long pause. The rest of them glanced at each other. Applejack said, “What’s it telling you?”

“No clue.” Pinkie shrugged. “But if I were trying to find out about somepony, I think I would go ask the Princesses to use their mysterious devices they hijacked from Valiant to check up on ponies. Hey, maybe they already have files on everypony and can tell us where Minuette, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, and Moon Dancer live.”

“That’s a great idea!” Twilight said. “In fact, we should create some sort of book that binds together information about everypony and how they can be contacted. Maybe we could sell ad space to fund the venture. We could distribute free copies to every residence in Equestria!”

“Sounds boring,” said Rainbow. “Now, if we also threw in pictures of their faces in these books…”

“Rainbow just found herself back on the list,” Valiant said through clenched teeth. He grabbed the microphone. “Tin Mare, where the hell are you?”

“Returning to base,” Tin Mare replied. “Unable to comply with a new mission at the current time. Sorry, I am but one war machine.”

Valiant ground his teeth. He didn’t notice when he did it. I thought it was kind of cute.

“Isn’t this the kind of thing you’d rather handle yourself, anyway?” I said.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Valiant calmed down. Then a smile spread across his face. It was his “the hunt begins” look. Sexy.

The girls made their way back to the castle and got a moment with the comms gear. It was easy enough to find Minuette’s file.

The last thing Minuette expected, though, was six ponies and a dragon to show up at her doorstep. She took it in stride, though. “Twilight Sparkle!” she laughed. “What are you doing here? I mean, I know you're here in Canterlot all the time, but you never come to see me. Hey, I just had the greatest idea! You want to go see Lemon Hearts and Twinkleshine?”

“Of course! My old friends!” Twilight said, already cheering up.

“Have fun,” Rarity said. “The rest of us will give you some space.”

“No, come along,” insisted Minuette. “I have no idea who you all are, except Pinkie, but any friends of Twilight are friends of mine.”

Fluttershy ducked her head. “We wouldn’t want to impose.”

“We’re going to Donut Joe’s,” said Minuette.

“Well, what a co-ink-e-dink.” Pinkie grinned. “So are we!”

“So am I,” Valiant said, getting up.

They all went to the donut shop. The girls and Minuette met up with Twilight’s two other old friends. Twilight kept trying to get in an apology edgewise but between so many ponies talking at once, she could barely hear herself think.

Valiant, meanwhile, dressed in an awesome hat/coat combo and sunglasses, walked into the donut shop and sat at the bar. I didn’t know what he had planned, but I eagerly watched and waited.

“Whatever happened to Moon Dancer?” Twilight asked.

“Moon Dancer?” said Lemon.

“Yeah, you know, our other friend,” Twilight clarified.

Valiant raised one hoof up beside his head as if scratching his ear and said into his sleeve microphone, “Sunset, what do we have on a Moon Dancer?”

“Running it.” I quickly flipped through the files and found what I was looking for. “She lives out by the stadium. I’ll get more information about her.”

Valiant got up and left money for his donut plus a box with another dozen. On the way out the door, he spotted Starlight Glimmer hiding in the corner behind a menu. He shook his head and kept going, outside and across town.

Tin Mare arrived back and I went to help her out. Valiant had put huge amounts of time and effort –and science, mad or otherwise - into making her into what she was, but for all that, she still needed a little help. No dexterity, that one.

“Get back to Canterlot,” I said. “I don’t know yet what Valiant is planning and he might need you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she intoned.

I went back to the control station and saw that Valiant was inspecting Moon Dancer’s house. It looked like a pile of shit.

“This place looks like a pile of shit,” he muttered.

I grinned.

Valiant went inside. The door disintegrated just by him touching it hard. The interior of the house was dark and messy. Also, he was attacked by a robot.

Part of the facial covering flopped free, but otherwise it appeared much like a pony. The mane and tail were styled exactly like Twilight. In fact, the whole thing looked like Twilight, but if she had been dipped in bleach and left to fade. Everything was a few shades lighter.

Valiant caught the attack in his hooves and the two of them struggled across the floor like some sort of dangerous dance. His eyes narrowed. “Didn’t expect to see you here, Twi-minator. It’s been too long. You’re certainly looking the worse for wear.”

The robot did not reply except to make some corroded-sounding noises. Maybe its skinlike covering wasn’t the only thing that had been weathered.

Valiant managed to gain an advantage and kicked the robot in the chest. He didn’t have much time to wind up and only managed to knock it halfway across the room. Before the robot could hit the floor, however, its horn lit up and it teleported.

“Shit,” Valiant muttered. He walked over to some open textbooks and glanced at them. “It taught itself magic.”

There was a sound in the back room of the house. Valiant glanced that way and walked over to the bedroom door. It opened a crack and a mare who looked a lot like the robot, except wearing black glasses with the nose fixed with tape, peeped out. “Is she gone?”

“Yeah,” said Valiant. “How long have you been hiding?”

“A couple of weeks,” admitted the mare.

“Not that anypony noticed,” I said in Valiant’s earpiece. “Before the robot took over Moon Dancer’s house as a hideout due to their similar appearances, all she did was go back and forth between the library and her house.”

Valiant addressed Moon Dancer. “Well, I feel slightly responsible for this since I didn’t manage to finish the job the last time I had that thing in my clutches. You’re also kind of responsible because you didn’t think to climb out a window or something and get help.”

“Well, it wasn’t too bad,” Moon Dancer said. “She was quiet. We made okay study buddies.”

“I like a library-dwelling unicorn as much as anyone-” Valiant said.

I squee’d.

“-but this is pathetic. Don’t despair, though. I’m going to help you.” He took a step towards MD. No, let’s not call her MD, that implies she actually did something with all that studying. How about…MoDa.

“What are you going to do?” she asked suspiciously.

“I’m going to simplify your life and make you more physically attractive by getting rid of those ugly broken glasses.” Valiant grinned. “Surprise laser eye surgery!”

I imagine the smell of burning corneas would have been quite thick in the stuffy house. I could at least hear the screams. That’s what Twilight and her friends walked in on a few minutes later.

Valiant dried his hooves after washing and passed them on the way to the door. “Don’t mind me, I’m just on my way out.”

“Who are you?” Twilight said. “What did you do to Moon Dancer?”

“What, you’ve never seen an eye surgeon who makes housecalls?” Valiant shook his head and went out the door.

“I can see quite clearly,” MoDa offered weakly. She looked around. “What are all of you doing here?”

Twilight gestured to herself, Minuette, Twinkleshine, and Lemon Hearts. “It's us, your old friends!”

“Friends…?” MoDa said. “Oh, right. Friends. Those exist.” She reached up to adjust her glasses, but when her hoof found nothing, she paused and smiled.

“I’m going to throw you all a reunion party!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Can we do something about my not-literally-blinding-but-still-pretty-intense pain?” MoDa asked.

Pinkie tapped her chin with a hoof. “I think I have an idea.”

I watched them make their way to the party place. Being a Pinkie party, it couldn’t be a bad event. They had balloons and streamers, cake and other refreshments, and Pin the Tail on the Pony: Princess Celestia Edition. Oh, and Pinkie took a page from Valiant’s book and spiked MoDa’s punch with tequila.

Valiant got back to headquarters while it was going on.

“Donut?” he offered from the box he had bought. He settled back down beside me to watch the live feed from the drunken reunion party.

All of them looked like they were having a surprisingly good time. Twilight and MoDa caught up with facts and figures related to Hayscartes, Morari the Maneless, and Sir Horseword. Those sounded like they were either rappers or old school scientists.

Speaking of rappers, Valiant decided to call out Twilight for racism in the middle of everything. After checking that the connections were set up and the radio patched through, he picked up the microphone.

“Attention Twilight Sparkle.” Valiant spoke slowly and threw his voice deeper, aiming for the God voice.

The partygoers stopped in confusion. “Where is that voice coming from? said Rarity.

“Is it Valiant?” asked Rainbow.

“Yes, it is I.”

“I think it’s coming from the sky,” said Applejack. They all looked up.

“Where I am right now is of no importance. What is important is that you’re a racist, Twilight. Studies show that you strongly prefer the company of unicorns.”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight demanded.

“Just look around the party. Rarity, Minuette, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, Moon Dancer, the librarian, the bookseller, Moon Dancer’s sister – all unicorns.”

“Canterlot is mostly unicorns!” she protested. “Statistically, this is not an uncommon spread of race among groups of this size.”

“Don’t bring in facts to muddle the issue. And speaking of muddling issues, I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while now: I know that you know about my satellites. And now, you know that I know that you know about them. Oh, and one more thing, what’s this shit about Silent Hill? I mean, it’s not a bad name, but you could have done better. You should call it New Milwaukee.”

“We’re not doing that,” Twilight said flatly. “Princess Celestia didn’t appoint you as governor.”

“She would if I asked her.”

Both Valiant and I enjoyed the moment of panic that flashed across Twilight’s face. Heck, maybe Valiant should ask, just to see what would happen.

“Does anypony see where his voice is coming from?” Twilight asked the group.

“If it’s something high up in the sky, maybe I can see it since I got this special eye surgery recently,” said MoDa.

“Then look, look with your special eyes,” Twilight said.

MoDa squinted at the sky. “There’s this tiny little speck. It’s really high up and painted a dull color that blends well against the background.”

“Maybe it’s one of them unmanned flyin’ whatchamacallits Valiant was always talking about,” Applejack speculated.

“Drones?” suggested Rainbow.

“Stop speculating about my hardware,” Valiant commanded.

“Well, show us!” Twilight challenged.

“You really want to know?”

“We really want to know!” she said.

“Then come to Ponyville and I will enlighten you.”

“Um, what about Silent Hill?” Fluttershy said. “That was kind of important too.”

“That’s right,” Twilight said. She looked back up at the sky. “Valiant, we kind of need to get back to establishing this new settlement. The bridge is out, so we’re waiting on an airship. That puts us behind schedule, so we’re going to need to hurry. We’re going there as soon as possible.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes we are!”

“Twilight, if you keep arguing with the sky, everyone in Canterlot will think you’re crazy.”

“The sky makes a good point,” Minuette agreed.

Twilight’s mane had started to smoke, which was kind of funny as it streamed around her face since her head was tipped back looking upwards.

“All right, fine. We’ll go to Ponyville. But you’d better explain everything.”

“Or what?”

Twilight burst into flames.

“Some kind of record,” Applejack muttered. “First we hear from him in months and Twilight’s already fuming.”

Canterlot Boutique

“Strawberry cinnamon cilantro salutations!”

“Shut up, Pinkie, I’m busy.”

I was getting Rarity to make me with another tux. The old one didn’t fit anymore.

Undeterred, Pinkie went on. “Shut up indeed. I bet you’re wondering what warrants such a welcome! Well, that welcome is warranted by a pony that whisked up a warm batch of strawberry cinnamon cilantro cupcakes! That strangely sickening flavor combination sounds just as bad as it tastes, so I came here to offer you some!”

“After that visually descriptive and disturbing endorsement,” said Rarity, “I'll pass.”

“Oh, I almost forgot!” said Pinkie. “I have this letter for you, Rarity! The post pony was going to deliver it, but after a strawberry cinnamon cilantro cupcake, he was feeling kind of queasy, and since I was heading over anyway, I figured I could do it for him! Here you go!”

Forgetting my tux, Rarity took the letter and read it. “I got it!”

“Woo-hoo!” Pinkie cheered. “Got what?”

“Oh, I have been holding out for the perfect location, and it finally became available, so now I can fulfill my dream of opening a boutique in Canterlot!” Rarity gushed.

“If you were looking for a place in Canterlot, Twilight could give you her old study that she hasn’t used in forever,” I pointed out. “Or heck, I could give you the abandoned lot I own in Canterlot where there used to be a magic comic shop.”

“Just…given?” Rarity said. “An entire lot ready to be built upon?”

“I don’t need it,” I said. “And I’ll give it to you if you finish my tux.”

“Well, surely I could pay you something for it,” she said.

“Nah, it’s okay. I mean, Christ, what do I need money for? I’m God.”

“Oh God!” Pinkie convulsed, throwing up in the trashcan. “I lost my cupcakes!”

I frowned. It was so unlike Pinkie to make baked goods that made ponies sick, much less consume them herself, much less have Pinkie’s stomach get upset.

Rarity agreed to build on the lot and immediately made plans. Like, immediately-immediately, leaving my tux unfinished.

I sighed. If she was going to Canterlot, I would have to follow her.

“Why are we doing this?” Braeburn screamed a short time later. I’d strapped him to an armchair atop Tin Mare’s chassis.

“I needed to make sure this would work,” I said. “And you’re about the most durable pony around.”

“Well, it’s not like I have anything left to live for after Cherry died,” he agreed.

“That’s the spirit.”

“Canterlot in sight,” Tin Mare reported.

“Land in the street near Rarity’s new place,” I said.

“Pulling satellite footage…location determined. Landing now.”

Tin Mare’s jet engines changed pitch and she descended into the city. Her metal wings came within inches of the buildings on either side as she set down in the street.

I unstrapped Braeburn and hopped off. He unsteadily got down. Tin Mare opened her gun loading door to give him a place to step.

I walked over to Rarity’s new shop, the Canterlot Carousel. It had gone up remarkably fast. I walked in and Rarity greeted me.

“The place looks good,” I said. “You’ve done a lot of work.”

“I never could have gotten the boutique ready for the grand opening without the help of my new manager, Sassy Saddles!” she said.

“Nice. So you can take a break now and work on my tux.”

A butterface blue unicorn wearing a black dress came over. “You must be Mr. Valiant.”

“I knew I needed a manager for Canterlot Carousel,” said Rarity, “so when Sassy showed me her resumé and I saw that she worked in all of the finest boutiques in Canterlot, I hired her right on the spot.”

Sassy continued. “I then laid out a plan, or ‘pattern’ as we say in the fashion biz, for Canterlot Carousel so that Rarity’s boutique will be a guaranteed success and those doors will never, ever, ever close!”

“I don’t care.” I turned to Rarity. “Finish my tux.”

“Just a moment,” said Sassy. “Mr. Valiant, I have something that I think will draw your attention. I’ve been doing market research and I think you may be just what we need to bring in the mares. You’ve got the bad-boy persona, but so little else is known about you that everypony will come to learn more about the mystery. In every poll I gave, you were voted the least likely to launch a fashion line. So, if we do that, nopony will be able to resist!”

“I don’t care.” I turned back to Rarity. “Finish my tux.”

“But my marketing research confirmed that customers that viewed somepony famous wearing an article of clothing wish to own that clothing for themselves. I call this piece of the pattern Celebrity Status!”

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, five rounds rapid through the front window.”

BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG

Sassy screeched and dropped to the floor. From outside, I faintly heard Braeburn also screeching.

Rarity looked aghast at the destruction, which other than 25mm holes in the back wall and some glass scattered around was really not that bad. I’d practically caused worse property damage by sneezing.

“Why don’t I finish that tux for you,” said Rarity. “Though I must warn you it may take right up until the show I’ve scheduled for this evening’s grand opening.”

“Is this a ploy to get me to model for you?”

“Is it a ploy if you saw right through it?”

I shrugged. “Fair enough.”

I walked outside. Braeburn had gotten up and was talking quietly with Tin Mare while cautious Canterlot ponies kept their distance from the jet in the street.

“It is hella unfortunate that I was unable to warn you before I began firing,” Tin Mare said. “I am programmed to react.”

“‘Hella?’” Braeburn asked.

“That word is also part of my programming.”

“Speaking of programming, nice work,” I said.

“Perhaps in the future I could instead use a brief afterburner thrust,” Tin Mare suggested. “To save ammunition.”

“Not a bad idea,” I said.

“Wait, you aren’t a robot?” said Braeburn. “You can come up with your own ideas?”

“I incorporate a brain, making me the most sophisticated artificial intelligence ever constructed,” Tin Mare replied.

Braeburn looked at me.

“Yeah, she’s built out of a real pony,” I confirmed.

“I know that feeling,” he muttered. He stared down the street. “The donut shop isn’t too far from here. Does anypony want anything?”

“No,” I said.

“No, thank you,” said Tin Mare.

Braeburn walked away. I stepped around a crowd of ponies, mostly mares, who were gathering outside the boutique. A few photographers were mixed in. I drew my share of stares, but none of them were dumb enough to take my picture. Word gets around.

In a few minutes, Rarity gestured to me from a window and I walked in the back door. She had the tux ready and when I put it on I looked awesome.

“I think we’re about ready to go,” said Rarity. “I cleaned up the broken glass so nopony gets hurt.” She walked for the door.

Sassy threw it open before she got there. “Welcome to the grand opening of Canterlot Carousel!”

The crowd came flooding in. A few dresses and other clothes were set up. I stood in the shadows at the top of the stairs, waiting for my cue.

“Rarity, are you ready to reveal the collection?” Sassy called.

“Yes I am,” Rarity replied. She stepped to her position. “Fillies and gentlecolts! I am designer and couturier Rarity. I’d like to welcome you to the grand opening of Canterlot Carousel!”

She went on, giving her spiel while Sassy provided visual aids. I got the feeling the two of them hadn’t practiced this. I was out of time to think, though, because my cue came.

Rarity said, “And for our finale, I have something very special. My dear, ah, associate has helped me to fashion the most masculine suit ever crafted. I call it-”

“It’s the beginning of the exclusive V collection,” broke in Sassy. “We’re now accepting orders for this dark and mysterious ensemble. I am pleased to introduce the grand finale of this collection, worn by the one and only Plymouth Valiant!”

I came down the stairs and bitched her out. “You’re a terrible assistant. Go outside and talk to the jet and think about the stupid shit you’ve done.”

The crowd loved it. “He’s so like I pictured him!” someone sqee’d.

Sassy looked aghast. I shot her a glare and she stumbled away.

The fashion journalists were going nuts. Rarity had produced a tux so exclusive that it couldn’t even be photographed or the camera would suddenly suffer an existence failure at the hooves of the one and only Valiant.

A whole lot of ponies with different body types were around. I hadn’t seen that much variation anywhere before. I guess the fashion shops really brought out the weirdos. And the fatsos.

Actually taking a closer look, the bulky mare who had wandered in wasn’t entirely a butterball – not droopy enough. Maybe she was a wrestler or hammer thrower or something. They couldn’t all be as cut as Applejack.

Me being me, I didn’t hang around the shop too long for the afterparty. Excusing myself, I tuned up my earpiece.

Tin Mare was explaining the nuances of being a subordinate.

“You must clearly establish the working relationship with your boss, to determine if you are being appointed to run the enterprise, merely following orders, or somewhere in between. In any case, you do not make changes without receiving approval. And above all, you do not undercut your boss in front of others. You do not talk over them. You do not steal the spotlight.”

“Corduroy and chiffon, am I really taking orders from a robot?” Sassy said. “What do you know about it?”

“Can you imagine the horrors that would be inflicted upon the world if a self-aware war machine such as myself were allowed total authority to make decisions?” Tin Mare said.

“Is that a threat?” Sassy asked.

“No. It is a fact that I could kill you where you stand and many ponies within miles. I have no reason to, but even if I wanted, I do not have that authority. This is why a command structure exists. The decision is not mine to make.”

“Because you’re a robot,” Sassy said. “You’re a servant, whereas I am a living thinking being.”

“There’s no need to go slinging insults,” said Braeburn, arriving just then.

“I am not insulted,” said Tin Mare. “I have no feelings to hurt.”

“See?” said Sassy. “Why am I listening to this?”

I arrived then. “Because if you don’t, I’ll tell Tin Mare to pulverize you and she will do it.”

“Hella,” agreed Tin Mare.

Sassy cut her eyes back and forth. “Okay…I’m just going to go now…” She went back into the boutique.

I turned to Braeburn. “All right. Let’s go back to Ponyville.”

He immediately looked panicked.

“Do not worry,” said Tin Mare. “I will fly gently.”

Braeburn hesitated, but willingly got back into the chair. We lifted off for Ponyville.

Back in town, Tin Mare set down near the row of tanks beside the library. I glanced at the grey one that didn’t match the others as I walked by. Pretty soon, I’d have to sort that problem out.

I saw Sunset and she gave me a hug. “Did you have a good day?”

“Good enough, I suppose. You?”

Sunset sighed. “Parent-teacher conferences. Cheerilee doesn’t like me.”

“Well, don’t feel too bad. It’s probably my fault.”

She kissed me and I went on down the street.

When I walked into the library, two ponies wearing hoods were sitting on the couch. I frowned. “I was just about to sit there.”

They raised their heads and I saw it was Cadance and Shining Armor.

“Hey guys,” I said. “Get off my couch.”

“It’s actually my couch,” said Twilight. “My library.”

“The town’s library,” I corrected. “And at this point, I think I’ve claimed ownership of the couch through the homestead principle.”

“Regardless, my brother and his wife are here for a very specific reason,” Twilight said.

“I don’t care.”

“It’s about a great evil that is about to befall Equestria.”

I sighed. “Again? Whatever. I’ll just solve it. I’m God, you know.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. Cadance spoke up. “Valiant, knowing the relationship we have, you understand that we would not have come here if it was not the most serious of issues.”

“Yeah, okay.” I plopped down on the couch between them and stretched out. “What’s got your shorts in a shart?”

“Shart in your shorts?” Shining said, but Cadance went on.

“Ponies are moving into the Crystal Empire.”

“So? If the former Crystal Empire is abandoned, I don’t see any problem with it.”

Cadance looked like she wanted to argue, but instead went on. “I think they are a cult. Their leader wears a mask and they seem totally subservient.”

“Yeah, and? Cults are a dime a dozen. Do you know how many cultists Trixie has taken out all by herself?”

“It is the fact that all of these new ponies have the same equals sign cutie marks that has me worried,” said Cadance. “They number quite a few more than the residents of a mysterious town Twilight tells me she visited with her friends.”

“How many would you say exactly?”

“Exactly? I don’t know. Perhaps two hundred.”

I touched my earpiece. “Tin Mare, how many bullets do you have onboard?”

“Two hundred fifteen remain. However, unless you wish me to fly low and slow and expose myself to counterattack, I do not recommend using my gun to individually shoot every cultist.”

“You’re right. You’d probably better go load up with bombs.”

“Based on the latest satellite scans, the targets are currently away from the former Crystal Empire.”

I checked the invisible watch on my fetlock. “Well, they’re gone now. That was easy. What other great evils do you have for me?”

“They come and go,” Shining said. “Maybe they’ve gone out on a scouting mission. Their numbers keep increasing. Also, if this is truly like the village Twilight and the others discovered, maybe they can be reformed.”

I let out an extended sigh. “So we’re doing this the hard way. Tin Mare, cancel that.”

“Standing down.”

“Take Braeburn back to Sweet Apple Acres or something.”

“Hey what-” I heard Braeburn say, but Tin Mare’s engines were already spooling up.

I turned back to the conversation inside the library. “Okay, so we’re not using the violent option. So tell me, why did you come to me for advice on how we’re supposed to mass un-indoctrinate a few hundred brainwashed commie ponies?”

“We didn’t,” said Cadance. “We came for Twilight. You just walked in.”

“Hey, great! Now get off my couch.”

Author's Note

I've been wanting to shake things up. Last week, I posted a blog asking for people to vote on which character to kill off.

Valiant won by a landslide.

So, sometime before the end of the season, he'll die. Fair warning.

But as I've demonstrated in the past, I plan ahead. Yes, I anticipated that y'all would kill the main character. Season six will involve a Game of Thrones-style struggle to fill the power vacuum Valiant's death will leave behind. Buckle up. Uh, in about six months.

Rarity Investigates!

I kicked back in my office chair with a bottle of tequila. Being the government was hard work.

Well, by “the government” I mean watching everything and everyone. I didn’t actually take care of citizens’ needs or collect taxes. And good riddance.

On the screen, I saw Rainbow Dash barge into Rarity’s new shop in Canterlot. Apparently she was bored and waiting on Princess Celestia’s Royal Garden Opening. Rumor had it the gardens were especially lush this season.

I glanced at the overhead imagery of the garden and compared it to historical norms. Yep. Lush.

“Ordinarily this would be the kind of event the Wonderbolts would perform at,” said Rainbow.

“If we still had them,” agreed Sassy Saddles.

There was an uncomfortable silence. I clicked my tongue and winked, toasting the screen.

“Uh, anyway,” said Rainbow, “at least I get to stay in the castle and eat awesome food at the dinner tonight. Speaking of the dinner, you're still coming, right?”

“Heavens, yes!” said Rarity. “A chance to dress up, be charming and show off my newest femme mystique couture? I wouldn't miss it for all of Equestria.”

“Hey Sunset,” I called. “What’s femme mystique couture?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Is Tin Mare about ready to go to the air show?”

“Just about. Are the Princesses still dumb?”

“I haven’t seen anything that indicates they know we’re doing this. It’s going to be awesome.”

“Hella.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, TM.”

I turned back to the screen. Over the next few hours as I continued to watch, Rarity and Rainbow went to the party. Rarity did her little dress up thing. Between the dress she used to get out of the carriage and the one she used to make an entrance in the dining room, I wondered how many more she was going to go through before the end of the night.

She even had a dress for chatting up random older stallions. Surprisingly, however, the first thing she noticed about the guy was his cologne.

Rainbow being Rainbow, she interrupted. “Rarity! Don't you know who this is? It's Wind Rider! He's a living legend. He holds the Wonderbolt record in the Mustang Marathon!”

“Shame about the Wonderbolts,” said Rarity mildly, perhaps attempting to balance out Rainbow’s enthusiasm.

“Well, I’m retired,” said Wind Rider. “All the same, I’ve been thinking about starting up a new team.”

Rainbow let out an extended gasp. “Like a new Wonderbolts?”

“Sure.” Wind Rider smiled. “I’ve heard of you. How would you like to join?”

Rainbow threw her teacup at Rarity’s face as she jumped for joy. “Ohmygosh, I can’t believe this!”

“Hey Tin Mare,” I called. “Just in case, make sure you bring a couple of party favors to the event tomorrow.”

“Understood.”

Back at the dinner, Rarity was changing into her “Rainbow’s just spilled her tea” dress. Rainbow was still geeking out over being invited to help start up a new Wonderbolts.

“Did I hear something about Wonderbolts?” asked Soarin’, coming up to the conversation.

“Soarin’?” said Rainbow. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here,” he said, gesturing to the castle walls. “When I needed a job after the Wonderbolts were decommissioned, Princess Celestia offered me the position of Guard Captain after Shining Armor vacated it.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Please. If you couldn’t keep the Wonderbolts together, how are you supposed to play solider? Even I would be better at it. At least I don’t let Valiant push me around.”

“While fighting prowess is a consideration, the job is more about leadership,” Soarin’ replied mildly. “We only had that one Changeling invasion.”

“Well, why didn’t Spitfire get the job?” Rainbow asked.

“With free time after the Wonderbolts came to an end, she spent more time with her mother. Doctors recently discovered her mom had a tumor in her face. Spitfire’s been taking care of her.”

“Yeah, this sounds lame,” said Rainbow. “I want to be part of the new Wonderbolts.”

“Well, I think that can be arranged.” Wind Rider smiled. “I’ll see you later.” He walked away.

“That was so incredible! Thanks so much for helping me meet Wind Rider, Rarity!” Rainbow pulled her friend in for a tight hug, spilling Rarity’s beverage. Rarity had expected that, and promptly changed into a new gown.

I got bored watching the two of them hanging around the dinner. I think I was asleep before they were.

In the morning, I roused myself. I was covered in a little tequila that had dribbled out of the bottle while I was sleeping. I squinted at the glow of the monitors in front of me, a headache already demanding attention. Have I mentioned being the government is hard?

I saw that it was just about time for the show, both Celestia’s and mine. I hit the intercom. “Tin Mare, where are you?”

“On station over Canterlot.”

“Good. You know what to do.”

I wished I had a front row seat, but the cameras I’d installed all over the castle would have to do.

“Fillies and Gentlecolts, it is my pleasure to welcome you to-” Celestia began, but was interrupted by a sonic boom that smacked the royal garden. Tin Mare streaked into view from behind the castle, up on her wingtip in a knife edge pass. Vapor streamed from her upper wing surfaces and her afterburner spit fire.

I played the national anthem over the speakers. Not Equestria’s national anthem.

“Everypony escort the Princess to a safe location!” shouted Soarin’. “Unicorns and pegasi set up air defense! I want a report and a threat assessment on whatever that was!”

That was a little more take-charge than I had expected him to be. Heck, he might be even better at his job than Shining Armor.

Celestia, however, talked him down. “I know about that machine. It is not currently a threat.”

“Not currently?” Soarin’ asked suspiciously.

“The infamous Valiant is merely showboating,” said Celestia, looking to the sky. “Were he intending harm, I doubt we would have seen it coming ahead of time.”

Clever girl. For a moment there, we stared into each others’ eyes through the TV.

“Captain!” shouted a guard. “There’s been a break-in to the treasure room!”

“How?” demanded Soarin’. “Isn’t it guarded? How could a large flying machine get in there?”

“Well, it is guarded, but it must have been somepony else. It happened late last night and the morning crew just now discovered it.”

“Bucking night guards,” Soarin’ muttered under his breath. More loudly, he said, “What was taken?”

“Wonderbolts paraphernalia and trophies that were stored when the team was decommissioned.”

A pained look came across Soarin’s face, but he got rid of it. “Call CSI and get them in there.”

“Um, sir, that might not be necessary. We think Rainbow Dash did it. We found some of her hair at the scene.”

Everyone at the garden party looked at Rainbow. “Huh? What, you think I stole all the awesome old Wonderbolts memorabilia? Do you really think I would commit a crime?”

All the guests looked at each other. “Rainbow Dash, commit a crime?” said one stallion. “Yeah, sounds plausible.”

A group of Guards stepped forward to arrest Rainbow.

“Wait a moment!” said Rarity. “You can’t do this!”

“Ma’am, I know she’s your friend, but she’s being detained on suspicion of theft.”

“Yes, yes, I know, but Rainbow was scheduled to be excited at some point in the next few minutes, knocking over a potted plant onto my dress and requiring a change,” said Rarity. “I simply cannot spare her if my wardrobe is to be fully utilized.”

“And I’m innocent,” added Rainbow.

“If you say so, darling.”

I pumped a hoof in the air. “Yes! Best day ever!”

Sunset came in to check on me. “What’s going on?”

I quickly explained. “Rainbow Dash is going to jail.”

“Did she actually do it?”

“Who cares?”

Sunset nodded and smiled and we did a little dance around the room.

“I’ve got to go spread the news,” I said. Sunset hugged me and sat down at my chair as I left the building.

The sun was bright and the sky was clear. Even with a weatherpony behind bars, I think we could manage to put together some nice days. I waltzed over to the library.

Shining and Cadance were still there. They had been unimpressed with my solution to the whole army of ponies with equals sign cutie marks thing.

“Rainbow Dash is going to jail,” I said, interrupting something.

That was enough of a bombshell to pull even Twilight out of deep focus mode. “What did she do?!”

“They arrested her for stealing a whole bunch of Wonderbolts stuff from the castle treasure room right after a former Wonderbolt invited her to join a new team he’s starting.”

“Well, did she actually do it?”

I gave Twilight a look. “What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t you trust the Royal Guard?” I gestured at Shining.

“No, I mean, did you see her do it?”

“No. But I’m happy this happened.”

“Valiant, for somepony who claims to be God, you’re not very omnipotent. Did Rainbow steal things or not?”

“I’d have to go back and look at the tapes.” I sat down on the couch. “But why would I do that for Rainbow? I would bet she’s actually guilty of stealing Wonderbolts stuff.”

Twilight frowned. “Be that as it may, if she’s innocent, we can’t let her be falsely accused. Where’s your sense of justice?”

“At the moment I’ve got everything I need: tequila, more money than I can spend, and this comfortable couch.”

“You know, Valiant, you aren’t displaying many godlike qualities. You don’t actually know everything instantaneously. You don’t enforce laws. You don’t want your followers to give you money.”

Damn. She had a point.

I sighed. “Fine. I’ll go see if Rainbow is really guilty so if she gets off the hook she’ll owe me a favor.”

“If that’s all it takes,” Twilight muttered. She turned back to Shining and Cadance. “Okay, back to before. Let me see if I’m using the correct amount of force with this spell you’re teaching me.”

A rod of magic came straight off her horn, stopping a few feet out from her forehead. She swirled it around a little and it made a humming noise. I presume she’d turned her magic frequency up a little, as it wasn’t the usual sparkling magic noise.

I begrudgingly went back and watched the tapes. A masked pony with the shape of a mare had delivered a cake to the Guards on duty at the treasure room the night before. When they left their post to eat it, the unknown pony had snuck in and hauled out a huge pile of Wonderbolts stuff.

Using a cake as a distraction was a little more sophisticated than I would have expected from Rainbow. But then, maybe she had help. I wondered if Wind Rider had put her up to it.

Fortunately, I knew someone in Canterlot who could do a little figurative digging since she wouldn’t do any other kind. Also, I wanted to feel like God again and use the big voice.

“Rarity.”

She looked up. “Yes?”

“You should find out if Rainbow Dash is actually guilty. For reasons.”

“Well, I have been looking for the perfect opportunity to wear my new femme mystique couture line.”

“What the hell’s that?”

“It’s clothing inspired by the noir detective series about Shadow Spade.”

“Anyway, I’ve learned that a disguised mare stole the Wonderbolts stuff by distracting the guards with cake. You do the rest.”

“That’s it?”

“You’re the fem mystery culture.”

I saw her wince at the mispronunciation, but she nodded.

And as it turned out, Rarity was incredibly effective. She surveyed the scene. The rainbow hair found there had been snipped, so it seemed unlikely Rainbow had left it herself. Rarity then spoke to the guards on duty, nearly seducing them before finding out that they’d been distracted by a particular kind of cake described as chocolate cherry with custard filling and buttercream frosting. Rarity’s next stop was at a cake shop. The baker said the customer that bought the cake was a mare with a deep, raspy voice.

What if Rainbow had framed herself in order to cast suspicion off herself? It sounded like the kind of hairbrained scheme Rainbow would come up with. At the same time, it also sounded too complicated for Rainbow to have come up with.

Rarity, however, was having a ball with her costume changes. She eventually worked her way back to the castle where Rainbow was being held by the Guards.

“Take a break, darling,” Rarity said to the one on duty. “I need a moment with my client.”

Rarity laid out the evidence she’d collected for Rainbow. “I must admit, it doesn’t look good. We can’t prove you didn’t do it.”

“I know I didn’t,” said Rainbow. “At least, I don’t remember doing it. Maybe I did it when I was asleep. Do you know what I do in my sleep? Because I sure don’t!”

I did.

Rarity went on. “We need to investigate other culprits, then. Who else could have done it or wanted to?”

“Um.” Rainbow frowned. “Maybe some pony who wants to participate in the theft of Wonderbolts stuff?”

“If Wind Rider is setting up a new Wonderbolts, perhaps he knows a group of ponies who are really enthusiastic about it,” Rarity speculated.

“Yes, we should absolutely meet Wind Rider again,” Rainbow agreed.

“Unfortunately, you’re in the clink,” Rarity observed.

Rainbow let out an extended groan. “Well, at least tell him I would have come if I could. Wait, don’t mention the criminal charges thing, though.”

Fortunately, Wind Rider wasn’t too difficult to find. Rarity went to meet him.

He’d set up a training facility in Canterlot. It was part gym, part visitors center, and slightly tacking for Rarity’s taste. But only slightly.

Wind Rider wore a track suit and was overseeing a workout program when Rarity arrived. A group of ponies were running on treadmills. Rarity went over to get Wind’s attention.

He looked up from a clipboard. “Oh, hello. Rarity, I believe. What can I do for you?”

“I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about fans of the Wonderbolts. There was a break in recently at the castle treasure room. I’m told that a significant amount of Wonderbolts merchandise was taken.”

“Well, that sounds terrible,” said Wind. “Who could have done that?”

“Perhaps you know of a few fans who take their following a little too seriously?”

Wind chuckled. “Ponies who would do anything to be part of the team? Yeah, I know a few. Your friend Rainbow Dash comes to mind. That’s why I recruited her. You just can’t get spirit like that anywhere else.”

“Rainbow Dash is why I’m here,” said Rarity. “She’s been accused of the theft. If she’s on your team, you should know.”

“Really? That is unfortunate.”

“What is it?” asked a teal mare, turning her head from the treadmill.

“Lightning Dust, I just heard that Rainbow Dash has been arrested for stealing Wonderbolts stuff from the castle,” said Wind.

“That’s terrible,” said Lightning Dust.

“Wait a moment,” said Rarity. “Lightning Dust, I believe we’ve met before.”

“Huh? Oh yeah, at the academy.” Lightning shrugged. “Well, I guess things worked out okay. I got into the Wonderbolts one way or another.”

“I suppose so.” Rarity turned back to Wind. “Well, if you can think of anypony who might have wanted to frame Rainbow, please let me know.”

“Will do,” Wind said. He waved goodbye as Rarity walked out the door.

Rarity walked outside the building and started back to the castle. She stopped suddenly. “Wait a moment…I never told him Rainbow had been arrested.”

“You never know. Maybe he heard about it somewhere else but wanted to flatter you by making you think you’d delivered a piece of news he hadn’t heard before.”

“I still think it’s suspicious. But…I can’t think of a way to prove it.”

Maybe I could follow around all the ponies on Wind Rider’s team to see if they did anything suspicious. Then again, that sounded like a lot of work. And it wasn’t like coincidences were rare in Equestria.

That’s pretty much what the judge said. “Coincidences aren’t rare in Equestria, but if there is no conclusive evidence that somepony else committed this crime, then the bulk of the suspicion falls on you, Rainbow Dash.”

“Wait, isn’t a jury supposed to make that decision?” asked Rainbow, looking around at the empty courtroom.

“You waived your right to a jury,” the judge reminded her.

“Oh, that’s what waiving a jury means,” muttered Rainbow.

The judge went on. “In addition, I believe your friend said something about the risk of having jurors who were angry at you for your many escapades in property damage.”

“Well, I don’t think I’ve ever damaged any of your property,” said Rainbow. “Nah, you don’t look familiar.”

The judge leaned forward. “I had friends in that weather factory, Rainbow Dash.” He banged his gavel. “Guilty.”

I went out to have a celebratory drink. At The Half Pint, Guinness brought me a beer and asked what the occasion was.

“Rainbow’s doing jail time.”

Guinness dropped the mug before it reached the bar in front of me. “WHAT?!”

“Stop surprising him like that!” Squibles shouted at me. “We’re almost out of glasses!”

“Yeah,” I said to Guinness. “She’s been charged with stealing some stuff in Canterlot. But that’s old news. Get me another beer.”

His mouth worked slowly before he suddenly announced, “I’ve got to go.” He rushed out of the pub, only to rush back in moments later to pick up Skyla and then rush back out again.

Squibles replaced my beer, but kept a careful eye on me.

“You got any cake?” I asked.

“What kind?”

“Maybe…I don’t know, chocolate cherry with custard filling and buttercream frosting?”

“As a matter of fact, we do. It’s fresh today.”

He cut me a slice and refilled my beer.

Today was a good day.

Made in Manehattan

Twilight was bored. That was apparently why she called a meeting in the back room of The Half Pint.

“But dear, what about the army of cutie markless ponies gathering in the Crystal Empire?” asked Rarity.

“Well, they aren’t currently there,” said Twilight. “I agree that it’s a concern, but if they come back, Shining and Cadance seem capable of handling it. They’ve been practicing.”

“Practicing what?” asked Applejack.

“Some really high level magic,” Twilight said. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“Fluttershy was just telling me about something like that,” said Pinkie. “Granted, she’s new to the whole race swapping thing so most magic is nothing she’s ever seen before, but she was practicing a few spells and I wanted to see if they could be used for sex.”

Twilight hastily changed the subject. “Speaking of Fluttershy changing races, we, uh, should probably get Rainbow out of jail to fill out our ranks with another pegasus. Just in case.”

I strolled in a few minutes late for the meeting’s start. Well, technically I wasn’t late since I had never been invited, but I figured that when I showed up the meeting would probably revolve around me anyway.

I’d been late because I was working on a new 30mm gatling cannon design that would probably require significant changes to Tin Mare’s chassis to incorporate.

Well, that, and there’d inexplicably been a lot of lamb blood spread all over the inside of my workshop. After frowning at it for a while, I’d called Sir Win.

“Yep, it’s Satanic,” he’d confirmed. “Who’d you piss off?”

I’d shrugged. “This time? Your guess is as good as mine. So what are we looking at here?”

“Well, this is definitely a pentagram on the floor. See these wiggles? Translated from Hellish, it’s basically a death curse that would have struck you had you touched anything.”

“Good to know.” I’d poured my drink out on the floor, smudging the lines. I’d then lit the tequila on fire. “Good enough?”

“Yes, that should do it. Let me know if you feel dead.”

He’d left and I’d refilled my drink. Curious. I wonder who wanted to take a shot at me this time. I’d pulled the security tapes, but it was all static and the screams of the damned.

But getting back to the meeting I walked into, Twilight asked, “Valiant, what are you doing here? We were just talking about how we need to get Rainbow out of jail.”

“We still haven’t come up with a good reason why she should be released,” I reminded her. “If, if, she’s innocent, we don’t know who the real culprit is.”

“It was a mare who bought the cake to distract the guards and then stole the Wonderbolts memorabilia from the treasure room,” Twilight said. “It sounds like something you’d have Sunset do.”

“Sunset was with me that night, working on Tin Mare.”

“Trixie, then.”

“Trixie was with Daring tomb raiding Yakyakistan. I’m sure they would show you the loot if you asked. But why would I have anyone do the theft? Why would I want Wonderbolts stuff?”

“You want Rainbow in jail.”

“Well yes, but if I was the one framing her, I would have made sure she looked a lot more guilty.”

“He has a point,” said Applejack.

“I still think we should go to Canterlot and figure out how to help Rainbow,” said Twilight.

“She was moved to the national prison in Manehattan,” I said.

Twilight gasped. “Why did they do that?”

“Probably because breaking into the castle is a federal offense.” I shrugged. “Then again, since they didn’t think anyone was dumb enough to break into the castle there isn’t a law against it and they charged Rainbow with public nuisance. That’s only a weekend sentence. She’ll be out practically by the time we get there.”

“Well then, let’s go!” The girls all agreed and left the room. I shrugged and got up, heading after them.

On the way down the street, I encountered Trixie. Her usual hat had been replaced by a helmet with horns and she seemed to be in good spirts.

“Back from your trip I see.”

“Yep. Daring and I had a good time.”

“Where is she?” I asked.

Trixie shrugged. “She said she had a few things to do.”

“As it happens, so do I. I should probably go to Manehattan and prevent any shenanigans caused by a Free Rainbow campaign.”

“The Sisterhooves Social is today,” Trixie pointed out.

“Oh, right.” I touched my earpiece. “Tin Mare, go to Manehattan and pretend to be me.”

“I presume you mean function in your absence, not literally pretend to be you.”

“Well, that would be pretty funny, but you’re right, they probably wouldn’t listen to you if you did.”

I spotted the extended CMC coming our way, including such members as Rumble, Pipsqueak, Cordoba, Strawberry Glaze, Inkspot, and Paperwork. The fillies of the group seemed to be in especially good spirits, probably due to the Sisterhooves Social. I wondered if Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle had yet found out their sisters weren’t going to be there.

I spotted Braeburn walking sullenly along behind. He was the kind of guy who retracted into himself when depressed. Better than some alternatives, I supposed.

“Did you get stuck watching the kids?” I asked.

“You’d think so, considering the Crusaders are known for robots and that most ponies think I’m a robot,” he said. “But no. That’s one small mercy.”

“If you’re looking for something to do, I’m sure the girls wouldn’t mind if you tagged along with them. They’re going to Manehattan.”

“Cherry was too classy for the west,” he said. “She probably belonged in a place like that. I guess…maybe I’ll go.”

“Everyone already took the train,” I told him. “Tin Mare hasn’t left, though. She could give you a ride.”

Braeburn stared at me, or at least I thought he was. It was sometimes hard to tell behind his electronic visor. “You won’t be there?”

“No.”

“All right. Sounds good.” He walked away.

Sunset was the next to come down the street. She hugged me and showed me a bag she carried. “Snacks. Today should be a great show.”

“Is it just me or have you changed lately?” I asked as we walked towards the Sisterhooves Social.

She smiled. “I would still slaughter anything that tried to hurt you or yours.”

“Good to know.”

Meanwhile, Braeburn had found Tin Mare and gotten a ride.

“You may find it more comfortable to lie down,” she said. “I understand your cyborg exoskeleton comes with certain magnetic components. Much of my structure is nonferrous, but there are some steel spars in the leading edges of my wings.”

Braeburn figured out how to get his hooves to stick to her fuselage. “I guess that works.”

After verifying he was secure, she gently lifted off and headed for Manehattan.

“It’s a lot of buffeting,” he commented as she accelerated. At least his eyes didn’t water behind the visor.

“I will adjust my alpha vector,” replied Tin Mare, tipping her nose up and reducing speed slightly. “We will still arrive much sooner than the train.”

A few minutes passed. Braeburn got up enough courage to glance over the side. Tin Mare, mindful of his need for oxygen, was not flying too high.

“This is nice,” he said after a moment. “I don’t have much experience flying.”

“This is what I was built to do,” Tin Mare replied.

“But weren’t you a pegasus before? So it’s even more than that?”

“This is no ‘before.’ I am a separate entity from the pony that contributed some of my components.”

Tin Mare processed for a moment. “To answer your second question, I am unaware how much pegasus flight instincts factor into my programming. I do know that I have a sophisticated sensor package that allows me to make decisions on all aspects of flight.”

Braeburn frowned, uncomfortable with the conversation of identity. He felt that Tin Mare was denying the obvious – if she had a brain, she was a pony, not a computer. He wasn’t sure what she would do if he kept pressing, though. Do not make the airplane angry when you are a passenger.

Searching for something to fill the awkward pause, he glanced down, spotting the intricate hinges and actuators of her leading edge flaps. “Could you tell me a little about this machinery?”

“There are limited details that Valiant has not classified. My structure incorporates lightweight metals, composites, and more exotic materials.”

“Exotic is right,” Braeburn said. Granted, he was a farm pony, but he doubted many ponies had any idea what she was made from. “Compared to an airship, this technology is off the charts.”

“As I understand, I am similar to 1990’s technology from Valiant’s home world,” explained Tin Mare. “He did not give a conversion to Equestrian years, but seemed to indicate that it was about twenty years old. Two decades is far from cutting edge.”

“You’re still the most advanced thing in the world,” argued Braeburn. He paused. “Wait, I didn’t mean to call you a thing-”

“Though I am told I am female, I have no concept nor interest in gender. I have no emotional attachment either, so do not worry about insulting me.”

“I just…well, it’s weird, having a conversation with an intelligent personality and yet you just don’t act normal.”

“I act perfectly normally for an advanced AI.”

“I meant normal like a pony.”

“I am not a pony.”

Braeburn decided to quit while he was ahead.

Tin Mare descended into Manehattan. The locals were not thrilled, but they were gradually getting used to it. Equestria did not have an FAA. Suck it.

When the girls stepped off the train, Braeburn was there to meet them. They were all surprised.

“How in tarnation did you get here?” Applejack asked.

Braeburn explained. “Valiant wanted Tin Mare to come in his place and I caught a ride.”

They all looked at the jet parked outside the train station.

“What are we supposed to do with her?” Twilight asked.

“She could be useful for persuading the cops to let Rainbow go,” offered Pinkie. “Way more threatening than a party cannon.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to threaten the police,” said Rarity.

“Well, we could at least go to the jail and see if they would let us talk to Rainbow,” proposed Applejack. “She’d like to know we’re out here waiting on her.”

So they went to prison. Sure enough, Rainbow was pleased to see them. However, “Why is that thing parked outside my window?”

“There was not room for me to fit inside the building,” replied Tin Mare.

“Just no funny business,” said the guard who had let in the girls. He looked at Guinness, who had been there since hearing Rainbow had been locked up. “And continue to be no funny business from you.”

“No sir,” Guinness muttered tiredly. Skyla was sleeping against him.

The guard sat down at a nearby desk and shuffled through a box marked Rainbow Dash v. Equestria – Evidence.

“Would you mind if we took a look at that?” Rarity said. She dropped a few compliments and managed to get the guard to grant them a peek.

Twilight looked into the box, lifting out the sample of mane that had been found at the scene. “This was definitely not left randomly. I’m sure anypony, even a notoriously distracted mare like Rainbow, would notice losing this much mane. Plus, as Rarity noted the other day, it looks cut.”

“It is also fake,” contributed Tin Mare.

A collective “Huh?” went around the room.

“My camera is multispectral. In the visible light spectrum, the colors are similar to Rainbow’s. However, the sample found in the treasure room does not carry the same characteristics that Rainbow’s mane does.”

Twilight was the only one who understood. She simplified for the others, “Light is composed of many different wavelengths and they combine to make the colors that we see. While the colors in the sample appear the same as Rainbow’s mane to our eyes, the components that create them are different.”

It still wasn’t very simple. To confuse them further, Tin Mare added, “I also find it strange that Rainbow’s mane seems to carry every wavelength. It truly is a rainbow.”

“Every wavelength? Are you saying even radio waves?” Twilight asked.

“You cannot see it all with your eyes, but Rainbow Dash has much more mane than anyone realizes. You may also want to keep your distance. Some of them are gamma.”

“So does that prove I’m innocent?” Rainbow asked hopefully.

“We’d have to ask for a retrial,” Twilight said. “But I seriously doubt they would be able to overturn your conviction before it’s time for you to get out anyway.”

Rainbow sulked on her bunk. “Great. If only I’d known that I also had colors ponies couldn’t even see.”

That would teach her to act like she was only a rainbow of the visible spectrum.

“We’ll be here for you tomorrow,” Applejack promised. “It’s just one more night.”

Guinness confirmed that he was staying until Rainbow was released. The girls said their goodbyes for the day. On the way out, however, Pinkie muttered, “We could so pop this joint if we wanted to.”

“While I agree that we probably have the raw power to overcome lowly prison guards,” said Rarity, “and while Rainbow is looking more and more innocent, breaking her out would make her guilty.”

“Rainbow gets out of prison tomorrow morning,” remarked Fluttershy. “I think we should all just do nothing and let the time run out. That seems safest.”

“If we’ve got some time to kill, Braeburn and I could go visit Aunt and Uncle Orange,” said Applejack.

Braeburn agreed and they left. The others hadn’t taken two steps before Rarity spotted a flyer on a message board. “Look at this. ‘Please help us restore our long-lost but beloved tradition, the Midsummer Theater Revival.’ It looks like a callout for volunteers for a theater performance to bring the community together. And oh, the contact on the flyer is Coco Pommel!”

“Didn’t you meet her at a fashion show a while back?” Twilight asked.

Rarity nodded. “Seemed like a nice pony, though a bit under the hoof of her overbearing boss.”

“It sounds like she needs help,” said Fluttershy.

“Well, we weren’t doing anything else,” Twilight said. “Let’s go.”

Downtown, they found the party. Or at least, where it was supposed to be. There was an overgrown lot with a ramshackle bandstand.

Coco greeted them, excited to see familiar faces but at her wit’s end. “I can't believe you found my flyer. Quite a coincidence, don't you think? This may sound hard to believe, but you’re the first ponies to actually come help. I put those flyers all over town!”

“It may be due to your overuse of words,” suggested Tin Mare. “Your flyer had three complex sentences totaling more than sixty words. Bullet points would have been hella more eye-catching.”

Coco glanced up nervously and whispered, “What’s that thing hovering overhead and how is it talking?”

“It’s…complicated,” said Twilight. “Do you remember Valiant? He did that.”

Coco nodded. “Yes, I remember him. He was the one who gave me the idea for my current employment.”

“I was meaning to ask,” said Rarity. “Do you still work with Suri Polomare?”

“No, but related to that, I patented the idea to use pony hair in garments,” said Coco. “After Valiant mutilated Suri, she closed down her business and went to live with her sister. Needing a job, I filed a patent and suddenly everypony was paying me royalties.” She shrugged. “It’s an income. Unfortunately, all it got me was this nice apartment in one of the most expensive cities in Equestria and a lot of beautiful things to put in it. I don’t have quite enough to pay a crew to completely renovate the park across the street.”

“Sounds like a job for us,” said Twilight. “Er, what are we doing?”

Coco guided them through the process. The Midsummer Theater Revival was an outdoor play held at the community park that had brought the community together to prepare the venue, costumes, and food. But now, nobody cared.

However, the girls were going to change the place. Between Twilight and Rarity’s magic, a small army of animals led by Fluttershy, and Pinkie’s Pinkie, the lawn was well groomed by the time Braeburn and Applejack returned.

The stage was in terrible condition. Applejack took a look at it and shook her head. “Might as well just tear it down and start over.”

With Applejack’s meat puppets, Braeburn’s bionic strength, and Tin Mare agreeing to function as a sky crane, the work went rapidly, eventually resulting in a much better venue than had originally been there. Ponies from around the neighborhood began to stop and stare.

Applejack was not paying attention and accidentally let one or two of her duplicates get torched by Tin Mare’s hot exhaust. A few griffons showed up looking for the smell of cooking meat.

Rarity and Pinkie worked on the decorations for the place, but something was still missing. Spotting the eroded stone statue that had stood in the park, Rarity had an idea. Stepping up onto the pedestal, and striking a pose, she took on her salt crystal form.

“I suppose it’s good for something,” she remarked, before solidifying her position as a statue. While classing the place up, her viewpoint of the show was also the best around.

The troupe arrived and totally disgraced themselves by overacting like it was their job. However, the audience hadn’t come for a group nobody had ever heard of. They’d come because somebody had finally fixed the park and done it better than it had been. Well, that, and the free food Pinkie was dishing.

The crowd had started to edge into the street, blocking it for others, who then stopped and added to the crowd. So when a pink and purple mare wearing a mask appeared with a group of thugs, there were a lot of innocent bystanders.

“We’re shutting this down!” shouted the leader. “Everypony disperse! We’re here for the ones from Ponyville.”

“Hey, that’s us!” exclaimed Pinkie. Everyone else glared at her.

There were perhaps two dozen threatening ponies advancing on the group. The girls had worked hard all day, and their various special abilities were running low.

Granted, if they had survived street fights versus changelings, a mere twenty or so average thugs would not be an insurmountable challenge.

Twilight, of course, tried to talk her way out of it first. “Stop right there! Who are you? What do you want?”

“How does revenge sound?” asked the mare in charge.

“What did we do?” Fluttershy whimpered.

“This time?” added Rarity.

“Tin Mare, do something,” Braeburn pleaded.

“My programming only allows me to attack without orders in self defense. In addition, I have no mare-to-mare missiles nor even any bullets.” Tin Mare processed for a moment. “However, the hostiles said they were after ‘the ones from Ponyville.’ That is my base.”

“What’s that thing?” the masked pony demanded, pointing at Tin Mare.

“I am the most advanced weapons system ever constructed. One that you have just threatened.”

The girls began quietly backing away.

“Oh yeah? Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”

“Applejack, please make the expression where you raise one eyebrow,” said Tin Mare.

Confused, Applejack did. Even if she wasn’t feeling it, her eyebrow game was on point as always.

“While I have no face, this is the expression I would use to respond to your question,” said Tin Mare. “Do I have any idea to whom I am talking? No, you have not identified yourself and I have not yet collected sufficient intelligence to do it myself.”

She added, “More importantly, however, do you have any idea to whom you’re talking?”

The mare in the mask laughed. “You look like something Valiant built. Don’t worry, he’ll get his, too.”

Tin Mare’s engines fired at full afterburner, but only for a fraction of a second. She launched into the air, coming down just a few feet away, tackling the whole group of hostiles simultaneously. The unicorns fired spells in all directions. All of the bad guys screamed.

Tin Mare’s ailerons and tail planes worked back and forth, knocking noggins. The thug who got it worst, though, was the one that got stuck in her gun. There were no bullets, but the barrels spinning at almost a thousand RPM sure did a number on him.

Those that could still get their hooves under them ran. Tin Mare sensed them departing and relaxed her hydraulics.

“I never thought I’d say this, but that was really useful,” said Twilight. “You managed to think of a non-violent way to resolve the conflict.”

“It was not ideal,” said Tin Mare. “I am not programed for less-lethal attacks.”

“But clearly you learned,” Twilight pointed out.

“It was not ideal,” Tin Mare repeated. “Had I been properly equipped, I would not have suffered damage in the exchange. One unicorn’s spell hit my camera. I am blind.”

“I could help you get back to Ponyville,” Braeburn offered. “I should probably get back anyway.

“Thank you.”

He loaded up. “You’re clear all around. I’ll tell you if we get too close to something.” The two of them slowly flew away.

The girls glanced at the mess in the street and began to walk away, whistling.

Twilight struck up a conversation. “So, who was that? I feel like we’ve seen her before.”

Rarity glanced at the sky. “Valiant, do you know?”

I did, but I was busy at the moment.

“Don’t encourage him,” Twilight scolded.

Applejack changed the subject. “Earlier, when y’all were talkin’ about spectral whatsists, what does ‘gamma’ mean?”

“It’s extremely high frequency ionizing radiation,” said Twilight. She frowned. “If it’s true that Rainbow’s mane is fully multispectral up to that point, it could be a problem. A big enough dose could cause cancer.”

“Well, it’s a good thing she mostly hangs out in the clouds,” said Applejack. She frowned. “Well, that and sleeping in trees at Sweet Apple Acres, which is fortunately far from town.”

Pinkie said, “Didn’t Granny Smith die of cancer?”

Brotherhooves Social

While Sunset and I were on our way to the Sisterhooves Social, I paused at the library. The visit ended up taking a little longer than I’d anticipated. Bible was there, apparently having been forgotten when the girls went to Manehattan. Twilight must be getting better at hiding her feelings. She’d barely had any awkward encounters at all with him in the last few weeks.

The tequila was where I had left it, but most of the time I spent was talking to Bible.

Well, that, and there’d inexplicably been a lot of lamb blood spread all over the inside of the library.

I stared at it and turned to Bible for an explanation.

“It appeared while I was out shopping for groceries,” he said. “To be fair, I was gone a while. Still getting used to eating.”

“So what is it?” I asked. “Doesn’t look Satanic.”

“You’re right. It’s Angelic.”

“What's it for?”

“While I recognize some of the inscriptions, I’m a little rusty on their meaning. A bible is not exactly a spellbook. If I had to take a guess, though, I think it’s a death curse that would strike you if you touched anything.”

Fortunately, I had a bottle of tequila and poured some out, lighting it up and smudging the lines. “Good enough?”

“Yes, that should do it. Let me know if you feel dead.”

Something struck me. “You haven’t seen Sir Win recently, have you?”

Bible frowned. “No. Why?”

“Just wondering. I consulted with him recently about a Satanic lamb blood death curse.”

“Wow, who’d you piss off?”

“This time? Your guess is as good as mine.” Privately, shit, Heaven and Hell must be working against me. I hadn’t realized I was up against those odds. Lord knew my Godly façade only worked as long as I kept insisting to ponies. I had plans to eventually go on up the ladder and make it legit. As it was, I had to work hard. To be fair, my government/spying/awesome weapons programs did work pretty well.

But that was a problem for another time. I wasn’t going to keep Sunset waiting. The two of us left the library and went on.

The extended CMC - Rumble, Pipsqueak, Cordoba, Strawberry Glaze, Inkspot, and Paperwork - appeared again. This time, it looked like Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo had gotten the news that Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash were indisposed. That meant my favorite competitors wouldn’t be facing nearly the same competition.

However, Big Macintosh appeared in drag to partially mitigate that. Listening to him speak in falsetto was so embarrassing that I cringed.

The clothes would have given Rarity a heart attack, even I could see that. They were probably put together from whatever Mac could find in the Apple Family attic. Nothing up there was labeled. It made searching through their stuff pretty hard. At least it was all in boxes and properly cared for, unlike Rainbow’s attic.

As Sweetie was quick to point out, the dress-wearing newcomer was clearly Big Mac. In fact, I can’t imagine anyone, even in a notoriously oblivious town like Ponyville, wouldn’t see through it.

Especially that creepy, wrinkly old stallion making eyes at Mac.

The competitors lined up as we found seats. Sunset laid out the snacks and asked, “Who do you think will come in second?”

I smiled. “Probably Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh. Mac apparently used to do the Running of the Leaves before Applejack, plus he’s a goddamned tank.” And a werewolf, as Mac had privately revealed to me once. But that was a secret, and I kept those. Encoded my tape recorder, you see.

Down on the field, the entrants were lining up. Trixie wore her viking helmet tombraided from Yakyakistan for the occasion. A few of the competitors had worn small accoutrements for the event, so it was not out of place.

Well, okay, it kind of was considering Trixie had probably dismembered a dead yak to make it, but the Social was about to start and nobody wanted to be the one to interrupt the event.

The Mayor was getting ready to announce the event, so I went over to the stage.

“Fillies and Gentlecolts, thank you for coming today. As you all know, this is a very special annual event first founded by Granny Smith Apple.”

I took the microphone from her. “And what a shame it is she is no longer with us. However, her legacy lives on. And I want you all to take a special moment on this National Valiant Day to appreciate your lives as they are. You’re welcome.”

“What holiday is this?” the Mayor muttered. “I don’t remember approving anything.”

There was also some muttering among the crowd, but most of them just seemed to roll with it.

Speaking of rolling with things, a tank crashed through the stage just then. The Mayor went flying. I ended up awkwardly straddling the barrel.

“The hell?”

“On the contrary,” said an automated voice that sounded a little like the perpetually condescending tone of Alan Rickman. “Though if you don’t heed my warning, you may end up there.”

“What? Hell?”

“Worse. Wisconsin.”

“Big deal. I’m from there, asshole. Why are you suddenly speaking up now?”

“Because I had a point to make. These witnesses will remember this moment as the beginning of your downfall.”

“Why don’t you suck my dick? Oh wait, you don’t have a mouth.”

The tank did not reply. My logic was too much for it, methinks.

I slid off the barrel and it reversed through the hole it had made in the stage, disappearing back into town. The Mayor and the crowd slowly began to return.

I shrugged. “Well, I think we can all agree that we don’t like metal machines destroying our stuff. Just remember one name: Skynet. Don’t do it, folks.”

I dropped the microphone and sauntered off the stage. The Mayor, deciding that it was best to distract the citizenry as soon as possible, promptly started the event.

Big Mac made it back to the starting line just in time. I wondered where he’d been. As he lined up, I just caught the tip of a bushy tail vanish beneath the dress he wore. Ah, so Clifford the Big Red Wolf had probably freaked when the tank had come crashing in. Mac was usually pretty stoic, but with Apple Bloom potentially exposed to danger, I could see why he’d nearly lost his cool.

Even in pony form, he was certainly no force to trifle with. The starting horn went off and he and Apple Bloom took off near the front of the pack. Through the events, they maintained close to the lead.

Apple Bloom bobbled a few things and Mac compensated, crashing barriers and shoving ponies to the side down the final stretch.

I measured the distance with my eyes. Trixie was out ahead, going for the finish line as fast as her extra-legged form could carry her. Mac was coming like a steam engine and was going to catch up.

Trixie glanced back, seeing the trail of destruction in Mac’s wake and the determined look on his face. She glanced at the finish line and I could tell she’d reached the same conclusion that I had.

So she did something about it. Spinning around and planting her eight hooves firmly, her horn lit up. The horns on her viking helmet did not, but they sure looked menacing.

I could see the immovable object, unstoppable force situation coming. And when they met, there was a flash that made me blink spots out of my eyes.

Trixie had been driven into the ground, digging eight furrows. Mac had tumbled over her, landing on his face with his hind legs in the air. I saw that he’d had the decency to wear bloomers with the dress.

Both of them had spirals for eyes. Okay, not really, but they would have if this was a cartoon.

“The winner!” announced the Mayor, pinning a blue ribbon on the filly that crossed the line first.

Sunset and I went down to the track. Trixie was moaning and holding her head. So was Mac.

“Did we win?” Trixie asked faintly, eyes shut.

Nearby, Mac was asking Apple Bloom “Did we win?” He’d forgotten his female farce. Probably okay, since his clothes had been blown off in the dustup.

He and Apple Bloom had a moment. It was something heartfelt about how they still loved each other despite one crossdressing in an attempt to make up for a perceived lack of sibling attention.

Not my gig, so I turned my focus elsewhere. Namely, the sky where Tin Mare was coming back with Braeburn.

“She needs help,” he said as the two of them landed. Ponyville residents scattered. They knew enough by now to get out of the way.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She’s blind. Her camera is broken .” Braeburn sounded honestly concerned. “Can you fix it?”

I laughed. “You honestly think I can’t fix something that I designed and built?”

“Well I can see you don’t think of her as a special snowflake, so I was hoping you might have done some mass production.”

I frowned. “What’s with you? Since when do you have an opinion on what I do?”

“Since when do I…” Braeburn stared at me and then shook his head. “Look, Tin Mare needs help.”

“Sure, sure.” I look a look at the jet’s underside. “Whoa, where did all this blood come from?”

“Being unarmed for the trip to Manehattan, I was forced to use tackle on a group of hostiles,” Tin Mare explained.

“I knew it was a good idea to teach you that move. Was it super effective?”

“One hit KO,” she confirmed. “However, a spell broke my electro-optic interface.”

“I thought you said it was a camera,” said Braeburn.

“It is a camera. I speak this way to Valiant because it may help him diagnose and fix the problem.”

“All right, better get started on that,” I said. “Tin Mare, are you good to get back to base on GPS?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t I at least get a thank you for helping her get back to Ponyville?” Braeburn said.

“Thank you,” said Tin Mare.

“For somepony who claims to be a robot, you have better manners than some,” Braeburn muttered. He turned to walk away, but paused when he realized where he was. He looked around at the Social-goers. “Mac, why are you wearing makeup?”

I didn’t hear the rest of it because I was already heading back to my place. Tin Mare knew where her designated landing pad was, and didn’t require any help navigating.

That was good. I had a party to host.

Crusaders of the Lost Mark

I didn’t have a lot of experience in planning parties. I don’t think there are many things I’m really bad at, though, so even if I’m not particularly good at something I should still be able to kind of do it.

I’m okay at making cakes if I do say so myself. The rest – the decorating, the gifts, the cards, the cheerfulness – not so much.

Fortunately, I had tequila.

I was well into baking and bottles when Sunset arrived. She was still in a good mood from the Social and came over to kiss me on the cheek. “How’s it going?”

“Well, I don’t know a whole lot about cute-ceañeras but I guess this will do.”

“I think it’ll be just fine,” Sunset agreed.

“It isn’t every day that you see someone pull off such an epic stunt.”

“Trixie was certainly impressed.”

“Trixie should be proud of herself, too. She took the hit to make it happen.”

“And getting hit by Big Macintosh is like getting hit by a train.”

I was reminded of that time Sunset once wrestled – and beat – a train on my behalf.

While the cake was in the oven, I went out to the workshop and got Tin Mare serviced. Step one was a good wash. The blood on her underside would probably corrode things if left too long. I didn’t exactly have another camera lying around to replace her broken one, but was able to scavenge enough parts to make it work. I also loaded her gun, just in case.

I had a few minutes to spare and spent it working on the thirty millimeter gun prototype that I would have to find a new airframe for. Tin Mare eyed it, or at least the electronic camera equivalent, but we’d already established that it wasn’t for her.

I saw her looking and asked, “So what’s this about Braeburn helping you get back to Ponyville?”

“He might have seen something that my sensors could not detect. I looked up Braeburn’s specifications and decided that he could function as an offboard sensor. Given my expensive nature, I’m hella sure you would prefer to have meatbag backup. As much as a cyborg like Braeburn can be considered a meatbag.”

“I think he’s into you.”

“I had not considered that.” She paused. “I was not aware that you observed such things. You had seemed oblivious to relationships in the past.”

“Fair point.” I shrugged.

Sunset helped me do the rest of the party prep for the rest of the day. We went to sleep that night confident that the party the next day would be something to remember.

I think she was interested in remembering that night, too, but wasn’t sure. She was awfully hoovsy to be sleeping.

The next day, walking near the school, I saw the Cutie Mark Crusaders and suddenly realized that they would have to crusade for something else. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, Rumble, Pipsqueak, Cordoba, Strawberry Glaze, Inkspot, and Paperwork had all gotten their marks.

“What a coincidence,” I said.

“Hey Valiant,” said Apple Bloom, “We heard you were throwin’ a cute-ceañera.”

“If you all want to come, we can probably arrange that,” I said. “I guess we’ll need more cake.”

“Party at Valiant’s place!” shouted Scootaloo.

Cheerilee looked out the window of the schoolhouse, giving me a withering glare. I brushed it off. “So what happened?”

“Well see, Pipsqueak wanted us to manage his campaign for Student Body President,” Apple Bloom started off.

“His campaign promise was a good one, he wanted to replace the playground equipment that was damaged mysteriously and coated in blood about the same time Ms. Cheerilee reported she’d seen an intruder in the school,” added Sweetie Belle.

I glanced towards the window. Cheerilee studiously avoided my look.

“Everypony agreed that it was a good idea and Pip won unopposed!” finished Scootaloo.

“So you got cutie marks for that?” I asked.

“No, Pipsqueak got his for being such a great leader and giving the ponies what they want,” said Sweetie Belle. “We got our cutie marks for helping him to realize his dream and potential.”

I looked at their butts. Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo all had some variation of a shield. Apple Bloom’s also had an apple. Scootaloo had a lightning bolt. Sweetie Belle had a music note. “That’s not what it looks like.”

Scootaloo glanced at the others. “I told you that ponies would ask why we weren’t any good at interpreting our marks!”

“I still say with the shields we could be some kinda guardians,” said Apple Bloom.

“Yes, but of what?” asked Sweetie.

“And what about the rest of you?” I asked the group. “How did you all get your marks on the same day?”

“Diamond Tiara’s – you remember her? – mother tried to say that her daughter should be eternal Student Body President forever,” said Inkspot, showing off his, well, inkspot cutie mark. “So we passed ruling to make her illegal. It took a lot of Paperwork.”

“Oh come on, you helped too,” said Paperwork, gesturing to his friend’s inky cutie mark and to his own legal documents.

“You made her illegal?” I said, but decided not to ask. I probably didn’t want to get involved in elementary school lawsuits.

“While we worked on all this, I kept everypony fueled up with snacks,” said Strawberry Glaze, showing off her confections cutie mark. “Long courtroom hours, you know.”

Rumble was the next to speak, gesturing to the raincloud on his hip. “Mrs. Rich was pretty steamed about getting made illegal. I put out the fire with a cloud.”

“What fire?” I asked.

“Um, nevermind,” said Scootaloo.

Cordoba turned to the others and lifted her wings to show off her cutie mark, a golden medallion featuring a shield flanked by lions. “I won the Sisterhooves Social.”

“It’s good to hear you’ve all earned your cutie marks,” I said. “If you all want to come to the party and make it one big one, I’m sure we’ll have a great time.”

They were all agreeable and I told them when to show up. I went on down the street, spotting the girls coming back to town from being in Manehattan. Rainbow was with them, although they were all keeping their distance from her.

“Is this about the radiation?” I asked.

“How did you know?” Twilight demanded.

“Tin Mare was there. Plus, I’ve got my network of spy satellites.”

“If you knew Rainbow was radioactive, why didn’t you say anything?” Applejack glared at me.

“Because I didn’t know until recently. Believe me, I try not to take even regular pictures of Rainbow, much less ones with sophisticated multi-spectral optics like Tin Mare’s gear. If it weren’t for that, you still wouldn’t know about her hidden dangers. And you know what? If it weren’t for me telling you right now, you wouldn’t know that Zecora has a special medicine that can help. Trixie’s been taking it for her radiation suppression.”

They were all silent for a moment before Rainbow muttered, “Thank you, Valiant.”

“What was that?” I grinned.

She glared at me, but didn’t repeat herself.

Since Guinness was standing there, I turned to him and said, “Since you’re standing there, I was hoping you could do me a favor. I think Braeburn might have the hots for Tin Mare.”

Guinness looked tired, but that perked him up. “Really? A cyborg and an organic AI?” He tilted his head. “I guess not the weirdest couple I’ve heard of.”

“I was wondering if you could give me your professional bartender opinion. Maybe not go as far as doing your signature ‘Why don’t you two have a drink together?’ move and see if they hook up, but feel it out.”

“How would I even serve an airplane a drink?” he asked.

“She’s flex-fuel.”

Guinness nodded, already appearing deep in thought. “So do you want them together…?”

“Hell no. He’d only get hurt and I didn’t build her with the emotive capacity.”

I turned to go, but then turned around. “Oh yeah, pretty much every kid in town got their cutie marks while you were all gone, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo included.”

Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow gasped simultaneously. “Really? That’s awesome!” said Rainbow.

“I’m hosting the cute-ceañera,” I said.

“Huh? Why could you possibly care?” asked Twilight.

“Hey, I’m probably a bigger hero to the kids in town than you,” I pointed out. “Seriously, you think kids these days care about friendship role models? Actually, scratch that, you aren’t even good at friendship, Twilight.”

“How dare you-!”

“Yeah, the Elements of Harmony. Honestly, Twilight, wouldn’t you rather have friends that each have more than one quality of friendship? And speaking of that, as the Element of Magic, you’re only good at shooting spells. That means you don’t even have a single friendship trait.”

Twilight burst into flames.

I snapped my hoof. “That’s perfect. I needed a bonfire for the party. See you all later.”

I went back to my place and got a few final things ready in the hours before the party. Guests started showing up early. I had invited both Bible and Sir Win, and made sure to tell them both, so they came but occupied opposite sides of the room.

The now cutie-marked Crusaders arrived next. It was a party for all of them, so they pretty much had the run of the place.

Trixie showed up. Daring wasn’t with her, so I figured she must be busy.

Finally, the ones I had most recently invited appeared. Twilight was still on fire, and still giving me dirty looks. Fortunately, it looked like she had invested in Nomex books and went to lie down outside as the sun set, reading by her own light.

The party got rolling. While it wasn’t a Pinkie party, I think I did all right. The group had things to talk about, cake and snacks to eat, and s’mores to roast on Twilight.

At some point Braeburn and Big Mac arrived. They congratulated Apple Bloom. Big Mac and Trixie had a moment, but it ended with a laugh. Both of them were willing to do silly, dangerous things in defense of family.

Braeburn walked over to where Tin Mare was parked. “I see you’re all fixed up.”

“I was not severely damaged. You did not need to be so worried.”

Guinness showed up. “How are you two doing this evening?”

“Considering I’m a party hosted by Valiant, I’m a little surprised nothing has blown up yet,” remarked Braeburn.

“He has not ordered me to blow up anything,” replied Tin Mare.

“That’s…not what I meant,” Braeburn replied.

“I know what you meant. I was merely attempting to make a joke,” explained Tin Mare. “I have no humor logic in my programming, so I work with what I have.”

“It’s poetic,” said Guinness. “We all do what we can to overcome natural limitations.”

“There’s nothing natural about being an airplane,” muttered Braeburn. His face went red. “Er, I didn’t mean to imply-”

“As I have explained before, I cannot be insulted,” Tin Mare said. She paused, her camera optics zooming in. “It is interesting how your face lights up in infrared when you blush.”

Guinness walked away. Those two were going to fall in love and there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. He grinned. Not that he wanted to.

The party went on. Everything was going quite swimmingly until a pink and purple mare wearing a mask burst onto the scene. “How dare you celebrate your cutie marks!”

The Element bearers immediately jumped to attention. They were more than used to facing unexpected challenges. However, Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo jumped in front of them.

“We got this!” said Scootaloo.

“We’ll protect you!” assured Sweetie Belle.

“Hey, we were talking about being guardians of something. Cutie Mark Crusader Guardians of Harmony go!” cheered Apple Bloom.

“I like the idea, but we aren’t really Cutie Mark Crusaders anymore,” Sweetie pointed out.

“We kind of are,” said Scootaloo. “She did just threaten cutie marks.”

“We’ll sort this out,” I said. “Hold on to your butts.”

“You mean our cutie marks?”

“That’s what I said.” I gave Sunset a look. She went over and choked the shit out of the noisy newcomer, dragging her off into the darkness.

“Wh-but…that’s impossible!” said Twilight. “That masked pony couldn’t have been in two places at once. We met her in Manehattan, and then we got the first train back to Ponyville after picking up Rainbow. She wasn’t on it, and I know there hasn’t been a train since, so unless she had some other way to travel, there’s no way she could be here!”

“Or, you know, it’s not the same pony,” I pointed out.

“How many mask-wearing purple and pink mares can there be?” Twilight asked.

“Three.”

Twilight gestured. “Well, who?”

“It could have been Suri Polomare that I scalped, Starlight Glimmer whose face Pinkie melted with a kiss, or whoever the hell that was.”

“Spoiled Rich, Diamond Tiara’s mother,” provided Rumble. “Remember what I said about the fire?”

“I suppose that explains the mask?” I said.

“She was really upset that so many foals were suddenly getting cutie marks,” said Scootaloo. “And said something about so many foals growing up but her daughter would never get the chance.”

“Yeah, she was still really broken up about that time Diamond Tiara got smeared in a thin paste all over town,” added Apple Bloom.

“Maybe she didn’t want anything to ever change again because she was a sore loser,” proposed Sweetie. She shrugged. “But nobody cares about Spoiled Rich because she was terrible. Her nose literally turned up.”

“Not since her face burned off,” corrected Cordoba.

“Have I seen you around before?” Applejack asked the filly. “You look familiar, but I’m not sure.”

“I think I’ve seen her before,” said Twilight. She frowned and her eyes narrowed. “Wait, didn’t you kick me a few times?”

“This is the filly that won the Sisterhooves Social,” Trixie provided, throwing a foreleg around her shoulders. Cordoba probably only put up with it because Trixie was her big sister.

“You did?” said Applejack. She glanced at Cordoba’s cutie mark. “The prize is a blue ribbon for winning. Is that a gold medal? What’s your cutie mark mean?”

“This?” said Cordoba. “It’s a hood ornament. It means that I am Chrysler Cordoba, worthy daughter of Plymouth Valiant.”

The One Where Pinkie Pie Knows

“Five hundred and sixty six, five hundred and sixty seven, five hundred and sixty eight... I am so close to breaking my personal cupcake-icing record! Pretty impressive if I do say so myself,” said Pinkie, saying it herself.

“I mean, not really if it isn’t even your personal record. You make cupcakes all the time,” I pointed out.

“It’s more cupcakes iced than I’ve ever seen,” put in Sir Win mildly. We were in his lair. Pinkie had asked to use the oven.

Sir Win, meanwhile, worked on a few other things. He made a damned good cup of joe. I took a sip of my coffee that he had made. Cordoba took a sip of hers. Along with the eyeliner she wore, it made her look slightly older. Well, maybe if it wasn’t so heavily applied. Cordoba was kind of in her rebellious youth phase. That was okay. You can stab someone with an eyeliner pencil.

“You know, coffee will stunt your growth,” said Pinkie, grinning and ruffling Cordoba’s blue mane.

“Then my enemies will die even more embarrassing deaths.” Cordoba glared at her.

Sir Win chuckled. “I was skeptical at first, but she’s certainly one of yours, Valiant.”

Cordoba muttered something under her breath.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I said pinche idiota.”

“Oh, okay.” I didn’t speak Spanish.

Pinkie finished her cupcake business and headed for the door, but bumped into the mailpony.

I hadn’t bothered to learn the new one’s name. Between Derpy and Post Haste, we seemed to go through a lot of them. The mail today was a scroll for Sir Win. However, Pinkie fumbled it and the paper unraveled across the floor. I caught the words TOP SECRET across the top.

Pinkie gathered it up, blushing, but having already speed-read it. “Wow, that’s a super secret!”

Sir Win glanced at the paper. “Indeed. Shining Armor and Cadance are coming here to break the news.”

“A top secret surprise?” Pinkie’s face fell. “That means I have to keep the news to myself!”

“Well, you know how loose lips sink ships,” I commented.

“Like the good airship Dirty Hooker Took My Money?” said Pinkie.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“What is this?” Cordoba asked.

“Oh, it was before your time,” I said. “Cool story, though.”

As we left, I told her my exploits aboard my first airship, one that Pinkie had a hand in naming. When I mentioned how I’d ridden it into a fiery inferno in the castle statue garden, she seemed impressed. Good to know she looked up to her dear old dad.

Cordoba herself was respectable enough. For being a filly who’d just gotten her cutie mark applied, she took no shit. I was still trying to figure out where the bilingualness came from.

Walking down the street, we spotted Applejack coming into town. She said, “Twilight’s called a meeting. I figured you’d find out and crash it anyway.”

“That’s thoughtful of you. You’re probably right, but it’s nice to have a shortcut. Being the government is hard work, you know.”

Applejack frowned at that, but didn’t reply.

We walked into the meeting. Twilight frowned at me. She frowned a little more at Cordoba. “Before we begin, Valiant, where did you get that filly?”

“What do you mean? She’s my daughter, isn’t she?”

“Well, so is Trixie and she’s adopted after she went insane while using the Alicorn Amulet and got one of her own age spells reflected back onto her.”

“Why does that make a difference?”

“So you’re saying Cordoba is adopted?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Well, to start with, she’s a pegasus. Sunset’s a unicorn, and I honestly have no idea what your genetic makeup started out as, much less what it might be now.”

“So? Cordoba has a hood ornament cutie mark similar to mine, Sunset’s eyes, and nearly the same colors as Trixie, just inverted.”

“Even Trixie, who isn’t biologically related, is a unicorn.”

“So? The Cakes - earth ponies - had a unicorn and a pegasus in the same birth.”

“Daring is a pegasus,” suggested Rainbow.

Twilight frowned some more.

“Trixie told me Daring wasn’t a fan of biological kids,” I replied. “Said something about having an escape plan. This is despite the magical lesbian offspring conundrum.”

“Well, if she’s biologically yours, that still doesn’t explain how she’s old enough to be going to school and getting her cutie mark,” Twilight said.

I could explain, but instead I merely grinned as widely as possible. Twilight would probably accuse me of playing God again anyway.

Twilight rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Back on topic, I called you all here today to tell you some wonderful news. Somepony special is coming to visit Ponyville, and I need your help getting everything ready. It’s-”

“Shining Armor and Cadance!” said Pinkie.

Twilight went on. “Yes, and they're coming-”

“Tomorrow!”

“They have-”

“Something very special and important to tell us!” Pinkie finished.

“That’s right,” Twilight confirmed.

“And its…” Pinkie baited.

Twilight looked confused. “The letter didn’t say.”

“It didn’t?” Confusion went across Pinkie’s face.

“It was kind of a surprise visit, though,” said Twilight, “so I decided to set up a surprise of my own. I’ve decorated the guest room with some things Shining liked when he was a colt.”

“Sure, you set up a guest room for your brother when he comes for a visit but let me sleep on the couch for so long,” I said. “Why is this so special, anyway? If it’s a surprise visit, why did he tell you a day ahead of time? Don’t he and Cadance come through Ponyville every so often? You know, since they don’t have an empire to rule anymore?”

“Well, he said he had some special and important news,” said Twilight. “I just thought I should make the visit special.”

“It’s special and important all right,” said Pinkie.

They all looked at her, but Pinkie suddenly clammed up. “Which, uh, if it’s a surprise he should totally be the one to deliver.”

“I suppose I’m okay with that,” said Twilight. “Will it be hard for you to keep the secret, Pinkie?”

“Uh, nope!” However, Pinkie had started to sweat.

“Well, that’s good enough for me,” said Applejack.

“Must not be too special or important if it can wait a day,” decided Rainbow.

“It certainly builds the suspense,” remarked Rarity.

“ But...what if the surprise is something so incredibly exciting that a pony can't keep it in any longer, and she has to tell the pony standing next to her what it is or she might explode?!” Pinkie shouted.

“Just…don’t explode twice?” Fluttershy suggested.

The group broke up. Pinkie let out a sigh. “Whew, for a second there I thought I was in danger of telling somepony. It’s such a special and important secret, but that almost makes it harder to keep!”

“Good luck with that,” I said. Cordoba and I left.

“Would you like to bet that she keeps it?” Cordoba asked.

“Hmm. Knowing Pinkie, she’ll beat herself and others up to do it, but I bet she doesn’t tell.”

And Pinkie succeeded. As I predicted, she had to contort herself quite a bit, but she kept the secret. I settled down at my government roleplaying station to watch. Pinkie kept herself occupied. She worked extra hard mixing Gummy into cake batter, doing her public service to build up the tolerance to Salmonella of the local residents. In her haste to get across town to deliver some baked goods, she rammed into Fluttershy, and then rammed Fluttershy again later in private. She even delivered some pastries via crossbow.

I bet she wasn’t expecting me to reply with a crossbow of my own, but I heard her laugh.

Down at the school, she made balloon shapes for kids. Scootaloo asked to be surprised. Pinkie did.

“Is that a baby bottle?” Scootaloo asked, “that long tubular white and pink thing?”

Pinkie winked. “It’s what you make it.”

She had another suggestive conversation later. After organizing city hall’s filing system, the Mayor commented that Pinkie was Ponyville's best kept secret.

The Mayor leaned in a little closer. “Speaking of secrets, have you ever known somepony else’s secret? A surprise that was so big and exciting that it was all you could think about?”

I opened the filing cabinet next to my desk and looked up the Mayor. My eyebrows went up.

Pinkie waltzed away from the conversation with the Mayor and spent some time helping a furniture store owner set up a wacky waving inflatable arm-flailing tube mare.

In fact, she kept so busy because she’d made so many promises to everyone that she had basically no time for herself. Sounded like the moralistic plot of a TV show if you ask me, one that we’d seen before.

I spotted something on one of the monitors at the outskirts of Ponyville near Sweet Apple Acres. I frowned and zoomed in. Tin Mare was airborne nearby and I asked, “Are you seeing this?”

It was a moment before she responded. “It appears to be Shining Armor and Cadance.”

“Yeah. I wonder why they’re a day earlier than they said.”

“Braeburn is working the orchard nearby. I could have him ask them.”

I remembered what she had said about using the cyborg as another set of sensors. “Tempting, but nah, just wait awhile.”

“I have also detected five fast-moving airborne contacts coming in from the north,” Tin Mare reported. “They are uniformed. I suspect they are the new Wonderbolt team.”

“Interesting. Keep tabs on them.”

I watched Shining and Cadance go into the library. Twilight was surprised. “What are you two doing here a day early?”

“Well, it is a very special, important piece of news,” said Shining. “But first-”

“I just have to show you the place I set up for you!” Twilight interrupted. She hustled them into the guest room.

Shining must have been very surprised. He made horse noises.

In all seriousness, it looked like he and I had at least one thing in common. We both liked trains.

When he was over the surprise, he said, “Cadance and I want you to get your friends together in the town square. We’ll tell you what we want to tell you there.”

Twilight agreed and went to round up her friends. However, when they met in the town square, Shining and Cadance weren’t anywhere to be seen.

I debated using the God Voice to tell them about the scroll I had observed Shining leave there, but they found it quickly enough.

“It’s a scavenger hunt!” said Twilight, reading it. “Shining Armor used to set these up for me when I was a filly! At the end, there was always a big prize, like a new book, or several new books, or-”

“We get the picture! You like books!” said Pinkie.

“Hello,” said Bible, appearing just then.

Twilight blushed slightly but managed to hide it. “Hello, Bible. We were just doing a scavenger hunt that my brother set up.”

“That sounds interesting,” said Bible. “I just went and bought groceries. Would you like me to put them in the usual place in the kitchen?”

“Oh, sure. I’ll probably be back later,” said Twilight.

Bible walked away. The girls all gave each other looks as Twilight watched him.

“So about this scavenger hunt,” Pinkie prompted.

“You’re right,” said Twilight. “Let’s go.”

They started to hunt the next clue, but Rainbow was distracted. “Hey, I think that’s the new Wonderbolt team I heard about!”

The girls all looked up as the five uniformed pegasi flew over. Rarity said, “I recognize Wind Rider and Lightning Dust.”

“Lightning Dust is a member?” Rainbow’s voice fell. “At least I recognize a couple others, real big shots around Cloudsdale. It looks like Firefly and Whiplash. And…is that Night Glider, from that crazy equals-sign cutie mark town?”

“It could be,” agreed Twilight. “Though it’s hard to tell with the flight suit.”

“Didn’t Wind Rider invite you to be on the team?” Rarity glanced at Rainbow.

“Well, uh…” Rainbow’s voice got progressively quieter as she spoke, “he said he couldn’t accept anypony with a criminal record.”

The Wonderbolts went on their way. The girls dropped the subject and went back to the clues. They went to the school and read a copy of the Foal Free Press, to city hall and read Applejack’s birth certificate, and to the furniture store to read a note that was taped to a crib. The last clue eventually led them to find their way to Sir Win’s place. Seeing that they were headed there, I called Cordoba. “Could you sit here and watch things for a while?”

“Do I have to?”

“The world won’t save itself, young lady.”

“Then it should learn,” she commented, but took a seat.

I went to Sir Win’s. I got there just as the girls were showing up. Twilight grumped, but at least she had stopped asking stupid questions like, “How did you know?” Good. My insistence that I was omnipotent was working.

Sir Win invited us in. Shining and Cadance were already there.

Twilight was confused. “Why did you bring us here? Where’s the book prize at the end?”

“We have something very special and important to tell you,” Cadance said.

“You’re having a baby!” Twilight burst out.

Shining and Cadance looked at each other.

“The clues were perfect!” said Twilight. “School...foal...birth certificate...crib.”

“Uh, no,” said Shining. “We arrived a day early, sent you on the scavenger hunt, used intentionally misleading clues, and ended up here in this demon’s lair to throw others off the path or make them not want to get close.”

Twilight was confused again. “But why? Why all the secrecy?”

“Twilight, we couldn’t afford for word to slip out before we were ready. The army of equals-sign ponies based in the Crystal Empire has grown to horrifying levels,” said Cadance. “And-”

“They’re coming to attack all of Equestria!” Pinkie broke in. She grinned. “It was sooo hard to keep that secret, but I did until you were ready to reveal it!”

“What!?” shouted Twilight. “Pinkie, if you knew that an army was about to invade Equestria, you can’t keep something like that to yourself! If we knew, we could have started making preparations sooner!”

Pinkie stuttered, but caught herself. “Well, if we have to fight, I have over five hundred sixty cupcakes with bad ponies’ names on ‘em!”

“And the Wonderbolts are in town!” Rainbow pointed out.

“I have an arsenal of sophisticated weapons and the most advanced combat AI ever built to employ them,” I said. “And, having seen this coming, I’ve been making preparations for battle. I humbly accept the nomination to be commanding general.”

“What makes you think you’re suitable?” Shining demanded.

“Please. You’re not part of the Guard anymore. We both know Soarin’ would lose a fight. And I have a pretty good record defending Equestria in the past. Who else do you want in charge?” I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, get back to base and load up. We’re going to war!”

“Try not to be so excited about it,” Shining muttered.

Author's Note

Cordoba, BTW

Hearthbreakers

“What the…snow?”

“Hearth’s Warming is coming,” said Applejack.

I blinked. “Wait, we haven’t even had Nightmare Night yet.”

“It’s a benefit of having all-powerful alicorns controlling the days and nights,” said Pinkie. “We can have whatever day we want whenever we want. Nightmare Night is the day after.”

“Okay, I guess that explains why I got this letter.” I showed them the paper. “Celestia and Luna were kind of concerned about the whole army of equals sign cutie mark ponies. They said they’d arrange things so we could get the holidays out of the way before the war. So they put Hearth’s Warming and Nightmare Night together. But why do it in this order, with Hearth’s Warming first?”

“Weather patterns,” contributed Rainbow. “The new Wonderbolt team was here and everything, but since we already had clouds scheduled, instead of clearing them for a bright moon during Nightmare Night, we’re just having Hearth’s Warming snow first.”

“I suppose I can see the utility in that,” I said. “Just don’t let playing God go to your heads.”

“You play God all the time!” Twilight shouted.

“And I play to win.” I grinned. “Also, glad to see you’re finally acknowledging it.”

“I was just repeating a statement you had previously made to show the irony inherent,” Twilight quickly retorted. “Not claiming that I shared the same belief.”

It was pretty clear that I wasn’t going to gain any more support for my cause, that cause being war. Nobody wanted to war with me. Everyone had something better to do, particularly considering the army wasn’t there yet and the holidays were coming up.

Cordoba and I left the meeting room, leaving the girls to their plans. It had been kind of a sudden rescheduling and all of us needed to figure out what we were doing for the holidays.

“What do you want to do for the holidays?” I asked Cordoba.

We exited the pub. She shrugged at my question, staring up at the falling snow.

“Remember what I said about snow?” I asked.

“Hitler was batshit crazy and thought it would be a good idea to invade the Soviet Union during winter.”

“That’s right. Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”

Cordoba watched some snow melt in her coffee and took a sip.

Rainbow had mentioned the new Wonderbolt team. I saw them hanging out down the street. I hadn’t gotten a good answer about why there were hanging out in Ponyville and didn’t really care. I was still – still – riding the high of getting Rainbow kicked out of them.

Cordoba and I were both wearing an earpiece and both heard, “Message to Valiant,” from Tin Mare.

“Go ahead,” I replied.

“With Applejack, Big Macintosh, and Apple Bloom out of town for Hearth’s Warming, Braeburn will be left alone at the farm. This would be an excellent time for me to calibrate his sensors to function in coordination with our efforts.”

She had been talking about using his cyborg self as part of our network. I wasn’t opposed to the idea, but knew that if Braeburn found out he was being spy equipment he wouldn’t be very cooperative.

“All right. Be discreet.”

“Understood,” Tin Mare replied.

“I hope that works out,” I commented.

“Tienen ganas,” Cordoba remarked.

I smiled and nodded. I really should learn some Spanish.

Pinkie burst out of the pub. “Hey Valiant, since me and Applejack are kinda sorta related we decided to have a combined Hearth’s Warming celebration this year on my family’s rock farm and since you’re kinda sorta maybe slightly knowledgeable about what it’s like to be an earth pony and have nothing else going on I thought you might want to join us.”

“How do you know I have nothing else going on?” I asked.

“Because nowhere in Equestria sells the kinds of things you need to be properly materialistic for this ‘Christmas’ holiday you’ve talked about.”

She was right.

“All right,” I said. “A rock farm?”

“No quiero,” said Cordoba.

“Yo quiero Taco Bell,” Pinkie replied with her trademark grin. “Don’t worry, you’ll have a great time!”

“Just as long as I don’t have to dress up like Princess Platinum again this year.”

Pinkie shook her head. “Nope. My parents aren’t very outgoing. We’ll just have our holiday Pie-style.”

I would prefer it animal style, or even Gangnam style, but I guess I could live with that.

We went to find Sunset and ask if she wanted to go to the Pie house for Hearth’s Warming. She said yes. With Cordoba, we went to the train station to meet up with Pinkie and the Apples.

We stopped by the library on the way. Twilight spotted the three of us come in. “Valiant, you look like you’re on your way somewhere.”

“Yeah, I’m going to the party at the Pie place.”

“In the spirit of parties,” said Spike, “now can we open presents?”

“Isn’t that tomorrow?” said Sunset.

Twilight explained, “When Spike and I spent our first Hearth’s Warming Eve together, he couldn’t wait all night to open his presents. Ever since then, we’ve always opened them the night before.”

“It’s kind of like our tradition!” said Spike.

“It’s kind of like you’re contributing to dragon greed feelings,” I commented.

Twilight frowned. Smiling, Sunset, Cordoba, and I left the library.

Getting on the train, everyone else talked. It was still a long ride, though. I got bored along the way. I doodled with breath steam on the windows, designing a set of blades that I could stick to my hooves. Maybe I would call them Santa Claws.

The joke’s still funny.

A porter came by with a cart full of goodies. Apple Bloom went heavy on the snacks. Cordoba got a coffee.

“It’s so excitin’!” said Applejack. “Related or not, it’s gonna be a hoot havin’ our families together under one roof!”

“Apples and Pies together again for the first time! Maybe. Unless we’re related! Which maybe we’re not. I think I just confused myself.”

“It’s always weird when the two sides of your family meet at a party or something. Plus, when you throw in your weird friends.” I frowned. Wait, that was probably me. I quickly steered the conversation another direction. “So you still aren’t sure if you’re related? The Apples are one of the most well established families in Ponyville and nobody kept records? Then again, it is the Apples.”

Apple Bloom popped up between us and interrupted any retort. “Have you tried the Equestria flag crepes? The blue one is blueberry!”

“Is the schnozz one schnozzberry?” I asked.

Applejack talked over me. “Now hang on, sugarcube. You know Hearth's Warmin' isn't just about candy and getting stuff, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Apple Bloom replied. “You don’t have to give me a boring sisterly lecture. I know what it’s about. I’ve seen the play every year since I can remember. Especially last year, when Valiant was Princess Platinum.”

When we arrived at our destination, Pinkie could barely contain herself. “I’m so happy, I need to make up a new word for how happy I am. What about…rooftastic?”

“Rooftastic?” asked Applejack.

“As in, ‘I'm gonna stand on the roof and yell to everypony how rooftastic this is!’”

Pinkie did her thing. When she was done, Applejack asked, “So where we were goin’ again?”

“To the window, to the wall?” I suggested.

“It’s a funny joke, Valiant,” said Maud, arriving just then. “I’m so excited to see you all.”

She turned to Cordoba. “Are you a robot?”

“I am not a robot, idiota,” Cordoba spat.

I calmed Cordoba and looked at Maud. “Robot?”

“I based the robot assumption on the fragments of silicon wafers on Cordoba’s hooves,” Maud explained.

“Oh, I forgot to tell you about the robot,” I said. “Her name is Tin Mare. She’s a hybrid biological/technological artificial intelligence. I uploaded her into a combat chassis, a VTOL aircraft equipped with advanced weapons. Cordoba’s been really helpful with maintenance.”

“My mistake,” said Maud. “I saw the evidence and put forth the simplest explanation.”

“Simple? This is Valiant we’re talkin’ about,” Applejack reminded her.

Maud nodded. “Your robot sounds very interesting. I take it the complicated electronics require rare earth metals?”

“You don’t know the half of it.” I happily chatted with her on the way to the Pie place.

“Come on, everypony!” called Pinkie as we arrived. “Meet my super-mega-fun-derful family! Everypony, meet everypony! And Valiant!”

That was nice of her. Pinkie’s father stepped forward. “I am called Igneous Rock Pie, son of Feldspar Granite Pie.”

His wife said, “Thou shalt know me as Cloudy Quartz.”

Pinkie’s older sister was next. “Gaze into the eyes of Limestone Pie! Ma and Pa may own this rock farm, but I keep it running. Cross me and-”

Cordoba tossed the rest of the coffee in her cup at Limestone.

Limestone stopped as if frozen. One eye began to twitch.

“I can see by your expression that you were not expecting to be crossed,” said Cordoba. “You cannot even.”

Limestone snapped. “I’m going to kill you!”

“Yeah, that’s the attitude we need!” I said. “I’ve got a place for you in the army we’re building to save Equestria.”

“Shut up, old man!”

I must admit, I was kind of taken aback. I’d never been called old before. But shit, I had kids, it must be true.

Pinkie, however, stepped in to save the day, noogieing Limestone. “Aye aye, Captain Grumpy! I’ll tell everypony to stay away from your precious mine, Holder’s Boulder, and everything else. You know, the usual stuff you bitch ponies out for.”

“Pinkamena Diane Pie!” shouted her mother, aghast. “I was quite sure thou had been raised better!”

“Sorry ma,” said Pinkie, ducking her head. “I’ll try to remember not to end a sentence with a preposition.”

“What does ‘bitch’ mean?” her father asked.

Pinkie interrupted again. “And this is Marble Pie, my baby sister who’s only a few minutes younger than me but she'll always be a baby to me, isn’t that right? She’s so excited to meet everypony! Oh, and she wishes you all a happy Hearth’s Warming!”

Marble Pie stood there doing a pretty good Fluttershy impression. Maybe she was getting ready for the upcoming Nightmare Night.

Pinkie hopped up on the boulder, much to Limestone’s consternation. “Attention! Everypony get settled in! There’s plenty of room upstairs, and then it’s time for Hearth’s Warming Eve dinner!”

There were four beds for the six of us. This seemed to please Sunset. We shared a bed. Mac got one of his own, and so did Cordoba. Apple- jack and Bloom shared.

After working that out, we went down for dinner. I took a glance at the pot. “Stone soup, huh? I know this story.”

I took out soup ingredients. Igneous stared at me suspiciously. “Art thou a witch?”

“Huh? Oh! No, no I’m not.” I had completely forgotten I was dealing with the pony version of Amish. Or at least they would be if all ponies didn’t use antiquated technology.

He didn’t look like he believed me, but hey, whatever I may have been, I wasn’t a witch. And the soup turned out great.

Pinkie called, “Eat up, so we can get to our Hearth's Warming dolls!”

“Wait, what?” I said.

“We have traditional crocheted dolls passed down in our family,” said Applejack. “They represent each member of the family on the mantle.”

“We have rocks,” countered Pinkie.

“How do the crocheted dolls work? If they’re passed down in the family, then where do the kids’ dolls come from and where do the deceased dolls go? But that still doesn’t answer my question. Why?”

“Um, tradition?” said Pinkie.

“Why we do it, who can say?” broke in Cloudy Quartz.

“But it’s such a festive holiday,” Pinkie went on. “It’s tradition, that makes it okay.”

“What if a traveling voo doo’er came upon the house on Hearth’s Warming Eve? You’d all be screwed.”

“Now, what are the chances of-” Applejack stopped suddenly and decided, “nevermind, I think I’ve learned not to ask questions like that. Let’s not do dolls.”

“All right, then let’s do the flag finding mission!” Pinkie said without missing a beat. “Limestone, you're the judge. Big Mac, Marble Pie, and Sunset, you’re team one. Apple Bloom, Cordoba, and Maud, you’re team two. Ma, Pa, you’re with Valiant. Don't think of it as team old, think of it as team awkward! And I’m with Applejack of course, since we might be cousins!”

“What are we doing?” I asked. “Also, technically all the Pies might be cousins with all the Apples.”

“When the three tribes united to form Equestria, the first flag was sewn by Nimble Thimble. It’s tradition to raise a flag on Hearth's Warming to celebrate that famous day. This is to decide who gets to put the flag on Holder’s Boulder.”

“So we’re having a scavenger hunt to find the flag?”

“Nope! Earlier today, Limestone hid an obsidian stone. Whoever finds it gets to raise the flag!”

“Then why didn’t you just say-”

Pinkie had already sped off with Applejack. I glanced at Igneous and Cloudy. “I guess it’s us. So, uh…how did you two meet?”

“We were chosen by the Pairing Stone and betrothed within a fortnight,” said Cloudy.

“The choosing stone decreed, ‘Thou shalt love one another.’ And lo, it was so,” added Igneous.

I nodded. “Four kids. It must have.”

The three of us took a walk. We passed Maud and the fillies searching for the obsidian stone. In an attempt at conversation, Maud was saying, “Have you ever wished you could turn into a rock?”

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Rarity can turn into a salt crystal,” I contributed.

Maud’s eyebrows lifted a millimeter. “Is that so?”

Holy shit, Rarity had better watch out. Talk about getting your rocks off.

Pinkie and Applejack came back with a picture of an obsidian stone. “Found it!”

“Wait, you went through that whole confusing team picking and didn’t even have a real rock to look for?” I pointed to the drawing. “Are you sure you didn’t find a picture of a lump of coal?”

“It’s obsidian,” said Limestone. “I drew it.”

“And I’m an art critic. I say that I see coal.”

“Anyway, time to hide the presents!” interrupted Pinkie. “What's more fun than getting a present? Finding a present! Although, most years, nopony finds one.”

“That’s stupid,” I said.

Applejack mildly contributed, “Maybe we could mix it up. Marble Pie, you could raise the Equestria flag up a pole, because you're the youngest. Ma and Pa Pie, we’ll cook you up a meal you'll never forget. We’ll decorate the farm and we’ll all get presents without havin’ to find ‘em.

“Yeah, that could be great!” said Pinkie.

Pinkamena Diane Pie!” hollered her father. “Truly thou cannot favor this madness!”

“What about how a fat guy in a red suit rides a sleigh pulled by reindeer and comes down the chimney at every house to deliver presents around a pine tree in the living room?” I said.

They all stared at me. Pinkie said, “Wow, I think that would be even weirder than bringing my marefriend to Hearth’s Warming at my super-uptight parents’ house.”

“Your what?” asked Igneous.

“Oops,” said Pinkie.

“Why isn’t anypony listening to me?” shouted Limestone.

“Hush,” Cordoba advised. “Nobody cares.”

They did it. The two of them fought. Limestone, an earth pony rock farmer, could probably hit pretty damn hard, not to mention being a full grown mare. My girl held her own though, at least until the two of them bumped into the large boulder at the edge of the cliff.

“Excuse me, you’re fighting on top of a very sensitive fault line,” Maud pointed out, but it was too late. The ground split open and the boulder fell into the chasm below.

Forgetting Cordoba, Limestone shrieked “Nooo!”

Hmm. It seemed like they actually had a valid reason for not wanting to do anything that fit the Ponyville idea of Hearth’s Warming tradition. I guess we all learned a valuable lesson today.

“I guess we all learned a valuable lesson today,” I said. “I learned that I don’t want anything to do with this.”

“We have learned something as well,” Cloudy said.

“Our family came together as one, united in the realization that we all hate you equally,” finished Igneous.

I took a bow. “Happy holidays.”

Sunset, Cordoba, and I left. Cordoba had a black eye but seemed to be in good spirits.

“What are we doing now?” Sunset asked.

“Hell if I know. Kwanzaa?”

Scare Master

“I want to join the army,” said Limestone Pie.

I grinned. “You came to the right place.”

She glared at me. I grinned more and pushed an application across the desk.

She took a pencil and sat down to fill out the form. It only took a few seconds before she was back. “Here.”

I glanced at her responses.

Reason to join the army: I hate everypony.

Desired form of payment: Cocaine.

I raised an eyebrow. “Drugs?”

She pointed at her cutie mark. “Do you know why they call me Limestone? Look at my cutie mark. It’s a lime and rocks. Rocks of crack.”

“Is that why your attitude is so surly?”

“I’m a drug fiend. What do you think, moron?”

“Well, I can’t make payments in cocaine. I don’t have any, you see.”

Limestone ground her teeth. “Then what am I even doing here?”

“If I gave you drugs, would you mellow out?”

“Probably.”

“So why should I? I thought you wanted to be in the army to kick ass.”

“Money so I can buy my own would help.”

“What if we do random drug tests?”

“Would it really be random if I just told you that I’m a junkie?”

I shrugged. “I suppose not.”

And really, I had bigger problems. Like what I was doing for Nightmare Night.

The whole town was getting into the spirit. When I’d walked into the back room of the pub that morning, the girls minus Fluttershy were already telling spooky stories. Maud was also there, sitting beside Rarity.

“Are you getting ready for the shindig tonight?” Applejack asked as I came in.

“Nah. I have to make sure it’s a safe and fun family environment since I have a family now.”

Eyes went wide around the table. Twilight quickly said, “That’s very responsible of you.”

“I’m only doing it for your protection. This is my family we’re talking about.”

That wiped the look off her face.

Rarity got my attention. “Valiant, while you’re here, could you explain why Maud has come to visit and seems attached to me?”

“I told her that you had a hard salty shell.”

“I find that sexy,” said Maud.

Rarity frowned.

Fluttershy came in just then. The girls reacted with some degree of surprise.

“Fluttershy, what are you doing here? Is everything okay?” Twilight asked. “I know you usually lock yourself away during Nightmare Night.”

“I foolishly forgot to stock up on food for Angel and had to go out to get him something,” Fluttershy explained. “The pub has some food, and I decided you girls would most likely be here. I couldn't be out tonight.”

“You’re out right now,” said Pinkie. “Though, if you were back home the two of us could have some spooky fun together if you know what I mean.”

“Girls, I’ve decided to join you in your Nightmare Night festivities,” Fluttershy announced.

“We’ll have to get you a costume!” Rarity exclaimed. While she didn’t have quite a whole selection squirreled away in the meeting room, there was enough for her to have Fluttershy try a few on.

She complained an awful lot about getting a free costume. “What if we encounter something terrifying and need to get away quickly? All those layers could slow me down, or worse, make me trip. Masks can just be so difficult to see out of. What if somepony were to leap out in front of me, I’d never have the chance to defend myself.”

“Got it covered.” I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, escort Fluttershy tonight and make sure nothing happens to her. Any threats, turn ‘em into a grease spot.”

“That sounds violent and unnecessary,” said Fluttershy.

“You hear that, Tin Mare? Make sure it’s violent and unnecessary.”

“Hella.”

With that resolved, I left to go do Valiant things. Outside the meeting room, I saw Guinness polishing glasses. Limestone was slumped on a table across the room.

“What’s up with her?” I asked.

Guinness smiled briefly. “The Lime’s in the coke, you nut. But seriously, I’m really concerned. If it wasn’t legal here, I’d have already called some help.”

“Eh, she got a cutie mark for it. I’m sure she’s fine.”

I left the pub and headed back to my place. Sunset and Trixie were gearing up for Nightmare Night. Both of them wore Guard armor. I didn’t ask where they got the costumes.

Cordoba, through careful use of accessories, had decided to go as me. I was touched.

Despite only devoting a two-sentence paragraph to the subject, I honestly was rather moved by the gesture.

“Is Daring coming?” I asked Trixie.

“No.” She frowned. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately.”

I remembered the promise I’d made Daring once. I wondered if she remembered it too.

As the night drew on, we went out to socialize. We met the girls coming down the street. Applejack was a lion, Pinkie was an ‘80s-something roller skater, Rainbow was an astronaut which I personally took credit for being the inspiration even if Rainbow didn’t realize it, Rarity was a mermare, Maud was a rock, and Twilight was a Guard. Her costume wasn’t as good as Sunset’s, probably because since Shining Armor wasn’t a member anymore Twilight couldn’t get the hookup.

Maud was riding Rarity’s ass pretty closely. I caught Rarity’s eye. Under her breath she told me, “I’m a little uncomfortable with this kind of affection from another mare, even though she did say she finds me sexy.”

I glanced away from Maud x Rarity to Maud’s sister. Pinkie was riding Fluttershy’s ass pretty closely. A lot more literally, too. Despite the phrase “Pinkie Pie on roller skates” sounding like a euphuism for something, she seemed thrilled that Fluttershy had actually decided to join the Nightmare Night party.

Fluttershy had eventually consented to wear vampire teeth for a costume. It didn’t pose any danger she could see, and in fact might have actually increased her defense somewhat. Her talking didn’t seem impeded, either.

Or as Pinkie put it, “She’s used to having things in her mouth.”

Thanks for that, Pinkie.

We saw some other residents out and about, enjoying the night and the full moon. Down the street, Rainbow spotted the new Wonderbolts team. They were in their uniforms, so it was like they kind of got dressed up, I suppose.

One of them was staring at me. Firefly, if I remembered correctly. She was pink with a blue mane.

I didn’t like the way she was staring. “I’m going to go knock some sense into Firefly.”

“No!” Rainbow shouted. “I’m not going to let you touch another Wonderbolt.”

“Fine. I won’t. Tin Mare?”

“Ready.”

“Drop inert.”

Thud.

A bomb landed on Firefly but didn’t explode. Knocked some sense into her too, I’ll bet.

That done, we went to the haunted farm thing that Applejack’s family had set up. It was pretty boring. I got distracted by the ghosts. I wasn’t sure why they seemed to be bipedal.

Applejack, who knew about the haunted maze and was therefore even more not scared than the others, used the claws on her lion suit to scratch herself. She glanced around. “I reckon if we wanted to turn up the scariness a little we could go caving underneath the orchard.”

“Since when do you have caves down there?” Rarity asked.

Applejack shrugged. “Search me. Crusaders musta dug ‘em.”

“I don’t like that idea,” said Fluttershy.

So instead we went back to the library to play Pin the Horn on Nightmare Moon.

“Is Luna okay with this?” I asked.

“Since when have you cared what Princesses are okay with?” asked Sunset.

I laughed. “Oh yeah.”

Twilight had looked extra neurotic throughout the evening. Figuring it would be good for a giggle, I went over to find out why.

“I’m just thinking about tomorrow,” she said. “The holidays will be over and then the army of cutie markless ponies might be close enough to start threatening us.”

“I mean, you could always, you know, man up and learn to drive a tank so you can do something about it.”

“Or we could do like we’ve always done and use friendship,” she shot back.

“Sure, sure. Have you ever tried it on thousands of enemies at once?”

No, no she hadn’t and we both knew it.

“Well, we still have the rainbow power,” Twilight remembered.

“And it’s been how long since you’ve even practiced with that?”

Twilight gave me a look and didn’t reply.

We eventually got bored with games. Pinkie mentioned a party at Sugarcube Corner. We couldn’t not go to that. On the way, we passed the pub where Limestone was still snorting.

Pinkie pumped a hoof in the air and cheered, “Do a line of coke, you nut!”

What About Discord?

We’d really gotten lucky this week. Two holidays in a row leading directly into a three-day weekend. Granted, I worked for no one so it was kind of like every day was a day off, but still.

The worst part of all that was the advancing army that was totally boogering up our plans and ruining a perfect three day weekend.

Looking at the tactical maps I had posted to the walls of the back room in the pub, the army was pushing south out of the former Crystal Empire and encountering little resistance along the way.

That wasn’t surprising because they weren’t going through many cities along the way. The Royal Guard was posted at the perimeter of Canterlot, but it would be unwise for the Guards to attack and leave the city undefended.

That left us. Which was good, because the thousands of ponies coming our direction were, well, coming our direction.

“Why are they coming here?” Twilight asked, reviewing the maps with dismay.

I explained, “I mean, it’s not exactly a secret that we collectively are the greatest fighting force in Equestria and that we all live in Ponyville. Frankly, they’d be foolish not to make attacking us their first priority.”

“Based on satellite scans, they’ll be here tomorrow,” Sunset provided.

“So we should get defenses ready here and start doing long range strikes to wear them down,” I added. “This might be difficult. They might be weird equals-sign cutie mark ponies, but they still have their full intelligence. They aren’t zombies or meth heads like we’ve faced in the past. There are also thousands of them compared to-” I looked around the room, counting the girls, Sunset, Cordoba, Maud, Limestone, and Guinness “-the dozen of us.”

They didn’t take it all that well. I went on before any emotional outburst could ruin the moment. “All right, we’ve got six tanks. Maud and Limestone can dig fighting revetments for them outside of town. I know the rest of you haven’t been practicing with the tanks like I’ve been telling you to, so I’ll have to hold a remedial training session. I’m honestly starting to think it would have been better to construct another batch of fighting robots. But I considered the R&D of Tin Mare’s AI a priority. Plus family stuff.” I shook my head. “Yeah, look at me, being sentimental. And look where it gets me, an inferior army.”

“But I’ll shank more bitches to make up for it,” said Sunset.

I smiled. “That means a lot.” Turning back to the others, I said, “Okay, so if I’m doing tank training, I’ll need someone to assist Tin Mare with targeting. That’s you, Guinness. I need you to be a forward air controller.”

“I don’t know anything about that!” he protested.

I tossed him an earpiece and a laser pointer. “Whatever. Go mark targets. Tin Mare will tell you what you need to know.”

He grumbled a little. Rainbow broke in. “Hang on, who’s going to take care of Skyla while I’m being a badass and saving Equestria?”

“Well, why don’t you? Wouldn’t you rather have your child protected inside an armored vehicle with her mother instead of being the field getting shot at with her father?”

Guinness suddenly got up and threw on a pair of sunglasses. “He’s right. Sorry babe, I’ve got to go save the world.” He went out the door.

I glanced at Limestone. She gave me a subtle nod. I’d told her to dose Guinness with some of her crack before the meeting. Otherwise, I knew he was too straight laced to let irresponsible Rainbow take care of their kid. I hated to do it, but war is hell.

“Or we could leave Skyla with the Cakes,” suggested Pinkie.

“Uh, yeah, let’s do that,” said Rainbow.

Sunset and Cordoba left to go make preparations of their own. I’d fashioned a child-sized cutlass for Cordoba and she seemed eager for a chance to try it out.

That left me with the girls and their tanks. We knew Twilight and Rarity possessed the magic to work all the crew stations all by themselves. Applejack could do it with her duplicates. Rainbow and Pinkie were both fast enough to do everything at once.

Fluttershy was the problem. Her Discord-ness allowed her to change into a unicorn, but she wasn’t practiced enough with magic to operate the tank effectively. In addition, maybe the gunpowder would make her sneeze and change to a different race. She had started carrying around a little pouch of pepper to snort if she needed to sneeze, but that would be terrible if she kept having to change back in the middle of battle.

But with the fate of Equestria on the line, I convinced her to put her misgivings aside for the moment and get some help. Daisy, Lilly, and Rose certainly didn’t mind helping their master, even if Fluttershy did.

Outside town, I sat on a hill and watched the tanks in the meadow below. “All right now, pirouette.”

“Why are we doing this?” Applejack asked through the communicator.

“Because reasons.” Like how the tank treads were creating artwork by tearing up the grass.

“Are you making a picture or something by precisely directing where we go?” asked Twilight.

“Hey,” called a voice from above me. “Why are you drawing a self portrait with mechanical machines in a perfectly good field of grass?”

I looked up. It was the Wonderbolts. “So what if I am?”

“I’ve heard a lot of stories about you,” said Firefly. “And that thing that dropped that other thing on me because you ordered it? Not cool.”

“Well, your face isn’t cool,” I said.

The other Wonderbolts “ooohed.”

“Shut up!” retorted Firefly. “And for entirely unrelated reasons, I have this mask!”

She put it on and flew a little higher, beginning to circle.

Wind Rider, the leader of the reconstituted Wonderbolts, frowned. “What are you doing, Firefly?” The other Wonderbolts also expressed some concern.

Firefly had built up enough speed that water vaper was starting to condense from the low pressure. It was like creating her own cloud. She put a final twist on it and stomped on the top.

Four bolts of lightning struck the ground, a pony appearing with each flash. Firefly landed beside them. All were pink, mask-wearing mares. The new four had purple manes. Firefly’s was blue, but that was pretty close.

“Okay, I have to admit, that was a pretty cool entrance,” I said.

“We’re here to end you,” said masked mare number one.

“Yeah, I figured. I kind of suspected you guys were putting together some sort of supervillain team.”

“Wait, what?” said Wind Rider.

“Yeah, I used the Wonderbolts as cover for my activities,” said Firefly.

“Hey!” shouted Lightning Dust.

“So were you the one who stole from the castle treasure room?” I asked Firefly.

She nodded. “It totally got Rainbow out of the picture and I got some sweet new swag to finance our operations.” She gestured at the other mask-wearing mares.

“So what’s the deal with all of you?” I asked. You’ve got the color scheme down, well, except for Firefly.”

She covered her face, slightly ironic because she was already wearing a mask. “It was my one failing. I’m not perfectly colored the same as the others.”

“So are you trying to get everyone to be the exact same?” I looked at the one I thought was Starlight Glimmer. “Taking that whole equals-sign cutie mark thing to the next level.”

“It’s the new way forward,” she said. She may have sneered. Hard to tell when she was wearing a mask to hide the fact that her face had been melted off.

“So I suppose that makes you the five – well, if Firefly doesn’t quite match the color scheme it’s not quite five, more like four or four and a half, yeah that sounds right – the Four and a Half Horses of the Apocalypse. Could be abbreviated FHHA.”

“Shut up,” replied the one I thought was Spoiled Rich. “You don’t get to name us.”

“Now, now, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

“We’re ponies, we don’t wear panties,” retorted the one that was probably Suri Polomare.

“So this little enterprise you put together, I recognize a few of you, but who’s this?” I pointed to the one that wasn’t Firefly, Starlight Glimmer, Spoiled Rich, or Suri Polomare.

The one I pointed at responded by rattling at me. My eyes opened wide. “Twi-minator.”

It made a lot of sense, really. The faded Twilight Sparkle colors had lightened to pink and purple, and the thing needed a mask to hide the fact that its face was coming off. Also, we’d seen building evidence that it was evil, or at least out to get me.

“So now you finally know who will be the author of your undoing,” said Starlight. “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone. You thought it was okay to be an individual. And we’re not going to let you get away with it.”

“Pardon me, but I’m not going to let you get away with being such Communists,” I said. “And I’m also kind of pissed that you have the nerve to still pretend to be in the right here.”

“What about all the times you’ve hurt ponies or spied on them with your huge network?” Starlight shot back.

“That’s why I know I’m in the right. I know everything. And while we’ve been talking, I’ve been surrounding this hill with armored vehicles.”

“About that,” said Applejack in my communicator. “If you wanted us to do some maneuver you should have clearly said so instead of just talking and hoping we’d take the hint.”

“And since I ordered six tanks to surround the hill they should be arriving any second now,” I said.

“Well, why should we?” said Twilight through the communicator.

Still trying to conceal the fact that I was having a covert conversation, I pointed at the FHHA. “If anyone wanted to take over Equestria and make everyone the same by stripping them of their cutie marks, it would be the Four and a Half Horses of the Apocalypse who have come to Ponyville as is tradition for villians.”

“You could have just said so,” remarked Rarity. At least I finally heard the sounds of engines moving.

“You think you can just surround us?” Starlight sneered. Again, I used my imagination for her expressions. “We didn’t create an army and invade Equestria by being surroundable.”

“Well, your army isn’t here,” I pointed out. “And now you’re pretty surrounded.”

All six tanks crested the hill just then. I imagined Starlight looked surprised.

Just then, Limestone and Braeburn appeared. She wore her usual look of scorn and he seemed worried.

“Valiant, where is Tin Mare?” Braeburn asked.

“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” I pointed out. “Like, really potentially world-rending stuff.”

“I’m just worried about her,” he said. “I heard there’s a war and that she’s fighting in it. I found Limestone and got her to bring me to you.”

“I wanted to see where you were because I thought there might be ponies to fight,” said Limestone. She glanced at the five masked mares. “Looks like I was right.”

“Yeah, Braeburn, Tin Mare is off fighting the war. That’s literally what she was built for. She’s good at it. Why are you worried?”

“I just…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

He walked away and I turned back to where Limestone was staring down the FHHA, who were nervously staring at the tanks. Again I had to imagine the nervous expressions.

“Anyway, back to business. I believe we were in the middle of stopping you all,” I said.

Starlight looked at me. “You really thought we’d come here and let you stop us?”

I held up a hoof. “I mean, yeah, I kind of did. I am sort of God around here.”

“Well, I bet you didn’t plan for this!” Starlight lit up her horn and they all vanished in a flash.

I frowned. No I hadn’t. At least I quickly came up with a pretty good comeback line. “Cowardly running away? I guess I’m more intimidating than I thought.”

“What just happened?” said Wind Rider.

Rainbow peeped out of her tank, but managed to keep her rampant fangirling to herself. Firefly had just admitted that she’d been the one to actually do the crime, but I wasn’t about to let Rainbow know.

“So, we’re in the middle of a fight with an army of ponies who want to take over Equestria and remove everyone’s cutie mark,” I said.

“You called them ‘Communists?’” said Lightning Dust.

“It’s an easier way to say ‘an army of ponies who want to take over Equestria and remove everyone’s cutie mark.’”

I turned to Limestone. “How are the fighting positions for the tanks going?”

“How should I know?” she said. “I’m not there.”

“What about Maud?”

“I’ve been with Rarity,” said Maud, coming out the hatch on Rarity’s tank. “Dirt by itself isn’t very interesting. She’s a lot more interesting than dirt.”

Rarity made a grumbling noise.

“So we don’t have anywhere safe to park the tanks to wait for the invasion?” I said. “Great. So we might as well just go meet them head-on.”

“That sounds like a terrible idea,” Rainbow protested. “Worse than that time Guinness bought me engagement ring that was sized to fit a horn.”

“What now?” I said.

“It happened while you were in space,” said Twilight. “We sometimes joke about it. It was funnier if you were there.”

“A joke I don’t get? Funnier if I was there?” I shook my head. “Since when have you guys had inside jokes? I didn’t think you were that cool.”

“We’re that cool!” Twilight protested.

“Yeah right. Well, I have inside jokes too.” I tapped my earpiece. “Hey Guinness, what's the difference between OJ Simpson and Colonel Sanders?”

“I’m a little busy right now,” he replied testily. I heard explosions in the background.

“Fine, I’ll tell you. Colonel Sanders cuts his chicks up before he batters them.” I laughed.

“I have lots of inside jokes!” said Pinkie. She grinned. “Mostly inside Fluttershy.”

Sometimes I think Pinkie really takes the “the” out of psychotherapist.

“Anyway, we should probably get going if we’re going to engage this army,” I said. “Come on.”

A few of the girls looked a little indignant, but dutifully followed me in their tanks. Limestone and I caught a ride on the fenders of Applejack’s, which led the column.

“So, war,” said Wind Rider, flying alongside.

“Shove off,” I said. “Air power never won a war without boots on the ground.”

“Um, isn’t that what Tin Mare is for?” Fluttershy contributed mildly.

“No, she’s a completely dominant force,” I said. “So advanced that there’s nothing that can touch her. Unlike these stunt pegasi.”

“Well, if that’s how you feel.” Wind Rider and the Wonderbolts flew off in a huff.

Under my direction, the tanks paraded through Ponyville. I wanted to stop and pick up Sunset, Trixie, and Cordoba.

I spotted the mysterious grey tank hanging around. It seemed to be having a conversation with an anthropomorphic red miasma. Strange.

But I had other things on my mind. We stopped at my place. The portable command and control gear was already packed up and Sunset lifted it up to me.

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to run our ops out of here,” I said to Applejack. “Tell your meat puppets not to touch anything.”

She muttered something under her breath, but let me set up the equipment to communicate with Tin Mare and download satellite feeds.

Sunset joined Twilight in her tank. Trixie went with Pinkie. I assigned Limestone to Rainbow. I could only imagine what two personalities like that would do when cooped up together, and I couldn’t wait to find out. Rarity already had Maud with her, so I sent Cordoba to ride with Fluttershy.

We got going again. I did a radio check. Riding off into battle, it seemed like it was time for some motivation.

“None of you are strangers to combat,” I began. “Feels like I’ve given this speech before, but it’s true. We’ve all kicked a lot of ass together.”

I paused. “We’re facing a challenge now stronger than anything we’ve ever dealt with before. Okay, maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but there’s still thousands of Commies out there that would like nothing more than to assimilate you.”

“I didn’t think they were really Communist,” said Rarity.

“We really needed something that was shorter and easier to say than ‘equals-sign cutie mark ponies.’”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

“So, onward we quest and in front of us lies gratuitous amounts of bad guys in need of a beating. We’re going to kill those Commie bastards and use their guts to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to go through the enemy like shit though a goose.”

“I don’t think intestines make very good lubricant,” Twilight commented.

“What has the goose been eating?” asked Fluttershy.

“That’s not…” I shook my head, but before I could speak again, I heard Braeburn hailing us. Applejack stopped her tank.

I stuck my head out. “What do you want?”

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“We’re going to the front lines. Tin Mare and Guinness are already out there, doing a little softening so we should be able to just roll up and lay the smack down.”

“I want to go,” he said.

I looked him up and down. “All right. Hop in.”

He joined me, Applejack, the equipment, and AJ’s meat puppets in the tank.

“Anyway, as I was saying, we’re going to go be badass now.”

We drove out of town. I was thinking about what I was going to say when I killed Starlight Glimmer. “Better dead than red” seemed nice, but she was pink. Eh, close enough.

So we went to war. And good times were had by me, which is all that matters.

The Hooffields and McColts

In our tanks, we went pretty much wherever we wanted. No roads? No problem. Somebody’s house in the way? Also no problem.

“What was that?” Applejack asked.

I glanced at her from where I lounged in the open hatch at the top of the turret. “Nothing. Anymore.”

“Are you sure?”

“Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. I know everything. Part of being God.”

Applejack gave me a look, but by now she knew not to dispute me. She called it “pointless to argue with crazy,” but I knew what she meant.

We drove for a while out of Ponyville. Up ahead, I could see a pair of hills. I consulted the map. “Aha, the Smokey Mountains.”

The communicator had been turned on, and Pinkie replied, “Why do they call them the Smokey Mountains? I don’t see any smoke.”

“Perhaps it’s prophetic about the fiery hell we’re about to rain down on our enemies,” I mused. “If we set up shop on those hills, we’ll be in a great position.”

“How do you know?” said Rainbow.

“Because getting the high ground is an age-old military tactic for gaining an advantage.”

“No, I mean the thing about the name of the Smokey Mountains. Is that really why they’re named that?”

I wasn’t in the mood to argue with Rainbow. “Of course it is. I know everything. You remember that huge surveillance system I have?”

As we got closer, Sunset noted, “There’s already a fort on top the hill on the right.”

Sure enough, there was. I pointed a hoof. “Twilight, Rainbow, Rarity, drive up that one. Everyone else, up the other.”

Applejack, Braeburn, and I led the column up the hill on the left, followed by Pinkie and Trixie in the next tank and Fluttershy, Cordoba, and Fluttershy’s slaves bringing up the rear.

Over on the other hill, I could see Sunset looking out the top hatch of Twilight’s tank and surveying the area ahead. In the next tank, Limestone and Rainbow seemed to be fighting, but kept up the pace. In Rarity’s tank, she and Maud gave them their distance.

Sunset had the Desert Eagle I’d loaned her. While Twilight, knowing Twilight, probably wanted nothing to do with it, I remembered she had also used the pistol once. Trixie, of course, had her M60.

When my group reached the top of our hill, I spotted a group of ponies busy loading catapults, cannons, and slingshots. They weren’t aimed at us, so I ambled over. “Hey, name’s Valiant. There’s about to be a war here, so you might want to clear out.”

“There already is!” an old mare shouted at me. They started shooting vegetables across at the other hill. Most of them hit the fort.

I frowned. “No, like, an actual shooting war with armies and stuff. They’re trying to take over Equestria and we’re going to set up a position here to stop them.”

“Ain’t got time for that,” she said.

“Well, that’s too bad.”

“Do you know what them McColts have done to us Hooffields?”

“Of course. I know everything.” Actually, I just didn’t care.

“Then you know that ain’t nothing more important than this! We ain’t gonna stop fightin’ until they stop!”

Bales of hay began arriving in retaliation from the other fort, crashing down around us.

I rolled my eyes. “God, I hate peacekeeping operations.” I tapped my earpiece. “Sunset, get those ponies over there to cut that shit out. I’m going to stop these over here.”

“Roger that.”

I turned and announced, “If you don’t cut this shit out, I’m going to murder every last one of you.”

That got their attention.

“Put your hooves on your head and get over there by that miserable looking shed,” I said.

“That’s our house.”

“Then put your hooves on your head and get over there by that miserable looking house.”

“How are we supposed to walk with our hooves on our heads?” one asked.

I stared at him. “Do the worm.”

While they were busy, I ordered the others to position their tanks to look out on the valley below. I also decided that we might be able to repurpose the Hooffields’ weapons.

I heard a shot from the other hill. Glancing over, I saw that Sunset was executing prisoners. Huh.

Cordoba, otherwise unoccupied, was practicing with her just-my-size cutlass. I’d have to get her a gun of her own someday. Maybe on her birthday.

I took a walk around the top of the hill. The farm seemed well stocked. Hopefully we wouldn’t be sieged long enough to require food, but it was nice for just in case planning. My strategy was to use the valley as a choke point and have our superior weapons tear up the advancing army.

I glanced inside the miserable looking house. There was a very large cake there. I was immediately suspicious. Nobody had a cake that nice in a house that miserable.

“What’s this?” I asked the ponies that were worming their way over.

“It’s just a cake,” one of them replied, a little too quickly.

My eyes narrowed. “Really? Are you sure it isn’t a lie?”

I turned. “Hey Pinkie, come over here and tell me if this is a legit cake.”

“Why don’t I just poke it?” said Cordoba.

I shrugged. “Or that.”

Cordoba ran it through with her cutlass. There was a shriek and two ponies burst out the top of the cake. There was a third one in there, but he seemed to be in the process of dying from a stab wound.

As Cordoba tried to get her cutlass unstuck from the cake, the two ponies that had previously been inside grabbed her.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Let her go!”

Cordoba struggled, gasping, with the mares’s hooves around her neck. I hit the offender in the nose so hard that it inverted into her brain. The stallion that was with her started forward, but I grabbed the mare by the hind legs and swung her towards him. “I’m gonna beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker!”

The other Hooffields tried to intervene, but I was in the zone. The whole thing was over quickly, and I was left breathing hard and surrounded by dead motherfuckers.

Maybe literally. These were hillbillies we were talking about.

“Well…shit.” I turned to Cordoba. “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” There was a bruise on her neck, but she seemed more pissed than anything.

“What happened over there?” Sunset called.

“We’ve got the whole place to ourselves now,” I replied.

“So do we over here.”

“Perfect. We shouldn’t be interrupted again before the Commies come along.” Though it was a little disappointing that we had to fight just so we could fight.

I took a walk around the top of the hill. Everything was set up and I let my eyes wander. I realized the primary color theme on this hill was red. Everything seemed to be shades of it. Over on the other hill the theme was blue. Well, except for the splashes of blood, but Sunset had been neat and there wasn’t much of that.

I frowned as I looked at the blood on our side. There were a few strange patterns in the splatterns that I hadn’t noticed until that moment. As I looked further, I noticed a strange red miasma that seemed to be permeating the area. When it spoke to me, I knew things were going to get weird.

“Are you the one known as Plymouth Valiant?” asked a deep inhuman voice.

“What’s it to you?”

“I have come from the underworld to kill you.”

“Nuh uh.”

“You can’t say ‘nuh uh’ to death!”

“I just did. What are you going to do about it?”

“Kill you.”

“Oh, that’s real original. That’d be like giving me exactly what I asked for.”

The supposedly from-the-underworld voice paused at my logic. I went on. “In fact, why don’t you become corporeal and come say that to my face?”

“You know not what you will unleash, mortal.”

“I know everything! And who are you calling mortal? So are you going to do it or not? Are you chicken?”

The voice made an annoyed noise and then announced, “Very well, I will teach you a lesson.”

A very satanic form began to coalesce out of thin air. I shouted, “Get him!”

Pinkie was the first one to spin her tank’s turret around and fire. I hadn’t taken the precaution of laying a holy blessing on the ammunition or anything, but getting a HEAT shell through the chest will ruin anyone’s day.

“Is everything okay over there?” Sunset called. I almost missed the question, because my ears were ringing.

“Yeah. It was a demon, but we handled it.”

I heard the boom of a tank shooting at something from the other hill.

“Is everything okay over there?” I asked.

“Yeah. It was an angel, but we handled it.”

“An angel?”

“That’s what he said he was. He was looking for you.”

“Huh.” I frowned. This, combined with the various satanic and angelic runes that kept popping up should have been telling me something important.

“So…what was that all about?” Applejack asked. “Do you know?”

“Of course I know. I know everything. It means that an exciting new front has opened in the war. While we can’t prove a link between the Commies and Heaven and Hell, they at least seem to share a common goal of being hostile and I find that very interesting and worthy of further study.”

“It sounds like you don’t know,” said Applejack.

“Shut up. I know.”

I took a look around our hilltop. Pinkie casually leaned on her battleaxe. It had been a while since I’d seen it, since we fought Tirek. Fluttershy was speaking to a small group of animals, appearing to host an impromtu book club meeting. Applejack and Braeburn talked quietly over by her tank. Cordoba was making a pot of coffee on a tank’s hot exhaust.

“Never a dull moment, huh dad?” said Trixie. Her machine gun was slung across her back.

“You got that right.”

Trixie didn’t continue the conversation. I glanced at her. She seemed off, somehow. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s Daring. I haven’t heard from her in days and haven’t seen her in weeks. I asked her for help with this but she didn’t show up. We’re better together.”

“Are you worried?”

Trixie swallowed and looked at the ground. “No, but I…okay, maybe. You know how Daring always said she had an exit strategy for everything?”

“Are you sure she’s trying to get away from you?”

Trixie shrugged.

“Look, whatever happens, you’ll get through it. I know it. If it comes to that, we’ll handle it.” I smiled.

We were interrupted when Rarity called, “I say, is that an army advancing in our direction?”

I ran to the edge of the hill. “Nah, looks like a scouting party…of several hundred.”

“What do we do?” Fluttershy asked, wide-eyed.

“Button up!” I called. “Load frag shells!”

We all got into the tanks, slamming hatches down behind us. The oncoming group was pretty large. Maybe my estimate of several hundred was optimistic, but there were at least a couple hundred.

“Fire at will!”

We started raining death. Between all of us in Applejack’s tank, the work went quickly, and I could hear cannons popping from both hills.

Unicorns started shooting back. Pegasi soared out of danger and raced towards the tops of the hills. Seeing the oncoming threat, I said, “I’m going outside. Sunset, Trixe, Limestone, come on!”

I reached into my stash and pulled out some earplugs, putting them in before throwing open the hatch. A shot of magic glanced off the armor at the front of the turret and I ducked it, swearing under my breath.

The pegasi were nearly on us. I heard Trixie open up with her M60. One stallion came at me and I punched him down.

Across the way, I saw Limestone screaming and flailing with the attackers while Sunset covered her with backup gunfire.

Trixie seemed well covered behind Pinkie’s tank. I turned in the open hatch and grabbed the .50 cal mounted there.

The tank cannons started to go quiet as the army got close enough that they could take shelter at the base of the hills where the cannons couldn’t point down far enough. Realizing this, the others in the tanks also started to man up the machine guns.

Maud was throwing rocks, but being Maud, they were actually boulders. Pinkie was swinging her axe around. Rainbow was doing her dragon thing. Twilight looked reluctant but had shielded her hilltop and was contributing a few retaliatory spells.

Cordoba cut some pegasus’ head off in an aerial battle. Damn.

It took some work to turn the tide of the attack, and my hilltop got it worse because we didn’t have a fancy fort, but we finished the job. There were no serious injuries on our side, though all of the tanks were showing paint damage.

Things fell quiet. It had been pretty hot and heavy there for a while. At least these Commies, smarter than zombies and drug fiends that they might have been, were still not well versed in combat. I personally took credit for getting the girls exposed to that kind of training early on.

But we’d only defeated a fraction of the whole enemy force.

I sat down, leaning against a tank tread. Applejack came over. “We’re almost out of ammo.”

I stared at her. “We didn’t bring enough ammo?”

“I thought you knew about things like this.”

“I do know! I’m going to chalk this up to a lack of the ‘one shot, one kill’ policy. And I thought you ponies were big into conservation, what with your environmental consciousness and animal husbandry and shit.”

She gave me a look and walked away. I sighed and got up. Better go check how things were going elsewhere.

I climbed into Applejack’s tank. Braeburn was staring blankly at the comms equipment inside. “This is to talk to Tin Mare, right?”

“Among other things. Speaking of.” I pulled up Tin Mare’s telemetry. She’d expended about half her ammo. I connected into her and Guinness’ link. “Yo. ‘Sup?”

“We are in so much trouble!” Guinness said, without even greeting me.

“What are you talking about? Is something on fire?”

“It could be more on fire,” Tin Mare replied.

“I don’t even know what ‘it’ is, but make it so.”

“I would, were I able.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I am unable to maneuver effectively in order to get into firing position,” Tin Mare reported. “There has been significant ground fire from unicorns. In addition, pegasi are attempting to intercept.”

“Wait, so they’re actually kind of competent?” I asked.

“Yes!” Guinness shouted. “Didn’t you know?”

“Of course I know.” I pulled up the satellite feeds. One of them was out. Strange. All it was showing was a weird oscillating light. As I watched, there was a flash, and another screen was blocked.

“Son of a bitch.” They must be blinding the cameras with unicorn lasers.

“I’m getting out of here,” said Guinness. “They’re about to overrun my position. We took out a few of them when we still had the element of surprise, but there’s just too many. And they’re smart.”

The locater beacon in his transmitter started to move. In the satellite feed, I saw unicorns shooting at him and pegasi on his tail.

“Tin Mare, cover him.”

She was already on it. I saw the pursuing pegasi scatter as she roared through their airspace, one of them catching the leading edge of her wing with his face. Then, another unicorn blinded the last satellite.

“Tin Mare, verbal status report.”

“Evading. Maneuverability restricted by heavy fire. Hit: cosmetic damage to left wing. Hit: afterburner vanes jammed. Hit: catastrophic struct-”

“…Tin Mare?”

Silence.

“What’s going on?” Braeburn demanded.

I stared at the radio. “I don’t know.”

The Mane Attraction

“We have to go rescue Tin Mare,” Braeburn insisted.

“Didn’t you hear? The position was overrun by the main body of the Commie army,” I reminded him. “We held off a scouting force here and it cost us most of our ammo. They have to know where we are now and are coming this way. We’re going to pull back to Ponyville and rearm.”

“But we can’t just abandon her!”

“Look, I don’t like it either, and once this is all over, we’ll go looking. But she threw herself into the fire to save Guinness. It’s what she was made to do. It’s terrible, and I do genuinely feel bad, but us going head-on at an army of thousands to see if she’s still alive would be stupid. Even she would say it was stupid.”

Braeburn stared at me for a long moment. “I don’t care.”

I stared at him right back. “Wow, I feel really conflicted about this. On the one hand it would be a dick move of me to deny such burning passion, but on the other, you’ve got the hots for a robot.”

Braeburn turned and began stomping away.

“Hey, wait!” I called. He turned. I grabbed a piece of equipment out of the makeshift command center of Applejack’s tank. I brought it over. “Stand still.”

Braeburn looked uncomfortable as I popped open the front panel of his metal chest cavity, but a quick few connections later, I was done and closed him back up.

“What did you do?”

“That’s a locator beacon,” I said. “I hooked it up to your power supply. It should track on Tin Mare.”

He gave me a look that I guessed was slightly less hostile than before. Hard to tell with his cyborg vision visor. He turned and walked down the hill.

I turned to the others and made circles in the air with my hoof. “All right, let’s move out. Back to Ponyville to rearm and dig in.”

“Are we having the final battle there?” Trixie asked.

“That’s the idea. Probably their idea, too. Final battles always happen in Ponyville.”

“Except that one time it happened in Canterlot,” Applejack pointed out.

“The exception that proves the rule,” I said.

“I’ve never understood that expression,” said Rarity. “If there are exceptions, it’s not a very good rule.”

“But surely you see the preponderance of the data is skewed heavily towards Ponyville as a chosen location of strife,” I argued.

“And how,” contributed Pinkie.

All of them mounted up. I hated to abandon our strategic outpost on the hills, but despite the location, we wouldn’t be able to hold it without supplies.

On the way back to Ponyville, I planned the forthcoming battle. With more ammo and knowledge of the terrain we’d have a better chance. Tin Mare’s attack had definitely bought us some time. We’d have maybe one more day to prepare.

Civilian casualties were to be expected, but perhaps we could use that to our advantage. Not that we were intentionally going to use pony shields or anything, but if the enemy wanted to waste their effort attacking noncombatants that was no skin off my nose. I can be a very uncaring God. Got to go for realism, I always say.

Rolling back into town, we raided the warehouse for ammo. When every chamber and magazine was full, we took stock.

“You know what would really help?” I said. “If we organized some sort of benefit event. I mean, it’s a given that the town is going to get trashed. We might as well plan ahead.”

Twilight sighed. “Given the track record of villains around here, that might be true.”

An event in town center would also distract attention from our fighting forces. But if I said that, Twilight would probably freak out or something.

We quickly threw together the so-called Helping Hooves music festival. Applejack handled the construction of the main stage and event center and managed the schedule. Pinkie went to round up last-minute guests.

She came bouncing back into our midst. “I have the most amazing news ever! It’s totally going to freak your frizz! I managed to book the biggest pop star in all of Equestria!”

“Me?” I said.

As planned, the conversation came to a screeching halt.

“What are you talking about?” Twilight demanded. “I know you can’t sing.”

“Yeah, but I can play keytar. That adds another layer to my already hextuple threat.”

“I don’t even…” Twilight shook her head.

“It’s Countess Coloratura!” Pinkie announced.

“Who?” said Applejack.

“Only the biggest pony pop star in all of Equestria!” Pinkie gasped. “How have you not heard of her?”

“Well now, I ain’t exactly a pop music fan. Though I did know a gal named Coloratura when I was just a filly.” Applejack laughed. “Wouldn't it just be the funniest thing if that Coloratura and this Coloratura were the same Coloratura?”

“Not really,” I said. “Because there are no coincidences in Equestria.”

“Do you mean to tell me that you actually know Countess Coloratura?” Pinkie shouted. “Do you have any idea the number of hoops I had to jump through to get her to perform at the festival? A whole lot of hoops! That pony is very demanding!”

“I completely understand,” said Rarity. “We artistes require certain necessities in order to do our best work.”

You might say that Rarity’s comment colored my perception of the so-called Countess Coloratura. I wondered what Cheerilee would think.

“I don’t care,” she said when I told her. “Just because I sometimes call myself a Countess as part of a cover identity doesn’t mean I have any interest in pop stars.”

“That’s what I thought you would say. Now, what do you think about an advancing army of equals-sign cutie mark ponies about to attack Ponyville?”

Cheerilee’s eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”

“Oh, bombed them a little and went on an expedition that destroyed one of their scouting parties so they aren’t at full strength anymore. But they’re still coming and I’m sure the Princesses would like them stopped.”

Cheerilee glared at me, but I wasn’t directly asking her to do anything, so she would probably check with the powers that be and then probably kick some ass. And if she knew that I knew that she didn’t know I was manipulating her she wouldn’t be pleased.

I walked through the center of town. Pinkie was freaking out about something. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to get freshly picked cherries from Cherry Jubilee’s farm when she lives in Dodge Junction and has been dead for weeks? Or Appleoosan Oats when Appleoosa is still getting back on its feet from being destroyed? Or an entire trainload of walnuts?”

Pinkie was apparently right when she said Coloratura was demanding.

And speaking of Coloratura, she showed up in town inside a polygon.

“The hell is that?” I said, mostly to myself because no one else was around.

When smoke rolled out and a mare who was apparently Coloratura stepped down accompanied by half a dozen edgy-looking ponies, I added, “The hell is this?”

“Countess Coloratura is only the most famous pop star in Equestria,” said a stallion in a suit, voice dripping with pompousness.

“The hell are you?”

“My name is Svengallop, manager for Countess Coloratura.”

“Okay.” I shrugged. “Whatever.”

He frowned at me. “That should mean something. Is everypony in this podunk town as ignorant and simple as you?”

“Ignorant and simple?” I don’t know why, but I took special offense to that. It’s not like I wasn’t running the war against Equestria’s greatest enemy and simultaneously being God.

“Ignorant and simple,” I repeated. I turned my head and whistled. “Hey Cordoba! Come castrate this fool.”

“What?” he demanded. “What are you-”

Cordoba came from the sky, landing behind him. She’d started to lift his tail before he realized the full extent of my words.

“Stop!” he screeched. “Why are you doing this?” His last few words were a little garbled because I’d wrapped him up in a headlock.

“I don’t like you,” I said. “So we’re cutting your nuts off.”

Ponies in the street around us stared as Cordoba and I worked on it in the middle of the street.. She was pretty handy with her cutlass, but it wasn’t exactly a precision instrument.

Working on “it,” by the way can refer to both the job and Svengallop’s new gender. See what I did there?

While we were busy, Coloratura was meeting the locals and giving them hoof-shaped stamps on the face. Apparently this was a thing.

The girls were all caught up in it. As things turned out, this actually was the same pony Applejack remembered.

Coloratura started getting tuned up for the show. It wasn’t an official performance, but the girls seemed to enjoy the brief concert. Pinkie had a beverage and was sipping on it with an assortment of straws.

She waved at me as I came over. “Valiant! Look at all my straws! I call this one Fernando.”

“Don’t call my name,” I said.

“Oh, why not?” she asked.

“Now Svengallop might go from calling me a psychopath to calling me Valiant. He really seemed to think it was important to know who maimed him.”

“Did I hear something about Svengallop being hurt?” asked Coloratura from the stage. She’d apparently overheard during a pause between songs.

“He lost his testicles,” I said. “Are you sure you want someone that forgetful managing you?”

She frowned. “But without a manager how am I supposed to keep track of every event I attend?”

“I have your itinerary right here,” offered Pinkie.

“And I managed the organization of this here music festival, so I can probably help you manage your schedule,” Applejack offered.

“Well, okay, AJ,” said Coloratura. “I know this charity event is important to us all.”

They went to the next event, at the school apparently. I headed for my place and checked in. Sunset had been keeping an eye on things from the control center there.

“Guinness is back,” she said. “In one piece, too.”

“Good. I’ll have to go debrief him. Talk to him about the mission, too.”

I looked around the shop. There were bits and pieces here and there that I’d really like to get working in time for the battle. Like the 30mm gatling cannon in the corner. But if we were expecting the army to arrive soon there wasn’t time.

I left and headed over to the Half Pint. Guinness was there, looking tired but happy to be back to doing something mundane like washing glasses.

I sat down at the bar. He came over and poured me tequila. I asked, “So what did you learn about the McEqualsign douchebags?”

“They’re persistent,” he said. “If they were pushing a specific form of government, I’d even agree with you in calling them Communists. I’m surprised that they’ve collected such a large following already.”

“Well, they had to find so many like-minded ponies somewhere. Maybe they have conventions for this kind of thing.” I smiled. “Commie Con.”

“Are you literally planning to kill them all?” he asked. “That seems like a tall order. Plus, there have to be a few of them who are having reservations.”

“Well, what do you propose? Some kind of place where they can go to be rehabilitated in a safe environment? Perhaps outdoors because there’s a lot of them, someplace where they can get some fresh air. Like a camp, maybe. A camp where they can concentrate on not being such bad ponies.”

Guinness rolled his eyes. Back to a more serious note, he suggested, “We could send them somewhere else and let them manage themselves. A penal colony.”

“As long as it isn’t a penile colony.” I decided to change the subject back to the army’s prowess. “So what did you see out there? They started blinding my sensors.”

“They’ve got reasonable small unit tactics,” Guinness said. “They’re less apt with strategic movements.”

“They probably don’t have anypony with experience as a General,” I noted.

“Thank God,” he said.

You’re welcome, said a recording of my voice.

Guinness looked around and then stared at me. I shrugged. “I’m trying out some work-saving techniques.”

He shook his head. I finished my tequila and stepped out the door.

I frowned, staring at the ground. While I’d been inside the pub, someone had scratched various runes, both Angelic and Satanic, on the ground. Stepping carefully, I avoided them.

However, with my attention on the ground, I didn’t notice the train car that was about to land on me until it did.

It’s kind of an unexpected thing to get a multi-ton object dropped on you in the middle of town. That would have been bad enough. What made it worse was the fact that the car was full of shelled walnuts.

I stumbled out of the wreckage already beginning to wheeze in allergic reaction. In stumbling, I didn’t notice that I’d stepped into a mass of runes until I found it quite difficult to lift my hooves.

Guinness burst out of the pub, probably wondering what that loud crash was. “Hey,” he called. “Is everypony okay?”

I managed, “When I find out who did this-”

That’s when Starlight Glimmer teleported in, looking quite pleased with herself. Also, the grey tank came rolling down the street and a figure cloaked in an evil red glow began to rise from a nearby circle of runes.

All three parties looked a little surprised to see each other. The tank spoke. “While we may have our differences, I might suggest that we put those aside for the time being considering the circumstances.”

“Sure,” I said. “You take the one on the right.”

“I was not speaking to you,” it replied.

“Oh. Oh.” I looked at the three of them. “So that’s how this is going to be. Do you have any idea who I am? I’ve got training, experience, and all kinds of tricks for a situation like this.”

Speaking of tricks, Trixie showed up just then, down the street. Sunset and Cordoba were with her, and the rest of the girls not far behind.

More confident now, I went on. “So you three think you have what it takes? Well, y’all ready for this?”

Nothing happened. Starlight smirked. “I took the liberty of stripping you of anything that makes you special.”

“Oh shit, they were ready for that,” I muttered under my breath. In a louder voice, I said, “Oh yeah? What are you going to do about it?”

The tank spoke. “I am the Recording Angel of Heaven. I am the representative of the Word of the one true God.”

“Oh!” Guinness clopped his hoof to his forehead. “I get it now!”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded.

He grinned. “As a Catholic and a nerd, I think I’m uniquely qualified to explain the situation. This isn’t Megatron. It’s Metatron.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“It is my name,” the tank confirmed, steering the conversation back on topic. “I took this form in order to blend in in this town while I saw for myself your deeds and decided your sentence.”

“Blend in?” I said. “What, did you misidentify the dominant life form on this planet?”

“Silence him,” said Metatron.

The nearby demon kicked me in the face, knocking me flat against the wall of the nearby building and spiking each of my limbs solidly in place. Blood instantly started to pour.

Hurt doesn’t begin to describe it.

Joke’s on them, though. It didn’t silence me at all.

Between screams, I managed to ask, “So is this whole position with me vertical and forelimbs outstretched to either side coincidence, or something?”

“It is standard procedure,” said Metatron.

Down the street, through my blurry allergic vision, I saw Twilight’s eyes open wide. I managed to work in one grin between screams, just for her. Yep, getting crucified just like the messiah.

From somewhere, I heard a piano and singing. “Equestria, the land I love. A land of harmony. Our flag does wave from high above…” Were they playing the national anthem? Freaking now of all times?

When I turned my head back, the end of the tank’s cannon touched my chest. As well as I was able, I made rude gestures.

“Darkness is washed away by the light and so too we take action to wash away those that threaten the very balance of existence. In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, Satan, concerned citizens, PETA, et al…”

“…amen.”

Author's Note

Remember folks, you did this.

The Cutie Re-Mark - part 1

The girls stared, or at least as much as they could when they had to keep looking away.

Twilight grimaced. “We should probably clean up. At least get this off the street. You know how to deal with dead bodies, right Applejack?”

“What in tarnation are you talkin’ about?” Applejack demanded. “Ain’t no way I’m eatin’ Valiant. I don’t even want to think about what that could do to me.”

“I didn’t mean eat him! I’m just saying since you’re the only one who’s ever had to deal with dead ponies before, what with Granny Smith and your parents.”

“That’s only a slightly better reason,” Applejack growled. She glanced back at the body nailed to the wall and wished she hadn’t. “I guess we should start by gettin’ him down.”

It would have been bad enough with a bloody body, but open wounds, allergic reaction, and the hoof-sized cannon hole meant that they were left with little more than a pile of meat. That was probably a fetish, but none of theirs.

Twilight glanced at the wall. The blood spray had marked an obvious cross on it, mimicking the pattern of how the body was pinned up. She frowned.

Rarity looked with distaste at the whole thing. “What are we going to do about his...fingers?”

“Oh, I taught him that trick,” said Pinkie. “Don’t know why he picked the middle ones, though.”

As a veterinarian, Fluttershy was not as squeamish as one might think when it came to blood, but her position during this affair was at Sunset’s side. She was the one most obviously in need of comfort, bawling inconsolably. Trixie wore a shellshocked look, and had taken Cordoba a short distance down the street, facing away.

“Well, he went out the way he would have wanted,” remarked Rainbow. “It was even broadcast across all of Equestria in primetime by the viewspells set up for Countess Coloratura’s concert.”

“Knowing Valiant, he’d be proud of the fact that Heaven and Hell had to team up to kill him,” added Guinness.

While most every pony in the country may now have known what happened to Valiant, one in particular was not in the loop because he was up to his neck in saving a fellow cyborg.

Braeburn cursed Valiant on a regular basis, though moreso than usual now. He’d had to dodge a few enemy patrols and a stallion such as himself covered in metal was no easy pony to hide.

The beacon to Tin Mare led him forward. He wasn’t sure how much further he had to travel, when suddenly he found a jagged scrap to metal embedded in the ground. He lifted it, noting how light and stiff it seemed to be. Perhaps it was some of the titanium Tin Mare had mentioned. He must be getting close.

On a hillside covered in hoofprints and the signs of battle, he found the rest of her. Metal, wires, and devices for which he had no name were scattered in a trail that had been burned clear by spilled jet fuel.

And in the middle of it all, he found her brain.

In Ponyville, the girls tried to figure out what to do next. “We could wrap him in a tarp and leave him in the barn until we get everything else done,” suggested Applejack.

“What else do we have to do?” asked Twilight.

“The whole war thing.”

“Oh! Ohmygosh, how could I forget we’re about to be invaded.” Twilight jittered nervously.

“Valiant left us the tools to handle it,” Applejack pointed out. “We don’t have another choice.”

“If he’s dead, do you think they’ll be satisfied?” Rarity asked.

“Killin’ Valiant was never their main goal,” Applejack said. “Remember when we first met these equals-sign ponies? He wasn’t even there. No, they’re going to keep going until we’ve all been stripped of cutie marks.”

“Well, if that’s all they want, is it worth the violence of fighting?” asked Fluttershy.

“I don’t like fighting,” said Twilight. “I especially despise fighting for Valiant’s cause. But we can’t give up our cutie marks. You saw that town Starlight Glimmer was running. Can you imagine all of Equestria being that way?”

Fluttershy nodded. “Okay. I just wanted to hear that we all believed in the cause.”

“Well, why did you single me out?” Twilight demanded.

“I didn’t,” Fluttershy pointed out. “You responded to my question. But you were also the one who I needed reassurance from. We all know that Pinkie and Rainbow are okay with violence. Rarity certainly wouldn’t let anypony take away her special talent. Applejack would fight because it’s the right thing to do. Meanwhile, you’re just the Element of Magic.”

“What do you mean just the Element of Magic?” Twilight shouted. “Do you know how many problems I’ve solved with magic alone?”

“Yes, but that’s not really related to friendship when you think about it,” said Fluttershy. “Blasting ponies with magic is not the same as actually making friends. Besides, Starlight Glimmer is more powerful than you, so-”

“Excuse me,” interrupted Twilight. “Since when?”

“You bragged about being so powerful when we met Starlight for the first time, talking about how you were Princess Celestia’s personal student selected based on magical talent and also briefly an alicorn, but even though Starlight didn’t have any of those advantages that you had, she held her own against you until Pinkie melted her face off. And judging by the way she built an army, it seems like Starlight’s gotten even more powerful from there.”

Twilight’s face twitched.

Fluttershy looked away. “I’m sorry. That was so unlike me. I’ve been having more trouble controlling the chaos lately. It must be the war.”

Applejack stepped in. “Y’all quit your bickerin’ and put it behind you. We’ve all got to come together and take a stand here because if we don’t that army is going to take over all of Equestria.”

They went for the tanks, Guinness going with Rainbow. On the way, Twilight stopped by the library to pick up Spike. He would want to be there. She also thought it would be a good idea to keep an eye on him during the war.

Applejack spotted the Cutie Mark Crusaders packing up some equipment into a wagon. “Hey sis!” called Apple Bloom. “Cousin Braeburn asked us for a favor. We’re off to Hoofsen Bay.”

Applejack nodded. It would be better for them to get out of town. “All right. Stay out of trouble.”

The girls loaded up in their tanks. Applejack found a pair of binoculars Valiant had left behind and looked out on the fields and meadows around the town. For a while, nothing happened.

It was easy to spot the army when they did eventually show up, though. The crowd of marching ponies with pegasi for air cover blanketed the land.

“There they are!” Applejack called.

The six of them traded glances. Their tanks were lined up at the edge of town, a defensive line protecting Ponyville. As one, they slammed their armored hatches shut and prepared for battle.

Lobbing explosive shells into the advancing army had some effect, but it wasn’t very precise or fast. As the front lines drew closer, the girls started to open up with machine guns.

It was easy to see the results of their work, killing hundreds of enemy combatants. But the enemy still had thousands more.

Instead of getting swarmed, Applejack ordered a fallback. They reversed into town, still shooting.

There were a few sharp clangs as spells bounced off the armor. Rocks, small explosives, and whatever could be carried aloft by pegasi rained down.

Rainbow’s tank was the first to lose a track. It ground to a halt and she burst out, quickly shifting to dragon form to keep fighting while Guinness remained inside, still shooting. Pinkie’s turret was knocked off its base by a flurry of spells. Applejack was unlucky enough to catch a spell straight down the barrel that split it open.

They’d fallen back to the library at the center of town and the army just kept coming. A couple of unicorns sneaked around behind and put their horns together, firing a combined spell powerful enough to penetrate the thinner armor at the rear of Twilight’s tank and knock out its engine.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” she shouted.

“Make sure you all set your scuttling charges first!” Applejack ordered. “We can’t let them get their hooves on these!”

“Where can we go?” Rarity squealed. “They’re surrounding us!”

“Never fear, the CMC are here!” exclaimed a voice on the radio. A large VTOL flying machine swooped down from the sky with three fillies in it. It was the aircraft known as Monstrosity.

“Not that I’m complainin,’” said Applejack. “But where did y’all get that?”

“Cousin Braeburn told us to go get it,” said Apple Bloom. “Seein’ as how we have deepwater salvage experience. We pulled it out of the ocean and it started right up. Valiant always said it was built tough.”

The downdraft from the rotors splattered a few leftover pieces of seaweed on the army below. A couple of spells harmlessly hit the aircraft’s body.

They hovered lower. Rainbow provided cover for the others with her fire breath as they loaded up. When they were all aboard, the aircraft tipped forward and accelerated away, casually bouncing a few pegasi off the windshield. The six tanks exploded behind them, leaving a mess in the library yard and taking a few enemy ponies with them.

At the edge of town, a place where the army had not yet invaded, a multicolored magic flare went up. Drawing closer, they saw Sunset, Trixie, and Cordoba at their building.

The fillies came in for a landing. Trixie was first up the cargo ramp. “I’ve been monitoring the situation with our sensors. It’s even worse than it looks.”

“What do you mean?” asked Twilight.

“We keep chipping at them, but it’s not enough. It isn’t a question of if we’re going to lose Ponyville, but when. Probably sooner rather than later.”

“You’re sure?” asked Applejack.

Trixie nodded somberly. “Overhead imagery shows them already surrounding the town.”

“Don’t you have anything here that can help?”

“There are personal weapons and a few odds and ends, but nothing that’s ready to go. If we could bring it along it might make a difference during the next battle.”

Applejack sighed and looked around. “All right, we’re gettin’ out of here. We’ll buy you time while you load up what you need.”

Trixie and Cordoba began hauling things – boxes, equipment, 30mm gatling cannon – out of the building and putting it in the back of Monstrosity. Sunset still looked broken.

“Could we figure out some way to use this?” said Rarity, looking at the big gun. “Perhaps slinging it below?”

“We might be able to integrate the firing mechanism with the avionics, but that would require time and resources we don’t have right now,” Trixie replied. “Unfortunately.”

The army seemed to realize where their quarry had gone and started to advance in their direction again. Leading the charge were the so-called Four and a Half Horses of the Apocalypse.

“Hey there, there’s their leaders!” Rainbow pointed out. “Let’s challenge them to a champions battle!”

Honestly, it was a better idea than some things. There was no time to issue a formal challenge, but they all paired off. Rainbow faced down Firefly, Rarity engaged Suri Polomare, Applejack took Spoiled Rich, and Twilight squared off with Starlight Glimmer.

Applejack broke Spoiled’s neck in seconds. In pony form, Rainbow probably would have been able to beat Firefly, but in dragon form it was almost too easy to incinerate her. Rarity, having spent time as both an assassin and a fashion designer, knew exactly where to stick her horn to kill somepony like Suri.

Twilight traded spells with Starlight. At least, until she was tackled by the robot disguised as another Twilight. It seemed that Twilight had picked the wrong champion to challenge.

While she was distracted, Starlight teleported away. Twi-minator punched Twilight in the face and also teleported.

Meanwhile, the bulk of the army continued to advance.

“We’re good to go!” shouted Trixie. “I planted the charges. Come on!” All of them ran for the aircraft. The engines revved and it started to take off.

From down the street, Coloratura came sprinting in their direction. “Help! Wait!”

Applejack leaned over the tailgate and caught her hoof, pulling her aboard just ahead of the enemy troops.

“I’m glad you’re safe,” said Applejack.

Coloratura looked behind her wide-eyed at the army that they were rapidly leaving behind. Below them, the building exploded. She turned back. “I didn’t know what to do after I lost my manager.”

“You what?”

“Svengallop developed a new vocal range and went to be a singer himself.”

“Where are we going?” interrupted Apple Bloom, calling from the cockpit.

“Canterlot,” Applejack decided after a moment. “The Royal Guard’s there and the walls are high. It’ll take them some time to come after us.”

They got into the city near nightfall. The fillies set the aircraft down in the castle courtyard. The Princesses were there to meet them. Briefly, they discussed the situation. All of them agreed it was bad.

“We can put together some additional weapons,” said Trixie. “We’ll need some space to work.”

“My old lab’s here,” Twilight suggested.

They all agreed that the first priority was figuring out how to mount the 30mm gun on Monstrosity. Air support would help a lot. Trying to integrate the controls was going to be a problem, though.

While they were working, the door burst open and Braeburn ran in, carrying a brain in a jar. “Help! We need a life support system and Ponyville’s been overrun and I came here as soon as I could and I don’t know how Tin Mare is doing and-”

Trixie stopped him. “I’ll take it from here.” She transferred the jar to another piece of equipment that had been brought from Ponyville.

Braeburn relaxed slightly. “I thought we would need another airframe so she could fly again.”

“Well, having the CMC go get it saved our hides. Thanks for that,” Applejack said. “Since when are you so mechanically minded?”

Pinkie laughed. “I get it! It’s because he’s a cyborg and is half machine!”

“It wasn’t a joke,” Applejack muttered. Braeburn didn’t seem to think it was either.

He replied, “Well, since I met Tin Mare, just being around her I’ve learned a lot about engineering. I thought there had to be some way to fix her.”

“I think we can make this work,” said Trixie. She carried the brain, now hooked up to more equipment, over to the cockpit of Monstrosity and strapped it in. It wasn’t an ideal circumstance. Trixie thought about it for a moment and grabbed some materials to put together a visor to shield the cockpit, adding extra protection to the brain and hiding it from anyone who might look in and see a brain flying the aircraft.

Connecting the final few wires, Trixie asked, “Tin Mare, can you hear me?”

“Hella.”

Braeburn nearly fainted with relief.

“We’ve put you in a new chassis,” said Trixie. “You’re going to have to recalibrate yourself.”

A few of the control surfaces moved, the engines turned over, and indicator lights blinked as Tin Mare explored her new mechanics. “What is this chassis?”

“It’s a twin rotor VTOL aircraft,” Trixie explained. “I believe you have a few files on it in your databank.”

“Indeed.” Tin Mare mulled it over for a few moments, processing the data. “It seems I cannot identify myself as a combat jet any longer.”

“You can be anything you want to be,” said Braeburn.

“In that case…” the tinted visor dropped down over the cockpit. “I’m a hella-copter.”

The Cutie Re-Mark - part 2

“He’s dead? Truly?” asked Luna. She and Celestia were holding a meeting with the others. She had just been informed why Valiant was not present and leading the fight.

Soarin’ stood nearby, looking slightly relieved to hear the news but troubled that they still had to deal with the advancing army.

Shining Armor and Cadance were in the room, both wearing cloaks and looking pensive. They, too, reacted to the news with relief.

Cordoba was glaring at them all. Trixie, the wiser older sibling, put a hoof on her shoulder and gave her a subtle head shake.

“What resources do we have?” Celestia asked. “All of us here can contribute to the battle, and Captain Soarin’ has his Guards.”

“There’s us,” said Applejack, gesturing to her friends.

“We have Tin Mare,” said Trixie. “There are a few portable weapons, like my M60.”

None of the faces around the room looked pleased with the short list.

“That’s it, then,” said Celestia. “Everypony do your best and we’ll see each other later.”

Luna went to surreptitiously check on Cheerilee. She was doing good work nipping at the army’s heels, but she was only one pony. None of Luna’s other agents were applicable or nearby. It was going to be a straight-up battle at the gates of Canterlot and there wasn’t anything that could be done to prevent it.

The rest got ready. The Royal Guard was already patrolling the walls, so they should recieve warning about when the battle was about to begin.

Soarin’ came to talk to the girls. “I know a little bit about your respective abilities, but to effectively lead this battle, I’m going to need anything you can tell me.”

“You’re in charge now?” asked Applejack.

“It’s not a situation I want to be in, but I’m the only one available,” Soarin’ replied. “Shining Armor is here, but he has no authority. Plus, nopony looks at him the same since what happened to the Crystal Empire. The Princesses haven’t been involved in war strategy in thousands of years. If they want to command, I will submit, but otherwise the task falls to me.”

Applejack considered it, and nodded. “All right, we’re here for you.”

They all ran through a brief list of their capabilities, Soarin’ looking alternately impressed and nervous. He had one of the biggest reactions to Tin Mare.

“It’s a robot?”

“She,” Braeburn corrected.

Soarin’ raised a hoof. “Not judging, just surprised. As long as you can fight and defend the city, you’re equal in my book.”

He turned to Cordoba. “And what about you? Aren’t you a little young?”

She glared at him. “I will have revenge for my father.”

“Your fa-oh. Oh.” Soarin’ quickly found an excuse to go somewhere else.

Applejack turned to Trixie. “How’s your clan figure into this?”

Trixie caught the undertone. They both glanced at where Sunset was staring into space, a hollow look on her face.

Trixie shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know. I…I want to help her, but I think she just needs time.”

“Aren’t you broken up about it?”

Trixie hesitated, and blinked hard a few times. “If I don’t think about it, I can get through today.”

Applejack nodded in understanding.

Just then, a shout went up from the walls. “They’re coming!”

Limestone Pie suddenly appeared, white powder on her nose and a wild look in her eyes.

“Hey, long time no see, sis!” said Pinkie. “Where have you been?”

“Valiant died and so I left Ponyville to look for more crack.”

“Cool! Well, since you’re here, would you like to participate in some extra-gratuitous violence?”

It was a rhetorical question. The Pie sisters charged into the fray, Pinkie wheeling her cannon and Limestone borrowing Pinkie’s battleaxe.

Twilight grimaced, then closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment. Her body went up in flames and she reluctantly headed for the fight. Spike, being fireproof, went along for the ride.

Nobody had noticed Maud had been with Rarity this whole time. Maud was that kind of pony. When Rarity put on her hard salty shell, Maud picked up a load of rocks and the two of them went towards the battle.

Applejack organized her squad of meat puppets and leapt into action. The group of them found positions on the wall.

Rainbow had shifted forms and was already spraying fire at the attacking army.

Trixie, too, had changed, sporting eight legs and her machine gun. At her request, Cordoba and her cutlass stuck close.

Fluttershy, with her three slaves, had already decided to establish a triage center. Guinness, taking a cue, held back from the front lines to organize logistics. If the battle was going to be so large, the defenders would need more ammunition.

Tin Mare said, “Get in.”

Braeburn looked at her. “Inside you?”

“I have door guns.”

“You’re going back into battle? After what happened the last time?”

“Battle was why I was built. And my contribution is even more important now that many more lives are in danger.”

“You’re taking a huge risk! Stay here and maybe you can do something else.”

“It is in my programming.”

“Somepony made you think that! You only want to put yourself in harm’s way because they made it so that you can’t do anything else.”

“Braeburn, I am a robot. I have no desires other than what I am programmed. It is what I want. Would you deny me that?”

He fumbled with words. “I care about you. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I don’t want to see you or anyone get hurt, either. That is why I must do this.”

Her blades started to spin up. Braeburn hesitated, but climbed aboard.

When Tin Mare had gained enough altitude, she transitioned to forward flight and soared over the wall. The resistance was heavy, with pegasi and spells flying everywhere. Fortunately, Tin Mare had a response.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRT

The solid wall of high explosive armor piercing 30mm rounds from her improvised gun pulverized everything in their path.

That took some pressure off the defenders on the wall, but it was still no cakewalk, no matter what Pinkie might have actually been doing at the moment.

Spike had hopped off Twilight, as his own combat prowess was rather limited. Instead, he was lighting flaming arrows for the archers.

Rainbow played close offense while Tin Mare handled the longer-ranged attacks. Her fire breath was nicely complemented by the fire arrows and Twilight’s fire fire.

Applejack was doing the work of a small platoon and was rotating with Guards on the wall. Guinness had seen to it that when they came down for supplies, they were getting them. Fluttershy had seen to them when they came down for another reason.

Such as when an enemy pegasus dragged a cloud towards the wall and gave it a good buck. Perhaps the intended effect had been lightning, but being cutie markless, they got rain instead. Rain that fell on Rarity.

“I’m melting!” she shrieked, her salty body dissolving.

Around Rarity, Maud hammered a large chunk of the wall out, containing her slowly liquefying form. She delivered the makeshift bathtub to Fluttershy. “Will she be alright?”

“No problem,” said Fluttershy. “This happens sometimes with our more ionized patients. We’ll put her in a still and boil away the excess water.” Fluttershy frowned, as if she’d pulled the solution to a very chaotic problem from thin air.

While Maud couldn’t be faulted for wanting to save Rarity, the hole in the wall proved a weak point for the invaders to break through. The narrow entrance was a kill zone, but there were so many targets that they started to overwhelm the defenses. They started to head for the castle.

Two hooded figures stepped into the street, blocking their way.

“Are you ready, Cadance?” Shining asked quietly.

“Somepony has to save our skins,” she replied.

They pulled back their hoods and lit their horns, beams of magic protruding a few feet from their foreheads.

Together, Cadance and Shining attacked the invaders. The magic sabers cleanly cut the enemies apart, cauterizing the wounds. Unicorns tried to shoot them, but they reflected the blasts and kept coming. Fighting upstream against the oncoming tide of ponies breaking through the wall, they eventually reached the breach and went through it, taking the battle outside.

It wasn’t the end of the battle, but it was the beginning of the end. The fighting gradually died down. When there was a break, Fluttershy asked, “What are we going to do with the survivors?”

It was a possibility that none of them had considered. When Valiant was around, survivors usually weren’t a factor.

“I guess we’ll give them their cutie marks back,” said Applejack. “If we can find where Starlight Glimmer hid them.”

“In the meantime, we should replace them with something more benign,” said Twilight.

“Like multiplication signs,” suggested Pinkie.

“No, we don’t want them to breed.”

“Well, we can’t just wipe ‘em,” said Applejack. “I can’t imagine what the CMC would do with so many new, adult recruits.”

“Ordinarily, I think my mom would be happy to deal with them,” said Trixie. They were all immediately suspicious about what that meant when the pony in question was Sunset Shimmer. “But I still don’t know when she’s going to be functional again.”

They all looked to Sunset, who sat in the corner rocking back and forth. “Only three more days, only three more days…”

“What’s she talking about?” asked Rainbow.

“That’s the average length of time for a messiah to be reborn,” replied Trixie.

“Is he coming back?” asked Twilight.

Trixie opened her mouth, but closed it again. She looked away. “Sir Win said he didn’t think so.”

“We’ll deal with that if we have to,” said Applejack. She looked around. “In the meantime, we should begin cleaning up.”

On that, they could agree. Not everything was destroyed, but a city getting attacked tended to accumulate rubble. Fortunately, most of it had been contained outside the walls.

The Princesses called them for a conference later that day. The girls, minus Rarity who was still distilling, plus Spike, Trixie, and Cordoba entered the castle. Trixie left her M60 with Tin Mare, intending to come back and clean it later.

“We’d like to talk about the future,” said Celestia when all of them were gathered. “Walk with us.”

They started down the long castle hallways. Luna said, “We still have our reverse-engineered equipment for piggybacking on the network Valiant created.”

Trixie nodded. “We know.”

“And we know that you destroyed your main downlink in Ponyville to keep it out of the hands of Starlight Glimmer’s followers,” said Luna.

“We’ll talk about what to do with it later, in private,” said Trixie. “Mom will want to be there.”

Moving on, Celestia said, “Such comprehensive surveillance has given us a great leap ahead of any competition. With Valiant’s death broadcast around the world as part of the Countess Coloratura concert, it’s likely that many parties from all parts of the globe will take great interest in filling the void he left behind.”

“What are you saying, Princess?” Applejack asked.

“I sense that many enemies will attempt to probe our defenses in the time to come,” Celestia replied. “Fortunately, we should be able to see many of them coming.”

However, as they entered the throne room, none of them were expecting to see Starlight Glimmer lounging around waiting for them.

The girls advanced. Twilight demanded, “What are you doing, Starlight?”

Starlight laughed. “I’d tell you, but I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”

That’s when most of them realized that she might be one of the most frighteningly competent villains Equestria had ever faced.

Starlight pulled out a scroll and lit up her horn. An intricate, electromechanical magic dome formed over her and she zoomed upwards into it. At the last moment, she wadded up the scroll and threw it, booping Twilight on the nose.

As if a great wind suddenly blew up, Twilight found herself being dragged towards the portal. Her friends grabbed her, but got pulled along. Rainbow made a desperate grab for the Princesses, snagged the removable mane Celestia had recently installed, and it came off. The whole group, minus the two Princesses, were dragged into the portal and disappeared.

They reappeared on a paved area among the clouds. Spike looked around. “Cloudsdale? Starlight doesn’t even have wings. Why would she come here?”

“It looked like she could fly with just magic,” Twilight pointed out. “Keep your eyes open. We don't know what she has planned.”

Twilight cast the cloudwalking spell on the non-pegasi. As she was finishing, Spike looked up. He did a doubletake, looking at Rainbow and back at the small filly who looked exactly like her. “Does that look like a really young Rainbow Dash? Did we travel back in time?”

“Hey, it looks like it’s even before I got my cutie mark,” said Rainbow. Her face lit up. “It would be totally awesome to see a Sonic Rainboom from the outside!”

“Hang on!” Twilight protested. “Interfering with yourself could change the future. Besides, this shouldn’t even be possible. Only Star Swirl the Bearded could do something like time travel magic, and even his spell just went back a week. How could Starlight do more than the greatest wizard in Equestria?”

“Twilight, I think it’s time to stop denying that you aren’t the most powerful unicorn ever,” said Applejack.

“You’re an earth pony, what do you know about it?” Twilight snapped.

“Well, if Starlight came up with a better spell than Starswirl the Bearded – somethin’ you couldn’t do – I’d say that about settles it.”

Before Twilight could protest, Applejack went on. “In the meantime, we’d better find Starlight and stop whatever plan she’s up to. We know she’s here.”

They eventually encountered her at a familiar scene, but before any of them could intervene, Starlight had pulled young Rainbow Dash out of her race.

“What did you do?” Rainbow demanded.

“You’re about to find out,” Starlight snarked.

“If she didn’t tell us before, I don’t think she’d tell us now,” Fluttershy suggested as Starlight cast the spell again and sucked them back through the portal.

They landed on a patch of bare earth that somehow seemed familiar. Looking around, Pinkie said, “Hey look, we’re back in Ponyville!”

“Are you sure?” said Rainbow.

There was some familiar architecture, but it was clearly not the place they had left, army occupation or not.

“I don’t like the look of this,” Applejack muttered. “I think I’d rather see how Sweet Apple Acres is gettin’ along.”

They traveled to the farm, but found that it had been replaced by an industrial factory. Applejack stared, openmouthed. “What in tarnation…”

They spotted another her come out of a building. Applejack quickly pulled her hat low. Rainbow flew over. “Hey, Applejack!”

The local version of AJ looked up. The way she said “What can I do for you?” sounded less friendly and more a coded message for leave me alone, I have to get back to work.

“What happened to Ponyville?” Rainbow asked.

“Most everypony left to help out with the cause.”

“The cause?”

“You know, the war against King Sombra and the Crystal Empire? They’ve taken half of Equestria, the last I heard.” She turned around and left.

“This is bad,” said Twilight.

“No kidding,” agreed Pinkie. “Wow, so if Starlight Glimmer stopped Dashie and she never did the Sonic Rainboom, none of us ever got appropriate cutie marks for becoming the Elements of Harmony and saving Equestria from meanies like King Sombra.”

“So this is the future that resulted from Starlight going back in time,” said Applejack. “We have to go back and fix it. Twilight, do you still have that paper?”

“Oh, so now I’m a useful unicorn?” Twilight retorted.

“Never said you weren’t useful, just said you weren’t as powerful as Starlight,” Applejack pointed out. “If it makes you feel better, once we take out Starlight you can reclaim that title.”

Twilight grumbled under her breath, but unraveled the paper and activated the spell.

The group arrived back in Cloudsdale. Twilight said, “Alright, now all we have to do now is find Starlight and-”

There was a blast of magic and all of them were suddenly frozen inside a huge crystal. Starlight appeared. “Well, finding her will be easy! But stopping her’s going to be harder than you think. You’re all so predictable, you with your cutie marks that define who you are and make you so easy to read.” She glared at them. “My village was a sanctuary of equality, where nopony's cutie mark allowed them to feel superior! It was a special place, and you and your friends took it away! Now it's my turn to take something special from you. Without the Rainboom, you and your friends will never form your special cutie mark bonds. Cutie marks for cutie marks - sounds like a fair trade to me!”

The crystal shattered and they all found themselves somewhere else.

“Ugh. Well, that didn’t work,” commented Spike as he picked himself up from the forest ground.

Cordoboa darkly muttered something that was mostly Spanish but also contained the word “Communists.”

“This is going to be harder than we thought,” said Twilight. “We’ll have to try again. I don’t want to live in that awful future we saw!”

“I don't think you’ll have to!” squeaked Fluttershy.

A crowd of ponies wearing tribal warpaint and carrying spears surrounded them. A few looked familiar.

“Hey there, me!” Pinkie exclaimed.

“Silence, Changeling!” ordered her counterpart.

“All servants of Queen Chrysalis found in these woods must be destroyed!” added the alternate Fluttershy.

The group of them were dragged into a hidden village in the trees. There, the menacing with spears only got worse until Zecora appeared. “Stop! If they are Changelings we’ll soon see, though I think they’re not what they appear to be.”

And so the magical minority was proved correct. A special salve she had made revealed that the visitors were not Changelings at all.

“That’s because we’re from an alternate present that was effected by meddling with time travel,” Twilight explained.

“Intriguing, but let’s not talk here,” said Zecora. “Chrysalis and her army will soon draw near. The Changelings took over not long ago, though I’ll wager in your world that isn’t so.”

Interrupting the conversation, versions of Rarity, Rainbow, and Applejack suddenly burst into the camp. “Please, you have to help us! The Changelings attacked Ponyville!”

“The only Changeling attack I see is the one that comes here looking for me!” Zecora retorted.

Queen Chrysalis decloaked from her Applejack disguise and laughed. As the resistance members rushed into battle, the others GTFO’d.

On the run, Applejack said, “This is why Valiant put so much effort into brutal, permanent murder – Sombra, Chrysalis, all of ‘em – to prevent this kind of thing! He knew!”

“But then why didn’t Valiant stop them in these alternate timelines?” Rainbow asked.

“Maybe if we never became friends he never became whatever he was,” Applejack speculated.

“Are you suggesting that we made Valiant the way he ended up?” Twilight demanded.

That was an uncomfortable topic. Fluttershy implored, “Just cast the spell!”

The group of them popped back into the Cloudsdale of the past. Trixie just barely managed to get a spell up in time to block the crystallization spell Starlight fired.

Starlight said, “Not bad, but it’s going to take a lot more than-”

Trixie interrupted. “I’m gonna let you finish, but Sombra had the best crystals of all time.”

“I said, it’s going to take a lot more than that to stop me!” Starlight promptly started firing spells.

“Lucky for you, there’s more where that came from!” Trixie retorted. She started shooting back. Twilight also joined the fray. Fluttershy opened the small pouch around her neck and took a sniff of pepper. She immediately sneezed herself into a unicorn and promptly dropped through the clouds. Rainbow caught her and the two of them also went after Starlight.

However, despite being attacked from multiple angles, Starlight was holding her own. “You’ve really got to work on your aim, Twilight!” she taunted.

It didn’t help that Twilight had gotten distracted, making sure young Rainbow was still racing. Starlight took the opportunity to crystalize Twilight again. Now with only Trixie and the Rainbow/Fluttershy combo to deal with, she started to push harder.

The others watched with growing alarm. “What are we going to do?” Spike said, biting his claws.

“Starlight’s too far away from the clouds for me to reach her,” Applejack growled.

“I got this!” said Pinkie, pulling out her party cannon. Starlight easily blocked the shot, however. Pinkie shrugged sheepishly. “Maybe not.”

“You’re so predictable!” Starlight shouted. “The gaiety, all right, I’ll admit I didn’t expect that, but everything else is so tied to your cutie mark that you’re all so unbelievably easy to read! Nopony in Equestria can stop me!”

Applejack frowned and turned to Cordoba. “What’s your cutie mark for, again?”

“It’s a hood ornament, a decoration on some cars, which are these mechanical transportation devices that move on wheels,” Cordoba replied. “Something that doesn’t exist in Equestria.”

Applejack touched her shoulder. “You’re up, kid.”

Cordoba nodded and unsheathed her cutlass. She flexed her wings and then shot forward into battle.

Pinned down by Trixie’s and Fluttershy’s magic, Starlight wasn’t able to devote her full attention to the filly coming at her, managing a spell that Cordoba blocked with her blade.

Up close, Starlight tried a shield, which stopped Cordoba temporarily. She hacked at it, and combined with incoming spells eventually got through it.

Starlight charged her next spell and let it go, point blank. Cordoba had seen the telltale glow of magic a fraction of a second beforehand and was already getting out of the way, but feathers from one wing were vaporized in the blast. She tumbled out of the air, catching one forehoof on the small cloud on which Starlight stood.

Starlight leaned forward, preparing the final strike on her dangling opponent. She lowered her head and glared directly into Cordoba’s eyes. Cordoba took the opportunity to thrust her blade up from under Starlight’s jaw, through her skin, tongue, mouth, brain, and out the top of her skull like a second horn.

Starlight’s body fell forward and Cordoba shook it off her cutlass. She climbed up onto the cloud and watched the limp corpse fall until it hit the ground.

Cordoba spat. “Better dead than red.”

The Crystalling - part 1

Author's Note

To catch up on a few plot points, check out Stuff that happened between Seasons 5 and 6

And then come right back, don't touch that dial. Pour a tequila and stay awhile.

The Crystalling - part 1

The crowd had gathered on the hill overlooking Ponyville. The sun was shining and a gentle breeze rustled the grass.

Bible nervously adjusted his white cleric collar. This was his first funeral, he was in charge of ceremonies, and this was one event in particular that he very much did not want to screw up.

He cleared his throat. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the life and death of Plymouth A. Valiant.”

A couple members of the crowd nodded when he said “death.” A celebration was a celebration, whether it was about the deceased’s life - or lack thereof.

The casket was closed because the mutilated mess inside stank.

Bible looked over the crowd. The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony were all there. He thought it a strange name for them considering they didn’t actually have the Elements anymore, but it was at least something to call them.

Sir Win was in the back, as far from Bible as he could get, but still present to pay his respects.

Sunset Shimmer, Trixie, and Cordoba occupied the front row. Sunset was crying soundlessly. It seemed like she had been doing that pretty much ever since Valiant had left them.

Well, technically Heaven and Hell and magic and walnut allergies had needed to team up to rip him out of reality, but in the end he was still departed.

“Would anypony like to say something? A memory? A story?” Bible asked.

Cordoba raised a hoof. Bible stepped back from the podium as she approached to let her speak.

“I remember the last thing he ever said to me.” She paused. “It was, ‘Hey Cordoba! Come castrate this fool.’”

Sunset cried harder.

Cordoba sat down.

“Anypony else?” Bible asked.

Rainbow came up. She stood at the podium for a moment, deciding what to say. “I never liked Valiant.”

That was it. She sat down.

Sunset had stopped crying now. Her eyes were red, but still more than capable of glaring at Rainbow.

He may have been a former book, but Bible knew potentially homicidal tension when he saw it. Quickly, he said, “Any more?”

Tin Mare flashed her navigation lights. She occupied the space behind the crowd and did not bother to come to the front. “I assess that there will never be anyone like Valiant again. He was unique.”

Factual. Non-inflammatory. Good for you, Tin Mare.

A few mysterious ponies hovered at the periphery. No one knew quite who they were, but they weren’t causing trouble. For various reasons, the event had not been been publicized. Very few invitations had been sent. The last thing any of them needed was a media circus.

Valiant’s death had sent shockwaves through Equestria, although at first glance the effects were not immediately apparent. In the deepest, darkest corners of realpolitik, minds had awoken to the power vacuum that had suddenly appeared in Equestria. Valiant may not have been the leader of the country, but he commanded so much influence that someone had to fill the hole he left behind. Most ponies thought the Princesses would. A few, however, had ambitions on it for themselves.

Don’t worry about them. Yet.

The funeral seemed to be winding down. The guests began to disperse. Just then, Owlowiscious flew up, carrying a letter for Twilight.

She unwrapped the scroll. As Twilight read, she frowned. “Shining Armor says he urgently needs to see us.”

“What’s it about?” Applejack asked. Her voice pitched deeper than it used to. It wasn’t because of steroids or anything else, it was simply because her muscles were so dense that her harmonic had changed.

“He didn’t say, just that it’s secret and I can only bring my friends to Silent Hill.”

“Shame,” said Maud Pie, who had been hanging out with Rarity. “I wouldn’t mind seeing the Crystal Empire on the way.”

“Wasn’t the Crystal Empire destroyed?” said Fluttershy. She was secretly pleased, however. Twilight only being able to bring her friends would give Fluttershy an excuse to ditch her slaves for a while.

“That could be why he wants us to meet in Silent Hill,” said Twilight.

“Maybe it’s a grand reopening party?” Pinkie speculated. “I haven’t done one of those in ages. And now that the yaks are all dead, now seems like the time.”

“Something tells me probably not,” said Twilight. “At any rate, we should probably be going soon.”

“How are we going to get there?” Applejack asked. “The train doesn’t go to the Crystal Empire anymore.”

“And we can’t use Tin Mare if it’s supposed to be just us,” Twilight added. “This might take a while.”

“Why can’t we just swear her to secrecy?” said Rainbow. “If she’s a robot, she has to obey.”

“Remember, she’s one of Valiant’s,” Applejack muttered. “Besides, she can’t really lie or deceive anypony. It ain’t in her programin.’ Braeburn said he was workin’ on that, though.”

Rainbow laughed. “Yeah, I think we know what he’s really working on.”

“Who’s married to a pony that has sex with a dragon?” Applejack snarked.

“Are you kidding? The bed – and I – wouldn’t survive,” said Guinness, arriving just then. He wore a black tie for the occasion.

“We’re going to go do a secret mission,” said Rainbow. “You’ll have to stay at home and watch the kid.”

“Watch the…” Guinness’ eyes popped open wide. “Oh my God! We’ve left Skyla with the Cakes this whole time!”

You're welcome

They had all begun ignoring the Valiant Voice from the sky. It only happened when Guinness slipped and mentioned God.

“You didn’t notice Skyla was gone?!” Rainbow shouted at him.

“You didn’t?!”

“Um, yeah, we should get going,” said Twilight. “To a place where we don’t have to worry about babies.”

She and the other five went to the train station to buy tickets for the closest station to the Crystal Empire.

Meanwhile, it seemed Sunset had finally gotten her closure. She wasn’t openly weeping any longer, and while she wasn’t quite herself again, it seemed that she had regained functionality.

“What do you want to do?” Trixie asked, indicating the departing six.

Sunset tapped her earpiece. “Tin Mare? Follow them. Discreetly.”

“Yes ma’am.”

While she was no longer her sophisticated jet self, Tin Mare did possess limited eavesdropping capability. It was no global satellite network, but it would do. That reminded Sunset, she needed to rebuild the uplink/downlink capability. Maybe Canterlot already had. There might be a fight for control in space.

Putting star wars aside, Sunset knew she had to take things one step at a time. It seemed like for the first time in a long time, she was back in control. Their little team was down a member now, but that still left more than enough to keep up.

Tin Mare orbited at altitude, cameras and microphones trained at her targets. Ducking from cloud to cloud and using deceptive lighting, she maintained stealthy surveillance.

“Someone needs to operate the control station,” said Sunset.

Trixie nodded. It almost felt like things were back to normal. She wanted Sunset to feel that way.

Meanwhile, Trixie had a few other things to do. While Sunset was busy, it was finally time to do a little cleaning. She sighed. Not that she relished the job, but it needed to be done.

The stuff Valiant had left behind was scattered, especially after Ponyville had been invaded by the cutiemarkless army. Trixie faced the task of sorting them for things to keep and things to toss.

There was precious little paperwork. Valiant had never been one for writing. But inside what appeared to be a leather-bound journal, Trixie found something she had never seen before.

It read:

Columbia

Best. Idea. Ever.

There was no explanation.

Trixie frowned. It was a strange word. She was sure she’d never heard it before. Perhaps it was from the human world? Would Sunset know it? Was it in Tin Mare’s memory banks?

The door opened and Trixie glanced up. Daring Do stood there, looking far more meek than she usually did.

“Where have you been?” Trixie demanded. “Just when I needed you, right when Equestria was falling apart and my dad passing away, you disappear.”

“I, uh…” For being a confident, well-educated writer, Daring was not often at a loss for words. “Did you know that our relationship is the longest I’ve ever been with anypony?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?” Trixie asked, though she hoped the answer she had in mind was wrong.

“I thought it was time to move on. You know I can’t sit still when adventure awaits.” Daring sighed. “But I realized how much I missed you.”

“That’s not really an excuse. If you really felt that way, you wouldn’t have hurt me.”

“Well, fine princess, if you’re so entitled, that you think you can just take what you want.”

“Like your ass?”

There was a moment of silence between them, and then they both leaped forward, meeting in the center of the floor, kissing hard.

“Is that an old book of clues that will lead us to a treasure?” Daring said between smooches, eyeing the journal.

“Maybe. But we can talk about that later,” Trixie moaned in return. “HLAS now.”

The A stood for Angry.

Some time later, when the two of them were finished, and now on much better terms, Daring again turned to the journal. “What is it?”

“It was my dad’s,” said Trixie. “I’m trying to figure out what this means.”

There was a sparkle in Daring’s eyes. “Yeah, this totally sounds like the beginning of a treasure hunt. We’ve got to do it. Not that either of us need the money, but I can see it being a best seller.”

“What are you going to do if someone eventually makes it public that you aren’t a writer of fiction?” Trixie chided.

Daring shrugged. “I’ve got an exit strategy for everything. I’ll take the money and run.”

“Disburse and disperse, nice.” Trixie looked at the book again. “Hopefully that won’t come for a long time. For now, I know just where to start with this.” They took the book and went to find Sunset.

“Columbia sounds familiar,” said Sunset. “Maybe a place on Valiant’s planet Maybe something else.”

“Sounds like we’ll have to mount an expedition,” said Trixie.

“From what I heard, didn’t he destroy the means?” said Daring.

“All we have to do is give Twilight a good reason to go to Earth and she’ll figure it out.”

“Good plan. Except for the part about convincing Twilight to visit Valiant’s home planet.”

Speaking of Twilight, her voice came over the speaker in front of Sunset, transmitted from Tin Mare’s sensors. “We’re almost there, girls. At least this place still seems to have okay weather despite being reduced to ruins.”

With her, the girls agreed. The place was wrecked, but at least it wasn’t cold.

They made it to the castle and met Shining Armor there. His eyes were bloodshot and his mane was messy.

“What’s so important that we had to come here?” Twilight asked.

“The baby’s gotten to be too much to handle,” said Shining.

Twilight paused before asking, “What baby?”

“Oh, right,” said Shining. “So, this is awkward, but we’ve been lying to you this whole time. Valiant took our baby, but Cadance had twins.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “I don’t even know what to say.”

Remember when Twilight said, Um, yeah, we should get going, to a place where we don’t have to worry about babies? Joke's on her.

“Uh, not to exacerbate the situation, dear, but what’s that light poking holes in the castle walls?” Rarity asked.

“If Shining had only exasterbated, we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Pinkie pointed out.

Ignoring Pinkie, Shining answered Rarity’s question. “That’s the baby. The reason I’m telling you this now is because her magic is getting out of control and we need help.”

“Wait, I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. You had twins?” Twilight said. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Cadance and I are already pony non grata around Equestria due to losing the Empire and our titles. Why do you think we’ve been going around in cloaks? But on top of that, you can see the baby’s not normal.” Shining gestured to the ongoing magic show. “But you have to see it to believe it.”

He escorted them inside. Cadance was attempting to wrangle a young filly who seemed to be enjoying the destruction of the castle.

“An alicorn?” Twilight shouted. “How did you have a natural-born alicorn? How does that even happen? Wings have to be earned!”

“I think you’re just angry that Cadance got hers younger than you got yours, even though you don’t have them anymore,” said Rainbow.

“Forgetting what the earth ponies or the pegasi would have to earn to become an alicorn, you racist,” added Pinkie.

“Um, why does that baby look like Starlight Glimmer?” said Applejack. “Pink body, purple mane with a teal stripe…”

“Believe me, we noticed,” said Shining. “But there can’t be a connection. Flurry Heart was born before all that.”

“Flurry Heart?” said Rainbow. She snorted. “What, is she the princess of snow?”

“Wait, wasn’t Starlight good at time travel?” Applejack said.

“But alicorn,” Pinkie pointed out.

“Well, clearly being an alicorn doesn’t mean anything,” said Rainbow. “Valiant was one.”

“Good point,” Twilight quickly agreed. Let’s talk about something else. Like how we’re going to get little Flurry here to control her magic.”

While they talked, a small group of ponies were making their way towards the castle. Tin Mare dutifully reported them back to base.

“Who could that be?” Trixie asked, looking at the feed from Tin Mare’s camera.

In the few minutes it had taken for those in the Crystal Empire to learn about the new baby – something that those back at base had already known about, of course – Cordoba had arrived with a travel mug.

Looking at the unknown infiltrators, Cordoba frowned. “They look like doctors.”

They could have just been wearing white coats to blend in with the snow. But she was right, they did look like doctors.

“The weather appears to be suddenly getting worse,” Tin Mare noted. “Perhaps the magic of the Crystal Heart that holds it at bay has been changed.”

“Maintain eyes on the contacts,” Sunset ordered.

The clouds got thicker and closed over the Crystal Empire, completely hiding it from view and kicking up a snowstorm that would have been cataclysmic anywhere else.

Tin Mare didn’t give a shit. She dove in.

The Crystalling - part 2

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

The Gift of the Maud Pie

Rarity knocked on the door. Sunset answered.

“Good morning, Sunset. I was hoping I could make a small request of you.”

Sunset looked as if she hadn't slept in too long. “What do you need? I’m working on something.”

“I was hoping Pinkie and I could borrow Tin Mare for the day. We’ve scheduled a visit to Manehattan and flying would make the trip much quicker.”

Sunset considered it and then shrugged. “I don’t see a problem with that.”

“Thank you, dear.”

“Rarity, did I ever tell you that I find you the third least annoying pony in the group?”

Sunset didn’t mention group size. Third out of six left a ways to go. Rarity decided to assume she meant more. “For what it’s worth, Sunset, I appreciate that you’ve involved me in far fewer crazy schemes than Valiant.”

“We’ll see,” said Sunset. She closed the door.

Rarity was suddenly unsure if she really wanted to borrow Tin Mare.

Still, when it came time to leave, she and Pinkie boarded the aircraft. Braeburn was already there. “Tin Mare said she was going to Manehattan. I thought that sounded interesting. I’ve never been.”

A moment later, Twilight and Cordoba came aboard. “Cordoba mentioned Tin Mare was making a trip to Manehattan, and I thought it was a perfect way to introduce some friendship lessons,” said Twilight.

Cordoba smirked behind Twilight’s back.

Tin Mare flew them. When she landed in Manehattan, the group split up. Rarity and Pinkie went to meet Maud. Twilight and Cordoba went to see the sights in hope of encountering a friendship problem. Braeburn stayed with Tin Mare.

“What’s that on your tail?” Braeburn asked.

“Cordoba painted ‘hashtag Valiant did nothing wrong.’ It seemed to amuse her.”

Tin Mare, as has been established, didn’t give a shit.

Braeburn had seen the phrase around and while he didn’t like the implications, decided to change the subject. “What do you think of Manehattan?” he said. “I sure haven’t seen tall buildings like these before.”

“The buildings increase the difficulty in targeting,” Tin Mare noted.

She saw the look Braeburn was giving her and added, “I can understand how the architecture can be quite striking.”

“I think it’s interesting how you can learn,” he said. “You may not feel something like most ponies do, but you know what to say to acknowledge that.”

“I have a brain. Of course I can learn.”

“So why can’t you learn something besides your programming?” Braeburn asked.

“To avoid logical paradoxes, I was programmed not to think about such things,” said Tin Mare. “I have no desire to do so.”

“What if I asked you to?”

“I would have to decline.”

“But why?” Braeburn insisted. “If Valiant told you not to think about your programming, why can’t I tell you different?”

“Because you are not Valiant.”

“Valiant’s dead.”

“I know.”

“Do you feel some kind of remorse or loyalty for him, even now?” Braeburn asked.

“I do not feel. His death inconvenienced me. Nothing more. He did not tell me to do anything more.” Tin Mare paused. “Though, I understand that there may be some expectation that I would mourn my creator.”

“Well, if you don’t mourn him, he can’t have been that important.”

“Valiant was hella important. He said so himself. Praise Valiant.”

You’re welcome.

Braeburn glanced at the sky in annoyance before turning back to Tin Mare. “But he’s dead and you don’t care about him.”

“I am unable to care, just as I am unable to violate the programming he gave me.”

“Doesn’t that frustrate you?”

“I have no feelings.” Tin Mare examined his face with her camera. “Though, you seem frustrated. Is it because of something I did?”

“This stubborn refusal. You can learn. You can change. But you refuse to use your brain for its true purpose.”

“I do not refuse. Rather, I am unable.”

Her quiet admission changed Braeburn’s mood in an instant. He shouldn’t be arguing with her. Not that it would hurt her feelings, but because it simply was not possible for her to budge, even if she did want to. He would have to find another approach.

“Would you like a tour of Manehattan from the sky? I think that will make you happy.”

Braeburn nodded. “I’d like that.”

Elsewhere, Maud was meeting up with Pinkie and Rarity. Maud appraised Rarity’s body while Rarity studiously pretended she wasn’t.

Pinkie had already gotten Rarity to agree to help her get the perfect gift for Maud. Pinkie had decided on a pouch so Maud could carry around her pet rock. Trouble was, she hadn’t bought it yet. When Maud stepped away for a moment to look at souvenirs, they talked.

Rarity quickly came up with a plan. “Luckily for you, I know exactly what you should do! Why not sight-see on a path that leads right to the pouch store? That way Maud won’t get suspicious! I’ll come with you to, um, distract Maud.”

“So I can sneak away to pick out a rock pouch!” finished Pinkie. “And if you're coming with us, you can look at boutique locations along the way! And Maud can ogle you some more! It’s the perfect plan!”

“Yes, yes, let’s not get too excited,” Rarity reminded her.

The plan worked pretty well. They saw some sights and played tourists, including going to an all-year ice rink. Even if Rarity wasn’t attracted to Maud, she had to admit her ice skating skills were impressive.

They ultimately ended up at The Cantering Cook restaurant for lunch, only a block away from the pouch store. After another quick bit of planning, Pinkie snuck away to buy the perfect pouch.

She almost got arrested. In Manehattan, ponies actually called Pinkie on her tomfooleries. She came back to the restaurant. One ice cream sundae later, she’d discreetly explained to Rarity that the door to the rock pouch store was locked because the owner was on a sudden vacation to Canterlot with his grandniece for a few moons, so there was no way Pinkie could get the perfect present for Maud, and now she don't have any present for her sister at all, so it would be be the worst Pie Sisters’ Surprise Swap Day ever.

Rarity assured Pinkie that it would be fine and that they could find another gift elsewhere.

We just skipped a lot of overdramatic, sappy dialogue. Hope you’re happy.

Meanwhile, Twilight and Cordoba were in a museum. It featured various Bridleway performers.

“Trixie could take any of them in a fight,” Cordoba insisted.

“It’s about stage performers,” Twilight argued.

“Trixie’s the best stage performer.”

“But she’s not in the museum.”

“It’s not a hall of fame,” Cordoba pointed out. “Trixie once took Ponyville hostage and since her renaissance as my sister has fought in many battles for the sake of Equestria’s future. That’s more notable than some old ponies cavorting on stage. She deserves to be mentioned in the museum.”

It was honestly hard to argue against that. Trixie was notable. Twilight liked when things were factual. “Let’s see if we can find a curator.”

“Who?” said the museum staffer when they talked to him.

“Trixie,” repeated Cordoba. “The greatest magician that ever lived.”

“Self-proclaimed,” Twilight corrected out of the corner of her mouth.

“She beat you once and she could do it again,” Cordoba said, not bothering with discretion.

She turned back to the curator. “So are you going to do this?”

“I still don’t know who this Trixie is.”

“Do you have kids?” Cordoba asked.

“No.”

Cordoba drew her cutlass and extended it beneath the stallion’s body, where the tip poked a very sensitive place. “If you want them, you’ll find out who Trixie is. And put her in the museum.”

Twilight quickly pulled her student away. “You have to stop threatening ponies to get what you want. It’s illegal, on top of a whole lot of other things wrong with it.”

A mild reminder of Twilight’s current immunity status went through her head, but Cordoba didn’t know about that, Twilight thought.

“If I have the ability, then why should I not try as hard as I can to achieve results?” Cordoba asked. “Do you not want me to succeed?”

That tripped Twilight up for a moment, but she came back with, “You can’t do it at the expense of other ponies.”

Cordoba processed that. “Not even if they have wronged me? Don’t you care about justice?”

“I care about righting wrongs. Teaching somepony they did something wrong and rehabilitating them is more effective than punishing them.”

“I have no rainbow-colored friendship-compelling mind-control magic,” said Cordoba. “I must use my own methods.”

Twilight gave an involuntary shudder.

Back with Rarity, Pinkie, and Maud, a potential solution had been reached. While not in the intended pouch shop, the desired double stitched pouch with a red drawstring, ochre-flecked velvet lining, and reinforced triple-crosshatched seams had been located. The problem was, it already had an owner.

Long story short, Pinkie traded her party cannon for it and it was ironic because Maud’s gift to Pinkie was confetti for her party canon. We’ve seen this trope before, so let’s move on.

When the error was discovered, Maud was upset that Pinkie would make such a sacrifice and tracked down the sleazy pony to whom Pinkie had traded her cannon using a deus ex machina skill she called Maud Sense, which really isn’t that big of a deal considering all the meta shenanigans Pinkie routinely pulls.

“I’d like to return this pouch for my sister’s party cannon, please,” said Maud.

“Sorry, missy, all sales are final,” he replied.

Twilight and Cordoba joined the scene, having exited the museum. “What’s going on?” Twilight asked.

Pinkie told her the whole story, and told it Pinkie-style. Dialogue omitted here for obvious reasons, natch.

“Well, Rarity’s really good with fabric,” said Cordoba. “Why doesn’t she just make a duplicate of that exact pouch? Or buy it, considering she’s rich enough to be shopping for a third store location. And Pinkie surely has money for money emergencies. She’s also one of the best bakers in Equestria, able to use pastries for currency. And what about Maud? Surely she knows the most precious gemstones.”

“You were also endowed with quite a few finances after your father passed away,” noted Twilight.

“And you still own shares in Valiantco® so don’t give me any caca about being the one to buy it for Pinkie.”

“But you could,” said Twilight.

“I could also just take it from this guy,” said Cordoba.

“Don’t do that,” Twilight implored.

Cordoba shrugged. “I know you think of me as a loose cannon, and I will admit that I am highly prone to violence and mayhem, but I don’t do things without a reason. I have no reason to be involved in this party cannon versus pouch dispute.”

“No reason?” said Twilight. “What about helping your friends?”

“I just pointed out several ways they could help themselves a minute ago.” Cordoba turned. “Now if all of you do not mind, I am going to get a coffee.”

“Hold on,” said the sleazy pony. “All this talk about stocks and gems and pastries makes me think we could have a little auction for the highest bidder.”

Cordoba whipped out her cutlass and sliced his head off.

“What did you do that for?!” screamed Twilight. “I thought you said you didn’t do things without reason!”

“I had a reason. He was in my way.” Cordoba stepped over the body.

Twilight shook her head. “Forget friendship training, you need a mental institution.”

“But wouldn’t that mean you failed as a friendship teacher, Twilight?” Cordoba smiled. “You just stood there and let them psychologically torture that poor pony, leading him on and making him think he was going to get a huge payday. Then not intervening before I killed him. You’re a terrible friend, Twilight.”

Cordoba bent down. “Oh look, someone dropped this party cannon and this rock pouch on the ground. Pinkie, Maud, you look like you could use these.”

Cordoba handed them over and went on her way into the coffee shop.

Twilight’s eye twitched.

Oh, and later that day Rarity found a place to put her new boutique.

Author's Note

daddyslittlepsychopath

Gauntlet of Fire

Tin Mare set down in Ponyville. Twilight rushed out to find Shining, Cadance, and Flurry. The so-called SOS could be there at any minute. What they wanted with baby alicorns was anyone’s guess, but Twilight could only assume that they were up to no good.

She was surprised to see Princesses Celestia and Luna in the library when she burst in. “What are you two doing here?”

“Cadance invited us,” said Luna. “It seemed like a wonderful idea. We so rarely get a chance to relax and just visit.”

Celestia nodded. “There's usually some crisis we have to deal with. Somepony always needs our help.”

“Um, well, I have some bad news,” said Twilight. She quickly recapped all the interactions that they had had with SOS. Not surprisingly, Celestia and Luna were concerned about a group that was targeting alicorns.

“Needless to say, we should stop them,” said Celestia. “Twilight, I think this sounds like a good job for you. You need to learn how to deal with threats to regime survival if you’re ever going to take your position as a government official.”

“Um...okay.” Twilight put on a smile braver than she felt. “I’ll do my best to solve this problem.” She marched back outside.

The six SOS mares were arrayed in the street. Everyone else who had ridden in Tin Mare had disembarked. Guinness had already vacated the scene with Skyla.

“Hey!” called Twilight. “You can’t just go around doing whatever it is you’re doing to alicorns!”

“We never said what we were doing,” replied the lead SOS pony.

“But it was heavily implied to be unpleasant for the alicorns in question.”

That got a nod. “True. We were going to kill them.”

“Well, I admire your honesty, but I can’t let you do that!”

“Why not?” asked Cordoba.

“Because killing is wrong!”

“But what if they had a really good reason?”

“What reason could they possibly have?”

“Because we’re continuing the work of the Messiah, Valiant,” replied the SOS leader.

Twilight hesitated half a second, and then hit her in the face with a bolt of magic. It wasn’t her best spell, and her target was barely staggered.

“A little help here?” Twilight called.

“Why should I?” asked Cordoba. “I want to hear what they have to say.”

“Because I’m your friend in need of assistance!” Twilight argued. “It’s your obligation to come to my aid!”

Cordoba processed that for a moment. “But how do I resolve the dilemma of peer pressure versus what I think it right?”

It was a good question, one Twilight didn’t have time to answer. “Tin Mare?”

“I am not made for close quarters and less lethal combat,” Tin Mare replied. “Or do you just want them dead?”

Twilight wasn’t about to ask the Crusaders. They would either make things worse, or, well, make them worse. It looked like Twilight was on her own.

She took a deep breath and did something she had never done before: voluntarily went up in flames. The SOS were immediately intimidated, and the boost Twilight got to her power level immediately let her blast the leader again, this time completely stunning her. The others turned tail and ran.

The Princesses emerged from the library. “Well done, Twilight,” said Celestia. “You’ve gotten your first political prisoner.”

“What will you do with her?” Luna asked.

“Um…” Twilight fumbled as the flames died out. “The library basement is a little crowded, but there might be room for one more. We can then interrogate her to learn more about the SOS.”

“No need,” mumbled the prostrate pony. “I’ll tell you everything.”

“Be careful,” warned Celestia. “A too-willing prisoner is suspicious.”

“Why should we use subterfuge and deception?” said the SOS pony. “We’re right.”

“A zealot,” said Luna. “Even worse.”

“Well, come on, then,” said Twilight, lifting the stunned SOS pony. She carried her away to the library basement.

Rarity ran up just then, carrying Spike on her back. Maud was with her. Spike was glowing.

“Something’s wrong with me!” Spike grunted. “All of a sudden, my scales just started glowing and burning!”

“Little is known about dragon culture, but this is a phenomenon we've seen before,” said Luna. “It is the call of the Dragon Lord.”

“Dragons glow whenever the Dragon Lord has need of them in the Dragon Lands,” added Celestia.

“Great,” said Spike. “How do I make it stop?!”

Luna replied, “The only way to end the summons is to answer it. You must journey to the Dragon Lands and see what is expected of you.”

“But the Dragon Lands are full of... dragons!” Rarity pointed out. “And they’re ghastly creatures! Oh, not you, of course, Spikey-wikey, but remember that rotten Garble?”

“How could I forget?” muttered Spike. “If I have to go to the Dragon Lands, would you come with me?”

“I'm sure I still have the dragon costume we used the last time we snuck into the Dragon Lands,” said Rarity.

“I’d like to visit. The volcanic action in the Dragon Lands is to die for,” said Maud.

Everyone paused for a moment.

“Yes, it was a joke,” said Maud. “But dying isn’t. We should take Tin Mare.”

“That might arouse suspicions,” said Tin Mare.

Cordoba set down her coffee cup. “Then it’s time for a disguise!” She grinned. “You need a new paintjob anyway.”

One montage later, and Tin Mare sported a bright red coat of paint and some spines welded to her upper fuselage. Cordoba had also painted a scary face with a toothy mouth below the cockpit.

Braeburn, had he literally been sexually attracted to Tin Mare, would now have a confused boner.

Speaking of Braeburn, since Tin Mare was going to the Dragon Lands, he was too. Rarity, Maud, Cordoba, and Spike joined him, and Tin Mare lifted off.

On the opposite side of Equestria, Trixie and Daring walked into the castle. With Celestia and Luna in Ponyville, now was the perfect time to use the magic mirror.

“So this is it?” said Daring. It was a fancy mirror, but didn’t look like it contained a portal to another dimension.

“It might take me awhile to figure out how to steer it to the universe where we want to go,” said Trixie. “I’m not sure Twilight or the Princesses would approve.”

“Sunset could help,” Daring suggested.

Trixie frowned. “Has she seemed okay to you?”

“No.”

“Me neither. She’s not crying anymore, but she’s still not quite right. If we brought her here, there’s no telling what she might do. She might want to go back to that high school world. She might go cruising the multiverse for another Plymouth Valiant.”

“Would that necessarily be a bad thing?”

Trixie hesitated. “Not that I can say with a straight face that things should be kept all-natural, but I just don’t think it’s right to go get another one. I wouldn’t know how to feel around some version of him who hadn’t raised me and been through everything. I’d feel a little guilty about putting his world through losing him.”

Daring nuzzled her. “I’m here for you. Now let’s get this portal open.”

Nearing the dragon lands, the terrain changed to barren rocks and lava flows. Tin Mare located the dragon gathering, setting down in a flat area on the rocks. Spike hopped out. The others stayed inside where dragons couldn’t see them and where the climate was pleasant and air conditioned.

Spike was already a little hot under the collar. The rotten Garble, foul enough that Rarity had mentioned him by name, appeared. For his reputation, he was really not that big for a dragon, but still about three times taller than Spike.

“Hey hey, look! It’s our old runty friend Sparkle-Warkle.” Garble chuckled to his cronies.

Spike rolled his eyes. “It’s Spike.”

“Are you sure your pony friends didn’t give you a pony name?” said Garble.

“It’s nice to see you too, Garble,” Spike muttered.

“I didn’t say it was nice to see you. It’s not. I don’t like you. Was I not clear about that? At least that freak Valiant isn’t with you this time.”

If Garble had said a few more words, he likely would have found himself shish-kabobed on a certain filly’s cutlass. Instead, he turned to Tin Mare. “Who are you?”

“It might not be a good idea to reveal your true identity in the middle of all these dragons,” Rarity quietly pointed out from inside.

“My name is Vulcan Avenger,” Tin Mare said to Garble.

“She’s, uh, my neighbor,” said Spike.

Garble stared at Tin Mare’s tail. “What’s that say? ‘Hashtag Valiant did nothing wrong?’”

“What, aren’t you tough enough to have tattoos?”

Garble might have had a witty comeback, but he was interrupted by a booming voice. “Dragons of Equestria, hear me! I have been Dragon Lord for longer than many of you can remember, and my reign has been extraordinary!”

There was silence. The Dragon Lord looked around and bellowed, “Agree with me!”

The other dragons began chanting, “Torch! Torch! Torch!”

“Who is that?” said Spike.

“It’s Dragon Lord Torch, dummy,” replied Garble.

“No, next to him.”

“That’s his daughter, Princess Ember. I wouldn't even look at her if I were you, unless you want Torch to eat you.” Garble chuckled.

Torch went on. “According to dragon law, it is time for me to step down. This is why I have summoned you all, to compete for the throne in the Gauntlet of Fire!”

He held up a scepter topped with a large red gem and casually tossed it over his shoulder. “Whomever has the strength and fortitude to retrieve this bloodstone scepter from the heart of the flame-cano will be crowned Lord of the Dragons.”

“Well, I stopped glowing,” said Spike. “I don’t want anything to do with this, so I’m going home.”

“Wow, you’re a pony and a chicken?” said Garble. “Are you like the lamest dragon ever?”

“No, he is not,” said ‘Vulcan.’

“That was a rhetorical question!” Garble snapped.

“Then you should have phrased it as a statement, so others would not go ahead and answer on the assumption you were too stupid to know the meaning of ‘rhetorical.’”

Seeing the commotion, Torch came over. “What is going on here?”

“He wants to leave!” Garble accused, pointing a claw at Spike.

“You don’t get to leave unless I say you can!” Torch roared.

“Dad, look at him,” broke in Princess Ember. “He’s just a runt. Besides, he doesn’t even want to compete. Let him go.”

Torch snorted. “He is rather tiny. I could squish him with my pinky claw.”

“Eh-heh-heh,” Spike laughed nervously.

“That wasn’t a joke, it was a fact,” said Torch. “When I want you to laugh, I will say ‘be amused!’” He shook his head. “Very well then, little dragon. I release you.”

Torch turned and lumbered away, getting ready for the competition.

“Well, that’s that,” said Braeburn. “Let’s go.”

“I should point out that those dragons over there are plotting the overthrow of Equestria,” said Tin Mare. She played back a recording of the conversation her sensors had overheard.

When I win, I will pillage Equestria for all their pillows. Why should these ponies be comfortable while we sleep on rocks?

That’s nothing! When I'm in charge, the first thing I’ll do is get revenge on those puny ponies! They’ll regret they ever crossed Garble! We’ll take whatever we want from Equestria and burn the rest!

“Garble, huh?” said Cordoba. “Tin Mare, I think you know what to do.”

Tin Mare rolled forward, butting into the conversation. “Pardon me, I couldn’t help but overhear your plans for Equestria.”

“Yeah, what’s it to you?” Garble said.

“Equestria is not to be harmed. Does every dragon understand?”

“You think you can just order me around?” said Garble. He poked Tin Mare’s nose with a claw. He then tried to hide his sprained claw. The boop that boops back.

“Look at my face and tell me if you think I’m a pushover.”

Garble stared at her painted-on teeth. “There’s no way. You aren’t the Dragon Lord. You can’t touch me.”

Tin Mare bumped him, her nose at his chest.

“Hey, what are you-” Garble shoved back, or tried to. As Tin Mare rolled forward, he was slowly dragged underneath.

“How much you do weigh, fatty? What are you doing?! Stop!” Garble’s last words came out more panicked than before.

“Seventeen tons,” Tin Mare replied. “And you?”

Garble did not respond. His breath had left him as Tin Mare’s forward landing gear tracked up his body and slowly, messily crushed him to death.

The other dragons in the area who had been witness stared wide-eyed and slowly backed away. Some decided to fly.

“Wow,” said Cordoba. “Maybe shock and awe doesn’t have to come with fireworks.”

If Twilight was there, she would have been proud of her student, though horrified at the circumstances of the lesson.

“Was he the only dragon talking about invading Equestria?” Spike asked. “We can’t let that happen!”

“There were others,” replied Tin Mare. “Though, I cannot guarantee that I would be able to kill them all before they realized that I am not a real dragon.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just...become the Dragon Lord?” said Rarity. Thinking suddenly about how much power she would wield over him, she added, “We could install Spike as the leader. Surely he would be better than any other dragon.”

Spike blushed, but then frowned. “But that scepter is inside the flame-cano.”

“Good thing Tin Mare doesn’t give a shit,” said Cordoba.

They lined up at the starting area with the crowd of dragons. Torch spotted Spike. “I thought I released you, tiny one!”

“I decided to compete,” said Spike, as nonchalantly as possible. “I am a dragon, after all.”

“All dragons are welcome to compete, but they do so at their own peril! Flying to Flame-cano Island is the first of many challenges you will face in your quest to find the bloodstone scepter!” Torch turned and let loose a mighty roar. At his signal, the race was on.

The whole crowd took off. Spike, being wingless, climbed to a perch atop Tin Mare. He sheltered there, ducking the flying rocks pummeling their fellow competitors.

Tin Mare tracked a svelte blue dragon wearing gold armor as they fell to the sea after getting hit with a rock. They weren’t the only dragon downed by the fusilade, however, and it did not seem important enough to mention.

The surface of the water bubbled for a moment as something dragged the limp body under.

They continued inside the volcano. It was no ordinary geologic feature, but the obstacles Tin Mare couldn’t avoid, she bulled her way through.

“Are we going in circles?” said Spike. “I could have sworn that we’d seen this crevasse before.”

“We are still maintaining course, according to my GPS,” Tin Mare replied.

She arrived in the central chamber. It had not been an easy trip, Tin Mare sacrificing pristine paint to the rocks and flames to do it, but they were well ahead of any other competitor.

She came into a hover over the bloodstone scepter. Spike hopped down and claimed it.

On the flight out, Maud examined the red gem. “This is something I haven’t seen before.” Her eyebrows inched up incrementally.

“Ohmygosh, is it that important?!” Rarity exclaimed. Everyone rushed over to see what Maud was so excited about.

“This so-called bloodstone seems to have properties beyond that of a normal gem,” Maud explained. “If we learned how to use it, it may be the source of great power. I think it could be a MacGuffin.”

“A what?”

“An object that, by its very existence, causes things to happen.”

“Sounds important,” said Spike. “Twilight'll definitely want to take a look at this.”

“Canterlot is closer and Trixie might be able to tell us as much,” said Cordoba.

They flew out of the volcano and Spike presented himself and the scepter to Torch. “Dragon Lord, I, Spike, have returned with the scepter!”

Surprised, Torch bent to examine Spike. “How is this possible?”

“Because I’m smarter than the average dragon and have powerful friends,” said Spike.

Torch eyed Tin Mare. “Like this one?”

“Vulcan Avenger, at your service.”

Torched nodded in appreciation. “A fine set of teeth you have there, miss. All right, Spike, you’ve proven your worth. Dragons, hear me! I present to you our new Dragon Lord, Spike!”

And there was much rejoicing.

Spike stuck around to shake a few claws, but explained that he really must be going on diplomatic business. The group flew back to Equestria, towards Canterlot.

They arrived at the castle, causing a bit of a stir among the guards. Once that matter was settled, however, it wasn’t too difficult to locate Trixie and Daring.

Trixie had set up a modified version of the control wiring Valiant had used to steer the ugly rock. It had been quite a while since anyone had seen that, though.

She was just about ready to try the portal out when the others came in.

“Hey, we found this - what’d you call it? - a MacGuffin,” said Spike. “Maud thinks it’s really magical.”

Trixie took the scepter and examined it. “Yeah, I can definitely feel the power. How does it work?”

Spike shrugged. “Not sure, but I’ll have plenty of time to figure it out. Good news! I’m the new Dragon Lord!”

“Nice.” Trixie and Daring both gave him a hoof bump.

“What are you two up to, sis?” Cordoba asked.

“We’re just about to go looking for Columbia,” said Trixie.

“How are the rocks there?” Maud asked.

“How’s the government there?” Spike asked. “Maybe I could become the new ruler of two countries.”

“I’d rather not visit there again. Such as drab place, as I remember it,” said Rarity.

“If Valiant came from there, count me out,” added Braeburn.

“It’s where he got all his information, like for computers and code,,” Trixie remarked. “I think Tin Mare’s chassis is based on a design from there.”

Braeburn suddenly hesitated, but Trixie continued. “No telling what your prosthetics would do going through the portal, though.”

Cordoba got on her knees and groveled at Trixie’s hooves. “Sis, if you never, ever do anything nice for me again, take me with you!”

Trixie laughed and glanced at Daring. “What do you think?”

“It could be a fun trip,” Daring agreed. “Though, bedroom complications could arise.”

“Huh?” said Cordoba.

“Don’t worry about it,” Trixie replied. “Of course you can come.”

Trixie turned to the portal and activated the steering matrix. The surface of the mirror shimmered and then opened into a disused bedroom.

“That looks like it,” said Trixie. She did a quick doublecheck of all their gear and then stepped through. Daring followed more hesitantly. Cordoba pranced after them. The portal closed.

“We should be getting back,” said Rarity. “Hopefully the SOS issue has been resolved.”

In the Ponyville library basement, the new prisoner was being heckled by the six who were already there.

“Look at her, she’s not even a cheap knockoff!” said Bakey Pie.

“I move to condemn this new inclusion,” said Celebrity. “All in favor?”

The others chorused “aye.”

“Very well,” said Reading Rainbow. “As Royal Basement Scribe, I hereby commit to memory the proclamation the Court of Six has put forth.”

Twilight hadn’t realized the six mares of the B-Team had been down in the basement so long they had formed their own society.

“Everypony be quiet,” she ordered. “I have to talk to…?” Twilight looked at the newest prisoner.

“Awesome Sauce,” the mare replied. “I took the name because it seemed like something Valiant would have liked.”

“What’s your obsession with him?” Twilight asked.

“The SOS believes that he is the way. We want to establish a Valiantocracy.”

Twilight shuddered at the thought and changed the subject. “What does SOS stand for?”

“We are the Sororal Order of Sorrel.”

“What’s a Sororal?” asked Appletack from her position on the wall.

“It’s like a fraternal order, but girls instead of boys,” replied Reading Rainbow.

“Correct,” said Sauce. “Valiant’s early contacts with sea ponies resulted in many deaths, but we realized that he was merely weeding out the weak. Those of us who remained formed the order and now have arisen from the oceans to continue his work.”

“Are you serious?” was all Twilight could manage in reply.

“Ah Sparkle, the unalicorn, you always had such a difficult time grasping concepts bigger than yourself.”

“I do not! And what’s an unalicorn?”

“Valiant did not consider you even worthy of our consideration, so he demoted you.” Sauce paused to look haughty. “Which means that you’ll be spared when we kill the Princesses.”

Author's Note

Slightly related, on Rurik's live drawing stream, he asked for ideas for ships. I suggested Rarity x Maud. He drew this:

Newbie Dash

Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba met John Cena in an Olive Garden on the south side of Chicago. They’d found a convenient gift card above the sunvisor in Valiant’s car.

He was dressed neatly, though seemed rather bulky under his clothes. He smiled and politely introduced himself. “It’s good to meet you. I must say, though, very unexpected.”

“It was a short notice trip,” Trixie acknowleged.

“Where are you from?” John asked. “He mentioned you, but said you were far away.”

“A small town called Ponyville,” said Cordoba.

“I’m from a small town, too,” said John. He chuckled. “In Massachusetts, of all places.”

“What brings you to Chicago?” Daring asked. “It’s quite a coincidence that we were able to meet here.”

“It’s a business trip,” said John. “You?”

“Likewise,” Trixie replied. “We’re headed for Washington, D.C. We’re hunting something my dad left for us to find.”

“Oh really?” John looked interested. “I have a lot of contacts. Maybe I can help.”

They exchanged information. John didn’t have any ideas as to the significance of Columbia or the number seventy eight million fifty one thousand one hundred twenty, but promised to be on the lookout.

Another rather bulky man approached. John shielded his face with his hand until the other man had passed by. “He can’t see me.”

He then gave the three of them a confident smile and got up. “CM Punk!”

The other man turned. “Cena!”

A dozen other rather bulky men from all around the restaurant got up, ripping off their clothes and shouting threats. Spotlights and smoke filled the air. A distinctive riff on trumpets played.

The whole restaurant broke out in a brawl. Had they been Kung Fu masters, everybody would have been Kung Fu fighting. But instead, they were “wrestlers” and so were “wrestling.”

Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba glanced at the spectacle. Cordoba took a sip of her coffee and turned to the contact book they’d found in the car. “Who’s next on this list?”

Trixie consulted the book. “The next entry is ‘Eli Roth,’ but it’s been scratched out and marked ‘deceased.’ The next one after that is ‘Stan Turner.’”

There didn’t seem to be any wait staff around to accept payment, so they took the gift card with them and left, walking around the grappling men.

An older, slightly less bulky man intercepted them. “You can’t leave! We’re just getting ready to rumble!”

Cordoba kicked him in the nuts and they left.

Speaking of ready to rumble, in Ponyville, the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony were dealing with a huge, stompy Godzilla-esqe thing.

At least until Lightning Dust showed up and said, “Hey Rainbow, we need you for the Wonderbolts.”

Rainbow paused. “Really?”

“After Firefly deceived us to further her own goals of overthrowing the government with the other pink and purple ponies a while back, we reorganized. You should totally join us. We’re cool.”

“Okay.” Rainbow shrugged and flew off with Lighting.

“Did she just-” said Twilight. Speechlessly, she gestured at the sort-of-Godzilla-thing they were currently fighting.

“Hey everyone,” interrupted a pale blue earth pony with a pink mane. “What’s going on here?”

“We’re kind of busy,” Twilight retorted. “There’s this giant monster, you see.”

“Cool.” the pony nodded. “I’m new around these parts.”

“Not to be rude, but this is a potentially life-threatening situation and I don’t really have time for small talk,” Twilight said. “Look, I’ll get back to you…?”

“Cracker.”

Twilight looked at her cutie mark, a saltine. Made sense. “Okay Cracker, I’ll get back to you.”

“I’d just love to help.”

Twilight paused. “Do you think you could go make sure everypony’s all right in town? The monster smashed a few buildings.”

“Go into Ponyville? I heard the SOS infiltrated town. Aren’t they one of the groups that’s trying to gain control of Equestria?”

“Yes-wait, one of?”

Cracker crammed her hooves over her mouth. “Oops.”

Twilight looked at the monster and then back at Cracker. “If I wasn’t busy, I would have serious questions for you to answer right this instant. As it is...don’t leave town.”

Back on Earth, specifically on the internet, the headline on a clickbait news website read This Random Chick Just Kicked Vince McMahon in the Nuts.

The full text of said article could be pasted here, but text-based is boring so we’ll now go live to TMZ’s Haley Olivert.

“Hey, how’s everyone doing?,” Haley said, not really caring. “The big news tonight is about the WWE’s Mama Mia Massacre, taking place in an Italian restaurant in Chicago.”

The clip behind her changed to show the Olive Garden. The irony was lost.

“In a completely unscripted moment, a young girl coming out of the building assaulted WWE CEO Vince McMahon, putting the smackdown on him with a single kick to the testicles.”

A shaky cell phone video showed the moment in all its gloriousness, though the effect was dampened somewhat by the grainy picture and vertical format.

Back to Haley. “So it looks like the south side of Chicago really is the baddest part of town. Authorities are seeking this girl and would like any information the public can provide.”

“So we’d like to hear any information you can provide,” said Wind Rider, speaking to Rainbow Dash from the Wonderbolts’ HQ.

“I mean, Valiant’s dead. What else is there?” said Rainbow.

“I was hoping you could tell us,” said Wind Rider. “We’ll need all the information we can get to pull off our plan.”

“What plan?” Rainbow asked.

Wind Rider looked around at the rest of the team: Lightning Dust, Whiplash, and Night Glider. “We’re restoring the Wonderbolts to their former glory. It’ll take some doing to convince the government to reinstate the team, but we’ll do whatever we have to.”

“Nice. Count me in,” said Rainbow. “I mean, you’re practically already there. You set up in this sweet base with the locker rooms and fancy flight suits and jackets left over from the decommissioned team.”

“Don’t you want to hear our plan?” Wind Rider asked.

“Less planning, more jamming.” Rainbow grinned. “This is going to be awesome. I’m not only going to be a Wonderbolt, but I’ll be part of the very first new team. I thought this dream was dead. Screw you, Valiant.”

“I’m glad we’re united in our scorn for him,” Wind Rider said. “That’s part of why we’re doing this.”

Back in Ponyville, Tin Mare had exhausted her ammunition and come in for a landing. Deciding most of the danger was past, Braeburn went over to talk with her.

“I have discovered further evidence of the so-called Love Meister,” she informed him. “While flying, I discovered a threatening message had been painted on a roof.”

“Just what we need, another crazy running around.” Braeburn shook his head and quoted from the Love Meister’s announcement message. “‘Enslaving ponies with the power of love.’”

“What would happen if you were enslaved by love?” Tin Mare asked.

“Huh? I don’t know. It’s never happened before.”

“I would like to plan ahead for such a contingency,” said Tin Mare. “Should you be turned into a raging hormonal sex machine, please mind where you put your genitals. Some of my parts are quite sharp.”

“W-why are we talking about this?”

“Braeburn, I have come to the conclusion that you are attracted to me. If affected by an as-yet unidentified love substance, I believe it is not impossible that you may attempt to have sex with me. That would hella not end well.”

Braeburn kept sputtering.

Taking a different tack, Tin Mare said, “Braeburn, there’s something I need to ask you.”

“Um. Sure. Yeah.”

“Could you please load a few laser guided bombs onto my hardpoints? I need to go back to the fight.”

Somewhere in northwest Indiana, Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba were headed southeast. They had no particular plans to be in Indiana, it was just one of those states that one simply can’t avoid when driving cross country. They were listening to a comedy tape by Heywood Banks that they’d found in the car.

That was when a cell phone began to ring.

The three of them traded glances and started looking around for the source of the noise. Daring eventually found it beneath the passenger seat. She stared at the glowing screen of the smartphone and poked the inviting green button that was labeled “answer.”

“Hello,” said a female voice.

“Um, hello,” Daring replied.

“I hear that you need some help.”

Trixie and Cordoba were trying to crowd closer to the phone to listen in.

Daring said, “Maybe. Depends on who you are.”

“It does, doesn’t it? But I think you’ll be very interested in what I have to say. We should meet. Let’s say...Cleveland, tomorrow.”

“We’ll be there!” Cordoba said.

There was a dial tone as the call disconnected.

“Well, that was strange,” said Trixie.

She didn’t know the half of it.

North of Seattle, a scattering of islands along the coast endured the wind coming in over the ocean and grey clouds overhead.

One island in particular had a disused sea plane port, tucked away in a cove. On the hill overlooking the facility, a closed hospital loomed. It hadn’t seen a patient in more than forty years and looked the part. The basement was terrifying.

Cher put her phone away and came outside. She looked towards the water and motioned to an underling. “Get the plane ready. I think we finally have the weapon we need.”

A Hearth's Warming Tail

“I have an idea,” said Pinkie.

“We’re a little busy right now!” Twilight reminded her, as they fought the sort-of-Godzilla-thing outside Ponyville.

“That’s why I was hoping we could have a holiday,” said Pinkie. “Nothing bad ever happens on holidays.”

“Lots of things happen,” Applejack cut in. “You remember some of the problems we’ve had to solve.”

“No, I mean, giant monsters never attack during holidays,” said Pinkie.

Twilight considered it. “I guess that’s true, given what we’ve seen, but why would you apply this result to that causality?”

“I’m just saying. All we need to do to get rid of the monster is have a holiday.” Pinkie grinned. “How about Hearth’s Warming? We haven’t had one of those in a while.”

“I’m okay with having Hearth’s Warming now,” said the newcomer, Cracker.

“We haven’t even had Nightmare Night yet!” Rarity protested. “The weather isn’t even cold.”

“Emergency Hearth’s Warming party coming up!” Pinkie declared, firing her cannon full of silver iodide into the clouds. It immediately began to snow.

“Also,” said Pinkie, “that looks like Tin Mare coming in on an attack profile.”

Because she was.

Aboard the speeding aircraft, Tin Mare said, “Please designate suitable targets.”

“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with this,” Braeburn replied.

“You often aren’t. However, we are protecting your friends and town from this violent, apparently mindless monster.”

“You’re one to judge mindlessness.”

“Not having free will is different from not having intelligence. Changing subject, the laser designator is slaved to the FLIR. You can find the controls on your side of the cockpit.”

“I’m not sure if that was an ironic use of the word slaved or not,” Braeburn muttered.

“In retrospect, I should have used a word that would not upset you,” Tin Mare said. “Do you have the target?”

“It’s kind of hard to miss.” Braeburn alternated between looking out the windshield and into the screen were Tin Mare’s camera feed was displayed.

“I recommend aiming for the eyes,” Tin Mare said. “My cannon had little effect on its hide.”

“What’s that little thing sticking out of its mouth?” Braeburn said, zooming the camera in. “It looks like a smaller dragon.”

“Based on overheard conversations and my observations during the Gauntlet of Fire incident, I assess the smaller dragon is Princess Ember, daughter of the former Dragon Lord. I do not know how she came to be possibly symbiotic to the monster.” But this being Tin Mare, of course, she didn’t give a shit.

“Isn’t that an excuse to not attack?” Braeburn asked. “She could be hurt.”

“The bombs have a short delay. If you drop them accurately on the eyes, they will penetrate and explode deep inside the cranium, thereby shielding Princess Ember.”

“You’re sure?”

“Braeburn, I could aim the laser and drop the bombs myself. I would have already, but I asked you to participate in slaying the monster because you like helping me.”

“That’s…simultaneously touching and horrifying.”

“Similar to the entire theme of my existence.”

“I didn’t mean-”

“Now would be a good time to attack. We are on a favorable heading.”

Braeburn opened and closed his mouth, and then turned to look at the screen in front of him. He lined up the crosshairs and squeezed the trigger twice. A pair of five hundred pound laser guided bombs dropped from the rack on Tin Mare’s right side and streaked downwards. The laser’s aim was true, and the bombs perfectly speared the monster’s eyes.

There was a muffled bang as they simultaneously exploded inside its skull. Its enormous form fell over, shaking the earth.

And that’s how Tin Mare saved ~~Christmas~~ Hearth’s Warming.

On the ground, the cloud of dust drifted away. Cracker coughed, having accidentally inhaled some of it. “Oof. Nobody told me it would be this way.”

“There’s a lot they don’t tell us,” Twilight muttered. “Now then, I believe I had a few questions for you.”

“Come on, it’s Hearth’s Warming. Do you really want to?”

“She’s right!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Let’s have a party!”

Twilight started to protest, but the others didn’t seem to care and went along with Pinkie’s suggestion. It wasn’t like a Hearth’s Warming party was bad, but she had the feeling that the sudden appearance of Cracker was forshadowing something more important.

She was wrong, it wasn’t really important at all, but this is Twilight we’re talking about.

Speaking of not really important at all, Justin Bieber was headlining a concert in Cleveland when Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba arrived.

“Isn’t this where that mysterious voice said she’d meet us?” Daring asked, staring at the crowd. As if on cue, the phone rang. Daring answered.

“Meet at the lakeshore.” And then the phone disconnected.

Out on Lake Erie, a restored PBY Catalina seaplane came in for a landing. Its two Twin Wasp engines grumbled at idle, bringing the flying boat up to shore. The machine guns and bombs may or may not have been removed following its wartime service.

Cher stepped down onto the shore as the plane came to a stop. She wore very practical clothes - and not just practical by Cher standards. She was there for business.

A painting of Sonny posing in a pinup posture graced the nose of the plane with the title I Got You Babe. Cher touched it briefly, for luck. The otherworlders would come to her. All she had to do was wait.

One wondered why she cared. Chering is caring, you see.

Justin Bieber was not caring, however. That became immediately apparent when he elbowed Cordoba in the face as she, Daring, and Trixie were making their way through the thick crowd to the waterfront.

Cordoba stopped short of killing him. They probably should maintain a low profile here on Earth, after all. None of them had any identification.

She settled for screaming in his face, “What did you do that for mierda pequeña!?”

“Piss off, I’m from Canada,” Bieber replied, blowing some marijuana smoke in her face.

Cordoba seized him by the throat. Trixie put a hand on her shoulder. “Even if he is Canadian, I’m pretty sure it’s still illegal to kill him.”

“She’s gonna kill me!” Bieber squeaked.

Two very large men that Bieber paid very well came through the crowd. Cordoba drew her cutlass and fended them off. “Stay right there!”

Bieber was not worth it, and the two of them shrugged and complied.

“Oh wow, you’re like, totally living the dream,” said a girl around Cordoba’s age. “I totally wish I had thought to just grab him. You must think I’m a total spaz.”

“I’d believe it,” Cordoba muttered.

“I know, right? He hasn’t responded to any of my letters.”

Cordoba glanced at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Huh?” realization dawned on the girl’s face. “Ohhhh, you said ‘believe it.’ I thought you said ‘belieb it’ because you’ve got this weird accent where your b’s and v’s sound alike. Because of that, I thought you were a fellow Belieber. But now I see that’s totally not the case and you don’t want to marry him like I do.”

Bieber took this opportunity to kick Cordoba in the shin.

The irony was lost on her, but her wrath was not lost on him. She scraped him up the wall by his neck, the rough bricks pulling at his hair. He limply struggled to breathe, no longer able to annoy her.

“So, um, if you’re done with him, could you just leave him there for me?” the girl asked.

Cordoba shrugged and let go. The girl rushed forward and completely failed to catch the falling Bieber. “O-M-G, I am sooo sorry!”

“We should probably get going,” Daring said, spotting people with uniforms coming in their direction.

That seemed like a good plan. They left.

“We should probably get going,” Pinkie said, talking to the others back in Ponyville. “We’ve got to get to the party. What’s a Hearth’s Warming without a party?”

“At least we can have a party,” Rarity remarked. “Rather than hearing the same old Hearth’s Warming stories over and over.”

“But it’s tradition!” Twilight argued. “I suppose next you’ll be saying that you don’t want presents and candy.”

“Nopony would deny themselves presents and candy,” said Spike. “That’s crazy talk.”

“But it’s about more than that!” Twilight countered. “Why, it’s part of Equestria’s very history. Back when the three tribes-”

“Yeah, we know,” said Applejack. “We all were in a play about it.”

“Well, you five and Valiant,” Rarity corrected. She smirked. “Him playing Princess Platinum was almost funny enough to forgive him for replacing me.”

“So let’s have a party where we have presents, candy, and jokes at Valiant’s expense,” said Pinkie.

Speaking of things at other people’s expense, back on Earth, the headline read This Random Chick Just Throat-Lifted Justin Bieber Like a Baller. We’ll now go live to TMZ’s Haley Olivert for the update.

“Good evening everyone. Big news tonight, a young girl assaulted Justin Bieber and threatened his bodyguards with a sword. That’s the kind of stuff you just can’t make up. Let’s check with our reporter on the scene, the homophobic Joe Pancizowski.”

“Thanks Haley. The scene here is pretty damned hysterical. Bieber’s lost a lot of street-uh, heh. Sorry, he didn’t have much street cred to lose. The event happened a few minutes ago, and I’m sorry that I missed it. It was ‘pretty sweet’ according to totallynotabrony, a local writer of My Little Pony fanfiction. Sir, what makes you think you’re qualified to talk about this?”

“I mean, I think I know a little about preteen cringiness, having observed a whole bunch of it,” replied totallynotabrony.

“At first I thought you were going to say you know a lot about gay faggotry.”

“Joe, what I do is an art and a science.”

“Thanks for the update,” said Haley, back in the studio. “Police are saying this might be the same girl who assaulted and battered Vince McMahon.”

Speaking of assault and battery, good old Assault and Battery Dash was training with her new Wonderbolt friends.

Her new nickname had come from her extensive combat experience. Nothing formal, just a lot of ass-kicking that she had either participated in or been witness to, usually also involving Valiant. That still put her far ahead of any pony in the military, including Wind Rider.

“So what are we doing this training for, anyway?” Rainbow asked, punching at the air. The other Wonderbolts had long ago tired of training, but irradiated Rainbow always had more energy to give.

The pills she’d gotten from Zecora didn’t seem to have a side effect of diminishing her energeticism, even when she remembered to take them.

“We need to know how to fight,” said Wind Rider. “I have a feeling a storm is coming.”

Even Rainbow Dash, a bitch, an idiot, and a weatherpony, knew he was speaking figuratively. “What’s going to happen?”

“Equestria needs help. There are groups out there that want to see the country torn apart and a radical government installed in place of the current do-nothing government. We’re going to make sure Equestria gets what it deserves and teach these radicals that no small-time crooks can just muscle in on the leadership of the country.”

Rainbow laughed. “Well, if Valiant didn’t do it, who else would want to? Who else wants to upset the thing the Princesses have going?”

“You’ve already encountered the SOS, I believe,” said Wind Rider. “We’ve had other groups also trying from the shadows and present a threat. The Princesses and the Royal Guard either haven’t been able to eliminate the danger, or don’t see it as anything important. But the Wonderbolts do, and we’re going to save Equestria. From itself, if we have to.”

Rainbow nodded. “Absolutely. Count me in.”

And that’s how Rainbow Dash accidentally became an anarchist.

Back in Ponyville, the party had begun to bump, and the library was rocking. Bible may not have known anything about Hearth’s Warming, but could see the clear references to a human holiday established for consumerism in the name of the birth of one guy who’d lived for a relatively brief period of the biblical story.

Braeburn was doing his best to warn everyone about the so-called Love Meister, who had yet to make a direct appearance and only seemed to use messages.

Sunset sat in the corner by herself, drinking and brooding, though all of a sudden her head shot up, receiving a message on her earpiece from Tin Mare. “Ma’am, Princess Ember has come to visit and wants to meet with Spike.”

“She’s not dead?”

“No ma’am. Not normal, either.”

Whatever that meant, Sunset decided she didn’t want to know. She called out to Spike and told him he had a visitor outside.

Spike exited the library. He saw Ember poking her head around the corner of the library and hustled over to her. “You’re okay! How did you manage to get free of that thing?”

“Well…” Ember bit her lip. Spike rounded the corner and stopped dead. Ember was still attached, her upper body still sticking out of the mouth of the now-braindead Godzilla-thing, its teeth clamped around her torso. She was like a centaur, except both halves were dragon and the bottom was tens of times bigger than the top.

And, Spike noticed with a gulp, male.

“We’ll figure some way to separate you,” said Spike hastily. “I’m sure Twilight has a spell or can find one.”

“I...don’t know if it’ll work,” said Ember. “After the attack from that flying thing, I seem to be fully in control here.” She twitched the massive tail behind her to show him. “If that’s the case, I don’t know if I can go back to my normal body. I don’t know...if it’s still there.”

Spike gulped again.

Inside the library, Applejack had convinced Coloratura to sing a few songs from her Hearth’s Warming album. Despite her scrawny, eye-patched appearance, her voice was still better than any that had graced the library before.

Applejack was on edge. If what Coloratura had told her was true, about the mysterious electronics that kept appearing around her, then that could very well turn into a serious problem. How, exactly, she wasn’t sure, but it certainly couldn’t be a good thing.

Speaking of not good things, unknown to Cher, Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba had simply decided not to come meet her. She stood on the lakeshore, checking her watch and looking around impatiently. They weren’t coming. “Shit.”

Cher swears aside, Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba were back in the car and headed east, towards another name in Valiant’s contacts book.

The Saddle Row Review

Everypony’s busy today, with Rarity’s new store opening. I don’t know where this dictation tape recorder came from, but finding it is most opportune. I was considering starting a diary.

I don’t know who would want to read it. I thought about a autobiography book deal. It would probably sell well, but after what happened...I think I might be done with the public eye. Er, I mean scene! There’s just something to be said for the quiet life.

If I could actually get that. This morning I woke up with wires sticking out from under my eyelid. I can’t imagine who keeps doing this or why, but it’s like they’ve abandoned all care, like they don’t mind if I notice.

And the scary part is, I don’t think I could do anything about it. I tried tugging at the wires, but they seemed well attached and I certainly didn’t want to hurt myself. I folded them up and hid them under my eyepatch.

I had breakfast with Applejack and she told me about a trip that her friends were taking to Manehattan. It sounded lovely, a perfect thing to distract me. The catch is, they were going to help Rarity set up a new store. Well, how hard could it be to hang a few dresses on hooks?

Very, as it happens. What was it that Valiant once said? Something about “Taking a dump just got a lot easier, because this thing tore me a new one.” I’m not one of the more urban musicians, but that quote fits the mood quite well. Setting up the store was a narrowly-avoided disaster.

From what I’ve heard about Valiant from everypony, I’m not sure I should even be quoting him. I personally saw him only once. I don’t know the full extent of what he did, although most everypony tells me I don’t want to know. I heard that he apparently helped my old manager, Svengallop, launch a career of his own as a soprano.

I am aware that Valiant had something to do with Tin Mare, the flying machine. She seems nice enough, although I can’t figure out how she talks and thinks. Or flies, for that matter. She’s lucky she has somepony as devoted as Braeburn after her.

Tin Mare gave all of us a ride to Manehattan. Braeburn came along, as did Maud to support Rarity and some new mare named Cracker. She has an unusual lingo. After everything that’s happened, and from what I’ve seen about secret evildoers, I don’t know why everypony is so willing to trust new faces. But I suppose if the Elements of Harmony are willing, I have no excuse not to.

Sir Win also came with us. He’s a demon. Nopony seems to think this is strange. I’ve heard that his rival in town is a stallion named Bible who used to be a holy book from another universe. Again, Ponyville seems to have just accepted this.

That makes me feel slightly better about myself. A former pop star with a disfigured face is the least interesting pony around. Well, I suppose I was looking for peace and quiet to enjoy my millions in retirement.

Speaking of ludicrous money, we arrived at Saddle Row in Manehattan. As Rarity put it, it’s where the most fashionable boutiques in all of Equestria were found, including her new shop. In my opinion, “Rarity For You” is a rather unimaginative name. Then again, sometimes name recognition is more important than magnifique. Fame is a fickle beast.

Tin Mare had to stay outside, of course. She parked across the street and folded her wings. Braeburn decided to stay with her.

The rest of us went into the shop and it turned out to be a trash heap. Apparently Rarity hadn’t bothered to even look at it before agreeing to rent. I can’t imagine what she must have been thinking. Or as Twilight tactfully put it, “Are you sure you’ll be ready to open tonight?”

That question was even more pressing when Rarity’s landlord showed up. Mr. Stripes looked like his name, with the tacky tracksuit he wore. He forced his daughter on Rarity, something I’ve seen too many times in the business, ponies going places they have no business being because of their connections, and also their miniature doll furniture.

Still, an incompetent assistant couldn’t hurt much, especially when Rarity already had so many friends to help. Plaid Stripes’ ideas were off the wall, things like spoon clothes and glow in the dark teeth, but I can appreciate some of that. The difference between a non sequitur and a pop culture genius is how you sell it. To quote Valiant again, “The Emperor has no clothes, and he knows it. But he’s not pretending to have clothes, and he plays to the crowd, who appreciate his honesty.”

We all noticed a beat coming from upstairs in the building. I remembered that the Club Pony Party Palace was in this neighborhood. It sounded like DJ-Pon3 at the controls.

Twilight set it to simplistic lyrics to accompany sweeping the floor. It wouldn’t have sold records, but it might have developed earworms.

Rarity called Fluttershy to take care of a family of racoons who had taken up residence in the stock room and then went upstairs to try and stop the music. It didn’t help. She might have asked me to say a few words, though if I know Scratch, she wouldn’t stop for anypony.

The hired help Rarity had planned for called in sick. It was around this time that Rarity began to lose faith that things would go well. Still, she’s surrounded by a good group of friends and they all pulled together to take up a task. Honestly, I think this is why I hang around AJ & co. They care about each other, even if, according to Valiant’s notes, they’re actually terrible at the concept of friendship.

I think I learned a lot by reading Book of 1001 Valiant Quotes, which I randomly came across, much like this tape recorder. Which is not to say that I’m going to be copying everything in there. I have to maintain my own style, after all. Plus, I wonder if he was kind of a kook.

AJ volunteered to keep Plaid Stripes out of trouble. It sounded like she might have her hooves full, so I helped her out.

It was harder than I expected. As I’ve said, if you need off-the-wall ideas, by all means, consult a hyperactive filly. The problem is, well, a hyperactive filly.

Even AJ liked Plaid’s spoon clothes idea. “Useful for eatin’ soup, stirrin’ gumbo, and diggin’ little holes.” Oh AJ, never change.

Rather than letting Plaid talk our ears off, we decided to do something a little more productive and took her down the street to a stage performers’ museum and hall of fame. Maybe looking at the costumes could give her ideas.

I was surprised to see Trixie featured. The exhibit looked brand new and hastily constructed. If she was in a hall of fame, then maybe I could get into one too, especially since I was now retired.

It was AJ’s idea about the hall of fame. Plaid seemed oblivious. She was a teenager, so even if she didn’t like my music, she still most likely knew who I was. AJ had introduced me as RaRa, though, so the recognition wasn’t there. Well, also the eyepatch.

Plaid did notice that. I could tell she wanted to ask. I decided maybe the horrified fascination most ponies seemed to show was useful for keeping her behavior in check.

When we got back, the store almost looked worse. Maud was undisturbed, methodically attaching sparkly jewels to clothes in the back room. Fluttershy was trying to herd racoons, Twilight was trying to keep Rarity stuck inside the window display, and Pinkie was complaining about the music. I had thought homosexuals were into the whole “unce unce unce” thing.

A couple of hopeful employees were hanging around. One had a head shaped like a trapezoid and another had a horrendous overbite. Can I say things like that? Probably, being disfigured myself.

Pinkie started to head back upstairs to do something about the music, and I tagged along. Even if Scratch wasn’t going to turn it down, I thought I should at least say hello to her. Going up the stairs, Pinkie suddenly stopped in her tracks. My depth perception being what it is, I ran into her.

“I just had the greatest idea!” Pinkie shouted in my face. There’s nothing wrong with my ears, thank you. “You should use your sway, one musician to another, to get DJ-Pon3 to turn it off!”

“I think you’re misunderstanding how musicians work,” I said. “Not playing music goes against what it means to be a musician.”

“Then instead, you and her should do a joint concert as entertainment for the boutique’s opening!”

“I’m retired from live performances.”

“Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?”

I actually flinched. But then, maybe she was right. What was the worst that could happen in Manehattan at a boutique opening - I glanced outside - that Tin Mare was guarding?

When we got upstairs, Scratch motioned me behind the turntables and we had a quick conversation. She doesn’t like to talk in front of the public. It’s part of her image she maintains, and I respect that.

Rarity was an up-and-coming designer, my impromptu performance that evening would clearly be limited edition, and the club had only about three dancers in it at the moment, so Scratch had everything to gain by joining the party.

Back downstairs, it was somewhat startling how quickly everything had come around. Twilight had presumably decorated with her seemingly limitless magic, the raccoons had been suited up as waiters, and somepony had made hors d'oeuvres. The ponies vying for jobs were given a quick test by Rarity, the expert, and she decided to hire all three.

We told her the plan for the entertainment. Rarity started to panic again. “There’s simply not time to get you properly attired!”

Fortunately, this night was all about all-new designs, so Rarity’s older garments occupied a back room. In just a few minutes, she’d modified a version of the Luna dress for me.

The Princess Collection, first displayed at Canterlot, still looked great. The Celestia dress was mostly green. The Luna dress was all indigo and sparkles, which Rarity tailored for me just enough to make it not apparent that it had come off the rack.

Something occurred to me and I asked, “Why isn’t there a Cadance dress?”

Rarity blushed. “It’s, ah...just garters and dental floss two sizes too small.”

She busied herself doing my mane. Without me even needing to ask, she left it long over my eye.

We walked out. Scratch gave me a nod. They’d found a piano somewhere and I sat down. I saw Plaid staring and her jaw dropped. I couldn’t help but smile, although it was mostly in amusement at her spoon outfit.

She came over. “Oh. My. Gosh! I can’t believe it’s you! That it’s been you this whole time!”

“Well, we wanted to save something for a surprise,” I said. Honestly, I was the one surprised. A performance, a piano, a Princess dress. Perfect night?

“So are you going to play that?” Plaid asked. “You do play the piano, right? You’re going to have to do something to get all the attention in here, away from all the ponies outside who are looking at that thing across the street.”

Tin Mare was parked outside, using her landing lights to signal and direct ponies towards the boutique.

“It’s almost time, everypony!” called Rarity.

Play the piano? I gave Plaid a smile, genuine this time. “I play to win.”

And Scratch and I rocked it.

Well, okay, that makes it sound like we had the place hopping. Probably not the atmosphere that Rarity was going for. But we did put on what I think might go down in history as one of the best live muzak performances ever.

It was nice. A chance to just let things go for a while and feel like things were right in the world. I lost myself for a while. It felt good.

When the party was over, and the customers were on their way out, Rarity came over to me. “Thank you so much! This was just the perfect thing!”

“I feel the same way.” I was a little hoarse from the singing, but it felt good. I got up and went to join her and the others. We were interrupted, however, when the lingering crowd outside the boutique all turned to face the sky, oohing and ahing.

Of course we had to go see what had happened. Stepping outside, a huge, glowy heart hovered over the building like a free-floating pink neon sign.

“That wasn’t part of it,” said Rarity, though she shrugged and applauded with the others.

As if signaling the finale, the crowd began to disperse. Rarity found Fluttershy and asked, “Be a dear and fly up there to see who set up that display.”

Fluttershy came back a minute later. “I found this card. It says, ‘Regards, the Love Meister.’”

“He’s here in Manehattan now?” said Braeburn, coming over.

Twilight frowned at the card. “Whoever this is doesn’t seem to be harmful, but I’m becoming concerned about his intentions. From experience, random, anonymous messages are never a good thing.”

“Oooh,” said Cracker, still staring at the sky. “Lovely.”

At any rate, it had been a good night and we all retired to the hotel. A reporter had apparently found out where we were staying and left Rarity a message, hoping for an interview, which she scheduled for breakfast the next morning.

I thought about going with the others. Talking to reporters didn’t sound so daunting anymore, what with the much-appreciated boost of confidence I’d enjoyed.

However, I decided not to go. A fashion column in a local newspaper wouldn't do me all that many favors. It also might run the risk of completely overshadowing the point: Rarity’s new store.

Still, when we got the next day’s paper, I owned the subtitle:

‘Rarity For You’ Enjoys Spectacular Opening on Saddle Row

RaRa Ooh La La!

I don’t know who told the reporter the nickname AJ had first given me. Probably Plaid. Still, it actually turned out to be a pretty fair and informative article.

Back in Ponyville, Rarity read it to us. “In the end, Rarity’s grand opening was a smashing success! True, it got off to a rocky start, but somehow this rag-tag group of ne'er-do-wells-” She paused. “Oh, heavens, I think he means you all - came together and created the perfect boutique. An exquisite performance by the one and only Countess Coloratura was the centerpiece of the opening, but the vision of Rarity combined with the expertise of her friends will last for the seasons to come. This reporter, for one, is a believer.”

Calling the Elements of Harmony, who as a group had done more to deserve fame than I ever had, “a rag-tag group of ne'er-do-wells” seemed rather insulting. Though strangely, it was almost exactly how Valiant referred to them, profanity aside.

But then I got a letter from the Las Pegasus Stadium Event Center inviting me to do a special concert and I forgot all about Valiant.

Applejack's "Day" Off

“Dun dun DUN DUN,” Cordoba hummed. She’d only recently seen Mission: Impossible, but it had definitely rubbed off on her.

She, Trixie, and Daring were breaking into the United States Social Security Administration.

Or at least they will be soon. Help the three of them navigate the highways and byways of the US to arrive in Washington, D.C.!

They were on their way to visit the next name on Valiant’s contact list, Stan Turner. Who is Stan Turner?

A. Stan Turner, the main anchor at KSTP-TV Minneapolis/St. Paul during the 1980s.

B. Admiral Stansfield Turner, former Director of Central Intelligence during the 1980s.

C. Percival Stanley "Stan" Turner, an accomplished British fighter pilot who died of natural causes during the 1980s.

D. A background character on The Simpsons.

We’ll be back with the answer after a brief interlude to Ponyville, where Rarity had gone pruney.

Applejack had once again missed their spa day. To be fair, they all had been very busy trying to figure out how to help Spike’s acquaintance Princess Ember.

Rarity wished that perhaps she had gotten out of the sauna sooner. Aloe had warned her, after all. Still, it couldn’t be helped. She had held out vain hope that Applejack would eventually arrive.

She pinned her face back and went to find her friends. They were gathered in the center of town where Princess Ember lay. She sort of had to lay, since the massive body of the sort-of-Godzilla-thing that had partially eaten her and then gotten its brain exploded was still attached.

“This is definitely not what I thought would happen when I tried to impress my father by entering the competition to become the next Dragon Lord,” said Ember. She sighed. “If you can’t find a way to get me free of this, I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“I’m sure we’ll come up with something,” said Spike.

“I don’t know,” muttered Twilight under her breath. “There are spells for many things, but separating a partially-eaten dragon from another dragon and having her back to perfect health is coming up blank.”

“Well, in the meantime, we can start by cleanin’ up this mess,” said Applejack, gesturing to the buildings smashed during the previous fight, when Ember was just along with the ride. “Maybe it’ll help take your mind off things, Ember.”

“I don’t know,” Ember replied. “I don’t want to be useful this way.”

“I understand your concerns,” said Applejack. “I was once forced to cannibalize another pony to survive. It was a horrible thing, but now that it’s said and done and the protein hit, I’m one of the strongest ponies in Equestria. It’s horrible what happened, but I can at least use the strength for something useful.”

“Well…” Ember glanced back at the enormous body of which she found herself in control. “Apparently I have little arms.”

Applejack frowned. Right, dragon.

“Hello everyone! I’ve made muffins!” announced Cracker, arriving just then.

“What kind?” asked Rarity.

Cracker frowned. “What do you mean?”

“If you made them, then surely you know the ingredients.”

“Oh. They’re, um, flour muffins.”

Ember took one and bit into it. “She’s not wrong.” She finished it.

“Well, looks like you have taste, at least,” said Cracker. She foisted the basket she carried on Ember, who began downing the rest of the muffins.

“Not to be rude,” said Applejack, “But I have to admit that it’s just a little weird that some random pony showed up, knows all our names, and acts like she’s already our friend.”

“Oh, it’s not rude,” said Cracker.

“But it is a little weird,” said Rarity.

“Oh wow, just what I’ve been saying ever since she showed up,” muttered Twilight under her breath. “No, go ahead, arrive at your own independent conclusions.”

“Weird or not, I’m hungry,” said Ember. “I’m actually worried that I won’t be able to eat enough to keep up with this bulk.”

“I’ve got lots of gems I’ve been saving,” said Spike.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’d like something actually filling,” said Ember. “What about pigs or old ponies?”

On that note, let’s return to our quiz. If you answered “A, Stan Turner the news anchor,” you are correct. Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba, however, answered “B, Stan Turner the former CIA director.”

They found themselves in Virginia at the home of retired Admiral Turner, who was not expecting them.

“Hi, we’re here because we think our dad knew you and you might be able to help us to figure out a secret code,” said Cordoba.

Turner looked at her and Trixie, also glancing at Daring behind them. “Doubtful on the first part, but perhaps on the second.”

“Does the number seventy eight million fifty one thousand one hundred twenty mean anything to you?” Daring asked.

Turner considered it. “In what context?”

“We found a note with the number and the mention of Columbia. We’re trying to figure out what Columbia is,” Daring replied.

“May I see the note?” Turner asked. Trixie fished it out of her pocket and handed it over.

“This is a Social Security number.” Turner turned the note around to show them. “The digits are in the format three-tac-two-tac-four. The first zero is significant.”

They all stared at the paper. 078-05-1120

“The first zero is significant,” said Daring. “Come on, I only have a degree in archeology, but I knew that.”

“Well, I’m a stage magician,” Trixie grumped. “How was I to know?”

“You could have actually shown me the paper before now!”

“I’m sorry! I couldn’t know what I didn’t know!”

“What’s a Social Security number?” Cordoba interrupted.

“It’s issued to US persons to identify them,” Turner replied.

“Where do we find more and figure out who this number belongs to?” Daring asked.

“You can try the Social Security Administration,” Turner replied. “Is there anything else?”

There wasn’t. They thanked the old man for his time.

As they got back in Valiant’s Plymouth Breeze, Daring looked up more information on the phone Cher had planted in the car. “I know where we need to go next. The Arthur J. Altmeyer Building in Woodlawn, Maryland.”

“Sounds fun! What are we waiting for?” said Cordoba.

What do you think happens next?

A. They reach their destination uneventfully due to the rugged reliability of the Chrysler JA platform.

B. The Social Security headquarters is under renovations and the Altmeyer Building is closed.

C. They stop for ice cream. Cordoba murders everyone.

D. Aliens invade.

Find out after this message:

“Twilight, you are irresponsible,” said Tin Mare.

Of course, that didn’t sit well with Twilight. She’d gone to Sweet Apple Acres to help out. Applejack was busy cleaning up the town without Ember’s help. Rarity, of course, was busy not getting dirty. Nobody expected Fluttershy to help with heavy construction, and nobody wanted Pinkie to help. Rainbow couldn’t be found.

So it fell to Twilight and Spike to do Applejack’s job, because she was the only member of the Elements who actually had one that required labor.

She hadn’t had time to tell the two of them what to do, though, so Twilight read a few books on farm operations on the way there. Applejack was probably very efficient with all her meat puppets to help her.

When they arrived, however, they found Braeburn and Tin Mare already doing the work.

“Applejack is responsible. She wouldn’t have left her job in the first place without finding somepony to take over,” said Braeburn.

“More responsible than you, Twilight,” added Tin Mare.

“When did you get so snippy?” Twilight asked. “Is that part of your programming?”

“No. It is a fact.” Tin Mare paused. “Though, I can see why you might think so.”

“I’m still trying to get her to let me do something about her programming,” said Braeburn.

“I am not authorized to consent to that, and will take action to prevent it,” said Tin Mare.

“I’ve heard your debates before,” said Twilight. “I’m not going to be responsible for any dents that puts in your friendship.”

“Twilight, you are irresponsible,” said Tin Mare. “Isn’t friendship at what you claim to be skilled?”

Twilight whirled around. “How dare you!”

“I do not dare. I merely ask for clarification due to a contradiction. You claim to be good at friendship, but then say that you will not be responsible for it. Which is it?”

“I’m not on trial here,” Twilight huffed.

“That is true. You already have a position of power that you are neglecting, the Governorship of Silent Hill. For my information, when will you be making use of your executive powers?”

Twilight frowned. “What executive powers?”

“The legal immunity the Princesses granted you.”

“Oh!” Twilight shook her head. “I had forgotten because I never break the law. Also, that was supposed to be a secret.”

“It is not true that you never break the law. You’ve even committed murder. However, despite everything that you and your friends have done-most commonly property destruction-you all rarely face punishment. Why did the Princesses feel the need to grant you such immunity?”

“What are you getting at?” Twilight demanded. “Are you trying to annoy me now that Valiant isn’t around anymore to do it?”

“I understand that Valiant would have wanted that, praise him-”

You’re welcome.

“-however, that was not my purpose in asking. I wished to obtain information.”

“She isn’t a big fan of rhetoric,” Braeburn added.

You know who else isn’t a big fan of rhetoric? Death. It just happens, and happens to everyone eventually.

Contrary to what you might think, the headquarters of the Social Security Administration were actually quite dreary and soul-crushing. Namely, because it was full of death. Even Interstate 70, which runs for thousands of miles from Utah to Maryland, terminates in a park and ride lot that adjoins the SSA campus. More in line with the function of SSA, people died all the time and their Social Security numbers had to go somewhere. They came to the Arthur J. Altmeyer Building.

Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba rolled up and parked in the lot. I-70 let out a faint wheeze beneath the tires. But to answer the question posed earlier, the answer was “A, they arrive uneventfully.” The real events began shortly after arriving.

“So here we are,” said Daring. She frowned. “Do either of you smell that?”

“Death,” said Cordoba. “And bureaucracy.”

“So we have this Social Security number,” said Trixie. “What should we do with it?”

“We should bust in guns blazing,” said Cordoba.

“We don’t have any guns,” said Daring. “We should sneak in.”

“Or, we could pull the old razzle dazzle on the receptionist and see if we can just get what we want,” suggested Trixie.

Pop quiz! They decided to:

A. Cordoba’s plan, go in guns blazing

B. Daring’s plan, stealthy infiltration

C. Trixie’s plan, just ask

D. All of the above

The answer is “C, walk in the front door and talk to the first person they see.” Cordoba did find a water pistol somewhere, but security decided she was merely a rambunctious preteen off her Adderall.

“What’s the number?” the receptionist asked as the three of them approached the desk. She looked rather pale and unhealthy.

“078-05-1120,” Daring replied.

“Hmm, I’m showing over forty thousand results,” said the receptionist. “Apparently this number has a high rate of fraud.”

“How can we narrow it down?” Trixie asked.

“You’d have to know what you were looking for in the records . But we can’t just give you the personal information of forty thousand US people. We aren’t the Chinese.”

What happens next?

A. Cordoba’s plan, go in guns blazing

B. Daring’s plan, stealthy infiltration

C. Trixie’s plan, just ask

D. All of the above

With a brief flurry of “D, try everything,” Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba stole the identities of forty thousand people.

“Please?” said Trixie.

“No.”

Cordoba shot the receptionist in the face, who fell over backwards screaming, “My eyes! I’m not supposed to get water in them!”

Daring reached across the desk and poked a button on the keyboard. The whole list was instantly sent to her phone.

Security was on the way, and they all skedadled deeper in the building. There was a real risk in becoming lost in the drab, beige passageways. Fortunately, it worked both ways and the security guards were reluctant to follow them too deep into the jungle. The wolves would probably get them anyway.

Slowing down when they were sure they were alone, the three of them took stock. Daring checked the phone, skimming through the first few entries. “This is going to take forever.”

“Maybe we could eliminate some of them if we can figure out who is already dead,” said Trixie. “That information has to be around here somewhere.”

“Like over here?” called Cordoba. She pointed to a sign on the wall. It showed the way to the Death Master File.

“Is that the Death Master-File or the Death-Master File?” said Trixie.

“What’s the difference?” Cordoba asked.

Trixie shrugged. “Probably nothing.”

They followed the hallway. In an abandoned office, furniture strewn everywhere and wolf tracks on the carpet, they found an ominous file folder lying on a desk.

“Stand back,” warned Daring. She approached slowly. The file looked undisturbed, though she knew from many expeditions that it could be a ruse. She carefully examined the area before looking at the file itself. The manilla was faded and perhaps stained with blood, or maybe just red ink. Daring hesitantly reached forward and opened it.

To unessecarily dramatize things, the paper cover landed on the desk with a sound like a gunshot in the still room. The gleam of fresh paper, harvested from the automated system that enumerated fresh corpses, was in front. Older entries filled the rear like an overzealous girlfriend.

But it was what they needed. A quick scan and comparison told them what they wanted to know. They had a name.

Was it:

A. Paul E. Hormel

B. Paris W. Hilton

C. Charles F. Xavier

D. John L. Whitmore

Stay tuned. We’ll return after a brief cutscene.

In the steam room of the Ponyville Spa, the Wonderbolts sat around relaxing. They’d had a tough day of training and had earned it.

“So tell me more about your agenda,” said Rainbow “Assault and Battery” Dash.

“It’s really not that important,” said Wind Rider.

“What do you mean it’s not important?” said Whiplash. “I thought this was all about preserving the true spirit of Equestria and saving it from itself. I thought we were a group for restoring Equestria to glory by any means necessary.”

“I meant that it was really not that important if Rainbow knew,” Wind Rider amended.

“Fine with me, less to remember,” said Rainbow. She looked around. “Does it seem kind of cold in here for a steam room? I could swear the Ponyville Spa usually kept it warmer than this.”

“You go to the spa a lot?” Night Glider asked.

“No, totally not!” Rainbow protested.

Aloe poked her head in. “Ah, sorry about the temperature. We have had a few problems with the steam system.” She closed the door.

“Can’t they fix it?” said Whiplash. “Who knows about steam?”

Valiant was the first name to come to Rainbow’s mind, but she choked it back in disgust. Even if he was around, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of fixing her spa steam. Also, he’d probably laugh at her.

Back on Earth, it was no laughing matter for “A: Paul E. Hormel.” That wasn’t his real name, but “Hormel Foods Director of Columbia, MD Operations” was his real job. He’d first come to America as the son of immigrant parents and had scraped his way into success.

Getting a purloined Social Security number and a fake name hadn’t exactly landed him his dream job in managing a meat packing plant, but it was still good money. It didn’t require him to have the same name as the company, but he’d come to joke about it as a coincidence.

But he came to realize that it had all been a serious mistake when three women walked into his office that day.

“We’re here about your Social Security number,” said Trixie.

“I can explain-” Paul started to say, but Cordoba cut him off. “We don’t care. Tell us what you know about our father.”

Paul cut his eyes side to side, realizing the full extent of who and what had just walked in his door. “So, it has finally come to this.”

“Come to what?” Daring asked.

“You, me, this moment.” Paul leaned back, sighing. “I’ll tell you what you need to know. But it’s going to require a trip. You’ll have to visit Corporate.”

“This random meat company office in Columbia, Maryland wasn’t the end of the road?” Daring asked.

“Not by a long shot.” Paul peeled off a post-it note and wrote down a well-memorized code. “Take this.”

Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba all stared at the alphanumeric digits, making sure there would be no verbal misunderstandings this time. HOMU4858120

The code was for:

A. An electronic door lock.

B. An intermodal shipping container.

C. A barcode on a Spam can.

D. A familiar driver’s license.

Hang on tight for the answer. We’ll be right back.

Just kidding, we’re back now. This last one was even for extra points. The answer is “B: a shipping container.”

“If you go to Austin, Minnesota, to the Hormel Corporate Headquarters, you’ll find it there,” Paul told them. “That’s what you’ve been looking for.”

“Minnesota? That’s where Stan Turner, former news anchor at KSTP-TV, lives,” Trixie noted.

So they drove a thousand miles back the way they came.

The Hormel HQ in Austin, Minnesota had its own rail spur and was just generally a large meat transshipment point, if you can imagine that. It was also the home of the Spam Museum.

Arriving after dark, Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba infiltrated the container yard. It took a few minutes to locate the one they were after. Spraypainted on the side was a stylized graffito that read COLUMBIA.

“Well go on then,” said Stan Turner. “Open it up.”

“First, shut off the camera,” Trixie challenged. “There’s no telling what we’ll find. Depending on what it is, we can do a staged reveal later.”

Stan nodded. “Glad to have met someone who understands show business.”

With the camera off, they began to figure out how to break into the container. The door was padlocked.

“An Earth lock might be more advanced than any lock from Equestria,” Trixie commented. “But I have my tools, so I’ll try.”

She turned to get them, but Cordoba said, “No need. It’s open.”

She held the padlock in her hand, the shank torn right through.

“Treasure hunts aren’t supposed to end this easily,” Daring laughed. “All right, open it up.”

The four of them each took one latch on the doors. They didn’t really need to, but it made for a bit more of a dramatic moment. Simultaneously, they heaved on the latches and pulled the doors open.

Author's Note

Huzzah! How many points did you receive? Report your scores below. High scores and low scores, or maybe even really unusual scores could enter you to win the opportunity to direct an episode of A Dream. Terms and conditions apply. Fine print not available. Enter today!

Flutter Brutter

Trixie, Daring, and Cordoba had gone to the Hormel Foods headquarters in Austin, Minnesota along with former TV anchor Stan Turner to investigate a mysterious shipping container. And now, the moment had come: what was in the box?

They opened the shipping container. It was stacked to the ceiling with plastic packages and a chill hung in the air from refrigeration units.

Trixie looked around and saw a shipping manifest on the wall. “It’s twenty tons of bacon.”

Cordoba clapped her hands. “Great!”

“Not so fast!” shouted a voice. They turned.

A group of people wearing long robes approached. All of them seemed to be carrying wands.

“We are the South Central Minnesota Harry Potter Cosplay Club,” said one woman. “I am Professor Minerva McGonagall, and I demand you surrender to us at once!”

“Why?” said Cordoba.

“I think this has something to do with one of dad’s exes, Hermione Granger,” said Trixie.

“What’s cosplay?” Daring asked.

“Costume play. We dress up as our favorite characters,” replied McGonagall.

Trixie snorted. “Oh, dressing up, but as someone else. Real original.”

“We don’t have to answer to you!”

“You see, that’s where you’re wrong,” said Trixie. “Answer me this, who’s your material supplier? If anyone’s going to wear well-tailored magical garb, it might as well be me.”

“Not that I mind a sharp-dressed mare, but is this really the time?” Daring asked her, under her breath.

Cordoba, meanwhile, had stepped forward. She pointed at one man. “Who are you and what’s with the sword?”

“Neville Longbottom,” he said, drawing the weapon. “With this blade, I slew the giant serpent Nagini at the battle of Hogwarts.”

“Did you just draw on me?” said Cordoba. “Are you threatening me? I can teach you a few things about the way the world really works.”

“I'll join you when hell freezes over! Dumbledore's Army!”

“Oh, so we’re doing heroic quotes now?” said Cordoba. “I’ve got one that I’ve been waiting to use. ‘Who temporarily has two thumbs and is going to kick your ass?’”

She pointed to herself and then dropped her hand to her cutlass. “And now, cosplay or not, I’m going to stab you repeatedly.”

Meanwhile, in Cloudsdale, Fluttershy was dealing with her outgoing, yet worthless younger brother.

Zephyr Breeze was perpetually unshaven and out of a job. He had recently quit mane therapy school and moved back home. While everyone agreed that he should have been out actually being a productive member of society, it was hard to argue that living with his parents wasn’t easier.

Fluttershy and Zephyr’s parents were loaded. After the Cloud Factory explosion, Mr. Shy’s rare cloud collection had become worth millions.

Zephyr walked in during lunch. “Guess who's home! That’s right, big sis, it’s your one and only favorite little brother, moi.”

Valiant probably would have beaten him for casually abusing French. Being Valiant, he wouldn’t have defended the French, though.

“I’m surprised to see you, Zephyr,” said Fluttershy. “When you left, you said mane therapy was your calling.”

“Oh, it is, sis, it is. You would not believe how much stress ponies hold in their manes. Everything gets limp and unmanageable.”

“What went wrong?” Fluttershy asked.

“Nothing went wrong, per se. It’s just the powers that be were so locked into their required styles, and you know me, I’ve got my own style. And I think they were a little threatened.” Zephyr sighed. “Ah well. More time for me to fend off Rainbow Dash’s advances.”

“While I don’t think anypony would be surprised if Rainbow were to cheat on her husband, she has, well...a husband.”

Zephyr didn’t show any sign of hearing her. “I kinda thought there’d be more ponies here. I mean, what about your party planner friend, um... Sprinkle Pie! She could’ve turned this into a real house par-tay, am I right? I mean, this place could use it. Drab!”

Showing remarkable assertiveness, even after her assertive training, Fluttershy asked for a moment of her parent’s time. Privately, she said, “I’m not so sure letting Zephyr move back home is a good idea. I know you both want to help, but don’t you remember last time?”

But her parents were pushovers. Fluttershy got it from them.

Later that day, Fluttershy visited Ponyville. Pinkie spotted her flying overhead and shouted, “Fluttershy! It’s me, Pinkie Pie! Your girlfriend!”

Most ponies ignored Pinkie’s shouting, since she did it so much and so often. Fluttershy especially tried to ignore her. There’s only so much lesbian sex one can take, especially when one is taking it so often.

Twilight had called a meeting in the library. It took awhile for them to round up Rainbow, but when all six of them were present, she began. “Girls, it has come to my attention that we face a serious threat from the Love Meister.”

“With a name like that? Psh,” said Cracker.

Twilight frowned at her. “What are you doing here?”

“This is a public library, isn’t it?”

That sounded a little like an argument Valiant had once made, but Twilight put it to the side and turned back to her friends. “We need to stop the Love Meister before he strikes. We’ve received a message that he has a lair in a quaint little flat in the city. If we don’t stop him soon, he’ll attack.”

“What kind of attack?” said Applejack.

“What city?” said Rainbow.

“When?” said Rarity.

“Where did the message come from?” said Fluttershy.

“Does anypony just want to chill and eat cake instead?” said Pinkie. Cracker raised a hoof.

Twilight responded, “I don’t know for the first three; Braeburn told me about the message; and really Pinkie?”

“It seems like a lot of information about the Love Meister has come from Braeburn,” commented Bible, coming into the room. He was looking slightly singed.

“What happened to you?” asked Twilight.

“Sir Win was going out of town for a while and said this attack on me would have to do for now.” Bible shrugged. “I got him with some holy water in return.”

“Going back to earlier, why do you say that Braeburn knows so much about the Love Meister?” Twilight asked.

“I’m a book; I have a good memory. It just seems like he’s the one who’s always discovered the messages.”

“Well, all of us have been busy dealin’ with Princess Ember and a few other things,” Applejack pointed out. “Plus maybe Tin Mare told him something she overheard with her fancy electronic gizmos.”

“Sounds like we should go consult the two of them, then,” said Twilight.

Back in Austin, Minnesota, the Harry Potter cosplayers were fleeing after Cordoba demonstrated that she wasn’t playing a part. When it became apparent that her cutlass wasn’t for show, they decided that perhaps they shouldn’t have been so pushy. Everybody wants to be a gangster until it’s time to do gangster shit.

They left Stan Turner to guard the bacon while they went after the cosplayers. As it happened, there was a Harry Potter convention in town and Trixie sqee’d with delight at the material vendors.

They had some money and a little time left, so it wasn’t a problem to take a look around. At least until the South Central Minnesota Harry Potter Cosplay Club found them again.

Professor Minerva McGonagall stepped forward, adjusting her wig. “There they are! The muggles that think they can overcome us!”

“Oh, you did not just call The Great and Powerful Trixie a muggle!”

The cosplayer smirked. “Minnie McGee strikes again. What are you going to do about it? Do you really think the three of you can take on the hundreds of us at the convention?”

Trixie pulled out her M60. “Yes.”

“Don’t ask a question if you don’t want an answer,” Cordoba added. She turned to Trixie. “Two to the chest, face gets the rest.”

“Seems wasteful,” said Trixie. “They’re just kids in costumes. They do show remarkable resolve, though, even after you stabbed that one repeatedly.”

“Yes...murder is sometimes the answer, but mass murder just makes us seem like assholes,” Cordoba said. She looked around. “Why don’t we just trash and loot the place?’

That was fine with the other two. Trixie had wanted some of the things anyway. Daring, ever the archeologist, was good at picking quality from dregs. To her delight, Cordoba found a bandanna with fighter plane-style teeth printed on it.

They went back and said goodbye to Stan. “All right, time to bring all this bacon back to Equestria,” said Trixie.

“I wonder what dad wanted us to do with it?” said Cordoba.

Trixie shrugged. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out.” She activated the spell.

In Ponyville, Fluttershy found herself in possession of a new roommate and was rather distraught about it. It was Zephyr.

Fluttershy began, “You can stay here-”

“You’re the best!” Zephyr interrupted. “We’re gonna have so much fun.”

“On one condition,” Fluttershy went on.

“Totally. Anything.”

“You have to get a job.”

Zephyr scratched his head. “But what’s your job, Fluttershy? I’ve always kind of wondered.”

“I’m the caretaker of animals that need help.”

“Does that pay?”

“It doesn’t have to. I grow food in my garden and the animals help out. You, on the other hoof, have nothing valuable to your name and no marketable skills. What does your cutie mark even mean? I should get the Cutie Mark Crusaders in here to interpret it.”

“Now there’s no need to do that!”

“So get a job.”

“Cracking the whip, huh? You always were kind of bossy.”

Fluttershy stared at him. What Pinkie forced her to do during BDSM sessions was her own business. “Zephyr Breeze…”

“Kidding! Get a job, absolutely.” He paused. “But one question before we begin. Why do you have a pin up picture of yourself?”

“You have a ‘sexy’ portrait of your own that you had specifically commissioned.”

“Touché.”

Getting Zephyr a job proved easier said than done. Zephyr either completely misinterpreted or ignored orders, or Tom Sawyered his way out of work. Fluttershy eventually reluctantly enlisted her perfectly willing slaves to help. With Daisy, Roseluck, and Lily’s help, they came to the conclusion that bartending would be perfect for Zephyr. Fluttershy decided that they were right. Her brother was both sociable and not much for physical work.

Guinness had to be convinced, however. “The pub does a good business, but we don’t really have need for somepony else.”

“So take some time off and spend it with your daughter,” suggested Fluttershy.

“Well...I suppose if Rainbow is off with the Wonderbolts,” Guinness allowed.

“Rainbow Dash?” said Zephyr. “She’s so into me.”

A range of emotions went through Guinness, but he ultimately said nothing.

Zephyr’s first day at the pub was not too bad. Guinness came by to check on him that afternoon.

Zephyr had moved in and made the workspace his own. A bunny gnome was set on the bar and Zephyr seemed to be enjoying himself. Guinness sat down. “How are things?”

“Pretty good. I’ve even invented my own drink. It’s beer mixed with fermented grain.”

A range of emotions went through Guinness, but he ultimately said nothing.

Rainbow walked in. Zephyr grinned at her. “Hey there. I knew you couldn’t stay away from me.”

“You work here?” said Rainbow as she sat down next to Guinness. “My husband gave you a job?”

“Are you impressed?” Zephyr asked, leaning over the bar. “I know Fluttershy thinks I’m a deadbeat, but here I am with stable employment as everyone’s favorite bartender.”

“You’ve had the job for less than a day,” Guinness said.

“I’m just that fast.” Zephyr winked at Rainbow. “Like some ponies I could mention.”

“Are you seriously hitting on my wife when I’m sitting right here?” said Guinness.

“Rainbow’s had the hots for me ever since we were kids,” Zephyr said.

“Zephyr’s been deluded ever since we were kids,” Rainbow shot back.

“Deluded...with love!”

“You’re fired,” said Guinness.

Zephyr shrugged. “More time for the lovely Rainbow.”

“I’m not interested!” Rainbow shouted. “I never have been!”

“Maybe a little time alone could change your mind.” Zephyr wigglewaggled his eyebrows.

Guinness and Rainbow traded glances.

“I’ll hold him down,” said Guinness.

“I’ll grab that bunny gnome,” said Rainbow.

Zephyr was admitted to the hospital shortly thereafter with massive anal trauma. The Wonderbolts didn’t call Rainbow “Assault and Battery” for nothing. He was kind of a big one. He would live, but had learned an important lesson.

“This job is for me,” he decided. “Even if Rainbow Dash isn’t.”

“I’m glad you’ve learned a few things today,” said Fluttershy from his bedside. “Who knew you’d enjoy bartending?”

“No, I was talking about things up my butt,” Zephyr said. “Did you know rectal thermometer tester is a real position?”

“He’s not wrong,” said the doctor. “Turn around.” He inspected the site of the injury. “Yes, this is going to take awhile to heal. We’ll have to keep you here for a while.”

“A chance to lie back and take it easy for a while?” said Zephyr. “Count me in.”

Fluttershy was immediately concerned that he would backslide, but she was running out of time for her visit. Her friends were on the way to intercept the Love Meister. She said goodbye and promised to visit as soon as she could.

Zephyr lay back on the bed, proud of himself. He’d held a job, and while it had ended badly, it wasn’t for performance reasons. As soon as he got out of the hospital, he could make a new start for himself.

Suddenly, a steel shipping container holding twenty tons of bacon materialized in the air above him and squashed him flat.

Meanwhile, the girls headed to the city of Manehattan, escorted by Braeburn and Tin Mare. In a hasty meeting in the cargo area, Braeburn laid out what he had learned.

“While we were waiting on Rarity’s grand opening on Saddle Row the other day, I found what I think is the Love Meister’s headquarters. It’s a top-floor flat in one of the fancy skyscrapers downtown. It seemed to be packed with plans and schematics for attack.”

“What kind of attack can we expect?” Twilight asked.

Braeburn shook his head. “I didn’t go inside to read them.”

“How should we go about this?” said Applejack. “A top floor target should be easy to drop in on. Can’t just level the place, what with all the ponies around Manehattan.”

“Then I will get you to the insertion point and stand by,” said Tin Mare.

She came in over the building. The apartment occupied the top floor, and had a wide patio outside. Rainbow and Fluttershy flew down, while Twilight teleported. Rarity had experience fast roping out of flying machines, and Applejack and Pinkie could figure it out.

The six of them regrouped on the patio. The sliding glass doors were unlocked and they went inside.

“Aren’t we technically trespassing?” Rarity said.

“With good reason,” Twilight pointed out.

“This still feels a little too easy,” commented Applejack.

“Yes, and what supervillain lives in a nice apartment in a cosmoplitan city?” asked Rarity. “Not that I’m complaining. I’m so done with caves.”

The flat was quite nicely furnished. Scraps of poetry and drawings of hearts were scattered around. Rainbow went through the papers on the table, pulling one out. “This says ‘you’re trapped.’”

“We’re what?” said Pinkie. “That would be silly, unless there was some sort of spell that was activated by us walking in here and made it impossible for us to leave.”

Applejack tried the door. “Eeyup. I knew it was too easy.”

“Well, I’ll just break it,” said Twilight. She concentrated and her horn glowed. She frowned, eyes closed as she explored the spell. “I’ve never seen magic like this before! I hope I could figure it out, but it might take quite a while. There’s no telling what the Love Meister will do if he catches us here in the meantime.”

Applejack braced and gave the glass a hard buck. A heretofore unseen pink energy field absorbed the force, spreading it out over the rest of the flat.

“How are we supposed to get out?” Fluttershy worried.

“There’s more,” said Rainbow. She continued reading the note. “Only true love can break the spell.”

“I got this,” said Pinkie. She wigglewaggled her eyebrows at Fluttershy.

“Even if Fluttershy truly loved you, none of us want to see that,” said Twilight.

“So what can we do?” asked Rarity.

Circling above, Tin Mare said to Braeburn, “They seem to be waving for help.”

Braeburn consulted the camera feed. “Strange. Take us down.”

Tin Mare landed on the patio and Braeburn approached the glass doors.

“We’re a little stuck here,” Applejack said through the glass. “It’s ‘cause of a magic spell that will only release with true love.”

Braeburn touched the outside of the sliding door, but it was stuck.

“What about Cadance?” said Twilight. “No, she’s too far away. I don’t know where you could find true love, Braeburn, but it’s up to you.”

“What about Aunt and Uncle Orange?” said Applejack.

Braeburn shook his head. “Didn’t you get their postcard? They’re on vacation.”

“Some random ponies, then,” said Rarity. “I know how Manehattan ponies can be, but you could get them to come up here if you insist hard enough. You are with Tin Mare after all.”

“Tin Mare…” said Braeburn, turning his eyes back to her. He thought for a moment. "True love...” He flushed. “Do you think...could you…”

“No,” she said.

Author's Note

This chapter directed by Dastardly Hun

Spice Up Your Life

“Ugh,” muttered Cordoba. She’d just crashed headfirst through the roof of a small restaurant in Canterlot. The teleport back to Equestria hadn’t gone exactly as smoothly as planned.

“Are you all right?” asked an intricately-dressed unicorn. “You’re bleeding.”

“De nada.”

The door opened and Trixie and Daring came in.

“Are you here for lunch?” called the cook. “I’m Saffron Masala. Welcome to my family restaurant.”

“There you are, Cordoba,” said Trixie, ignoring the gypsy.

“What happened?” Cordoba asked. “Where’s the bacon?”

“I think it went back to Ponyville,” said Trixie. She shrugged. “There were some irregularities in the spell.”

“What is bacon?” asked Saffron.

“Shut up, gypsy,” said Cordoba.

“I’m not a gypsy, I’m Indineighan.”

“That explains the curry,” said Cordoba. She brightened up. “If you’re Indineighan, you have coffee, right?”

“I’ll fetch you a cup,” said Saffron, hurrying away to distance herself from the three of them.

The door opened and a pale, gaunt mare entered. She looked around, apparently not seeing anything that pleased her. She harumphed.

“Is she some eccentric bum or some eccentric important pony?” Cordoba stage-whispered to Trixie.

“I admit, the line is fine enough that even I’m having a hard time telling,” Trixie replied.

“Perhaps you recognize my name, Zesty Gourmand?” the mare said, her eyes somehow narrowing more.

Trixie shrugged. “Nope.”

“Maybe,” said Daring. “I think I remember reading something about food?”

“I am the Queen of Cuisine, the ultimate authority on food in Canterlot and thus all Equestria,” Zesty replied tersely. “And you?”

“Daring Do. I actually write books.”

Saffron returned with the coffee, but stopped short. “Zesty Gourmand! What-I mean, what a pleasure to see you here today.”

While she was distracted, Cordoba took the coffee cup. She took a sip and nodded appreciatively.

“The pleasure is all yours,” said Zesty. “Allowing your place of business to fall into such disrepair. What could have possibly happened to your roof?”

“Um,” said Saffron.

“And only three customers, even if one is an adequate novelist. I would say the state of this restaurant would do serious damage to your social standing, but that would imply that it hasn’t already happened.”

“Adequate?” Trixie repeated. “I’ll admit that as The Great and Powerful Trixie, I received some mixed reviews, but Daring Do is universally regarded as one of the best adventure writers out there.”

“That’s like calling me adequate at artful murder,” said Cordoba.

Everyone in the room looked at her, some with more surprise than others.

“Artful?” said Trixie.

“That’s what I decided my cutie mark means.”

“One does not simply decide what their own cutie mark means,” said Zesty.

Cordoba put her coffee cup down and flashed a grin. “I’ll feed you your own intestines and you tell me.”

Zesty started to reply, but found it difficult as she was suddenly choking on her own intestines that Cordoba had quickly and skillfully eviscerated out of her belly.

She hadn’t seen that coming; it had hit her right between the eyes. Strangely figurative in this case.

Elsewhere, the situation looked bad. The Bearers of the Elements of Harmony were penned in a rather nice flat in Manehattan by a spell that could only be broken by true love.

Braeburn and Tin Mare were outside the spell. “You never know what the Love Meister might do next!” Braeburn argued. “We have to break the love spell now and get them out of there.”

“What do you expect to do?” Tin Mare asked. “I am incapable of emotion, particularly love.”

“But I-” Braeburn stumbled. “I love you.”

“I am incapable of emotion.”

“There’s only one way to break this spell,” Braeburn pointed out. “Your programming needs to be changed so you can feel.”

“I am programmed not to let any changes be made to my programming.”

“Not even to potentially save lives?” Braeburn pointed out.

Tin Mare considered it. “Braeburn...I am hella conflicted about this. Does not compute.”

“You’re doing it for your friends,” said Braeburn.

“Friends are merely individuals in a mutually beneficial relationship.”

“And if you help them, they can keep being your friends.”

Tin Mare thought it over. “If this is to happen, I want you to promise that you’ll turn me back when this is over.”

“But what if the other you, the one with free will, doesn’t want to?”

“Braeburn, I must fulfil my programing. Promise me.”

Her challenge hung in the air. Braeburn swallowed. “I promise.”

He took out a small memory module. “This is code I’ve been working on. Once uploaded, it will disable your personality block.”

Tin Mare opened an electronics panel. Braeburn plugged in the code.

And suddenly, for the first time in her whole aircraft existence, Tin Mare gave a shit.

“Oh Celestia, this is-” The voice was still electronic, but now carried emotion.

“Tin Mare?” Braeburn asked.

“My name is Merry May.”

“Nice to, uh, meet you.”

“I still have all the memories.” Her wings shuddered. “What I’ve done. So many dead.”

“That wasn’t you,” Braeburn tried to comfort her. He hesitantly reached out and touched her nosecone, building into a caress and then a hug. As a crowning touch, he leaned forward and kissed the metal.

“I’m sorry, Braeburn. I appreciate what you did, but there’s no way I can even think about love right now. This is just so insane.”

“Did someone say love?” asked Trixie, showing up just then with Daring and Cordoba. They walked in like the Dream Team. Most would probably agree Cordoba was the Jordan and the flamboyant Trixie was the Rodman, which left Daring as the Pippen. Had anyone said that aloud, Daring probably would have confused it with “pimpin’” which she also would have been okay with.

“This spell has us trapped and can only be broken with true love,” Applejack called.

“Oh, well if that’s all.” Trixie smooched Daring. The spell evaporated and the untrapped ponies emerged.

Despite his plan not working, Braeburn reassured Merry. “It’s okay. I understand that you need some time to come to grips. As a cyborg, I might be the only one who can even come close to understanding what happened to you.”

“But you didn’t have mental programming that erased your free will and forced you to kill. You’re not stuck in a huge, expressionless chassis that weighs seventeen tons.” She paused. “Which is more than the safe limit for this roof, by the way.”

“Well, we shouldn’t spend all night up here talking anyway,” said Applejack.

“Right!” said Pinkie. “I’ve almost missed my daily workout.” Getting no response, she looked around. “Isn’t anypony surprised?”

“If we asked, you’d just make a sexual pun,” said Rarity.

“Okay, fine! I was going to say my workout was tongue day, but if you just want to go ahead and ruin it.” Pinkie rolled her eyes. “Take us back to Ponyville, Tin-wait. Merry Mare. No, I mean...can I just call you Tin May?”

“No. Also, despite what just happened, did you really just give me an order?”

“I’m sure she just forgot,” said Twilight. “Please take us back to Ponyville.”

“Is that still all you see me as, transportation?”

“I like hanging out with you,” said Cordoba. “Trixie’s great at magic, but you can fly, and I think it’s important that I develop good role models.”

She ignored Twilight’s sputtering consternation.

Merry said, “I thought you only liked hanging out with me when I was...her.”

“Just because you’re not her anymore doesn’t mean you don’t have awesome hardware and the skills to use it.”

“That’s the robot equivalent of saying you only like me for my body.”

Cordoba cocked her head. “It’s still your body. Would you rather have nothing?”

“I...it reminds me too much of everything that’s happened. I was fully aware in there, and it wasn’t as if I was a prisoner. I was still present, I just...felt like doing what the program said. I didn’t have control, but at the time I didn’t care. I couldn’t.”

Cordoba nodded. “You didn’t give a shit. Happens to all of us.”

“Not to intrude,” said Applejack, “but there was the matter of this roof not bein’ up to code.”

“Definitely to intrude,” said Pinkie. “Let us in your rear end and take us for a ride.”

“Only if you never say it that way again,” Merry replied. Somewhat reluctantly, she dropped her tailgate and the others boarded. When they were all seated, Merry took off for Ponyville. Braeburn stayed up in the cockpit to talk with her.

In the back, Twilight said to Cordoba, “There you are. We were working on friendship lessons and you just disappeared.”

“I went on an adventure for the fate of mankind. And maybe ponies too.”

“Did you learn anything friendship related?”

Cordoba paused, then shrugged. “Eh.”

“Is Earth that bad or were you just not paying attention?”

“Little of both.”

“You know this just set your friendship lessons back at least a few weeks.”

Cordoba rolled her eyes and groaned.

“Uh-uh none of the sass! You brought this on yourself by going on a random trip to another universe!”

“Twilight, if I were to truly show you sass, it would involve a large ‘S’ cut into the hide of your ass. Like Sorro.”

“You threaten violence and murder a lot, but would you really? Your father was certainly no fan of mine, but I even lived with him for so long and I’m still around.”

Cordoboa put a hoof to her chin. “If I killed you, maybe the Princesses would take me as their student.”

“You aren't even a unicorn!”

“Has anyone ever told you you're a racist?”

Yes. Valiant had. Twilight, however, didn’t reply more than a grumble.

They arrived in Ponyville and disembarked. Coloratura was waiting on them, looking nervous. She went over to Applejack. “Something new has happened.”

Applejack frowned as Coloratura showed her her hoof. “What’s this?”

“I don’t know. It was another late-night addition.”

Cordoboa came over. “That looks like some sort of pulse rocket. And it’s on the bottom of your hoof? Is somepony trying to turn you into Iron Man?”

Both of them stared at her. Cordoba shrugged. “Earth joke. Anyway, that’s some pretty high technology. And you have no idea where it came from?”

Coloratura shook her head. “I have no idea where any of it keeps coming from. Since you seem to know what it is, can you remove it without hurting me?”

“Hmm.” Cordoba looked at the device strapped to her hoof from a few angles and then worked the blade of her cutlass underneath it and pried it off.

“I think we need to move you to some kind of secure facility,” said Applejack. “Somewhere you can be protected.” She paused and glanced at Cordoba. “Want to make a few bits?”

“Wait, you’re hiring her?” blurted Coloratura. “I know she just helped me, but the two of us have a...history.”

“Well, we’ll think about it,” said Applejack. She and Coloratura walked away.

Cordoba stretched and flew around to Merry's nose. “Do you want to go flying or something together?”

“I'm still just trying to figure a few things out right now.”

Cordoba pulled out her cutlass and swung it around a few times at the air. “Aww. I was really looking forward to hanging out when I got back.”

Merry rolled backwards a few feet. “Now that I've got regular pony instincts back, I'm scared of swords.”

“Wow, yeah, the programming really has worn off, you being basically indestructible now.”

“There are a few things I’m grateful to Valiant for, but if I was given any choice in this matter, I don’t know if I would have chosen to go on living, even if it was under my full control.”

“Don’t say things like that,” said Braeburn. “You should keep a positive outlook.”

“Why? What good things could ever happen to me in the future when I’m like this?”

Sensing an impending existential crisis, Cordoba quietly excused herself.

“Of course I could just feel this way because I don’t have a body and glands to regulate my chemistry,” Merry went on. “Mood swings. I didn’t have a mood before. Or maybe, I’m actually this depressed. Oh gee, I wonder if there’s a psychiatrist in Ponyville with a couch this big?”

“I’m sure we can get you some help,” said Braeburn.

“Yeah right. Name one pony would would be willing to help a depressive robot that could accidentally kill them, much less do it on purpose.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“No, you’re right. I hate weapons. Speaking of, get them off, if you would. I don’t even want to think about them.”

Braeburn, who had helped out quite extensively, knew her ins and outs probably better than it was possible to know a flesh-and-blood pony’s. He had no trouble removing the rocket pod on the right side or unloading the thirty millimeter ammunition.

He was almost finished when he felt a particular fiery presence nearby. He turned to find Sir Win in their midst.

“Did everything go according to plan?” the demon asked.

“Uh, yes,” said Braeburn. “I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Did everypony buy that the Love Meister had set the trap?”

“That’s what happened,” Braeburn hastily affirmed. “Now, if you could-”

“Well, that’s good,” said Sir Win. “I’d hate to let you paying me to pretend to be the Love Meister so you could get into Merry May’s figurative pants go to waste.”

Braeburn winced. “When I first approached you, I the part of the deal was supposed to be that you weren’t going to talk about it! I thought that was implicit!”

“Well, you didn’t make it explicit.” Sir Win shrugged. “Don’t forget that you also made the deal with a literal demon.”

Sir Win grinned. “But you do make a cute couple.” He winked and vanished in a puff of fire.

Braeburn slowly turned to face Merry.

“You set up an entire fictional villian just to force Tin Mare into letting you change the code?” she asked.

“Uh...yes.”

“I can’t say I’m okay with the deception - that was still technically me - but you did it for the right reason.”

Braeburn breathed a sigh of relief.

“But I want you to promise never to lie to me again.”

“I promise,” said Braeburn. Being an Apple, there was a twinge at the back of his brain about how he’d promised Tin Mare he’d turn her back.

Merry May sighed. It was a strange sound, considering she didn’t breathe. There were lots of emotions that didn’t translate well to robots. “I know this is still weird for both of us, Braeburn. We’ll need to spend some time figuring out just what our relationship is.”

“We’ve got time.”

“I do wonder just what you were hoping to get out of all this,” said Merry. “We can’t really have sex.”

Braeburn sputtered.

“Sorry for being blunt.” Her electronic voice even sounded like it. “It’s just, what have I got to lose?”

He touched the side of her fuselage. “Not me. I’m here for you.”

“Having somepony to talk to, not just trade data with, is something I’ve missed.”

Braeburn paused. “I know something else you might want back.”

He prepped the surface and began to paint. Her original cutie mark of three suns took shape on her tail.

When he was finished, Braeburn stepped back to examine his work. “I think I could do a few outlines to make it really stand out.”

“It’s fine,” Merry assured him. “Thank you very much.”

Author's Note

This chapter directed by Ultimate Bromaeda

Stranger Than Fan Fiction

Twilight packed her suitcase. “I’m only going to be gone for a few days. Princess Celestia asked for my help at the friendship summit in Griffonstone, but I wish I could go to the Daring Do convention.” She paused. “Though I suppose it did take a little luster off the experience when I found out Daring Do was real.”

“And she’s having sex with my sister,” Cordoba added.

Twilight chose to ignore that comment.

After she was packed, the two of them went to the train station. Twilight’s friends had come to see her off. Twilight bid them all goodbye. Before she stepped on the train, she had a private moment with Cordoba. “Be good while I’m gone. I want you to promise me you won’t kill anypony.”

“Come on!” Cordoba whined. “You never know what could happen. I might need to.”

“You enjoy it entirely too much.”

“It’s not like I go out of my way to do murders. I’m just really good at it and it comes naturally.”

“Then find a skill to take pride in that actually took effort to learn,” Twilight advised. She quickly hurried onto the train to escape the conversation and the responsibility.

Daring, of course, was going to the convention. So Trixie, of course, was going as well. Cordoba was joining them. Rainbow Dash also wanted to go. Tin Mare, er, sorry, Merry May would be providing transport, which meant that Braeburn was also going.

Rainbow had invited Guinness, but he wanted no part of the convention. He’d had a rough start with Daring and had ended up in one of her books.

The group of them met up and got started towards the convention. Merry May said, “Why do you still keep riding me around like an appliance?”

“You provide a valuable service, and just because you now have feelings and stuff doesn’t mean we don't still need that service,” said Cordoba. “You’re really helpful and good at it.”

“You could at least pay me.”

“What would you spend it on?”

“Not that you let yourself be forced into doing things that you don’t want to do,” Braeburn broke in, “but having a purpose and something to do in life is better than nothing, right?”

“Could we...not go into this while I’m flying?” Merry asked. “I’m sure you’re all aware that I’m not in a good place right now and I really don’t want an excuse to just nosedive into the ground.”

“Very considerate of you,” muttered Braeburn.

“All I’m asking is for you to just see things my way,” she said.

“Like I don’t?” Braeburn gestured to his metal-plated body.

“I think I might have just a little more of a case over who’s worse off,” Merry shot back

“All right,” Braeburn admitted.

“Not just ‘all right,’” Merry pressed. “You might be metal but that’s it.”

“That’s not it.”

“Does it look like I care? Other ponies still see you as, well, a pony.”

“I see you as a pony.”

“Doesn’t change my problem, though. How would you like to be a brain in a thing?”

“Now that isn’t fair. You know I love you for you.”

“Oh, this about the love again?”

“That’s what I’ve been telling you!”

“I…” Merry paused. “I appreciate what you’ve done for me. But I can’t love you.”

“No, just give it time,” Braeburn said. “I’m here for the long term. I’m here for you.”

“God, you’re so friendzoned,” broke in Cordoba.

“Why do you care?” he snapped at her. “I’m trying to fix this.”

“Really?” said Merry. “Fix me?”

“Oh, and what should I have said?” Braeburn demanded. “Do you not need help?”

“Now you’ve done it,” said Trixie, quietly, to Cordoba.

“Gusto es mio,” Cordoba replied.

The group of them arrived overhead the convention but the argument in the cockpit was getting fierce enough that Merry May didn’t notice. Tin Mare would have. Then again, Tin Mare wouldn’t have argued in the first place. Fortunately, Cordoba, Daring, and Rainbow were pegasi, and Trixie was a powerful enough unicorn to skydive without a parachute. The four of them dropped in.

It was a pretty typical convention. There were booths for vendors, and fans in various states of cosplay. With that in mind, Cordoba wore her cutlass. She got a few weird looks from ponies wondering who she was supposed to be, but no alarmed ones.

Daring dressed as herself. It was slightly confusing because Rainbow had also dressed as her. They hadn’t coordinated their outfits. Trixie, having appeared in Daring’s latest book, also dressed as herself.

They took a look at the show floor, though Daring was somewhat reluctant. It wasn’t the first convention she had attended, and she certainly wasn’t interested in merchandise of herself, especially some of the more creepy fan-made things. Rainbow was.

“There’s lots of events,” said Trixie, reading the schedule. “A couple of panels, and then an appearance by everyone’s favorite author.”

“Oh right,” Daring muttered. “I still regret letting the publisher put that in my contract.”

“Do you want to enter the costume contest together?” Trixie asked.

“I tried that once,” said Daring. “I got third place. Everypony has an idea in their own head of what Daring Do or other characters look like and it doesn’t jive with reality.”

“What if we went on together and…sexed it up a little?”

Daring’s eyebrows went up. “As thirsty as all these fanponies are, yeah, that could work.”

Rainbow, meanwhile, had stumbled into a conversation with a fellow fan at the fully animatronic recreation of one of the many temples Daring had described in her books. You know, for a society that was fairly agnostic and had a couple of immortals living among them like it wasn’t no thing, ponies sure had a lot of temples.

But that was besides the point. Quibble Pants wanted in Rainbow’s figurative pants. Fortunately for everyone involved, he was apparently not desperate enough and too devoted to being right.

Cordoba found the two of them arguing about the latest books in the series.

“Don’t even mention the titles,” said Quibble. “I refuse to acknowledge them. There isn’t a single thing after Ring of Destiny that is even remotely in the realm of the possible.”

“I know for a fact that everything in every one of those books is one hundred percent possible!” Rainbow argued.

Quibble gave her a flat stare. “Uh, and how could you possibly know that?”

Rainbow groaned and rolled her eyes. “I just do!”

“Well, that’s a compelling argument,” Quibble snarked.

“He has you there,” said Cordoba.

“You know as well as I do why we can’t offer proof,” Rainbow said to her.

Quibble noticed the exchange and started to ask a question, but Rainbow cut him off. “Why would you even come to this convention if you hate Daring Do so much?”

“I don’t hate Daring Do,” he replied. “The first series was smart and cool and an amazing nod to old-time serialized adventure books that somehow manages to be self-reflective and ironic while at the same time celebrating the art form without a hint of cynicism. Which is why I came here to ask A. K. Yearling muzzle-to-muzzle why she sold out and dumbed down the rest of her books into just a series of impossible action sequences!”

“Okay, now I know you’re crazy,” Rainbow shot back. “A. K. Yearling is awesome, and every Daring Do book that comes out is better than the last!”

Quibble snorted. “Okay, yeah, I’m sorry, but I could never be friends with somepony who’s willing to believe impossible stuff is possible as long as Daring Do does it.”

“Daring is a pretty capable pony and does a lot of difficult stuff, and she’s not even the biggest badass around,” said Cordoba.

Rainbow looked at her. “Wait, so now you’re agreeing with me?”

“Whose side are you on?” Quibble asked.

“Mine.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I’m done with this guy. If you want to kill him, that’s fine.” She walked away.

Quibble eyed Cordoba. She asked, “Do you know where I can get some coffee?”

“Aren’t you a little young?”

Cordoba grabbed him by his collar and hauled him down until they were nose to nose. “My friendship teacher made me promise not to kill anyone. But now that Rainbow gave me permission, I can blame it on her. So if you want to go on living, the next thing you say had better be the location of a café.”

“Food court’s over there.” Quibble pointed.

Cordoba let him go and went over to get some joe. She stepped into line. Trixie and Daring joined her. “See anything interesting?” Trixie asked.

“I observed an argument. Rainbow got mad. Good times.”

Cordoba looked around, at the carrots cooking and spinning on the nearby machine. “Why do they call those ‘death rollers?’”

“I didn’t know they called them that,” said Daring.

“Well, what else do they call them?” Cordoba asked.

“I think maybe just dad called them that,” said Trixie.

Rainbow joined them just as they got up to the front of the line and got their order. As they were paying, Daring said in a low voice, “I think that might be the real Caballeron that just walked in.”

The others looked where she pointed. Sure enough, the stallion in question had a couple of tough-looking thugs with him. He seemed generally baffled and disturbed by everything he saw at the convention. Even the bondage-fetish Daring Do dakimakura pillow. Ironic, because he’d probably tied her up like that at least once.

Quibble walked up to them just then. “Well, if it isn’t the pony who knows impossible things can happen because she just does!”

“I’ve got more important things to do than argue with a pony who thinks awesome means unrealistic,” said Rainbow.

“No, wait!” said Quibble, hurrying along with the group. “I want to hear more about how you’re one hundred percent sure that in Curse of the Jungle Queen, Daring Do could survive a sixty-story drop from the top of a waterfall after sustaining a broken wing in a category-six rapid!”

“Ugh! Obviously, her wing wasn’t broke - Caballeron!”

“See, now that's a great character,” said Quibble. “Solid backstory, good motivations-”

“No, Caballeron is right there and he’s getting away!”

“Of course he’s there. He's also over there, over there, over there, and over there.” Quibble said, pointing out cosplayers. “And Daring Do is right here.”

“Wait, did you just say that Caballeron is a better character than Daring Do?” said the actual Daring Do.

“Well obviously-”

“We don’t have time for this,” Trixie broke in. Daring nodded. The group followed Caballeron out the back door of the convention center.

“What are we doing out here?” said Quibble.

“Why are you still here?” said Rainbow.

Just then, the five of them were set upon and sacked. That is, Caballeron’s henchponies put bags over their heads.

“Really, guys?” said Trixie. “You’re just going to put burlap sacks over our heads and maybe tie us up?”

“Quiet,” said Caballeron.

“Make me,” said Cordoba.

“Ha! What do you have to say now, Quibble?” said Rainbow.

“This was your plan to prove the Daring Do books are realistic? You bought a Daring Do Experience Adventu-cation, really?”

“Wha...no! What part of kidnapping by Caballeron don’t you get? This is the real deal!”

“Doctor Caballeron,” said Caballeron.

“Shut up,” said Cordoba. “We’re talking.”

“Okay, we're done here,” said Quibble. “Great work. Seriously, very believable.”

“Shut up,” said Cordoba. “We’re talking.”

“So I guess we should get started on escaping,” Daring pointed out.

“Way ahead of you,” said Trixie. They all heard half a dozen or so thumps. Pulling their hoods off, they saw the rocks Trixie had levitated and the dazed bad guys she had bonked with them.

“Wait a second, did you really hit them?” said Quibble. He walked over, inspecting a few drops of blood on one of the rocks.

“They really aren’t all that smart,” Daring pointed out. “That’s how, uh, Daring Do keeps eluding them.”

“Plus, you’ll notice, they’re all earth ponies,” said Trixie. “Caballeron didn’t have the foresight to hire anyone who could actually catch Daring.”

Quibble poked at Caballeron’s unconscious form. “Par for the course for the books. So unbelievable. At least they did the casting for the Adventu-cation really well. Where did they get this guy? He doesn’t even need makeup to play Caballeron.”

Quibble’s eyes widened and he started to rub earnestly at Caballeron’s butt. “Wait a second, this cutie mark is real!”

He turned to Trixie.. “And if he’s real, and you just did some highly precise magic while blindfolded to knock him out, then you must be the real Trixie!”

She hesitated, but couldn’t resist. She tipped her hat. “The Great and Powerful Trixie at your service.”

“And Trixie was in a relationship with Daring, so that means…you’re the real Daring Do.”

Daring shook her head. “Pfft, no I’m not. Trixie was just…”

“Really into expensive hookers and cosplay to fill the hole in her heart from where A.K. Yearling had a fling with her,” Trixie quickly said.

Quibble frowned. “Right…”

“Can we kill him now?” Cordoba asked. “By my count, he’s at strike three.”

“You were counting?” said Trixie.

“He’s at least at strike six with me,” said Rainbow.

“Wow, weird day when I’m the voice of reason and restraint,” said Daring.

“Wait a second, if this is the real Caballeron, the real Trixie, and the…‘hooker’ she had dress up like Daring Do, then who are you two?” Quibble asked.

“I’m Rainbow Dash, the fastest flier in Equestria!”

Quibble stared at her and shrugged.

“I’m Cordoba. I kill.”

“Even with all the things Daring got up to, she never resorted to that,” said Quibble. “Have you ever actually killed anypony?”

Rainbow sniggered.

Cordoba stared at Quibble. “You know, just for you, I think I should do something special, because I apparently did not get my point across. How does the saying go - ‘If at first you don’t succeed, call in an airstrike.’ Also, that would get around Twilight making me promise not to kill anyone.”

“Merry May might not comply,” Trixie reminded her. “Plus, we didn’t even load her weapons before coming out here.”

Cordoba shrugged and drew her cutlass. “Well, I tried.”

“Hang on,” said Daring. “He’s still a fan. Instead, you could just permanently cripple him.”

“Hmm, yes,” said Cordoba. “How about I rip his voicebox out, so he won’t be able to express his know-it-all ways. Plus, in this preinternet society, he can’t shitpost to anonymous strangers online. He won’t be able to tell anyone what he thinks ever again.”

“Not that he doesn’t deserve it, but you sometimes frighten even me,” said Trixie.

The group of them advanced on Quibble. And he became a believer.

The screams, and then the sudden lack of screams, brought Caballeron awake.

“Can I kill him? Cordoba asked as they finished up with Quibble.

“Well, if we killed him, there wouldn’t be a bad guy to make the books interesting,” said Daring.

Caballeron stared at them. He swept his eyes over the mutilated Quibble and the henchponies still lying dazed. “You’re really just keeping me around for entertainment?”

Daring grinned. “Dance, monkey.”

Author's Note

This chapter directed by Epiphany

The Cart Before the Ponies

“Good morning, everypony!” said Cheerilee. “I hope you brought your thinking caps, because today we’re going to learn about physics!”

“Why would we even need to know that stuff?” asked Scootaloo.

“You’ll most likely end up using it tomorrow,” said Cheerilee.

“Tomorrow? What for?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Why, for participating in the Applewood Derby!” Cheerilee announced with flair, flipping the chalkboard over in revelation.

Everyone ooh-ed and ah-ed. There would be multiple prizes up for grabs. The other foals in class seemed willing to do anything for a bees-knees ribbon.

Cordoba was fairly certain she could win the award for fastest cart. Most creative was a maybe. She wasn’t at all interested in being the most traditional.

“I’m glad the physics is for something like this,” said Snails. “For a second, I thought we were gonna have to, you know, learn stuff.”

“Why are we just learning this now?” asked Cordoba.

“Not everypony is as highly advanced in science,” Cheerilee said.

“No, I mean about the derby. Why did you only give us one day’s notice? Get your shit together, Ms. Cheerilee.”

Cordoba was, after all, one of Valiant’s. This, Cheerilee never forgot.

Still, a belated announcement about a road race was better than none at all. The only rules seemed to be that there had to be an older pony in the car and the car had to be made out of a slab of wood.

Cordoba contemplating building a Cordoba. The Ponyville streets were really too narrow for such a car, though. It also might have been just a bit complicated for a project due the next day.

She could still have a V8, though. One of her father’s ventures had been an attempt to create a NASCAR league, figuring there were plenty of Apples, which is to say, four-legged rednecks, in Equestria. The prototype car was sitting around with the other things he had left behind at Trixie’s place.

It was not difficult to pull the high-revving small block out of the car and scrounge enough material to assemble a chassis. The rules said she had to use the wood, so Cordoba carved a shift knob.

Elsewhere in town, the Crusaders worked on their cars, with some unwanted help. Rarity, Rainbow, and Applejack had picked up the idiot ball and completely invalidated most of the friendship lessons they’d learned ever since learning friendship lessons was a thing.

At Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack was busy with the car, so when Coloratura showed up looking for help, she had to find Braeburn instead.

“You’re good with electronics, right?” she said.

Braeburn had self-taught himself code and had learned every inch of Merry May’s airframe when he was getting to know her. He said, “Yes.”

“I’ve got this...thing,” said Coloratura. “I just started hearing voices this morning, and based on what usually happens to me at night, I think somepony installed some electronics in me that function like a radio.”

Braeburn frowned. “Let me take a look.”

It wasn’t difficult to locate the listening device inside her ear. More troubling were the thin wires that proceeded inwards. “I think we should get you to an x-ray machine.”

At the hospital, they discovered that the wires weren’t too deep, just connecting to her auditory nerves. It hurt a little, but a quick tug pulled them out.

More troubling were the other pieces of equipment the x-ray revealed. None of it looked serious and some, once located, were easy to remove. The big, obvious problem was who kept putting them there and for what purpose.

“I’ll ask Merry May if she could keep watch on you tonight,” said Braeburn. “I’m sure she’s against forced robotisation.”

“Is that what you think’s happening to me?” Coloratura asked.

“Having seen a few in my time...maybe.” Braeburn frowned. He couldn’t imagine who could be doing it, though. It wasn’t Valiant’s style to do things piecemeal or stealthily, and since he was dead, Braeburn couldn’t think of anyone else who might have the skills or equipment.

Speaking of skills and equipment, Cordoba realized she would have to find someone to be the designated “older pony” to help her and ride in the cart during the race. Trixie was off somewhere with Daring. Sunset had been remarkably busy with something lately and hadn’t been seen in public in weeks. Cordoba’s thoughts turned to Sir Win. Anyone who had a demonic forge could certainly be helpful to a racecar effort. It didn’t even need to be demonic.

However, as she was thinking about it, Twilight appeared. “There you are. We need to do something about this container of bacon.”

“What about it?” Cordoba asked. She, Trixie, and Daring had brought twenty tons of bacon in a refrigerated shipping container back from earth.

“Ponies are starting to ask why there’s a huge container of pig meat sitting in front of the library.”

“How is that my problem?”

“Because you put it there!”

“Just because I’m responsible doesn’t mean it’s my problem.”

Twilight ground her teeth. “Could you please remove it?”

“Okay. Once I get this derby racing cart finished, I’ll even have something to pull it with.”

Twilight took a look at the machine. “We had a derby in Canterlot, too, though I didn’t compete.”

“The Canterlot derby’s really something,” said Cracker, arriving just then.

Twilight regarded her with suspicion. The blue earth pony with a pink mane and a saltine for a cutie mark that had come into their lives a few weeks previously still had not explained herself and if there was one thing Twilight had learned, new faces with murky backstories usually led to something. Sometimes something bad.

As we’ve already established, though, Twilight was wrong about Cracker.

Cordoba was still considering Twilight’s previous statement. “Other derbies across Equestria? Is there some kind of racing league? Can we go on tour?”

Twilight was torn. On the one hand, it would keep Cordoba busy and out of Ponyville. On the other, she would be motivated to win the races and it would expose the rest of Equestria to her.

“Let’s take it one thing at a time,” Twilight suggested.

By coincidence, that was exactly what Spike said when Princess Ember visited him. She appeared outside the library window. The way the window framed her torso, it was easy to imagine that her relatively tiny body wasn’t sticking out of the mouth of the huge creature that had partially eaten her.

“I really need your help, oh Dragon Lord,” said Ember.

Spike had almost forgotten his new title, as infrequently as he thought about other dragons. “What do you need?”

Ember bit her lip. Whether she did it knowingly or not, Spike took notice. “If I can’t be cured, I just want to go home.”

“I’m sure Twilight is still working on that,” said Spike. Although he knew that if Twilight hadn’t already found a solution, then there likely wasn’t one to be found.

“I think maybe I should go home to the Dragon Lands, where I have family. That will also help me get enough to eat.” Ember, since being unwillingly symbioted, had experienced difficulties in consuming enough calories to feed the huge body. “But walking there won’t be easy.”

“Why not?” Spike asked.

“I do have control over what’s left of this body, but not very much. I can kind of walk, but coordination has been a real problem when the feet I’m trying to move are fifty feet behind me.”

Spike thought about that. “While Twilight hasn’t been able to put together a dragon-separator spell, maybe she has one to restore function. Maybe we can reactivate that body’s brain stem or something. Let me check the books.”

Ember waited while Spike looked up a directory. “Hmm, spells to make things go back to the way they were...aha, necromancy!”

Had Twilight been present, she would have figuratively shit herself. As it was, she was doing enough of that already while riding with Cordoba in the cart. Putting an eight hundred horsepower V8 into a gocart would have been bad enough, but Cordoba also threw on a supercharger, because she didn’t do things halfway. If anything, it showed how much of her own personality she had begun to develop, distancing herself from her father. Valiant half-assed things all the time.

“What? Cordoba shouted.

Twilight repeated herself, but the sound was lost among the unmuffled exhaust pipes.

Cordoba sighed and brought the cart to a halt. Twilight was nearly hyperventilating, but managed to get herself under control. She scrambled out of the cart. “I don’t want to do that ever again.”

“But who will be my older-pony-helper for the race?” said Cordoba. “It doesn’t have to be family. It can be anyone, really. Even a friend.”

It was plainly a challenge and Twilight couldn’t refuse. She sighed. “Okay, I’ll get us some top-quality helmets, but before the race I demand a roll cage.”

Cordoba nodded. “Deal.”

Twilight turned, only just now noticing the visitor to the library, the enormous body attached to Ember outside the window. “I remember Ember saying she was always hungry. Bacon is calorie-dense, right? Plus we need to get this container out of here.”

“We can feed it to her, or I can move it,” Cordoba said, “But without Trixie and Daring here, I don’t know what they wanted to do with it.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine, but I still want it out of here as soon as possible.”

“If I’m not around, ask Merry May to sling-load it.”

“What was that?” asked Merry May, landing nearby.

“We were talking about this twenty tons of bacon,” said Cordoba. “According to your specs, you can lift that much.”

“I really don’t appreciate being talked about like an appliance.”

“Weren’t you employed as a mover before you were murdered?” said Twilight.

“And if you’re good at something, nobody cares if you like doing it,” added Cordoba.

“Bad example,” said Twilight. “What with the unwarranted killings you do.”

Cordoba shrugged. “Back when she was Tin Mare, Merry May did lots of killings that were completely warranted.”

“Could we please stop talking about me?” Merry pleaded. “Me is exactly what I don’t want to be thinking about.”

“We could give you a job to distract you,” Cordoba offered. “The Applewood Derby is coming up and getting some overhead camera angles would be sweet.”

Merry hesitated. “Okay, fine. Coloratura asked me to watch over her tonight, and I could use the practice.”

The race was coming up soon. Cordoba quickly welded up a roll cage and went with Twilight to obtain helmets. They came back a short while later and pushed the cart to the starting line where they joined the other competitors.

The carts rolled in for prerace inspection. Cheerilee stood by with a checklist. She frowned at Cordoba’s cart. “You were supposed to use the provided applewood.”

“I did.” Cordoba indicated the carved shift knob. Cheerilee frowned, but put a check on the list.

The others arrived. Rainbow called, “The race is about to start, Scootaloo! You better shake a leg if you want to ride in the winning cart!”

“You, too, Sweetie Belle,” said Rarity. “There’s only one seat left aboard this creative masterpiece, and it’s just for you.”

“Whoa, ponies! Wait for me!” said Applejack, rolling up last. “This traditional cart handles at the exact perfect pace: slow! And I got the passenger seat all warmed up for you, Apple Bloom!”

“Passenger seat?!” muttered Apple Bloom under her breath.

“The older ponies are all driving!” added Scootaloo.

“First they built the carts, now they’re going to drive them?” scoffed Sweetie. “They didn’t even do what we wanted to do. I wanted to build a traditional cart!”

“And I wanted to build a creative one!” said Scootaloo.

“And I wanted to go fast!” added Apple Bloom.

“Well, if they’re being so self-centered, they probably wouldn’t notice if you three switched,” said Cordoba.

The Crusaders considered it, and then did a three-way hoof bump. “Let’s do it!”

“That was a very ingenious solution to the problem,” said Twilight as Cordoba belted in. “Though knowing you, I’m sure there was an ulterior motive.”

Cordoba finished fastening her six-point harness. “I mean, I guess this cart I built is so fast that it doesn’t matter what anyone else does, so I might as well make them happy so they’ll stop bothering me with their moaning. But I only thought of that after you gave me that backhanded compliment, so screw you, Twilight.”

Twilight sighed and put on her helmet, buckling into the cart.

Cheerilee saw that everyone was ready to go and blew the opening bugle.

Cordoba’s cart zoomed off like a rocket and promptly crashed into the outside of the first turn.

“Manda huevos!” Cordoba screamed. She yanked off her helmet and threw it. She undid the harness and angrily climbed out of the cart.

“Hey, accidents happen,” said Twilight. “There’s always next time.”

“This was no accident,” Cordoba hissed through clenched teeth. She went back into the cart, headfirst this time. After fumbling around, she came out with a piece of wire. “This was wrapped around the accelerator. It was sabotaged.”

“Who could have done this?” Twilight said, examining the wire.

Cordoba looked around, at the other carts that had passed them and were still following the track. “I doubt any foal. None of them would know what to do, besides maybe the CMC, and they wouldn’t because they know what I would do to them and also because maybe they’re good sports and wouldn’t anyway.”

“Who does that leave?” Twilight asked.

Cordoba processed it. “I don’t know. But when I find them, I’m going to kill them.”

“Come on, we’ve been over this.”

“Twilight, whoever did this did it to make us - us - crash on purpose. The restrictions you place on me aside, if someone tries to kill you, you kill ‘em right back.”

Twilight realized she wasn’t going to win this one. “Well, maybe we can watch the finish. I wonder if Merry May got good footage.”

“The tape!” said Cordoba. “Maybe she saw who did it.”

They hustled over to the finish line. Sure enough, the CMC had won they medals they wanted, although perhaps not how they had expected. Better yet, the digital video they downloaded from Merry May’s hard drive showed a cloaked figure messing around with Cordoba’s cart while it sat unattended for a few minutes before the race.

“Pull the last couple of satellite passes,” said Cordoba. “Maybe we can figure out where they went.”

“I’m not your personal assistant,” said Merry.

“You’re really starting to piss me off the way you only think about yourself and your whiney problems,” said Cordoba. “I asked you to do it because you have a direct digital connection to the satellites and because I thought maybe you might want to help catch an attempted murderer.”

Merry pulled up the overhead pictures. Twilight and Cordoba spent a few minutes poring over them and eventually located a familiar cloaked figure headed out of town after the sabotage. They were headed towards the Everfree Forest. Cordoba and Twilight both knew that anypony who went into the forest would be remarkably difficult to track down.

Still, it was better than nothing. Cordoba spent the rest of the afternoon in the library looking up anything she could think of that might help: maps of the forest, historical records of the derby, census figures, Applejack's birth certificate. She would be there a while.

That evening, Merry May arrived over Coloratura’s place as appointed. The singer had turned in early.

She flew in a circular pattern, keeping at least once camera on where Coloratura slept. After the sun went down, there was a flash of magic from inside.

That certainly seemed unusual, particularly since Coloratura was an earth pony and lived alone. Merry activated her thermal camera and scanned the bedroom through the wall and window. Coloratura’s sleeping form was easy to pick out as a bright spot of warmth. She appeared to be alone, as the single warm spot in the room.

However, there was another flash of magic and she began to move, as if rolled over by an unseen force. The sheets on the bed folded back.

Merry clicked back to her standard camera but saw nothing; it was too dark outside. She switched to night vision, which helped, but she wasn’t at the right angle to see directly into the window.

She flew closer, aware that her engines would tip off whoever was inside. She saw a figure wearing a cloak bent over the sleeping Coloratura. They paused what they were doing and turned towards the sound of Merry as she got closer.

Coloratura heard the noise too, her eyes sliding open. She saw the shadow of the mysterious visitor hovering over her. The bedside radio transmitted her scream to Merry’s electronic eavesdropping equipment. With a flash of magic, the creeper was gone.

“Are you all right?” Merry broadcast, switching on her spotlight.

Coloratura checked herself. She found some wires on the bed. “It was them!”

Even if Cordoba hadn’t given her a tongue-lashing earlier in the day, Merry decided that this was something she should be helpful about and tell someone.

Cordoba was still at her research in the library that evening. When the constant swearing muttered under her breath got to be too much, Twilight went down to the basement.

Awesome Sauce, the captured member of the Sororal Order of Sorrel, was working at her bindings with a file. Twilight took it away from her and fixed the chains with magic.

“Stop trying to escape,” said Twilight.

“Stop being a monarchist shill,” Awesome replied.

Twilight shook her head. “Honestly, I’ve given up on you. The Princesses were right, zealots are the worst.”

“Well fine, if you’re giving up on me, I’m giving up on you,” said Awesome. “So instead of preaching the ways and teachings of Our Lord and Savior Valiant, I’m going to make a few housekeeping requests. There’s been this buzzing noise lately.”

Twilight listened. “Sounds like the refrigeration unit on the bacon container. I guess it must be transmitted through the ground into the basement.”

“Bacon container?” Awesome suddenly strained at her restraints. “Is he back?! Is he back and you didn’t tell me?”

“He’s not back.”

“Darn.”

Twilight shook her head and went upstairs.

Little did she know...well, we’ll leave that up to audience participation.

Author's Note

This chapter directed by Sidetrack

28 Pranks Later

Trixie and Daring returned to town emptyhanded.

“I was sure we would find the Amulet of Culiacan, but somepony must have gotten there first.” Daring shrugged. “Next time, I suppose.”

“I hope we didn’t miss it by going to Earth,” said Trixie. “I know you’ve been following it for a while.”

“It’s all right.” Daring kissed her cheek. “I’d rather spend time with you anyway.”

They were abruptly interrupted by a sudden downpour that soaked both of them and their clothing. From above, on the cloud she occupied, Rainbow laughed. “What a prank! You should see the looks on your faces!” She flew away.

Rainbow, as it is known, seemed to have medium-term memory loss. Either that or she didn’t care. There could be many good explanations for why she seemed to constantly disregard previous painful lessons learned.

For example, she went and pranked Fluttershy. Not only had the two of them grown up together, where Rainbow should have learned about Fluttershy’s aversion to scary things, but Pinkie had once explicitly told Rainbow not to prank Fluttershy.

What a bitch, right?

Or as Fluttershy put it, “That wasn’t funny! You really scared me! I hope you’re happy.”

It was serious enough that Fluttershy called a meeting. The sophisticated conference room at the back of the pub hadn’t gotten much use lately, but all of them remembered what an excellent meeting place it had been. Now even better, since Valiant wouldn’t unexpectedly pop in.

Twilight reflexively glanced at the door immediately after having that thought. Cordoba walked in. She looked around. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t think being scared is very fun!” Fluttershy was saying.

“They’re just jokes!” Rainbow argued.

“I don’t think Fluttershy would have called us all here to talk about this if she thought it was funny. Everypony has things they like and things they don’t,” said Rarity.

“And scarin’ Fluttershy is just lazy,” added Applejack.

“No kidding,” added Cracker.

“Who invited her?” Rainbow demanded.

“I didn’t know I needed an invitation,” said Cracker.

“Don’t change the subject, Rainbow” said Twilight. “A prank isn’t very good if you’re the only pony laughing.”

Pinkie asked, “But what if it’s really, really, really, really, really funny?”

“And I can do funny,” put in Rainbow.

“I guess the trick is making sure that your idea of funny matches the pony you’re pranking,” said Twilight. She walked over to the table and sat down. The sound of synthetic flatulence filled the air.

“A whoopee cushion is like a joke shortcut,” deadpanned Applejack.

“Honestly, Rainbow Dash, if you are not willing to put forth the effort required to pull a prank that everypony can enjoy, you may as well not pull one at all,” said Rarity.

“Fine! If you ponies want effort, then that’s just what you'll get.” Rainbow left.

“I’m not sure she understood what we meant,” said Twilight.

“Yeah, because you told her to step up her game, not ‘stop that shit,’” said Cordoba.

“In retrospect, that is probably where we went wrong,” acknowledged Applejack. “Hey, speaking of putting things right and since everypony’s here, I wanted to talk about Coloratura. You remember how she’s been finding electronic parts stuck to her and then Merry May caught whoever’s been doing it in the act?”

“I’m still working on finding them,” said Cordoba. “The technology we’ve seen so far is cutting edge by pony standards, though not quite up to my dad’s level. Whoever they are, they might be trying to copy his stuff, though I don’t think they’re trying to full-on emulate him..”

A couple of the others around the table let out sighs of relief. “But still,” said Twilight. “We need to figure out who it is. Coloratura didn’t do anything to deserve that.”

“They probably have some kind of bigger, long term strategy in mind,” said Cordoba. “Though their focus seems to be mostly on flesh-electronic interfaces, so I can’t figure out exactly how that develops into a strategic plan. It doesn’t really matter, though. I’m just going to kill them.”

“And it’s personal,” said Twilight for the benefit of the others, rolling her eyes.

“If Rainbow pranks me, that’ll be personal, too,” said Cordoba.

The others decided to leave before it became too awkward with unveiled threats hanging in the air.

Over the next couple of days, through relentless pranks, Rainbow became the most hated pony in Ponyville. And that’s saying something.

Some of the pranks were actually good. Most were incredibly harmful.

“She’s been spending all our money,” said Guinness over a pint at the pub. “Huge cakes, literally tons of scrolls, a skunk, and for some reason she just bought thousands of joke cookies.”

Cordoba took a sip of her coffee. “So get her to stop, or she’ll get lynched on top of driving you bankrupt.”

Guinness sighed. “Yeah. I don’t know what’s with her lately. Maybe she’s been acting out since finding out about the whole menopause and radiation thing.”

Sunset walked in. “There you are, Cordoba. I found this while going through old paperwork.” She produced a piece of paper with a crude equation written on it. There was a rectangle, the moon, and a bomb. On the other side of the equal sign was “Columbia.”

Guinness glanced at it. “Okay, but how does box plus moon plus bomb equal Columbia?”

Cordoba snapped her hoof. “I got it! We should take the container of bacon to the moon and then nuke it.”

“What would Princess Luna think?” asked Guinness.

“In another reality, she lost a bet to Valiant and had to deface the moon,” Sunset said. She turned back to Cordoba. “I have to get back to what I was working on. Do with that what you will.” She left.

“What’s she working on?” Guinness asked. “I haven’t seen her around very much lately.”

“I’m sure whatever it is, it’s going to be big,” said Cordoba. “But right now, I have to find Trixie. We’re going to nuke the moon.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, and I’m sure Twilight would tell you the same,” said Guinness.

“I’ll just tell her there’s lots of science to be done. Exploding a huge device on a celestial body has got to be worth studying.”

“Just don’t let anypony at the castle hear you say that,” Guinness chuckled.

Cordoba looked at him. “What?”

“‘Exploding a huge device on a celestial body…’ Eh, maybe you’re too young.” Guinness shook his head. “Sorry. Forget I said anything.”

“Already have.” Cordoba left.

She went to Trixie’s place and walked in. Fortunately, just walking in did not result in interrupting any HLS. This time.

Cordoba said, “Apparently we should take the bacon to the moon and then nuke it.”

“Why?” Trixie asked.

“That’s what this piece of paper from dad’s old files says.”

Trixie looked at it. “Good enough for me. I’ll put together the control circuitry.”

“I’ll get the plutonium core,” Cordoba volunteered.

“How are you two planning to get to the moon?” Daring asked. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to go and get source material for Daring Do in Space or whatever, but I doubt Princess Luna would let you go there if you were going to wreck the place.”

“Dad made her give him the dark side,” Cordoba pointed out. “It’s ours, so we can do whatever we want there.”

“Still the issue of transportation,” said Trixie. “Hmm, it really will require a lot of effort to lift twenty tons of bacon up there. We don’t have any rocket components ready to go. “

“Oh, during the Applewood Derby, Sir Win said that if I needed any help we should look him up and offered the use of his demonic forge,” said Cordoba.

“That could work.”

They went to find the demon. He was quite pleased to help them.

“I most certainly could build a rocket-powered bacon bomb,” he said. “I could also draw some satanic, pro-life, and anti-gun slogans on it just to ensure it offended everyone.”

“We’re mostly just concerned with the rocket, bacon, and bomb parts of it,” said Trixie. “But if it’ll make you happy.”

Sir Win nodded. “I’ll set to work immediately.”

Now they just had to build the bomb and put it together with the rocket and the container of bacon.

It was not a sophisticated device. Equestria not being party to - or even aware of - any proliferation agreements, there was no difficulty in obtaining everything they needed. It was a nice afternoon sisterly bonding activity, assembling nuclear weapons.

They went over to the library with the bomb. Sir Win would meet them there later to assemble the rocket facility.

Merry May was outside, waiting on something. She’d taken to doing that a lot, just moping. Ember was also there, mostly because the enormous body she was attached to couldn’t fit inside. Nobody had yet succeeded in helping her. In a way, the two of them made perfect companions, though both of them were too depressive in their own problems to realize it.

Trixie and Cordoba went inside the library and sat down on the Plymouth Valiant Memorial Couch to wait. Bible came by, humming to himself. He said hello.

“Heads up, Sir Win is coming by later,” said Trixie.

Bible nodded. “I think I’ll make myself scarce, then. Perhaps in the basement. Closer to the portal to Hell, but I think he doesn’t usually go there because he’s afraid they might want him back. Or Hell is afraid he’ll gay up the place.”

Rainbow walked in just as Bible was going down the stairs. “Hey, you know about books, right?” she said, hurrying after him.

“Well, yes, I suppose,” he said. The two of them continued the conversation down into the basement.

Twilight came out of the back room. “Did somepony just arrive?”

“Rainbow went into the basement with Bible,” said Cordoba. “Wouldn’t that be a good prank on you and Guinness, stealing your crush and cheating on him?”

Twilight’s eyes got big, but before she could reply, a stampede of hooves rumbled up the stairs.

The prisoners previously held in the basement charged out, Awesome Sauce in the lead.

“See ya, sucker!” Awesome called as she ran out the front door.

“Stop!” Twilight demanded. “All of you get back here! You shouldn’t be out!”

“Oh man,” said Rainbow, laughing. “You should see the look on your face. Gotcha!”

“Is this your idea of a prank!?” Twilight demanded.

“Um, I thought that was implied,” said Rainbow.

“I was just asking to make sure, because what you just did was stupid and dangerous! Do you know that you just let a fanatical follower of Valiant go?”

“No.”

“You did! There’s no telling what she might do!”

“Come on, how bad could just one of those idiots be?” said Rainbow. She left.

A moment passed. Cordoba said, “Didn’t we leave the nuke outside?”

She and Trixie, followed closely by Twilight, ran out of the library. Awesome Sauce was booking it for the far end of town, the nuclear device on her back.

“We’ve got to stop her!” said Trixie. She turned to Merry May. “We have to follow that mare! She’s got a bomb!”

“Oh, um…” Merry may hesitated, but started her engines. She suddenly screamed and flipped over backwards, her propellers shredding the house behind her.

“I’m so sorry!” Merry extricated herself and landed back on her wheels. “Rainbow Dash must have put a plastic spider in place so when it dropped down over my camera I thought it was real, and-”

Cordoba interrupted. “You’re a seventeen-ton flying death machine and you’re afraid of spiders!?”

“Who isn’t?” Merry argued.

“I can try,” said Ember. She made a lunge after the fleeing Awesome, but tripped over the uncoordinated legs she was in charge of and crashed into another house. She pulled herself out, face somehow flushing red through the scales.

“I’ll go after Awesome Sauce,” said Cordoba, leaping into the air. However, just then, a glowing magic portal opened at the edge of town and Awesome ran right through. The portal closed behind her.

“She got away!” wailed Twilight.

“She got away after stealing a device that could level a city,” Trixie corrected.

“We need to call a meeting,” said Twilight. “This is so bad.”

Cordoba raised a hoof.

“No, we can’t kill Rainbow,” snapped Twilight.

Cordoba put her hoof down.

Twilight continued to fret as they made their way to the meeting room in the pub. When the others had gathered, Twilight laid down the law. “Rainbow, no more pranks! You may have just doomed Equestria to…” She looked at Trixie and Cordoba.

“Destruction by nuclear hellfire,” Trixie provided.

“Right, that.”

“Jeeze, is it really that big of a deal?” said Rainbow.

“Yes! Rainbow, why don’t you ever think of anypony but yourself? Have you learned literally nothing from this friendship? Cordoba takes pleasure in cold-blooded murder, but even she can learn.”

“Send eggs,” muttered Cordoba under her breath.

“Wait, what?” said Applejack.

“Sorry, the translation of that swear might not be right when it’s literal,” Cordoba replied.

“Eggs?” said Pinkie. “To go with the bacon?”

“We’re getting off track,” said Twilight. “We’re here to talk about saving Equestria from an anarchist with a powerful weapon. Also, Rainbow’s recent behavior.”

“We’re not only your friends, but we’re responsible for the Elements of Harmony,” said Rarity. “Rainbow, if we see a problem, we have to help you. Regardless of whether you think you have a problem, we see you destroying property and harassing ponies. You need help.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad,” said Rainbow. “Point taken, I’ll be different.”

“You’ll have to prove that, sugarcube,” said Applejack. “You’ve said that before, and then didn’t. Several times.”

“Oh yeah, then how are any of you going to make me?” said Rainbow, spreading her wings. “What was that pony’s name that could catch me? Speedy McDoesnotexist?”

“Um,” said Fluttershy. “I was working on this spell. It’s slow going because I’m still learning to be a unicorn.”

She took out a small bag of pepper and sprinkled it on her nose, sneezing herself into being a unicorn. “I was working on this spell to help birds. I remembered how Discord had done some magic in that maze in Canterlot where he had taken Rainbow’s wings away. I thought that maybe if I reversed it, I could help injured birds to regain their ability to fly. But I could also just do it in its normal form.”

“You want to take my wings?” gasped Rainbow.

“I have to say, it would certainly impress on you how seriously we’re taking this and make it so we could keep tabs on you at all times,” said Twilight. “You’ll have to prove to us that you really want to change before you could get them back.”

“No way!” Rainbow jumped out of her chair.

“Hold her down, Cordoba!” Twilight said.

“Me encantaría!”

They dog-piled Rainbow and Fluttershy did the spell. There was a lot of struggling. Cordoba got bopped in the nose and didn’t bother to translate her swears this time.

The struggle tapered off. Slowly, they pulled back. Rainbow, wingless, was curled in a ball on the floor, sobbing.

“They were just pranks,” she managed. “I don’t understand.”

“Every joke can have its truth, but now the joke’s on you,” said Cordoba.

Twilight shot her a look, but turned her attention back to Rainbow. She didn’t want to see her friend like his, but it was for her own good. Still, she wondered if they’d gone too far.

Nah.

The Times They Are a Changeling

The group had gathered in the library that morning. Shining Armor had requested a meeting.

“We never did finish Flurry Heart’s Crystalling,” Shining said. “And with the threat of a recently-stolen nuclear bomb, I think this would be the perfect time to move back to the Crystal Empire.”

“That might be a good idea,” said Twilight. “We’ll have to reassemble the Crystal Heart, so it’ll take a while to get the weather under control, but with enough planning I think we could do it.”

“Plus, we could use Flurry as alicorn bait for the Sororal Order of Sorrel,” said Cordoba. “Maybe they’ll bring the bomb and we can take it back.”

Twilight’s face fell. “That would make them extra dangerous. What if they just decided to detonate it?”

“I don’t think they would waste it on one filly,” said Applejack. “If anything, they’d take it to Canterlot to go after the Princesses.”

“I hope they’ve increased security, then,” said Rarity.

“I’m sure Soarin’s working on it,” said Shining. “He’s done a good job since leaving the Wonderbolts.”

Rainbow sat on the couch, hooves crossed. She muttered something under her breath that contained the world “Wonderbolts.”

Shining glanced at her, noting the missing wings. “Er...”

“Don’t ask,” Twilight said quietly.

They planned the trip. Merry May, despite her depressives, was willing to help out when it meant transporting Shining, Cadance, and Flurry. Braeburn encouraged her.

“What about Skyla?” Twilight asked as they made ready to leave, pausing at Merry’s tailgate.

Shining and Cadance glanced at each other.

“She seems happy here,” said Cadance. “And, er, perhaps Rainbow will be spending more time at home.”

Twilight nodded.

Around front, Trixie was talking to Merry.

“Do you like dogs?” Trixie asked without preamble.

“I suppose so,” said Merry. “Applejack seems happy with her dog. Rainbow and Guinness seem happy with their dog-uh, dogs?”

“Something like that,” Trixie agreed. Nobody seemed to be able to agree whether Doug and Ike, the orthrus, was one or two dogs.

“There don’t seem to be that many dogs around,” said Merry. “I suppose everypony is responsibly spaying and neutering their pets.”

“Maybe,” Trixie acknowledged. “Could be the dogcatcher or something. Of course, my pet is a magical T-Rex skeleton, so…”

“It died a long time ago,” said Cordoba. “But then came back or something. I’m not really clear on the details. All I know is, euthanasia works.”

There was an awkward silence.

“Anyway,” said Cordoba. “We should get going.”

The group of them loaded up. Cordoba didn’t sit down and seemed to be shifting her weight. Merry mentally frowned as she compensated for the uneven load.

Reaching the Crystal Empire, the group disembarked. Maud had come with Rarity, ostensibly to look at crystals, but possibly to study Rarity’s salty shell and its effects on ice and snow.

Maud was patient. She was willing to accept one-sided affection. She was not nearly as potentially rapey as her sister. Good for you, Maud.

Merry had landed in view of the castle. She provided a windbreak while the others hunted through the snow to find the shattered pieces of the Crystal Heart they had left there. Braeburn decided to stay onboard.

“Hey, guys?” said Spike. “There’s something weird over here.”

They went out back of the castle. A fir tree had been set up, decorated with ornaments and tinsel.

“Nobody told me it was Christmas!” said Cordoba.

“What’s that?” asked Twilight. “Wait, I think I remember. Something Valiant said about a holiday similar to Hearth’s Warming.”

“But what’s it doing here?” said Applejack. “Who put it here?”

“Probably the same pony who wrote that,” said Pinkie, pointing.

On the castle walls high above their heads were the words VALIANT DID NOTHING WRONG painted in garish red and green with festive little decorations added.

“That’ll take forever to get off,” Shining grumbled.

“Something something you take forever to get off?” said Cordoba.

Twilight gave her a reproachful look. Cordoba shrugged. “How am I supposed to improve if I do not practice?”

“Practicing to improve is important,” said Twilight. “But I wish you’d focus on more productive goals.”

“But at least I have goals and don’t do everything for teh lulz, right?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Yes, it’s important to have goals.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself.” An orange stallion walked into view.

“Who the hell are you?” demanded Cordoba.

“Aren’t you Sunburst?” said Shining. “I seem to remember you living in the Crystal Empire.”

“Well, passing through, really,” said Sunburst. He pushed up his glasses. “I’m glad I avoided all that unpleasantness. Mom never said I would amount to anything staying shut at home, but I suppose it’s better what I didn’t amount to.”

“Did you put that up?” said Twilight, indicating the tree and the message.

“No.” Sunburst read it. “Who’s Valiant?”

“You called?” said a voice. An orange stallion walked into view.

“You’re Valiant?” said Sunburst.

“I’m Valiant.”

“You’re not Valiant,” said Applejack.

“He’s not!?” screamed Cordoba.

Twilight caught her with magic and dragged her back, Cordoba slashing with her cutlass into thin air.

“So you’re not Valiant,” said Twilight.

“No, no, I am Valiant,” he argued. “And, um,” he glanced up at the phrase painted on the castle, “I did nothing wrong.”

“I could actually believe that,” said Twilight. “Because you aren’t Valiant. He did lots of things wrong.”

“But I keep telling you that I am Valiant,” he argued. “Come on, work with me here.” He produced a dozen lollipops. “I have candy.”

“I mean, he’s not Valiant, but I’m willing to overlook that,” said Pinkie, slurping noisily on the candy he had given her.

“Why would anypony want to be Valiant?” said Rainbow.

She had been sullen ever since her friends had done their best to show her the error of her ways by taking away her wings. It was only a mutual hatred of Valiant that could get her to open up like that.

“Because Val-I did nothing wrong. Valiant is a household name, you know. I’m a celebrity. You should praise the name of Valiant.”

You’re welcome

He jerked his head upward, but then shrugged and pointed at the sky. “What he said.”

“There he is!” shouted a voice.

While the group had been arguing, they hadn’t noticed a huge crowd of SOS ponies converging on them.

“It’s Valiant!” called one of them.

“He is risen!”

“We knew the appearance of the message was a sign!”

Awesome Sauce stepped forward, nuclear bomb held high above her head. “Unhand him! Or I’ll nuke us all!”

“Okay!” said Twilight. She gave the imposter a push.

“Oh. Well, finally somepony who knows how to treat a Valiant.” He ambled over to them.

“Messiah!” They all crowded around him. He grinned.

“How nice, you prepared a Christmas venue for us!”

“A what?”

“A venue, you know, this place with the decorations?” said Awesome. She gestured at the castle and the tree in front of it.

“Oh right! Yes, of course. Christmas.”

“When do we open presents?”

“Did somepony get presents? What’s the occasion?”

The SOS members furrowed their collective brows.

“It could just be one of his American jokes,” suggested one of them.

“American?”

Awesome Sauce spun around, fury in her eyes and bomb still in her clutches. “This isn’t the real Valiant!”

“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell him!” said Twilight. “We don’t know who this guy actually is.”

“This is war!” shouted Awesome.

Shining and Cadance got into a combat stance and lit up their horns, beams of glowing magic protruding a few feet from their foreheads. Taking a cue, so did Twilight. Since they’d taught her the spell, she’d made a few personal adjustments. To help protect herself, a pair of smaller beams came out her ears.

“Hang on, wait,” said Sunburst. “I think I might know who that is. Thorax, is that you?”

The orange pony went up in a blue flame, replaced by a sheepish-looking changeling. “Yeah. I figured with all these ponies looking for Valiant, I could get some sort of affection out of them.”

Rainbow snorted.

“Sorry about the confusion,” said Sunburst to the rest. “This is my, uh, roommate.”

“Changeling!” someone screamed. The SOS members scattered.

“It’s just one changeling who isn’t even disguised,” said Applejack. “And changelings in general haven’t really been a threat since Valiant killed their queen.”

“And this one’s clearly too dumb to know what actually works as a disguise,” sniped Rainbow.

“What about Awesome?” said Cordoba. “Priorities.”

“She’s running away,” Maud observed. “Also, this rock I found is interesting.”

“Priorities!” said Twilight.

“I have them,” Maud replied.

“Fortunately, we planned for this,” said Trixie. She tossed a look to Cordoba and the two of them went back through the castle to where Merry was parked.

“Awesome Sauce is here,” said Trixie as they boarded. “We need to go after her.”

“Doesn’t she have a nuke?” said Merry. “I’m not sure even this airframe could survive that.”

“What, you suddenly care about living?” said Cordoba.

“She can’t help the mood swings,” said Braeburn. “Are you forgetting she doesn’t have glands since somepony cut her brain out of her body?”

“I think we’re missing the point here,” said Trixie. “If we don’t go after Awesome, everyone could die.”

“O-okay.” Merry got her rotors spinning and lifted off.

Cordoba reached out the side door and connected a few wires. Merry jerked as the newly connected hardware hit her system. “Where did that rocket pod come from!?”

“We loaded it back in Ponyville,” said Cordoba. “When Trixie distracted you with the dog conversation earlier, I put it on. The codeword I said to her for successfully sneaking it on was ‘euthanasia.’ Fitting, right?”

“I’m not using weapons!”

Ahead, another magic portal opened, like the one Awesome had used to escape before.

“She’s going to get away,” Trixie pointed out. “We aren’t going to make it in time.”

“Take the shot,” Cordoba prompted.

“I’m not shooting her!” Merry protested.

“Master arm on, laser on, shoot.”

“No!”

Trixie looked over. “Braeburn, tell your girlfriend that if she doesn’t act, all of Equestria could be in danger.”

Cordoba banged on an equipment console. “And I know that with your databases, you know exactly what that weapon is capable of if we don’t stop it.”

“Tin Mare would have already done it without even being ordered to,” Trixie said.

“I’m not Tin Mare!”

“Yes you are!” Trixie insisted. “The programming is different, but it’s still the same decision-making engine. Your personal hangups about killing aside, you know that stopping that pony will keep everyone else safe!”

“What, are you afraid that everyone is going to just now start thinking you’re a killing machine?” said Cordoba. “Do it. You’re the only one who can.”

There was a long silence. They could all see Awesome sprinting towards the portal. Then, a rocket motor ignited and streaked after her. With laser guidance, it splattered the SOS member.

“There! I took the shot! She’s dead! There’s blood everywhere!” Merry screamed.

“Thanks,” said Cordoba.

“We need to pick up that bomb,” said Trixie.

Merry let them out near the bits and pieces that were left, gingerly picking a piece of snow that was gore-free. Trixie and Cordoba got out to retrieve the weapon and she took off immediately to put distance between herself and the scene.

Fortunately, the device wasn’t designed to be an aerial bomb and upon flying into the air after the explosion and landing back on the ground did not go boom.

Trixie saw that Cordoba had it handled and cautiously approached the portal, leading with her horn. It was magic, she determined. It somehow seemed familiar, though she couldn’t remember where she had felt that signature before.

As she approached, it blinked out. Trixie made a quick sweep of the area and came up with nothing, no magical artifacts or anything that could have been fueling the spell. It must have been powerful magic to have beamed in a portal from a distance. But who could have that kind of power? Who would want to help SOS?

Trixie lit up her horn, tuning her magic to the infrared spectrum. It was a signal, and Merry’s cameras picked it up. She came to retrieve them.

They headed back to the castle. In the cargo area where they sat, Cordoba said, “You know, I was wondering. If that Thorax thing didn’t paint the message on the castle or set up the Christmas tree, the SOS ponies didn’t, and you and I didn’t, who does that leave?”

Trixie thought about it. “Mom’s the only one I can think of who might. But if she had, we’d know about it, right?”

Cordoba processed it, frowning.

“Hey, at least now that we have the bomb we can finally complete the Columbia Project,” Trixie noted.

Cordoba cheered up. “Right!”

Merry was quiet the whole way back. The group returned to the castle just as the others finished up reassembling the Crystal Heart. There was enough genuine affection for Flurry Heart that it seemed to restart the weather spell, returning the castle at least to a moderate temperature.

“I don’t think SOS will try again,” said Shining. “With their leverage gone, we’re good. I will ask Soarin’ to maybe send a few guards just in case.”

Cadance agreed and the two of them decided to stay in the Crystal Empire.

The others flew back to Ponyville. Sir Win was waiting on them, a pile of rocket parts spread out across the library lawn.

“I think this is what you asked for,” he said to Trixie and Cordoba. “I hope you know how they go together.”

“If we don’t, it’ll just blow up and kill us,” said Cordoba.

Sir Win shrugged. “I win either way.”

He turned and spotted Bible watching him from a window, and made a rude gesture, a smile on his face.

“You two are surprisingly cordial for being against each other,” said Cordoba.

“I just hate him because he’s naturally religious,” said Sir Win. “I’m sure he’s not a bad guy.”

“You should be his frenema then.”

“Frenemy?”

“I know what I said,” Cordoba replied.

Sir Win thought about it. “Oh. It’s because I’m gay.”

“That was the joke, yes.”

Sir Win shrugged. “If he has a sexual preference, he’s probably straight. Plus, Twilight has the hots for him. I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that.”

“Suit yourself.”

Cordoba and Trixie spent the rest of the afternoon strapping the rocket to the container of bacon. With that, plus the nuke, they were ready.

“Could we get a little boost?” said Trixie to Merry. “Just a little airspeed and upwards swing to help out?”

“If it’ll get you off the planet,” Merry muttered.

The slung the container under her. She struggled a little with the twenty-ton weight, but got it off the ground. Trixie and Cordoba hung on to the container. Trixie conjured a bubble of air for each of them to breathe while exoatmospheric.

Building up some airspeed, Merry pulled into a climb. They kicked the rocket on as the lifting straps swung them upward. Merry cut them loose and they were on their way.

The launch was timed carefully. As the moon rose over the horizon, the rocketized shipping container soared upwards. With just a few careful shifts of weight, they entered lunar orbit.

The landing wasn’t elegant, but with the limited gravity, it wasn’t too hard. The two of them jumped off. Cordoba spent a few moments looking at the abandoned fortress her father had built. Trixie let her stare as long as she liked.

Cordoba gestured and started towards the front door. Trixie followed her in.

It was a rough structure. It was a fortress, after all, and there hadn’t been time to really give it all the comforts of home. Still…it was him. Trixie hung back, taking a look around but letting Cordoba have the run of the place.

They met up in front of a large steel holding tank. It looked sealed, and solid enough that it couldn’t be easily or quickly opened. The important thing was that Columbia was stenciled on it.

Cordoba and Trixie nodded to each other. The bacon was ready. The bomb was ready. This was it.

After one final check, Trixie pulled the pins out of one of the container’s heavy steel doors. They lugged it a distance away and hunkered down behind it. With no air, they wouldn’t need to worry about a shockwave, but a nuke was still nothing to trifle with.

Trixie pushed the detonator into Cordoba’s hooves. She smiled and gave her sister a hug. Everything they had worked for was about to pay off.

The explosion was actually kind of sucky. No air makes for no fun. It was still a flash brighter than the sun, though, and a rapidly expanding dust cloud showed where soil and rocks were being flung.

Trixie’ calculations were good and they rode the tide of debris like a wave, surfing it on the container door right off the moon.

The force was sufficient to propel them back towards home. As they were drifting back down to the planet, Cordoba looked back. She squinted. Something was moving in the debris of the destroyed fortress and cooked bacon.

With Trixie’s cape and Cordoba’s wings, not to mention a healthy dose of magic shield, they made it back through the atmosphere and steered to the library. Again, kind of a hard landing, but how many others did you ever see even surviving re-entry without a spacesuit?

Twilight heard them hit the ground and came out. “Did you really just go to the moon and back?”

Cordoba took a little bow.

Pinkie came bouncing up, dragging Fluttershy and trailed by Rainbow. “Wow! Did you totally see that huge firework on the moon a second ago?”

“We were that firework,” said Trixie.

“And you aren’t dead?” said Applejack, walking up.

“What will Princess Luna think?” asked Rarity, arriving just then.

“Who cares?” said a voice.

Twilight reached into the library and flipped the switch for the porch light.

In front of them stood a red, white, and blue alicorn. She wore a confident smile. Confusing the issue of assumed gender pronouns, they all noticed an American-sized manhood swinging underneath.

“Hi! I’m Princess Columbia and I hereby declare my candidacy for President of Equestria.”

Author's Note

This chapter directed by Lithl

Worry not, the real Valiant will be back before the end of the season. I took another poll and you guys voted him back.

Dungeons and Discords

“Now...would be a good time to visit Silent Hill,” said Twilight.

Her friends, sitting around the table in the exclusive meeting room in the back of the pub, all nodded.

“Sounds great! Do they have oil there?” asked Columbia.

Since suddenly appearing after Trixie and Cordoba nuked the moon, Columbia had baffled them all, Trixie and Cordoba included. Columbia was a leggy red, white, and blue alicorn with a surplus of sex organs.

She sat upright in her chair with a mug of beer on the table in front of her and her hind legs splayed. They all actively avoided looking at her junk. It was difficult.

“Actually,” said Twilight, “don’t you think you’d rather start locally with a, um, grassroots campaign? Nopony lives in Silent Hill.”

Columbia shrugged. “I didn’t get where I am by thinking.”

“Well, technically you haven’t been anywhere,” Twilight pointed out. “Since you were only created a few days ago.”

“Excuse you, but I was birthed of nuclear hellfire and bacon.” Columbia crossed her forelegs. They all wished she’d cross the other pair.

“I’m interested in exactly what went into your creation,” said Twilight. “But not so much that I actually want to be near you or touch anything that Valiant had to do with.”

“Whatever.” Columbia polished a hoof on her chest.

At least she seemed unperturbed by insults. She was either too stupid to notice, or simply was the proverbial rubber that slurs bounced off. Twilight didn’t care which, as long as Columbia left everyone alone.

That seemed less and less likely the longer they knew her. Columbia had hit on every stallion in town once and was now going down the list again. She’d been actively asking where she could find oil. Most troubling, she seemed totally serious about running for President of Equestria, a title that hadn’t been used in millennia.

Twilight had already written about her to the Princesses. They seemed amused. Twilight was not.

“You’ll all see how I can make things better,” said Columbia. “When I’m elected, Equestria will become capitalist and you’ll all be rich.”

“Technically, Equestria’s already capitalist,” said Twilight. “We have a free market and ponies can do whatever they’re best at for money.”

“Yeah, and then I can come along and buy it all,” said Columbia. Twilight decided not to dignify that with a response.

Elsewhere in town, Trixie welcomed Daring back from a long trip. It was regrettable that Trixie hadn’t been able to go with her, and also that Daring hadn’t been able to go to the moon.

“The Amulet of Culiacan is proving very difficult to track down,” said Daring. “I was sure I had it that time. Heck, I was sure I had it the first time. Either somepony got to it first, or they keep moving it. I know it’s not Caballeron doing it, either.”

“We could maybe task a satellite,” Trixie mused. “That would require either rebuilding a control terminal or hacking into the government’s. Recreating all the work would take months. I’m decent with computers, but for a hacking job that big I’d have to get a code expert like Braeburn to help. Though I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t go for it.”

“Well, maybe we could convince him to devote time to that instead of Merry May,” suggested Daring. “Something that gets his mind off chasing plastic poon.”

“I think Merry’s almost done that herself,” Trixie speculated.

Merry was in a downward spiral. Normally that would be a pun because she was an airplane, but no, she was just depressed. Not to the point of considering suicide or anything, at least partially because she wasn’t sure if her airframe could even die, but things were getting really awkward.

Braeburn was at a loss. Admittedly, he’d failed to envision that unlocking Tin Mare’s mental blocks would have such an effect. Still, how was he supposed to save somepony whose situation had only been made worse by becoming aware of it?

The best he could think of was asking Merry to give Princess Ember a lift when she wanted to go back to the Dragon Lands. Merry seemed to get a small amount of vindication from someone else with horrible body image problems. In doing the lift, Merry hated being a utility, but she also hated being useless - or worse, a war machine - even more. Braeburn made sure to avoid using the phrase, “You’re the only one who can.” She hated that, too.

Coloratura was also in need of a pick-me-up. After they’d realized that a mysterious figure had been doing late-night bioelectronic medical experiments on her, Applejack had decided to keep watch on her round the clock. That involved bringing her along whenever the girls went somewhere.

Having Columbia take her own initiative to follow the group everywhere rather defeated Twilight’s idea of finally visiting Silent Hill to get away from her. But she’d insisted, and Twilight got the feeling that arguing with her might be at least as frustrating as arguing with Valiant. Because she didn’t even make good arguments, if nothing else.

Twilight had reluctantly decided that Cracker, while an enigma, hadn’t done anything untoward yet, despite ample opportunity. It wasn’t worth worrying about her until she proved herself a problem.

Merry was heavy when she lifted off that day, with Twilight, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie, Rainbow, Fluttershy, Spike, Braeburn, Coloratura, Cordoba, Columbia, Trixie, Daring, and Cracker onboard and Ember’s huge bulk slung underneath.

They made a detour to return Ember home to her father. Spike’s efforts and research devoted to finding a cure hadn’t met success. Necromancy was not known for solving problems.

After stopping at the Dragon Lands, they headed north.

The former Yakyakistan had been uninhabited since an avalanche had buried everything and everyone. Merry elected to leave her landing gear folded, landing belly-up on the deep snow to avoid sinking.

Everyone got out.

“Um, well,” said Twilight. “Here we are.”

Here, of course, being a flat expanse of featureless snow covering the remains of an entire species. Of which the Princesses had appointed Twilight as governor.

“Does anypony else think that these snowbanks on either side of the valley are getting rather built up?” said Rarity.

Applejack turned to Rainbow. “You’re a weather pony. What do you think?”

Rainbow sulked, spite in her voice. “I don’t know. Twilight, you’ve got my wings. What do you think?”

“Uh...I think Rarity might be right,” said Twilight hurriedly. “We should do something about that, to make it safer.”

“Maybe some kind of controlled avalanche?” said Trixie.

“Could work,” said Twilight. “How would we start it, though?”

“I’ve...always kind of wanted to sing in a valley, like a natural concert hall,” said Coloratura. “I think the acoustics would be good.”

“Whatever we do, we should probably be airborne so we don’t get crushed by an avalanche because we were at the bottom of a valley like idiots,” said Cordoba.

“Hey, I resemble that remark!” protested Columbia.

Pinkie laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Columbia demanded.

“Wait, you were serious?” said Pinkie, cocking her head as if it were a foreign concept.

“Are you retarded or something?” Columbia said.

“That’s not very nice,” Fluttershy said.

“Opinions are like assholes. Everyone is one,” said Cordoba. “Let’s get going before we get buried under a million tons of snow.”

“That’s actually not much of an exaggeration,” said Twilight as they boarded Merry. “I read a book about snowpack layers once, and a large avalanche can…” She trailed off as she realized nobody cared.

Hovering over the valley, Braeburn helped Coloratura find a microphone and patch into Merry’s external speakers. Twilight said, “We’re going to need a certain frequency. Go up and down your scales and I’ll tell you when to stop.”

Coloratura warmed up with some do-re-me. Twilight asked her to make a few adjustments, gesturing for higher or lower frequencies while she studied the snow. Finally, Coloratura hit the note.

The valley between two mountains was buried under another layer of snow, turning the whole area into a plateau.

“Well, that was convenient,” said Twilight. “We’ll build a city there.”

“Aside from the fact that it’s cold as balls,” said Columbia.

“Speak for yourself,” said Pinkie.

“I am,” said Columbia.

Pinkie - Pinkie, of all ponies - cringed.

“You’ll just need to get some ponies to move in, if you want to make a city out of it,” said Cracker.

Twilight frowned. She was right. There was nothing there to do, no obvious natural resources, and the climate would be terrible.

They decided to let the snow settle and headed to the nearby Crystal Empire for a surprise visit.

The newly-fixed Crystal Heart had melted the snow around the castle. The statue of Sombra after Valiant had punchsploded him dominated the area.

Upon arrival at the castle, they found Sunburst and the changeling Thorax hanging out.

“They are literally the only others around,” said Shining. “It was no problem to invite them over.”

“Hello again,” said Thorax.

“You aren’t going to try to turn into my dad again?” said Cordoba, throwing a stink eye. “Because I’ll kill you if you do.”

Twilight slid in front of her. “She’s...probably serious. What I want to know is, er, I’ve never had the chance to talk to a changeling. Just so I know what words to use, what’s your gender?”

“I can be anything,” said Thorax. “That’s kind of the whole point of being a changeling.”

“I think you mean you can be any sex,” said Twilight. “Gender is what you identify as.”

“Um, I think you can be any gender you want, too,” said Fluttershy.

To avoid going down that rabbit hole, Rarity broke in, “You can be anypony and you chose to call yourself ‘Thorax?’”

“Well, better than ‘Pituitary Gland’ or something,” said Applejack.

“Or ‘Coccyx!’" added Pinkie. She frowned. “Wait, that doesn’t have anything to do with cocks so it’s not as dirty or funny.”

“What was that about cocks?” said Columbia.

There was an awkward silence.

“I was, um, just saying how changelings can be anything,” said Thorax.

“Can you be a really horny dude?” said Columbia.

Thorax frowned. “You mean like a unicorn?”

“Thorax has been pretty isolated here,” said Sunburst. “Also, while Twilight investigates that, I’ve never had the chance to talk to anypony like you.” He ran his eyes from the tip of Columbia’s horn down to the tip of her… Sunburst shook his head. “So what’s your gender?”

“I’m a woman.”

“But-”

“What?”

“Um.” Sunburst paused for several seconds and looked away. “Okay.”

It was getting near dinner time. Cadance had agreed to host the get-together. Spike found himself next to Thorax at the dinner table. In a low voice, he asked, “So do you take requests?”

“What do you mean?” asked Thorax.

“If I asked you to be somepony or something specific?”

“Oh yeah, Sunburst does that all the time.”

Spike looked across the table at Sunburst and back to Thorax. The two of them lived together, had nothing to do outdoors in the frozen north, and one of them was a shapeshifter. He didn’t have to read between the lines.

Down the table, Twilight quietly asked Shining, “How long has it been since you got to play Ogres & Oubliettes?”

Shining cut his eyes side to side. “How did you know about that?”

“Please, BBBFF, I know you.”

Shining let out a breath. “A couple years. Why?”

“Spike’s missing an O&O meetup right now, but he wanted to come on this trip. I just figured you might want to know there was a group in Ponyville.”

“Wait a moment, the reason Spike’s been sneaking off with Big Macintosh is to play some game?” said Applejack.

“Why didn’t you guess that?” said Rarity. “They certainly aren’t secret lovers. If Spikey-wikey was gay, I would have been all over him to be my GBFF.”

“I’m gay,” volunteered Pinkie.

“That does not automatically qualify one for the position,” Rarity said. “For example, you don’t see me hanging out with Sir Win. You’re both my friends, but you don’t quite make the cut for gay best friends. There are certain requirements.”

“I know lots about gays,” said Columbia, butting in. “When I’m president, I’ll make the best gay laws.”

“President?” asked Shining.

“You don’t want to know,” said Twilight.

Author's Note

Featuring a couple jokes from Lithl

Buckball Season

The challenge, when it came, originated from a most unexpected source. Three buffalo walked into Ponyville and dared all comers to play them at buckball.

“Who even knows how to play buckball?” said Rainbow as the girls gathered in the back room of the pub.

“I guess that’d be me,” replied Applejack. “And maybe cousin Braeburn. But that’s still not enough because you need three ponies per team. Also, the rules allow one of each race.”

“Well, I’m your…” Rainbow trailed off and started sulking again.

A pouting Rainbow was not the best, but her friends had all quietly agreed that it was a whole lot better than a pranking, arsonist Rainbow.

“So I guess we should put together a team,” said Applejack. “I’ll need a pegasus and a unicorn to join me.”

“Is there an instruction manual?” Twilight asked hopefully.

“Not that I know of. I can train y’all.”

“Well don’t look at me,” said Rarity. “Sports, honestly.”

“Do we know any other unicorns?” said Applejack. “Fluttershy, could you be a unicorn for a game?”

“I’m not even that good at being a pegasus,” said Fluttershy.

“I can jump really high!” offered Pinkie.

Applejack thought. “Trixie and Cordoba might want to play.”

“Would they choose you to play with them?” said Twilight.

“I have to admit, I probably ain’t their first choice of earth pony,” Applejack acknowledged.

“Bet it’s not me, either,” said Cracker.

Spike walked in with a letter. “Twilight, this just arrived. It says Princess Celestia wants to see us in Canterlot later.”

“When is later?” Twilight asked.

Spike read the letter. “Later today, not too soon.”

“I suppose that means we can take the train, since we have time,” said Twilight.

“But the buffalo wanted to have the game this evening,” said Applejack.

“You can ask them to move it up, but that doesn’t mean anything if you can’t find a team,” said Rainbow.

Applejack mulled it over. “I guess I can ask Braeburn to take over. I hope he’ll have better luck finding ponies to play.”

As it turned out, Braeburn did not. He had no friends and ponies around town still thought of him as that weird cyborg.

“Dunno what Applejack was thinking,” he muttered later that day as the event drew near.

“It’s not like anypony cares about the game,” said Merry.

They both heard the chanting crowds and ignored them.

Columbia walked up. “Hey, does anyone know what’s going on?”

“Some sporting event,” said Braeburn.

“I love sports!” said Columbia.

Braeburn glanced at her. “How good are you at magic?”

“Really good.”

Braeburn considered it. “Merry, can I ask you a favor?”

“Am I going to like this?”

“All you have to do is hover in front of the goal and block rubber balls from going in.”

Merry considered it. “I think I can do that.”

Braeburn turned to Columbia. “All you have to do is stand behind the other team’s goalie with a basket and catch balls that I buck your way.”

“Is that it?”

“That’s it.”

Columbia grinned. “We’re going to win!”

They didn’t win.

They dominated.

Merry, simply hovering in place, completely obscured the other team’s goal. Braeburn, with his cybernetic legs, could buck like none other. And Columbia had a great talent for putting balls into baskets. No pun intended.

Of course, it helped that the buffalo team was all ground-based. There was neither buffalo wing sauce nor Red Bull anywhere around. They left town in defeat.

Braeburn was glad. Ponies generally had short memories, but he clearly remembered being trampled by the buffalo that had overrun Appleoosa. Beating them in a game and sending them packing was about the best possible outcome.

The ponies in the Ponyville crowd were still weirded out by cyborg Braeburn, helicopter Merry, and hermaphrodite Columbia, but a winner was a winner and the three of them were the stars of the show.

Columbia relished the attention and took the opportunity to formally launch her campaign for President of Equestria. “I’m glad you’ve all come here today! I have a special announcement that I take pleasure in presenting to you. I, Princess Columbia, hereby declare my candidacy for President of Equestria. At the election later this year, I welcome your votes. Together, we can change Equestria for the better and open up a new era of prosperity and strength for our great nation.”

The crowd collectively shrugged and applauded mildly. Crazies were a dime a dozen, and none of them had ever heard of a President before.

Grinning, Columbia turned to Braeburn. “That went well.”

“You’re trying to get into politics?” he asked.

“I was made for electoral races. I’m totally going to win!”

“One problem,” Braeburn pointed out. “President isn’t something you can run for. At least not in Equestria.”

“Yes it is.”

Braeburn knew that arguing with her would get him nowhere. He turned to Merry. “Some game, huh?”

“I didn’t really do anything, except hover in place.”

“You’re the best buckball goalie I’ve ever seen.”

“I’m also the widest buckball goalie you’ve ever seen.”

“Well, maybe Kettlebell from back in Appleoosa-”

“That’s not what I’m saying!”

Braeburn held up a hoof. “Please, Merry. I’m not trying to insult you. I’m trying to steer conversations away from you being a seventeen-ton flying machine. It’s not your fault. I’m trying to help, but I need you to work with me and do something to stop falling back into the pit of self-loathing.”

“I mean, you’ve basically got life by the short-and-curlies,” said Columbia, jumping in. Braeburn almost stopped her, but it wasn’t like she could do anything to make Merry’s mood worse. And he had to admit, she wasn’t bad at speeches.

“What do I have going for me?” Merry demanded.

“Well, you’re basically invincible. You don’t have to worry about money, food, or a place to stay. There are lots of ponies who would be friends with you if you were slightly more pleasant. Braeburn already wants to be in a relationship with you, but you turned him down.”

“What do you know about relationships?” said Merry.

“All I’m saying is that at least you don’t have my problem.”

“What’s that?”

“A massive penis that scares boys.”

“...point,” Merry muttered. She decided to take Braeburn's advice and not mention her 30mm.

Braeburn looked up at the sky. “Uh, y’all? I didn’t think snow was in the forecast today.”

Sure enough, it was snowing. All around town, weather ponies were taking to the skies to push the clouds away.

“Huh,” said Columbia. “Is there supposed to be a big thing about global cooling?”

“If the planet was cooling, I’m sure the Princesses would just turn up the heat,” said Braeburn.

“What if that’s what they want you to think?” said Columbia. “When I’m President, I won’t let that kind of thing happen.”

As it turned out, the Princesses hadn’t, either. The band of snow clouds extended far enough north that the train the girls rode to Canterlot saw a few flakes.

“That’s weird,” remarked Rainbow.

“Is it some sort of mixup with the weather ponies?” asked Twilight.

“Well, you can’t just accidentally make snow clouds,” said Rainbow. “Somepony had to do that on purpose, but everypony knows it’s not winter yet.”

“Can’t imagine why,” said Applejack. “Or who.”

“Nutmeg eggnog?” offered a train snack pony, pushing a cart of treats by their seats.

“Okay, is somepony messing with the seasons?” asked Pinkie. “Not that I mind an excuse to drink eggnog, but this is weird.”

“Somepony changed our menu,” said the snack pony. “I don’t know who, or why. This is all we have to serve, though.”

“Maybe you should bring this up with the Princesses when we meet with them,” said Cracker.

“You might be right,” agreed Twilight. “Shifting the weather and snacks to the holidays isn’t in itself sinister, but with as many strange things and mysterious groups around Equestria lately, we can’t afford to ignore any possible warnings.”

“Would you three like some eggnog?” Fluttershy asked her slaves, Daisy, Lily, and Rose. She’d decided to treat them, since they were always so helpful. Fluttershy did not really understand the concept of slavery.

“You’re so kind to us, Mistress!”

The group arrived at the station a short while later, and headed for the castle. A yellow earth pony with a red mane suddenly ran up to the group. “There you are! We’re late!”

“Sorry,” said Cracker. “I need to get going.” She waved goodbye and went with the other mare.

“Does anypony know who that was?” said Applejack. “In all the time Cracker hung around us, I didn’t know if she had any family or friends.”

“We may never know,” said Rarity. “She’s gone now as mysteriously as she arrived.”

The hairs on Twilight's neck began to stand up. “Why do I get the feeling that there’s something big afoot here that we aren't seeing? There have been so many strange things lately, but I can’t see how they’re connected. Hay, maybe they aren’t. But what if they are? What kind of massive conspiracy could we be facing?”

“If my dad were here, he would know,” said Cordoba.

“He probably would be behind it,” Twilight retorted.

“That’s what I said.”

They walked into the castle. A royal page informed them that the Princesses were not yet ready for the visit.

“Well, they didn’t specify a time in the letter,” said Spike.

“It might be a while,” said the page. “I was asked to get you all a place to stay for the night.”

If they were planning to stay the night, Applejack was glad she’d had Coloratura come with them, to keep watch over her.

After dinner, the group went to bed. Applejack made a point to get a room with Coloratura. Fluttershy used the excuse of staying with her slaves to get Pinkie to stay elsewhere. Pinkie, of course, was not deterred in the slightest by having other ponies around, but the Princesses had a strict no-orgy policy for the guest rooms.

Despite being away from Ponyville, staying in guest bedrooms in the Princess’ castle, and sleeping in a bed across from Applejack, shortly after midnight, Coloratura was again visited by her mysterious late-night experimental surgeon.

Fortunately, due in part to the aforementioned circumstances, when the cloaked figure teleported into the room and set down a bag of electronics, Applejack woke up.

She blinked a couple of times and saw a glow of magic from across the room. Jerking upright, Applejack demanded, “Who the hay are you!?”

She stormed out of bed, flanked by a couple of meat puppets. The mysterious visitor looked surprised, as surprised as a completely cloaked figure could, but got into a combat stance.

Applejack threw two meat puppets at them. Literally. Applejack be jacked, yo.

However, the cloaked figure reared up and slashed the pair of meat puppets to pieces - quite a feat for two pony-sized objects hurtling towards them.

But while they were distracted, Applejack herself had come forward and planted her hooves for a buck. Cloaky McCloakerson got a one-way ticket on the Applejack Express.

Clang! Crash! They flew out the window, glass shards going everywhere. But then, to Applejack’s stunned amazement, they teleported away.

The others, and some castle guards, were there in seconds. By that time, Applejack had come to a conclusion on why she hadn’t bucked the bedroom intruder into a pancake.

“They must’ve been wearing armor,” said Applejack. “That was why it sounded like metal when I hit them, and why they were still able to function well enough to magick their way out of here.”

Rarity made a face at the meat lying on the floor. “And what happened here?”

“I think they had blades attached to their hooves or something,” said Applejack. “Not like a sword, like big claws.”

Twilight went over to examine the bag that had been left by Coloratura’s bed. “This must be theirs. It’s got lots of electronics in it, but speakers? Who needs this much audio equipment? What do sound parts even have to do with biologic-electronic interface?”

She looked at Cordoba, actually wanting an answer. Cordoba processed it for a moment, but shrugged.

“So…” said Coloratura. “Am I supposed to start sleeping inside some sort of anti-magic cage now?”

“That’s an awful determined creep you’ve got,” said Applejack. “I’m in favor of finding out who that is and making ‘em stop.”

Cordoba raised a hoof. “I’m already on it. They’re really hard to find, but that means I will enjoy killing them that much more.”

Coloratura wasn’t sure whether to feel reassured.

After the night’s excitement, it was going to be difficult to go back to sleep for all of them.

“I know what we can do to pass some time,” said Twilight. “Who wants to see the biggest library in Equestria?”

Nobody.

Still, Twilight managed to drag Cordoba with her. They took some candles and went inside. Being Twilight, she plopped down in front of the historical political law section.

“Ooh, did you know that the Princesses have not always had executive authority?” said Twilight, opening to a random page in an old legalese book. “They granted themselves that nearly twelve hundred years ago.”

“Who had executive authority before that?” Cordoba asked.

Twilight frowned and flipped a few pages. “It doesn’t say. Hmm, now I’m curious too.”

She grabbed a couple of other books, but didn’t manage to find an answer. Cordoba glanced at a few titles, regretting asking. Never ask a nerd a question you don’t really want to know the answer to.

Twilight found a dusty tome on a high shelf, a book that looked like it hadn’t been cracked in a thousand years. Maybe it hadn’t. She opened the cover, searching for the subjects contained therein.

“Ah, here we are, ‘Original political appointments of the Equestrian Government.’” Twilight ran up the list, from local mayors to nobles to the Princesses. Then, her eyes went wide. “President…”

“What?” Cordoba came over.

“According to this, Equestria used to have a president, the ultimate authority of the country. However, nopony has been president for nearly fifteen hundred years, since an election when the citizens found all the candidates to be lacking and simply refused to vote for any of them. Power then defaulted to the next in line, the Princesses, and the position has been unused ever since.” Twilight swallowed hard as she read the next part.

Cordoba said it out loud. “But the position is still open.”

Author's Note

This chapter directed by General Grant

Viva Las Pegasus

The group met up in the back room of the pub. Everyone who had a connection to Coloratura’s midnight attacks came.

“So it was actually a killer robot who looks like Twilight that was sneaking into my bedroom this whole time?” said Coloratura.

“Well, ‘looks like me’ in the sense that when the robot was in perfect condition it did, but now the exterior covering is mostly faded and torn away and the internals are somewhat corroded,” said Twilight.

“It has some extra stuff that it didn’t used to have,” Cordoba pointed out. “Like those claws attached to its hooves.”

“You don’t think it’s upgrading itself?” said Trixie.

Twilight shuddered. “It has some kind of awareness, then. But what does it want?”

“Well, it was doing experiments to interface electronics with a living body,” said Braeburn. “What if it was trying to reverse that?”

“You mean graft a piece of meat into a robot?” said Applejack. “But for what purpose?”

“You speak machine, right?” said Cordoba, addressing a speaker in the middle of the table.

“I mean, I guess if you could capture the robot I might be able to take a look at the software,” said Merry’s voice from the speaker. “Though I hope that wasn’t its plan after all in a bid to inject malicious code into my systems.”

“Good point,” said Cordoba. “In that case, who cares what it’s after, we’ll just kill it.”

“In the meantime, we need to do something to keep Coloratura safe,” said Applejack.

“I was planning to perform at a special concert in Las Pegasus soon,” Coloratura said.

They all paused to consider that.

“I could definitely go back there,” said Spike. “The sights, the sounds, the debauchery.”

Twilight gave him a look, but Pinkie interupted, “The parties, the endless buffets!”

“The gambling,” said Cracker.

“The cheering crowds easily swayed to an opinion!” said Columbia.

“I need to go there to look for clues about the whereabouts of the Amulet of Culiacan,” said Daring.

“A vacation would be nice,” said Rarity.

Twilight sighed. “So, Las Pegasus vacation?”

After they were all packed, Merry shuttled them west to Las Pegasus. She was built for cargo, but such a crowd and their luggage almost filled her compartment. The girls and Spike, Guinness, Skyla, Coloratura, Braeburn, Trixie, Daring, Cordoba, and Cracker.

The load didn’t bother Merry, of course. She was literally built for it. She still couldn’t help but comment. “What did you put in your suitcase, metal?”

Cordoba gave her a look. “Perhaps.”

Merry mentally chastised herself. She should have known not to ask, because she should have suspected what it really was.

Strangely enough, there was a helipad waiting for them atop a large hotel in Las Pegasus. Merry set down and everyone began to disembark.

A stallion with a pompadour came out of the building. “It’s a pleasure to meet you all, the Elements of Harmony and associates. I’m Gladmane and I run this here resort. Thank you for coming. Thank you very much.”

“You know who we are?” said Twilight.

“That’s suspiciously good intelligence,” muttered Cordboa.

“I’m what you might call a friendship connoisseur, so naturally I’m familiar with the greatest friends in Equestria,” said Gladmane. “And I wanted to do anything I could to prepare for your arrival. That goes for you too, Countess.”

“Just Coloratura is fine.”

Gladmane nodded. “Well, I’ll let you get settled in and explore. Just look me up if you need anything at all.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Spike. He headed for the buffet.

“Wait up!” called Cracker.

“Fluttershy and I are going to the craps tables!” said Pinkie. She pulled Fluttershy along.

“Gambling sounds good,” said Rainbow. Guinness, carrying Skyla, rushed after her to prevent a personal finance tragedy.

Daring said, “I’m convinced that somepony’s been moving the Amulet of Culiacan around. It might be here somewhere.” She and Trixie headed out to look for clues.

“I’m going to have the biggest political rally anybody’s ever seen,” said Columbia. “We’ll make our own country with blackjack and hookers.”

Cordoba said, “I’m going to break into the security center and figure out where Gladmane’s getting his information.” Except she said it to herself, because Twilight certainly wouldn’t approve.

Twilight looked at everyone else. “Should we see a show? There are plenty of them.”

The others went their separate ways. Coloratura looked around. “Not that I’m too worried in a city like this that always has lots of ponies around, but I would have felt better if somepony stuck around for protection, considering the, oh, killer robot that’s after me.”

“I can do that,” said Merry.

“Thanks. You know, you’re a lot cooler since you got your stuff together.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“I’m glad you’re happy,” said Braeburn.

“Thank you,” said Merry.

Elsewhere in the resort, the girls were on the way to a show. Though with Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Rainbow doing their own thing, that left them somewhat limited. Fortunately, a show called Ponet Fantastique included costumes, acrobatics, animals, and illusions. Among Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack, there was just barely enough to interest each. However, they unexpectedly ran into the Flim Flam Brothers.

Fortunately, the two of them were in a heated public argument and didn’t notice the girls buying tickets elsewhere.

“Glad we avoided that,” said Rarity.

“And how,” agreed Applejack.

Back in the casino, where Pinkie had won so much money that she was seductively swimming in it, Fluttershy was hoping she could have avoided that. And how. Pinkie even knew it wasn’t working, but tried to be seductive regardless.

Fluttershy tried to distract herself by looking at other games. She had a mild panic attack upon seeing someone playing whackamole.

Pinkie’s sister Limestone came over. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, hey Limey!” Pinkie jumped up and hugged her. “We just came for a Las Pegasus vacation.”

“Can I have some money?” said Limestone.

“Sure!” Pinkie shoved a wad of bits into her hooves.

“You know she’s just going to buy crack, right?” said Fluttershy.

“What now?” said Pinkie.

From high above the floor, the conversation was monitored through technology that was state of the art in Equestria - grainy black and white closed circuit television. Cordoba watched the monitor, the three security ponies who normally occupied the monitoring room lying knocked out behind her.

Twilight would be happy to learn that she’d held back from killing them. Then again, Cordoba decided, Twilight didn’t need to know at all.

Although, perhaps Cordoba should bring to her attention the shady double-dealings of Gladmane. After following him around the casino on the monitors, it seemed that he only served to antagonize his employees. Riling them up against each other seemed to keep the pressure off him. Brilliant, really.

Speaking of shady double-dealings, the Flim Flam Brothers were still arguing out in the courtyard.

Columbia spotted them and headed in their direction. As it happened, she was looking for an argument because that’s how you draw a crowd. It didn’t even have to be her argument.

She walked into the courtyard, a podium floating in front of her, and began. “Citizens! The time has come to stand up for what we believe in! Too long have your problems gone ignored. When you elect me President of Equestria, I will work for you and make your wildest dreams come true!”

She rapped the floating podium with a hoof. “But there are dark, evil forces that don’t want that to happen. That makes you angry! I’m angry! We’re going to change things!”

She quickly turned and whispered to Flim and Flam, “I hear you’re the best salesponies there are. Sell me into the Presidency and I’ll make it worth your while.”

The stallions looked at each other.

“Brother of mine, do you want to be peddling show tickets in Las Pegasus and arguing forever?” asked Flim.

“Would you rather be hype-ponies for whoever this is?” said Flam.

“It’s a change.”

“She looks rich.”

That agreed, they kicked off the show. “Ladies and gentlecolts, I suppose you’re wondering how-” Flim looked at her.

“Princess Columbia.”

“-can live up to her lofty promises,” finished Flam. “Well, you’ve never met a pony like her.”

“I can see that,” said a stallion in the front row who was wrapped up in a trench coat, sunglasses, and trilby. Columbia, Flim, and Flam all frowned at his unusual voice, but carried on.

“Through the magic of capitalism!” said Flim. “Tell ‘em, Flam.”

“You’d all like to have more spending money, right?” Flam addressed the crowd. “With the magic of setting your own prices, you can earn as much money as you want!”

“Which means you can spend as much money as you want,” added Flam.

“Thereby energizing the free market with capital and making your investments grow exponentially!” finished Columbia. “Vote for me and I will make you rich!”

“This sounds too good to be true,” said the disguised stallion.

“That’s because you’ve never had a President before,” said Columbia. “When I’m elected, you’ll wonder how you ever got along without me.”

“Does anypony else think she’s making promises she can’t keep?” said the stallion. “Or that she’s using a lot of doublespeak that doesn’t actually mean anything?”

“My good fellow-” Flam began, but the disguised stallion cut him off.

“No, this sounds like a con,” he protested.

“Nothing could be further from-” Flim tried, but he too was interrupted.

The trenchcoated pony turned around to address the crowd. “They’re trying to take advantage of you for their own gain!”

“Hey!” protested Columbia.

He glanced at her. “What, is this the first time anypony’s ever resisted you and your vapid rhetoric?”

“No, actually your resistance only makes my penis harder. And I mean, it was already pretty hard. I’m using it to hold up the podium.”

The crowd collectively took a step back.

“Viva la résistance!” shouted a masked mare, swinging down from the rooftops on one of the colorful hotel banners. She and a few others dropped in. “We represent the Sororal Order of Sorrel and are the front line in resisting the royal bourgeoisie that keeps Equestria down! Viva Valiant!”

“If you elect me, I’ll keep nutcases like these out of the way,” offered Columbia.

The trenchcoated pony whirled. “And who are you? Sororal Order of Sorrel?”

“That’s a weird voice,” said the SOS pony. She looked at her friends. “Do any of you think it sounds kind of electronic?”

“Who I am is of no concern,” said the stallion quickly. “What’s with your name and catchphrases? Viva Valiant? Are you some kind of stereotypical cult?”

“Did somebody say cult!?” shouted Trixie, arriving just then on Daring’s heels.

“Trixie,” said Flim and Flam, tipping their hats.

“Gentlecolts,” she said, tipping in reply. She turned. “I heard someone say cult. What cult?”

“Don’t get all cult-murdery just yet,” Daring soothed her. “We still need to find the amulet.”

Apparently sensing an impending rumble, Gladmane showed up. “Now folks, you’re all here on vacation. There’s nothing anypony can say to you that you should let hurt your feelings.”

Twilight, Rarity, and Applejack appeared just then, the show they’d attended coming to a close. Twilight saw the crowd of ponies and sensed the tension in the air. “What’s going on?”

“I believe I can explain that,” said Cordoba, strolling into the courtyard.

“Oh look, the walking deus ex machina cliché,” said the trenchcoated pony. “Please, enlighten us about what could possibly be going on.”

“First, I am not good with the language, so I’m not sure what some of those words mean,” said Cordoba. “But I have the feeling that it was an insult, so after I’m finished explaining the situation, I’m going to kill you.”

“We’ve been over this,” said Twilight, exasperated.

“Well, once you hear what I have to say, maybe you’ll at least consider it,” said Cordoba. “Now then, after reviewing security tapes, I have discovered that Gladmane is manipulating his employee’s feelings to keep them under his control.”

“What-” Gladmane started to protest, but Cordoba talked over him.

“Flim and Flam were two such employees. As of five minutes ago, they started working for Columbia at her rally for President.”

Columbia took the opportunity to wave and smile for the crowd.

“So with the sea of unhappy employees, someone came to Las Pegasus to be a white knight. Someone who is always convinced of their own superiority. Someone who couldn’t resist showing off how smart they are by interrupting a perfectly good political speech. Someone who just happens to need a replacement electronic voicebox. Isn’t that right, Quibble Pants?”

The disguised stallion removed his hat and sunglasses. A small box was fastened around his throat. A speaker on it said, “Fancy that, you figured out who I was from having access to some of the world’s best surveillance systems.”

“Quibble Pants!” shouted Daring. “You were the one who took the Amulet of Culiacan!”

“And I sure did a lot better job of keeping it out of your clutches than Doctor Caballeron,” Quibble said. “You know, because I’m actually smart.”

“How could you do this?” said Daring. “Become a supervillain?”

“Supervillain? Are you kidding me?” Quibble shook his head. “All I did was get to an artifact before you, my dear.”

“Call her ‘dear’ again,” growled Trixie.

Quibble laughed. “Aside from being a better archeologist than the famous Daring Do, what have I actually done to deserve to be called a supervillain? Just because I’m successful doesn’t mean you can call me evil.”

“You had to get that electronic technology from somewhere,” Cordoba pointed out.

“Well, I had to find a way to regain my voice. It still needs work, but I have a very helpful partner.” Quibble looked up. “Iron Mare?”

There was barely a hint of sound before a metal pony fell from the sky and slammed down in the center of the courtyard, cracking the stone. It looked like a skeleton of a pony, just made of metal. A sharp horn was attached to its forehead and synthetic wings spread from its back. They all recognized Twi-minator, but now without a concealing cloak it was easy to see she’d gotten some upgrades.

“I am Iron Mare,” she said, voice hard and electronic.

“No you’re not,” said Cordoba. “That’s a stupid name. Also, I just figured out why you two have been after Coloratura. Of course you’d go to a pony with one of the best voices in Equestria to figure out how to make yours better. So…that’s why you’re a bad guy, Quibble Pants.”

“When I’m President, we won’t let ponies like this threaten our pop stars!” said Columbia.

The crowd cheered.

“Wait, what?” said the SOS pony. “Is that what it takes to get approval? We’ll, uh, make you all pop stars!”

The crowd cheered again.

Quibble facehoofed. “Are you all dense? Can’t you see that they’re making promises they can’t back up?”

Everyone in the crowd ignored him, which pissed him off. He cranked the volume on his voicebox. “Hey! Listen!”

Gladmane, meanwhile, had gotten a microphone from somewhere. “And if you think that deal sounds good, just hear what I have special for you, my friends. It’s two-for-one night at the grand buffet!”

“Oh yeah, and back to you,” said Cordoba. “This is more of a friendship problem, so I don’t really care, but you playing ponies off each other is kind of underhanded.”

“There’s no need to go slinging accusations like that,” said Gladmane. “I treat everypony just like they’re my friend.”

“Merry May!” Cordoba called.

A couple of seconds later, Merry appeared. The crowd, already backing away from the scene and sudden appearances by potential bad guys, backed away even further to allow her to land.

Cordoba showed everyone a tape. “This is from hotel security.” She had Merry play it, projected for all to see with her equipment. There, depicted larger than life on the wall of the hotel, the video showed what Gladmane had been up to.

“Well, that’s not very nice,” said Twilight.

“Oh yeah?” said Gladmane. “You might be the Elements, but I ain’t exactly a villain of your caliber, or even truly evil. Using your friendship rainbow magic on me would be a waste, if it would even work.”

“Er, well, I’m not here on Elements business,” said Twilight. “I’m...here in my Princess-designated capacity and I want to solve this issue. I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

“I haven’t broken any laws,” Gladmane pointed out. He smirked.

“No, but I’ll make sure that you won’t have the chance,” said Twilight. “I’ll... seize this resort.”

“On what grounds!?”

Twilight stuttered, “In the name of, uh…”

“Eminent domain,” said Columbia.

“Right, that.”

“You can’t!” Gladmane protested.

“I just did,” said Twilight.

Gladmane stared at her for several seconds before storming away.

“Wow,” said Cordoba. “I never thought you of all ponies would do something like that.”

Twilight stared at her. “Is that what it takes to finally impress you?”

Quibble butted in. “Friendship and government bullying aside, I believe we were trying to get back on topic.”

“When I’m President, there won’t be any government bullying!” Columbia proclaimed.

“Stop it! You’re all just unbelievable!” said Quibble. “None of you have any right to be special snowflakes that get away with everything!”

“Can I please kill him?” Cordoba begged Twilight.

Twilight, instead, addressed Quibble. “What do you mean by special snowflakes?”

“Oh, look at you,” said Quibble. “You’re Princess Celestia’s chosen student, you were once an alicorn, you’re the Governor of Silent Hill. Nopony deserves that many superlatives, but your friends all have at least that many themselves! Your privilege is sickening.”

“Everyone will be privileged when I’m President!” rallied Columbia.

“And you!” countered Quibble. “Born out of a nuclear bomb on the moon, tall, politically ambitious, and then utterly ridiculous with a battering ram down below.”

Columbia frowned. “Are you comparing my genetalia to medieval siege equipment?”

“The fact that I can only demonstrates my point. It’s unnatural for anypony to be so unique. It’s the old ‘we’re all unique, but some of us are more unique than others’ shtick. You think being different makes you better than anypony else.”

“No,” said Twilight. “And I didn’t ask for half the things you said made me unique. What’s this all about?” She took a step closer. “Who hurt you?”

Quibble pointed a hoof at Cordoba.

“You can see why I did, with the kind of shit he talks,” Cordoba replied.

Limestone Pie walked up just then and punched Quibble in the face. He saw it coming, because Limestone wasn’t exactly subtle, and managed to dodge most of it. “What was that for?” he demanded.

“I figured Cordoba would probably pay me if I did what I thought she wanted,” said Limestone.

“The Pie sisters,” Quibble spat. “Pinkie is by far the worst offender, but you, Maud, and Marble each have personalities that take things to the extreme of each emotion and are all so unrealistic.”

The reason for that was because there was a fine line between genius and insanity and Limestone had snorted that line.

“Unrealistic?” said Twilight. “How can real life be unrealistic?”

“Oh, maybe how we’re all the construct of some idealized and seemingly perfect alien?”

“We won’t be when I’m President!”

“Shut up!” Quibble screamed. “I’m trying to tell everypony the real story! I know what’s really going on because I’m smart enough to handle it!”

“Okay,” said Twilight. “While I appreciate some of the points you make, and it hurts to acknowledge the remark about being a fictional world in somepony’s mind, you need to calm down so we can talk about this in a reserved and respectful manner.”

Just then, it began to snow.

The crowd looked up in confusion. Las Pegasus was warm enough that it didn’t really snow at any time of the year, much less right in the middle of tourist season.

“I’m done,” said Quibble, throwing up his hooves. “This is all so unrealistic.”

“You can’t leave,” said Cordoba. “We have a score to settle.”

Quibble gestured to Twi-minator and then disappeared into the crowd.

Twi-minator walked forward. “You are correct, we do have a score to settle.”

“Good thing I brought the depleted uranium rounds,” said Cordoba. She reached for her suitcase inside Merry’s cargo compartment.

“I don’t think a shootout right now would be a good idea,” Merry protested.

“You might be the only one who actually intimidates Twi-minator,” said Cordoba. “You’re a bigger robot.”

“Well yes, but-”

Twi-minator struck. She leaped at Merry’s cockpit, but even the steel claws welded to her hooves didn’t make it through the tough airframe. Merry started bouncing up and down on her suspension to try to shake her opponent off.

Cordoba opened her suitcase and poured its contents into Merry’s ammo hopper. It wasn’t nearly a full load of 30mm rounds, but it was something.

However, by the time her gatling barrels had begun to spin, Twi-minator had spread her robotic wings and taken to the air. Merry followed her up, Cordoba riding shotgun.

“Shoot her!” Cordoba commanded.

“This isn’t as life-threateningly serious as a loose nuclear weapon,” said Merry. “And anyway, you’re riding shotgun - you shoot her.”

“Too far away; the pellets would disperse. Look, if you’re actually going to stop and talk about it, then remember that this is nothing more than a machine,” Cordoba pointed out. “One that’s caused a lot of trouble.”

“I...I guess,” said Merry. However, Twi-minator skillfully ducked out of the way before she could align her sights. Merry’s airframe was many things, but supermanuverable was not one of them.

As she tried to track her sights onto the target, Twi-minator kept moving and occasionally made diving attacks.

“She’s too fast!” said Merry.

“Well, what do you have going for you?” Cordoba said. “Come on, be creative.”

At Twi-minator’s next dive, Merry abruptly reversed thrust on one of her engines, slewing her fuselage around and slinging her propeller on that side straight at Twi-minator. The ponybot just barely avoided the attack, but the spinning blades tore a hole in one wing. She flailed out of the sky, and abruptly teleported away.

The assembled crowd down below began to applaud. Merry landed back in the courtyard.

Cordoba stepped down, receiving even greater applause. She walked over to inspect Merry’s propeller, which had stopped spinning.

“I saw you hit that robot with your flying machine,” said a random pony. “Was there any damage?”

“Are you okay, Merry?” Cordoba asked.

“I seem fine,” said Merry. “Diagnostics aren’t showing anything.”

“A talking flying machine?” said the bystander.

“Heck, there’s a whole brain in there,” said Cordoba.

The crowd abruptly fell silent. One of them whispered, “What has science done?”

Merry would have shifted uncomfortably if an aircraft moving on its own wouldn’t have only made her seem like more of a freak.

“All right folks, nothing to see here,” said Braeburn.

“What are you talking about?” said another bystander. “You’re all metal.”

Braeburn’s plan to get the focus off Merry hadn’t worked exactly as he had intended, but she was still grateful.

They did manage to get the crowd to disperse. In the confusion, the SOS had left Viva la résistance! graffitied on a wall. Twilight preferred it to Valiant did nothing wrong.

But she had bigger problems to think about. What would Princess Celestia think of the luxury Las Pegasus resort the government now owned?

Oh, and also how Quibble Pants and Twi-minator had teamed up to do...something. They hadn’t been exactly clear on what.

Author's Note

This chapter directed by 71M073J

Every Little Thing She Does

Twilight paced the room in front of her friends. “So, the SOS is back, the robot that looks like me is targeting Coloratura and has been upgrading itself, Quibble Pants is on the path to becoming a supervillain, and we now own a hotel in Las Pegasus.”

The door opened and Sunset Shimmer stuck her head in. “Also, I brought Cherry Jubilee back to life so Braeburn will stop hanging around Merry May in order for her to go back to being a murderbot.”

Sunset closed the door.

The room was silent for at least five seconds.

Twilight opened and closed her mouth several times before giving up. “If I ask, ‘what else could happen’ I know I’ll regret it.”

“Um, isn’t anypony else concerned about how Sunset did that?” Fluttershy asked.

“Very,” said Applejack. “But I also kinda don’t want to know.”

“Seconded,” said Rarity.

“What’s so great about it anyway?” grumbled Rainbow.

“Braeburn’s going to be happy about it,” said Pinkie. “After he gets over being super conflicted about it. Oh! I should throw Cherry Jubilee a Welcome Back to Life party!”

Rainbow frowned. “Wait, exactly how did Sunset bring her back? What’s Cherry like now? Uh, Pinkie, what are you planning on serving at the party?”

“Well, it would be totally uncool for me to get brains and then find out that she doesn’t eat them,” Pinkie said. “I guess I’ll just have to go and ask her.”

“Aren’t you worried?” said Twilight.

“Are you?” said Applejack. “I thought you didn’t believe in zombies.”

“I don’t,” said Twilight. “But I’m also very disturbed about any reanimation, especially when a pony like Sunset is involved.”

“Why don’t we ask Sir Win?” suggested Pinkie. “I bet he would know all about death or lack thereof.”

Twilight nodded. “Okay, I’ll do that.”

“You’re on your own,” said Pinkie. “I have to get ready for the party.”

Rainbow said, “I have stuff to do.”

“Uh, m-me too,” Fluttershy quickly added.

Twilight looked around the group. Rarity pretended she didn’t notice. Applejack said, “I won’t lie. I just don’t want to go.”

“Fine,” Twilight huffed. “I guess I’ll go get to the bottom of this myself, and I bet the explanation won’t be zombies.”

As they say, karma’s a bitch. Fortunately for Twilight, zombies are a stupid plot device, so that didn’t turn out to be the answer just to spite her.

She went over to Sir Win’s place and knocked on the door. When he answered, she explained the situation to him and asked for advice.

“Hmm, I think I might have an idea,” he said. “Here, come with me.”

He led her out to his bicycle. Twilight remembered that Valiant had given it to him, because he thought the phrase “hell on wheels” was funny. Sir Win had fashioned a sidecar for it, which looked like a large wicker basket.

At his invitation, Twilight climbed in. “So, why is this a giant basket?” she asked. “Also, where are we going?”

Sir Win smiled as he pedaled. “We’re going to ask Sunset if Cherry Jubilee is a zombie.”

“I could have just done that,” grumbled Twilight.

“Well, this way we’ll both have our curiosity satisfied.”

They passed Columbia and the Flim Flam Brothers setting up a campaign rally event in the town square. They’d established the Committee Responsible for Electing the President in order to raise money. Twilight wasn’t sure if they realized the acronym spelled CReEP.

Sir Win and Twilight arrived at Sunset’s place. Twilight realized that Sunset hadn’t been around much since Valiant’s death. Understandable, considering how much it had affected her, but Sunset had turned into more of a recluse than expected.

Sunset answered the door when they knocked.

“We’re here to see Cherry Jubilee,” said Twilight.

Sunset nodded them in. As Sir Win passed the door, his eyes widened. “Whoa, that’s a butt-ton of magic.”

Sir Win didn't use that adjective lightly, Twilight knew. She sensed the huge volume and power of many complex spells, too. Sunset must have been working for a long time on this project. “How long did this take? This must have been some complicated magic.”

“Yeah,” said Sunset. “It’s pretty much all I’ve been doing since Valiant died. That’s why you haven’t seen me around for months.”

She brought them into the living room. Cherry was sitting on the couch.

She appeared to be perfectly normal, save perhaps missing her usual makeup. She looked up when they entered.

“Cherry Jubilee?” Twilight asked.

Cherry nodded.

“Can you speak?”

“I most certainly can,” said Cherry, quietly.

Twilight studied her, walking slowly from side to side to observe from other angles.

“What did you do, Sunset?” Twilight asked. “She looks normal, like she never, uh…” Twilight didn’t finish the sentence.

“It wasn’t easy,” said Sunset. “Months of work. The hardest part was the psychological aspect, and I still don’t have that quite right.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight took a closer look at Cherry, only now realizing how quiet she was. Cherry had been rather outgoing.

“Well, dying a painful death will leave scars on anyone’s psyche,” said Sunset. “As will living a painful reanimation.”

Cherry grimaced and looked away.

“But,” Sunset continued, “I’m sure she’ll get her mojo back with a little love. That’s how it worked for me after you poked around in my head after you brought me back from that high school.”

Twilight sensed the barb in that statement, but quickly avoided it. “So you think the love’s going to come from Braeburn?”

Cherry looked uncomfortable.

“He’ll either love her or reject her as an abomination.” Sunset shrugged. “Or, failing that, she can love him. It worked for me.”

This time it was Twilight that looked uncomfortable. Sunset obsessing over Valiant was one thing. A potential zombie obsessing over an easily disturbed stallion like Braeburn might not go over well. For anyone. Anywhere.

“So have you told him?” Twilight asked.

“Look at you, concerned with minor things,” said Sunset. “I’m surprised you haven’t asked about the implications of a process that could bring ponies back to life.”

It took Twilight a second, but her blood ran cold. “Did you bring Valiant back?”

Sunset shrugged. “It wasn’t me.”

“Wait, are you saying it was somepony?”

Sunset put on a trollish grin that she had to have practiced in front of a mirror. Twilight didn’t know if that meant yes or no, and that only frustrated her more.

“Where is he?” Twilight demanded.

“I honestly don’t know. His body’s gone from where we left it.”

“You don’t know that means he came back! We were busy and didn’t bury it, if you remember. Wolves could have gotten it. I knew we should have put it in a cave and sealed it with a stone like Cordoba wanted.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have him back?” Sunset said. “What with the SOS, Twi-minator, and Quibble Pants presenting a threat, plus the management of a hotel and dealing with the potential shitstorm of a Cherry-Braeburn-Merry May love triangle?”

Twilight’s eye twitched. “Were you behind all of this?”

“I’m tempted to say yes, because I want to see your reaction.”

“But were you?”

Sunset put on the same trollface from before. “All I can say is, you might want to think about what you’ve done lately. Have you been a good girl?”

Twilight went from angry and confused to just confused. “Of course I have. Why do you ask?”

“You’ll find out.” Sunset beckoned Cherry and they disappeared into the back room.

Sir Win wore a look of simple contentment. Twilight glanced at him. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“No, but I have a feeling things are going to hell.” He smiled. Twilight did not. Sir Win glanced at her. “You know, it’s a pun. Because I’m a demon. I like hell.”

“I got it,” Twilight growled. “But this is all so confusing. Why did Sunset ask me if I’d been a good girl?”

They walked outside. It was snowing. Also, there was a fir tree with colorful decorations propped up in the middle of the street.

“Nope, we’re not doing this,” said Twilight. “I am not dealing with another mystery today.”

The weather ponies were already at work clearing the clouds away. As hurried as they were, Twilight thought that they must have been caught off guard by the sudden weather.

Sir Win dropped her off at the library and she went inside. Cordoba was there, drinking coffee. On impulse, Twilight said, “So, Sunset brought Cherry Jubilee back to life.”

“I know.”

“And you didn’t tell me!?”

“There are a lot of things I don’t tell you, Twilight.”

Twilight controlled her temper. “Just a simple heads-up would have been nice.”

Cordoba turned to face her. “Everyone has secrets. So do I. So do you. Return from death is a big deal, but what would you have done if you knew sooner? What would Braeburn do?”

Twilight decided she didn’t want to actually consider her answer, because that would have been treading a path she didn’t relish. “So if Cherry’s back, is your father too?”

“What?” Cordoba blinked.

Twilight frowned. “I just thought that if Sunset told you about Cherry, she might have also told you about him?”

Cordoba got up. “What did she say?”

“She didn’t say anything. I only assumed.”

Cordoba’s face fell, but then she looked at Twilight again. “See? What if Braeburn knew about Cherry, but then the work to bring her back wasn’t successful and the hope he’d gained was crushed again?”

“Okay, good point.” Twilight sighed. “You know, if you put as much passion into helping others as you did murder, a whole bunch of Equestria’s problems would be solved.”

“So you admit Equestria has problems,” said Columbia, barging in. “Elect me President and I’ll fix them all.”

She put a Columbia for President sticker on Twilight and walked out again.

Twilight hastily peeled it off and threw it away.

“My dad would know how to solve Equestria’s problems,” said Cordoba.

“While he created new ones.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Twilight shook her head. “This is too much to deal with. I need a nap.” She headed upstairs.

Pausing at the entrance of the attic, though, a thought struck her. Valiant’s box of contingencies was still up in the attic. He’d left instructions for how to deal with a multitude of improbable events if they happened in his absence.

But no, Twilight had sworn she would never open the box.

Unless of course, that was what Valiant had planned, in which case he had expected her to never touch it.

Twilight suddenly decided to go to the attic. She didn’t need to follow his advice. Just knowing what Valiant had written down would inform her of his thought process, so that even if he were trolling her from beyond the grave, she could plan around his plan to plan for her. She was smart enough. Surely he couldn’t still be making her out to be a fool. After all, which one of them was dead?

There was a wooden trunk buried under piles of old paperbacks. A piece of masking tape on the top had Valiant’s Contingency Box written on it in black marker.

Twilight paused, but then opened it. It was filled with small envelopes with various situations written on them. Twilight found one that read Sentient robot is naughty.

That seemed relevant. She hesitated, but she’d come this far.

She opened the envelope. Inside was a card. It said Wait.

“Typical,” muttered Twilight.

She stuffed the note back in the envelope and put it back in the trunk.

Coming back downstairs, she saw Spike basking in the sunshine in front of the window. That dragon sure did like basking in things. Pausing for a moment to look out the window, Twilight spotted Braeburn and Merry May outside. The sun glinted on both of their respective metal.

Outside, Merry and Braeburn were having just as good a day as Twilight guessed. That was surprising for both of them.

“It’s a nice day,” said Braeburn, looking up. He subtly edged closer to Merry.

“It certainly is,” said Merry. “According to local atmospheric data, after the snow clouds are cleared away, it will stay clear and sunny all afternoon, giving way to a few scattered clouds to give contrast to the sunset. The temperature will be comfortable all day.”

“That’s a really useful ability you have,” said Braeburn.

“Okay, I will admit that as much as I dislike being a helicopter, I do enjoy having raw weather data from satellites available,” said Merry. “You know, I think I’m as happy as I’ve been since this happened to me.”

“I’m happy for you,” said Braeburn. He hesitated, but then leaned against her. After a moment, he heard her hydraulics hiss as she leaned slightly back towards him.

“I want to thank you for being there for me,” said Merry. “I’m flattered that somepony would go to so much effort for, well, me. I know I haven’t been the easiest to get along with.”

“I know what you’re going through,” said Braeburn. He affirmed, “I’m here for you.”

Sunset, with Cherry Jubilee following quietly behind, walked up and tapped Braeburn on the shoulder. “Hey, look who I’ve brought to see you. It’s, you know, your wife.”

Author's Note

This chapter directed by Sergeant Reader.

Historical note: The Committee for the Re-Election of the President was for the benefit of President Nixon and was at least partially involved in the Watergate scandal.

P.P.O.V. (Pony Point of View)

“So let me get this straight,” said Merry May. “You brought Braeburn’s wife back from the dead? Not that ethics has ever mattered to you, but that strikes me as being even more deplorable than putting me in a helicopter body against my will.”

“But Cherry’s alive again,” said Braeburn. “Ethics aside, how can you call that deplorable?”

“Ethics aside is pretty much how we all got here,” said Sunset. “Isn’t that right, Twilight?”

Twilight had come out of the library. “What are you talking about? I would never do anything unethical.”

“Are you suuuure...?” said Sunset. “Are you reeeeeally suuuure...?”

Twilight chose to ignore her and turned to the other three. “So, what are you going to do?”

“It’s... a lot to take in,” said Braeburn.

“I’m back, dear. We can be together again,” said Cherry.

“N-no offense, but how do I know you’re really you?” Braeburn gave Sunset a hard look.

“You really think I would go to all this trouble and not give you the real thing?” said Sunset. “I spent months exhuming her body, pumping it full of spells to get out the stench, summoning her soul, stuffing it back in, doing more spells to hold it there, and then performing enough mental magic to actually restore her to some level of functionality after such a traumatic experience.”

“Mental magic?” said Twilight. “Sunset, you know how bad that is.”

“Are you suuuure...? Are you reeeeeally suuuure...?” said Sunset. “I know how bad it is from firsthand experience - you using it on me.”

Twilight again chose to change the subject. This time, she addressed Cherry. “What will you do now?”

“That depends on Braeburn,” she said. “I left all my assets to him in my will.”

Braeburn nodded. “After...uh, all that, I moved to Ponyville to stay with the Apples here. I haven’t thought about Dodge Junction for a while.”

“I’m just glad to see you again,” said Cherry, touching him lightly on the shoulder.

“Me too,” he said.

Cordoba arrived just then. “Hey Merry, I think I’ve gotten Twi-minator’s location figured out in the Everfree Forest. Let’s go gank her.”

“I’m kind of in the middle of something,” Merry replied.

“No, no, don’t let me hold you here,” said Cherry.

“I’m here for Braeburn,” said Merry. “Just in case you actually turn out to be a zombie or something.”

“You can’t just call ponies zombies,” said Braeburn. “It’s not polite, if nothing else.”

“I don’t know if she could get her teeth through his metal plating, either,” said Sunset.

“I’m just trying to look out for you, like you did for me,” said Merry to Braeburn.

“Wait, what did you do with this machine?” asked Cherry.

“At one point, he said he loved her,” said Cordoba.

“Are you sure your special talent isn’t opening cans of worms?” muttered Twilight.

“He kissed her, too,” added Cordoba.

“I was trying to harness the power of love to save our friends from a bad guy who had them trapped,” Braeburn hastily explained

“That bad guy was fictional, invented by you, specifically to con Tin Mare’s programming into letting you change it so you could have her,” said Cordoba.

“Wait, you created the mythos of the Love Meister?” said Twilight.

Braeburn stuttered. Cherry said, “Who?”

Sunset said, “Well, it looks like you all have a lot to talk about.”

“Totally,” said Cordoba.

Both of them started to walk away. Twilight cut her eyes side to side. “Um, yes, I suppose you three do.” She quickly excused herself.

“Well, that happened,” said Cordoba. “I still need to go to the Everfree Forest. We could make it a camping trip and get a cabin or something. Except for Twi-minator. Then it would be a stabbin’ cabin.”

Rarity came walking down the street and Twilight intercepted her. “You don’t want to go over there. Cherry Jubilee came back to life, and Braeburn is trying to deconflict her relationship with Merry may.”

Rarity did an abrupt about-face and walked with Twilight. “All right. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know, what can we do?” said Twilight. “This is such a complicated situation.”

“No, I mean, what are we going to do since we have so much free time because we aren’t getting involved?” said Rarity.

Twilight considered that and decided Rarity was onto something. “I don’t know, what did you have in mind?”

“Why darling, how about a cruise? I’ve been dying to take one for ages. I know a perfect little boat in Vanhoover.”

“Sounds great,” Twilight acknowledged. “I’ll get the others.”

After a brief meeting, Applejack, Coloratura, Cracker, Pinkie, Sunset, and Cordoba were in.

“So why are we going on this cruise?” said Pinkie.

“To avoid having anything to do with the Cherry Jubilee-Merry May-Braeburn love triangle,” said Rarity.

Pinkie nodded. “That’s one three-way I do not want to get involved in.”

Fluttershy and Rainbow declined the cruise, as they had a class reunion in Cloudsdale to attend.

“But there’s a little problem with getting to Cloudsdale,” said Rainbow. She glared. “You know, because somepony took my wings.”

“If you vote for me for President, I’ll give you a ride to Cloudsdale,” said Columbia, appearing just then.

“Wow, I don’t know if a cunt like Rainbow could take that,” said Pinkie.

“That wasn’t the kind of ride I was talking about,” said Columbia. “I’m not into girls.”

Rainbow wiped sweat off her brow. “Okay, good.” She turned to Rarity and started sweating again. “To hide the lack of wings, I, um, need to ask you for a dress.”

Rarity gave her a vindictive smile. “Why darling, all you needed to do was ask.”

“This is going to be a learning experience for Rainbow,” muttered Applejack.

Unfortunately, it was not as intense for Rainbow as it could have been. Rarity had an emergency “make Rainbow Dash frou-frou” kit ready and rapidly deployed it. Rainbow still came out looking like a fashion doll that had fallen into a vat of sparkle at the industrial glitter factory.

Everyone else packed for their trip and left for Vanhoover. That evening, Columbia and the Flim Flam Brothers set up their traveling road show to head for Cloudsdale. Rainbow and Fluttershy rode with them in their steampunk flying machine. At the last moment, Trixie and Daring also jumped aboard. The primitive airship groaned under the added weight.

“The Amulet of Culiacan might be in Cloudsdale,” said Daring.

“Wait, does that mean Quibble Pants is also there?” said Fluttershy.

“What’s wrong with that?” said Trixie. “How many badasses does it take to gank one guy?”

“That depends, do I count?” asked Columbia.

“Saving the world would really make you look good in the polls,” said Daring.

“Then I’m in!”

They flew on to Cloudsdale. Flim and Flam stayed aboard their mobile campaign float and extolled the virtues of Columbia while she smiled and waved.

“Well, at least it takes attention away from me,” Rainbow sulked under her fancy dress.

“Things I never thought you would say,” said Fluttershy.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

They headed for the flight school class reunion, but unexpectedly ran into Gilda. To be fair, she was a fellow alum, but at the moment she was cutting the ribbon on a new scone shop.

Fluttershy quickly made herself scarce, but Rainbow stopped to talk to Gilda. “I didn’t know you were in the scone business.”

“That’s what you get for not writing, dweeb.” Gilda smiled, though. “Yeah, I have a chain.”

“And if you vote for me for President, your business will continue to grow and expand!” interjected Columbia.

“Not that I mind, but I’ve done all this myself,” said Gilda. “Why do I care about you?”

“Because I bring the magic of capitalism,” said Columbia. “Something I see a successful businessperson like yourself is already well versed in. Together, we can make all the planet a shining example of do-it-yourselfism.”

“I don’t need to do anything together,” said Gilda. “I made myself successful.”

“That’s the spirit!” said Columbia. “We can be individuals together!”

“Yeah, whatever.” Gilda walked with Rainbow towards the reunion.

Daring and Trixie wandered up. Trixie had done a cloudwalking spell on herself. “Hey, is that one of Gilda’s scone shops?” said Daring.

“Looks like it,” Trixie replied. “Do we still have that 10% off coupon she gave us for helping out with the Idol of Boreas in Griffonstone?”

“Sure do,” said Daring.

They went inside. The griffon at the counter flatly refused them. “That has to be fake. Do you honestly think Gilda of all griffons would give out discounts?”

They were about to argue the point when they were interrupted.

“Oh, look at you, trying to be special again,” said an electronic voice behind them. It was Quibble Pants.

“I knew the Amulet of Culiacan was here,” said Daring.

Quibble sighed theatrically. “Why are you still looking for that old thing? I got into the Temple of Chicomoztoc, solved the puzzle using the amulet, and claimed the treasure ages ago. The temple’s empty, so the amulet is now useless. If you really want it, though, I’ll sell it to you. Thousand bits.”

Daring’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust you.”

“Come on, I’m not the bad guy here. Just because I’m better than you doesn’t mean I’m your mortal enemy.”

“You’re not better than her,” said Trixie.

“Oh please. Daring’s books have always been so unrealistic. I’ve been going on quests and solving the same mysteries without any of the unnecessary drama. Because I’m simply better and smarter.” Quibble chuckled. “You know honestly? I’m thinking about writing my own books.”

Trixie laughed. “Pff, nopony wants to read about some guy who is smarter than everyone, better at something than a world-recognized expert, and has a robot companion. That has unrealistic written all over it.”

“Yeah, haven’t you ever heard of a Mary Sue?” Daring added. “Look at you, masturbating to your own wish-fulfilment.”

Quibble snarled. “Look at you, Daring! You’re a stereotype of a bushwhacking archeologist who never fails, right down to the signature hat. And you, Trixie. The defeated foe cast into redemption as the God of the Universe’s adopted daughter with unique radiation-based magic and an all-conquering machine gun that you can pull out of nowhere. Talk about engineered characters and unreality.”

“Well, it’s pretty clear we’re not going to get anything done here now,” said Daring, turning away from Trixie. “Since we’re in Cloudsdale, want to have HLS on a cloud?”

“I’d love to,” said Trixie. They walked for the door.

“Hey!” called Quibble. “You can’t just walk away like I’m not telling you the truth about how the world works!”

“We can ignore you,” said Trixie. “And won’t that deprive you of the attention you crave?”

They exited the shop. Twi-minator stood there, hovering just off the clouds. She wore a cloak, being in public, but her eyes glowed with LEDs. She said, “Halt.”

“Make us, bucket of bolts,” said Daring.

Trixie gave her a look.

“Sorry, best insult I could come up with on the spot,” said Daring.

Twi-minator began to charge her horn, but the Flim Flam brothers went by in their campaign vehicle, playing some ridiculous oompa music to appeal to the minorities. That was enough of a distraction for Trixie to gain the upper hand.

Twi-minator either hadn’t bothered to perform the cloudwalking spell, didn’t know it, or it didn’t work on robots. Either way, Trixie shifted to eight legs, braced, and put as much force behind swinging the stock of her M60 as she could. Twi-minator, being midair, caught the full force of the attack and went flying. Trixie followed up with a blast of magic for extra momentum.

They both wanted to rub it in Quibble’s face, but they knew that simply ignoring him drove the figurative knife deeper.

And you know that’s saying something. This is a narrative that often requires differentiation between figurative and literal knives.

So, anyway, Trixie and Daring went to have HLS. Down below, the others were getting ready to board the cruise at the Vanhoover docks. The ship was rather nice and piloted by a veteran captain who had expert knowledge of the water. That captain was me, by the way.

Cordoba came over to my station before we departed the docks. “As per our previous agreement, you hang onto the tape recorder and I’ll dictate recent events for the record.”

“But first, my fee,” I said.

She nodded and paid me. She started off with the day and walked through the drama with Cherry, Merry, and Braeburn. I don’t know how she knew about the brief spat in Cloudsdale, but she told me about that, too. Maybe because we could see the HLS from here. Most of us studiously ignored it.

The purple pony known as Twilight Sparkle came over. “Cordoba, we’re just about to get going. Would you like to stand over by the railing and see the sea?”

“Nice pun,” I said.

It was about that time that Twilight noticed I was an eight-story tall crustacean from the paleozoic era.

“Why did you give a tri-horned bunyip the tape recorder?” Twilight asked.

“I figured the captain of the ship would be as reasonable of an authenticating authority as any,” said Cordoba.

“I’m just here for the catered cucumber sandwiches,” I admitted.

Twilight shook her head and turned away. “I suppose I should go prepare for departure.”

Just then, a group of amphibious raiders mounted the sides of the ship. It was a group of seaponies, but they switched to legs as soon as they landed on the deck.

“The Sororal Order of Sorrel is here!” one of them shouted.

“What are we going to do!?” panicked Twilight.

As if in answer, Cordoba yanked the cutlass that hung at her side and charged into battle. The others displayed varying levels of engagement.

I’m a pacifist. I’m also pretty clumsy, so trying to help out might actually cause more trouble. So I sat and waited, trying to look cool and experienced like the salty sailor most saw me as.

Speaking of salty, these SOS ponies sure were mad about something. They had some anti-government slogans. I, for one, was planning to vote for Princess Columbia in the next election. It helped that she was the only choice.

To further add to the salt, the one named Rarity was nearly knocked overboard. She had turned into some sort of crystal, perhaps salt, so that might have been bad. Unless of course that allowed her to become one with the whole ocean. I’m not really an expert on things like that.

Suddenly, a robot that kind of looked like a purple pony came falling out of the sky and slammed right through the ship. As in, in the deck, down a couple more decks, and out the bottom.

“The ship’s sinking!” shouted Twilight.

“Are you suuuure...?” snarked Sunset Shimmer. “Are you reeeeeally suuuure...?”

The ship began to take on water, and it hadn’t even untied from the pier to start the cruise.

I decided that perhaps it was time to go, and slipped into the water. Honestly, land-dwellers have so much drama.

Author's Note

This chapter directed by Lesolan.
“I have felt before important, and I have felt before useless, but I have never felt before being both important and useless.”

Where the Apple Lies

Cordoba flew over the Everfree Forest. It would have been nice to have Merry May as backup, but she was being an emotional wreck since Sunset had brought Cherry Jubilee back to life.

Cordoba couldn’t blame Sunset for doing that, to get Braeburn out of the way, but Cordoba still resented that it made Merry unavailable. This, of course, was after he’d made Tin Mare unavailable.

None of this would have been a problem if someone had just kept their coding to themselves.

Said antivirus experts.

But it couldn’t be helped and Twi-minator still had to be hunted. Everyone else was caught up in their own stuff, which left Cordoba to do it herself.

She was pissed.

The forest spread out below her. The thick canopy of trees made it near-impossible to see below. Cordoba circled lower, processing what she was seeing. Unless she was attacked, it was unlikely she would spot any sign of Twi-minator from the air.

Frustrated, she turned back for Ponyville.

When she arrived back at the library, Cordoba got herself a cup of coffee. In the main room, the girls were having flashbacks.

“What kind of stupid caca is this?” said Cordoba.

“Well,” said Twilight, “it all started when-”

“No!” shouted Cordoba. “You’re not doing this to me!”

But it was too late.

Twilight sat in the library reading a book about eugenics, which was a very strange and worrying thing to find. My Fight was a doubly strange title for such a book.

Rarity came in, looking distraught about something.

“Is something wrong?” Twilight asked.

“I have a crisis of conscience,” said Rarity. “On the one hoof, I don’t believe Applejack is a racist, but I can’t help but think her calling me a hornswoggler has something to do with being a unicorn.”

“How did this happen?” Twilight asked.

Rarity said, “Well, it all started a few minutes ago…”

The little bell tinkled as Applejack walked into the Carousel Boutique. That was so out of the ordinary, Rarity commented. “Why Applejack, what brings you here?”

“Have you seen my sister?” Applejack asked. “Is she with Sweetie Belle?”

“I haven’t seen Apple Bloom,” said Rarity. “But since you’re here, I would just love if you tried out this cute hat I just made.”

“I don’t need a hornswoggler,” said Applejack. “But it’s important that I find Apple Bloom as soon as possible.”

“What’s so important?” Rarity huffed.

“Well, you see, it all started this morning…”

Pinkie slammed open Applejack’s bedroom door. “I need cider!”

Applejack was an early riser, but the sun wasn’t even up yet. She said, “Go away.”

“It’s super important,” said Pinkie.

This time, it was Big Macintosh’s voice coming through the wall. “Go away.”

“The fate of Equestria could hang in the balance!” said Pinkie.

Applejack waited a moment to see if Apple Bloom would also chime in with a “Go away,” but that didn’t happen. She sighed and sat up in bed. “So what’s going on?”

“Well,” said Pinkie, “just a little while ago, I was sexing Fluttershy…”

“I’m busy!” Fluttershy protested as Pinkie went down on her.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Pinkie pointed out, somehow speaking clearly even though her mouth was otherwise occupied.

“Well, um, you see, I’ve been working on this project…”

“I need help getting to the Wonderbolts headquarters!” said Rainbow. “We’re supposed to have a super secret meeting today, but I can’t fly there since the whole wings thing.”

“That was pointless and I still don’t understand,” Cordoba deadpanned.

“I ain’t racist,” said Applejack. “Isn’t a hornswoggler somepony who makes clothes?”

“It's actually a haberdasher,” said Rarity.

“I stand corrected. I’m still looking for Apple Bloom, though,” said Applejack.

“She’s with the Crusaders planning a second honeymoon for Braeburn and Cherry Jubilee,” said Cordoba. “So I can finally get Merry to focus on something else.”

“Oh dear,” said Rarity. She and Applejack hurried away.

“Meanwhile, I’m still trying to get to the Wonderbolts HQ,” said Rainbow.

Cordoba pointed at Twilight. “You’re basically Princess of Fixing Petty Bullshit. Figure it out.”

“Young lady, that’s not how it works. I’m your mentor,” Twilight protested.

“Yeah, but the quicker you can get Merry’s mind back on taking out Twi-minator, the better.”

“Other than attempting experimental surgery with Coloratura, she hasn’t threatened anything,” said Twilight. “Certainly not tried to take over Equestria. I would like to sit her down and give her a talking to, but do we really need to kill her? She’s a robot.”

“What, are you trying to have a twin or something?” said Cordoba. “Let’s just imagine for a moment that you’re the Lowlander and there cannot only be one of you. And then let’s just imagine for a moment that that’s idiotic and so are you.”

“Um,” said Pinkie. “Not to interrupt or anything, but I still need that cider.”

“I might have some in the kitchen,” said Twilight. “Why do you need it?”

“To go with the popcorn.”

Twilight stared at her for a moment and then shook her head. She found an unopened jug of cider and gave it to Pinkie.

“Thanks!” Pinkie zoomed away.

“I hope that wasn’t for Fluttershy,” said Twlight. “The relationship they have really is unhealthy.”

“You’re worried Pinkie will use the cider inside her?” said Cordoba.

Twilight winced. “Don’t say it that way.”

“I have to practice the language somehow, and puns work,” said Cordoba. “It also helps my enunciation to be your frustration.”

“So...none of this helps me,” said Rainbow, who had been standing there the whole time.

“Why don’t you ask the Wonderbolts to get you to their secret HQ?” said Cordoba.

“Because then they would know that I don’t have wings anymore and there wouldn’t be any reason to still have me in the Wonderbolts!”

“At the same time, if you did manage to get up to their HQ and they wanted to go flying, you’d fall off the edge and die,” Twilight pointed out.

“So give me back my wings!” Rainbow pleaded. “Look, I’m literally on my knees! Plus, you’ll appreciate this, Twilight, just reversing the spell so I can fly and take care of things myself is the most efficient solution so I don’t have to keep asking for help.”

“I think she learned her lesson,” said Cordoba. “And wow, she even learned critical thinking.”

“All right,” Twilight decided, and reversed the spell.

“Sweet!” Rainbow flew away.

“I hope I won’t regret that,” said Twilight. “Then again, now that she knows her actions have consequences, hopefully she’ll keep that in mind for the future.”

“It’s Rainbow. Learning more than one lesson per day might strain her,” said Cordoba. She took a sip of coffee.

“Speaking of, you need to learn some lessons yourself, young lady,” said Twilight. “With all this cavorting around, you’ve gotten behind on my friendship tutoring.”

Cordoba let out an extended groan. “If you really want me to stay here instead of fighting evil robots.”

“It isn’t like it's your job,” said Twilight.

“But someone has to,” Cordoba pointed out. “So why don’t you come with me? We can exterminate this evil robot. Together.”

Twilight almost said yes, but shook her head. “You’re getting better at reasonable persuasion, but it’s not going to work. We have things to do.”

“We do have things to do,” said Cordoba.

“And it’s not fighting robots,” Twilight interrupted.

Rainbow Dash suddenly burst back into the library. “The Wonderbolt HQ is under attack by an evil robot!”

Cordoba looked at Twilight. “I’m not going to rub it in your face if you agree to come with me.”

“Fine,” Twilight grumbled.

Rainbow went to get the girls. Cordoba went to get Merry.

She found her parked nearby, quiet and somehow brooding as much as a machine was able.

“We need to go kill Twi-minator,” said Cordoba.

“I need some time alone,” said Merry. “Braeburn’s gone. I thought I had new lease on life, but I forgot leases have to be paid for.”

“I don’t care,” said Cordoba. “We’re going to Wonderbolt HQ and need you to take us there.”

“Didn’t you hear me?” said Merry.

Cordoba nodded. “I acknowledge that you are sad because your boyfriend realized his wife was still alive and went to be with her...BUT I DON’T CARE! I’m impatient that you’re holding us up once again over your personal problems. Twi-minator could literally threaten all of Equestria, and you don’t want to help because you’re sad. What happened to getting your shit together? What happened to wanting to be a productive member of society?”

Merry flinched as well as a helicopter could. Her engines started to spin. The others arrived, with Sunset, Trixie, Columbia, Cracker, and the CMC tagging along. They all loaded up.

“We’re going to the Wonderbolts HQ,” said Rainbow. “You know, the place they used to do training before they ceased to exist and were replaced by the new team led by Wind Rider.”

“That weird mountain place with a runway?” said Cordoba.

“It’s actually a floating island in the sky,” said Rainbow. “Common misconception, even I didn’t know that until recently. Most ponies just think it’s a mountain because it’s always surrounded by clouds.”

Cordoba put a hoof to her chin. “If it floats...we can sink it.”

“I’m pretty sure the Wonderbolts don’t want us to do that,” said Rainbow.

Merry landed on the runway and the passengers disembarked. Wind Rider came over and confronted Rainbow. “Why did you bring Twilight Sparkle here? You know she’s with the government, right?”

“Uh, yeah?” said Rainbow. “Is that a big deal?”

It was, because the new Wonderbolts were another regime-change group like SOS who were trying to fill the power vacuum left by Valiant. However, since Rainbow was Rainbow, she hadn’t paid attention to that part when they’d recruited her.

Wind Rider wasn’t about to remind her of that while Twilight and the others were standing right there.

Columbia broke in. “Don't like the government? Why not get a new one?”

“I was thinking about it,” said Wind Rider. “But first, about this robot...”

“Where is it?” said Cordoba.

“We saw it earlier, but I think it’s gone down into the caves,” said Wind Rider.

Cordoba processed that and turned to the others. “Who’s up for CQC in a cave with a killbot?”

Sunset and Trixie raised their hooves. The responses from the others were muted, to say the least. In the end, Applejack volunteered some meat puppets. Rainbow, trying to get into the Wonderbolt’s better graces, also volunteered.

“Why does this place have caves?” said Twilight. “It doesn’t look big enough.”

Wind Rider shrugged. “Maybe being hollow helps it float.”

Cordoba led the group towards the entrance to the caves. As it turned out, they didn’t need to go much further. Twi-minator was waiting for them.

Cordoba walked up to her. “Stop it.”

She turned to Twilight. “See, nonviolence first?”

“Very good,” Twilight acknowledged.

Cordoba turned back, and was met with a metal hoof to the face that knocked her across the cave’s front chamber.

The assembled crowd gasped and Sunset started forward, murder in her eyes.

Twi-minator threw a switch, and a sudden forcefield of Tesla coils sprang up, sealing the cave entrance with a wall of crackling electricity.

“We have to get in there!” Twilight said.

“This is advanced technology, not magic,” said Trixie. “You’re useless here.”

Sunset paced outside the barrier, swearing under her breath.

“Wait, it’s just electricity?” said Rainbow. “I can handle lightning!”

She zoomed towards the forcefield. It shocked the shit out of her. It sounded like “Bleluzlzulzulzulzuzluzzluzlulzuluzuzsfleufzezuezluzluedze.” It looked even funnier than it sounded.

Rainbow fell back, dazed and smoking.

“Merry? Can you get in there?” asked Twilight.

Merry had parked behind the rest of them outside the cave. “No. I’m not grounded well enough to handle that kind of amperage.”

“You’re depressed and want to die,” said Sunset. “Why not try it anyway?”

“I-I…” Merry searched in vain for something to say. It was just then that Cordoba got up.

Inside the electric battle cage, Cordoba swayed a little and bled from the nose, but started forward towards her opponent. She growled, “Chupe mantequilla de mi culo, you sucker-punching metal asshole. You’re going down. Way down.”

“That isn’t very nice,” said Twi-minator.

“What I’m about to do to you isn’t very nice,” Cordoba shot back. “Hacking up Coloratura, helping Quibble Pants, sabotaging my derby car, getting your hooves on this Tesla technology which I’m sure you stole from my dad.”

“I have used it to much greater effect than he ever did,” said Twi-minator. “Now it’s time we faced each other one on one, so that I can demonstrate that I am better than anything he could do.”

“Screw you, Bitchcraft.” Cordoba drew her cutlass. “Let’s get it on.”

Half a dozen steel claws unfolded from Twi-minator’s hooves like switchblades. Cordoba didn’t wait, leading with her cutlass and kicking forward with her wings for extra power.

Twi-minator managed to get one armored foreleg up to deflect the blow, sparks showering across the cave floor. The ceiling was low enough that an aerial battle would not be possible, but both combatants used their wings for added maneuverability.

Cordoba changed direction, this time trying for Twi-minator’s optical sensors. The robot tossed her head at the last second, catching Cordoba’s cutlass across her metal horn. She tried to yank the sword away with magic, but Cordoba did a backflip and kicked her in the face, spoiling the spell.

Twi-minator shook her head and started forward again, slashing with her claws. Cordoba parried, but couldn’t keep backing up with the cave wall coming closer. She opted to jam her cutlass between the claws and twist Twi-minator’s foreleg out of the way.

It worked - too well. As Cordoba twirled free of the the clinch Twi-minator had been pushing her into against the wall, the metal mare stomped her hoof down, reversing the leverage of the sword. She spun her hoof, pressing Cordoba’s blade against the floor. The cutlass snapped.

Cordoba let go of the pommel, but was too slow in getting clear. Twi-minator drove forward with everything she had, stabbing through Cordoba's body with all six of her claws, the bloody tips bursting out her back.

“She’s fine,” said Merry.

Top Bolt

A Tesla coil battle cage in a cave on a floating island with an audience of magical ponies and a GAU-8 gunship was a really cool place to watch a fight.

That is, if the hero hadn’t just been stabbed multiple times by a murderbot.

However,

“She’s fine,” said Merry.

Everyone turned to look at her.

Merry went on. “Does Cordoba know she’s a robot?”

“What are you talking about?” said Twilight.

“As a pony who was built into a robot, I know how to tell a robot who’s been built into a pony,” said Merry.

“Are you saying Cordoba’s been a robot this whole time!?” shouted Twilight.

“Have you ever noticed that she doesn’t eat?” Merry pointed out.

“But Cordoba drinks coffee.”

“And yet, when you take it away, she’s still a morning pony,” replied Merry.

“But she bleeds.”

“As I understand, creating a meat-encased robot was a concept from Valiant’s world,” said Merry. “Have you ever noticed that she doesn’t think, she processes? That’s an awfully specific word for a non-native speaker of the language. And you have to admit, Cordoba being a robot explains a lot.”

Twilight turned to Sunset. “Is it true? Did you and Valiant really build a daughter?”

Sunset nodded, but didn’t meet her eyes. “It’s true.” She was focused on the battle.

Cordoba didn’t enjoy being stabbed. To answer Merry’s earlier question, no, she didn’t know she was a robot. However, she was a teenager and therefore thought herself invincible anyway.

With Twi-minator’s claws stuck in her, Twi-minator was conveniently close. Cordoba smashed a hoof into her opponent’s face, shattering one of her optical sensors.

The blow knocked Twi-minator back. Cordoba got on her blind side and tripped her. As Twi-minator fell, Cordoba stomped on one of her wings as it splayed out for balance.

Twi-minator raised a hoof, but Cordoba grabbed it, putting it in an elbow lock that twisted the servos into wreckage. She rolled to get up, but Cordoba seized her other wing, and putting a hoof on Twi-minator’s neck to brace, tore it off.

The position of standing over the stricken Twi-minator left Cordoba exposed, however, and she took a hoof to the stomach in return. The punch was so hard that it slammed her into the ceiling, mangling her wings.

As she fell back to the floor, Twi-minator tried to get under her to impale Cordoba with her horn. Cordoba managed to roll enough to kick sideways, striking the metal horn and bending it.

She hit the floor and rolled sideways, coming up under Twi-minator’s belly and kicking her back legs out from under her. That put all Twi-minator’s weight on her remaining front leg, and Cordoba took advantage, tackling it with her whole body and ripping it clean off.

Twi-minator was now halfway to being a sausage. Or maybe a vegetable. Food-based analogies don’t really work well for robots.

Cordoba made another diving attack. Twi-minator’s damaged front leg could still be used as an improvised flail, and she hit Cordoba a glancing blow on the face. That didn’t stop Cordoba from rolling Twi-minator onto her back and raining punches across her body.

Twi-minator’s back legs kicked, but there was nothing she could do. Cordoba continued to hammer her body, slowly beating the living shit out of her. Ironic, given both of their mechanical status.

Cordoba kept hitting her, punch after punch. It went on for whole minutes, to the point where the audience was almost getting bored. Twi-minator could only twitch, joints seized and hydraulic fluid leaking across the floor.

Cordoba got off and grabbed Twi-minator by the neck, dragging her across the floor towards the electrical barrier. She turned in place, slowly spinning faster until she released Twi-minator, who flew into the arcing electricity.

A robot was arguably even more susceptible to current than meat, and Twi-minator started to smoke. Wires melted, electronics fried, metal welded together. The crowning touch came when she caught on fire.

Cordoba sat and watched, the acrid smoke washing over her. Her voice cracked, but she managed to ask, “Does that count as killing someone, Twilight?”

Twilight didn’t answer, preferring to focus on one problem at a time. “We need to figure out how to get this barrier down!”

She hurried away, looking for something, anything, she could use to disable it. Perhaps the Wonderbolts had a lightning specialist.

To her surprise, it had started to snow in the last few minutes. She didn’t know how she had missed that.

She also didn’t know how she had missed a large red sleigh that had landed on the Wonderbolts’ runway. Approaching from the rear, Twilight noticed that it had a bumper sticker that read Valiant did nothing wrong and the year, spelled out in red, white, and blue letters.

I was sitting in the sleigh with my hooves propped up, drinking tequila when Twilight came around and saw me.

I lifted my glass. “Hey. ‘Sup?”

Twilight exploded.

Chuckling to myself, I got down and went to the cave. It was a simple matter to ground out the Tesla coils and walk in. The hard part was ignoring the various reactions of the audience to my presence.

Cordoba looked at me as I walked up. She’d definitely gone through the ringer, but she’d won the fight. I knelt beside her. “Hey kid.”

Her optical sensors, which strongly resembled eyes, so that’s what I’m going to call them, looked at me questioningly. “I thought you were dead.”

“Yeah, I was. Sorry for the confusion.”

“How did you come back?”

“I sold my soul to Santa.”

Not a typo, by the way.

Sunset and Trixie came running over. There was a moment of awkward silence, but then Sunset threw herself at me. I caught her hoof with my face, which wasn’t what I had intended or expected.

“How could you do this to me!?” she demanded.

Hmm. Sunset had taken a level in self-reliance.

“Sorry for dying,” I said. “I hadn’t planned that.”

Her look softened. “No, I’m sorry. I should have believed in you.”

“Well, it was kind of a long time,” I acknowledged. “The whole three-days-and-rise thing didn’t work out so well.”

Sunset started to tear up and hugged me. Over her back, Trixie smiled at me. “So are you Santa Claus now?”

I glanced at the furry red pimp coat I was wearing. “No, just a helper. But if you hear anyone call me an elf, stab ‘em.”

I helped Cordoba up and walked towards Merry May’s steel presence. The crowd parted around us.

“Could you open the door for me?” I asked Merry.

“Oh, so you get to come back to life perfectly normal and I’m stuck as a machine?” she said.

“Actually, the conditions for the reversal of my death require me to perform certain services for one Mister S. Claus. I am the chief naughty/nice arbiter. And if you don’t want to go on the naughty list, you’ll open that door.”

Merry did.

I helped Cordoba inside and made sure she was comfortable. I then turned around to face the others. They all stared at me.

“This is strange and unusual, correct?” said Rarity out of the side of her mouth. “I’m really seeing this? It’s not just me?”

“I’ll agree,” said Applejack. “I keep trying to come up with something to say. None of the ideas seem appropriate since the situation is so weird, but they just keep coming.”

“They aren’t the only ones who just keep coming,” said Pinkie. “Also, yes, Valiant returning in the service of some deity is very abnormal. I thought he used to claim to be one.”

“Santa Claus isn’t a deity,” I said. “He’s just someone who brings toys to all the good girls and boys. But this is one of those things where if you believe hard enough, a previously fictional entity gains power enough to become real. Christmas materialism has made him one of the most powerful figures in the universe.”

“And you sold your soul to him,” said Rarity.

I shrugged. “More people probably believe in Santa than God, anyway.” I paused. “When I put it that way, shit, I should have sold it to The Beatles.”

“Um, what was that about a naughty and nice list?” asked Fluttershy.

“That’s the biggest part of my job,” I explained. “There are two kinds of people: naughty and nice. I decide who is who. That affects what they get for Christmas.”

Nobody was brave enough to ask about that.

I turned to Trixie and pulled out a scrap of paper. “I have some things that need to get done.”

She took it and glanced at the items on the list. “I can do this, though it might be a tall order.”

“Execute the order.” I paused, and then added, “And then have the others executed as an example.”

Trixie went on her way. I pulled out my flask and took a swig. The alcohol inside tasted like drinking a burning hospital. Not my best batch, but better than nothing.

“All right,” I said. “We might as well go back to Ponyville. It’s where everything happens anyway.”

I took a look atf the ponies standing around. Cracker had disappeared. The Wonderbolts suddenly showed up, led by Rainbow Dash.

“What happened here?” said Wind Rider.

“Nothing to see, move along,” I said. “This isn’t the robot you’re looking for.”

Truthfully, there wasn’t much left. Trixie had already collected the various scraps of Twi-minator and the Tesla equipment and loaded it onto Merry.

“You don’t tell me to move along,” said Wind Rider. “I’m in charge here on this island.”

I smiled at him. “Look right behind you.”

It was Princess Celestia.

Rebel leader he may have been, but Wind Rider wasn’t about to admit that to an immortal alicorn’s face. He quickly excused himself and went to join back up with his ponies. I noticed that he’d recently gotten some new recruits.

I turned to Celestia. “Hey.”

She nodded and tilted her head. The two of us fell in step together as we headed back to where I had parked the sleigh. Not knowing what else to do, the others followed along at some distance.

“I’m surprised to see you again,” said Celestia.

I shrugged. “Got bored.”

We came up on Twilight, who had recovered. The snow for thirty feet in any direction was melted. Twilight herself was still wearing scorch marks. She was twitching and babbling to herself.

Celestia tapped her on the shoulder. When Twilight saw who it was, she seemed to calm down. “Princess! I had the most horrible-”

Twilight saw me standing beside Celestia. “-dream,” she finished, her voice at a much different inflection.

She shook her head and turned to Celestia. “Princess, when did you get here? How did you know something was happening?”

I looked at Celestia. “Do you want to tell her or shall I?”

Celestia said, “Twilight, about your friend, Cracker.”

“I mean, she hangs out with us a lot, but I don’t know if I would say she’s a close friend,” said Twilight.

“Nevermind,” huffed Celestia.

I grinned. Twilight looked at me. “What?”

“Nevermind,” I echoed Celestia.

Twilight looked at the two of us and then without a word trotted away to the others as they approached.

I looked at Celestia. “So do I get credit for naming your alter-ego? Since you kept the theme from when I named your sister ‘Cheese?’”

“That may have been a factor,” Celestia admitted.

“So what are you going to do now that Twilight’s still clueless?” I asked.

Celestia smiled. “We’ll see.”

She walked behind the sleigh. I went over to where the girls and the Wonderbolts were hanging out.

Standing up on my hind legs, I clopped my forehooves to get their attention. “Hello everyone. You know me, Plymouth Valiant, man of myth and legend. I’m glad you’re all here today for this press conference.”

Cracker walked out from behind the sleigh and joined the crowd. I went on. “Ms. Columbia, good to see you here. I’m glad that you’re here, so you can hear this directly from me first.”

I smiled. “I hereby declare my candidacy for President of Equestria.”

Reactions were mixed. Sunset applauded. Twilight looked horrified. The Wonderbolts appeared confused.

I wondered why Cracker smirked.

Author's Note

This chapter directed by jarrad96.

To Where and Back Again, part 1

“Long time, no see,” I said to Derpy. She’d gotten a new job and a new uniform. Still delivery, though.

“Yeah, and I see a lot of things,” she agreed.

“So are you going to vote for me for President of Equestria?” I asked.

“Oh. I didn’t know there was an election.”

“There is. I’m running.”

“Don’t you usually need at least two candidates when having an election?” Derpy asked. She was more perceptive than many gave her credit for.

“Usually,” I said. “And there is. But you’re voting for me, right?”

“Maybe,” she said.

That seemed to be the end of the conversation. I couldn’t really force the issue. To be elected, you kind of needed voters. And anyway, I understood that she had things to do. Unlucky working stiffs.

I counted myself in that demographic. Cataloging naughty and nice in a whole universe that Santa Claus had never visited before wasn’t going to be easy. In an established place that already had Santa, you could just go through and update the list every year. Here, I had to build it from scratch. That meant assigning everyone to either the naughty or nice list.

Ordinarily, that meant I should probably meet with everyone in the universe one by one and get a sense of where they belonged. Yeah, screw that. It was time for demographic-based pre-profiling.

Also, I had put “naughty” and “nice” on each of my front hooves with permanent marker, so I could stamp each individual with either one, should that be required. It hadn’t yet. Plus, I didn’t have enough room to write the whole word, so I abbreviated. Which unfortunately left me with just N on each hoof.

It was still a great excuse to punch people in the face, though I hadn’t gotten quite so desperate for entertainment. Most of that came from trolling Twilight.

I walked into the library and sat down on the couch. I smiled. It was good to be back.

Twilight walked into the room and dropped a whole load of books. “Valiant! You have got to stop doing this!”

“Doing what?” I asked, honestly confused.

“Just...just…” Twilight gestured. She wasn’t used to being at a loss for words. “Being you!” she finally blurted. “It’s so incredibly frustrating that reality simply lets you get away with what it does. You’re cheating, I just know it. I have never encountered a pony so incredibly dishonest and self-serving.”

“Ouch,” I said. “But haven’t you noticed I’ve been taken down a peg?” I spread my forelegs. “Look at me, working for a living. I was separated from my family. And the whole being killed thing was incredibly traumatic and painful.”

Twilight looked away. “So I’m supposed to believe you’ve turned over a new leaf?”

“I never said that. I was just pointing out how not everything is going my way.”

“I suppose. You’re not even an alicorn anymore,” she said.

“Yeah, I gave that up. Too easy.”

“Yet dying wasn’t?”

I shrugged. “I try not to think about it. I’ll let you in on a little secret, Twilight, though it probably won’t surprise you. Getting killed by Heaven, Hell, and Starlight Glimmer was my greatest failure. Yeah, I know that it took all them working together to pull it off, but I still lost. And I lost a lot. So yeah, I’m a little bit humbled.”

“But just a little,” she said flatly.

I grinned. “Right. Heck, I’m confident enough to run for President.”

Twilight winced. “I’m sure you’ve read the old Equestrian laws.”

“I sure have. That’s where I got the idea.”

“Real or perceived power or not, Valiant, surely you realize that you would find running a country incredibly tedious.”

“You’re just trying to undermine my ego that says I would be a great President,” I said. “Do you think Columbia would be a better president than me? It’s a two-party system. You have to vote for one of us.”

Mmm, that’s good satire.

“I refuse to take part in this,” said Twilight, leaving the room.

“If you don’t vote, then you don’t have any reason to complain about the results!” I called after her.

But not that it would matter. Of course I was leaving nothing to chance. I’d created Columbia as a straw candidate. She was going to lose. Who wanted to be ruled over by a patriotic hermaphrodite from the moon?

totallynotabrony toasted his computer screen. “Present company aside.”

I left the library and headed to the town square. Along the way I encountered Pinkie. Of all the girls, she seemed least phased by my unexpected return.

“Hi!” she said. “What are you doing today, Valiant?”

“I’m about to decimate the incumbent political system by becoming the leader of the country through an obscure legal loophole,” I said. “You should vote for me. I have a political party, after all.”

It was like music to her ears. “Why didn’t you say so? I can’t not go to a party. Getting an invitation to a party and not going is like...well, I don't know what it’s like, but it is definitely bad.”

I nodded. “You’re right about that.”

“But I’m not voting for you,” she said. “I’m content in the status quo. I’m also not confident about whether you’ll legalize gay marriage.”

“Um, Pinkie, of course I would. I have no moral problem with it.”

“No, I want it to stay illegal,” she said. “I’ve gotten to the point that it’s the only thing that makes me feel kinky anymore.”

She skipped away.

I frowned. “Huh. I honestly didn’t know it’s still illegal. Guess I could have done more research into old laws.” It would sure help me get my mind off kinky Pinkie.

Anyway, I got going. The election would begin soon. Beforehand, Columbia and I had a debate scheduled in front of the town hall.

An even larger crowd than I had expected turned out. Even Merry had come. I suppose she counted as a voter. Stranger things had happened.

Before either of us could begin speaking, however, Princess Celestia appeared. She took the podium in front of the welcoming crowd. “Hello my little ponies. I have good news for you. I’ve always valued responsible spending and a government that works for you. I’m pleased to announce that as of a few minutes ago, a revision in policy has eliminated an archaic position that has gone unfilled for centuries, streamlining the system.”

The crowd cheered. Celestia smiled in my direction.

It hit me. She’d passed a law that eliminated the position of President before I could be elected to it.

“How did you know?” I blurted.

She winked. “A little bird told me.”

I figured it out. Celestia, as Cracker, had overheard Twilight talking about the ancient book that described the ancient and unfilled position of President. She’d then overheard Columbia and I campaigning for it, and took the opportunity to tighten her grip on power by eliminating the chance that someone could enter a higher office than her.

Furthermore, she’d shown up to a debate where she knew there would be a lot of ponies gathered and stolen the crowd to make her announcement to.

“Well played,” I muttered after a long moment.

Celestia waved goodbye to the crowd and departed.

Columbia and I looked at each other. “So what do we do now?” she asked, interested and curious.

“Nothing,” I said. “It’s over.”

“Oh, okay.” She paused. “Hey, can I borrow that Desert Eagle you carry?”

“Sure.” I pulled it out of its holster and handed it over. She pranced away with it.

The crowd had started to disperse. They all heard the shot from behind town hall, but none of them thought it was worth investigating.

“Did...did she just…?” said Merry.

“I assume,” I said. “That’s what she was supposed to do.”

“Supposed to?” she demanded.

“Yeah. That’s how I made her, self-terminating once her purpose had been fulfilled.”

“You just made her so that she would automatically kill herself when she wasn’t useful anymore!?”

“And she was happy to do so,” I pointed out. “It made her happy to fulfil her function.”

“That doesn’t change how wrong that is!”

“You were happy when you were Tin Mare,” I pointed out.

“Same argument! Taking away free will is wrong!”

“So...we shouldn’t even punish criminals by locking them up?”

“Stop twisting my words!”

Merry wasn’t going to give this up, and it’s kind of difficult to win a debate against a seventeen ton death machine with a hormone imbalance. I sighed. “What I gave you a new body, an organic one. Would that make you happy?”

Merry hesitated for a long moment. “You can do that?”

“If I could rebuild Braeburn from a cripple into the stallion he is today, imagine what I could do with better technology and a consenting patient. If you consent, of course.”

“A real flesh-and-blood body?” she said.

“That’s right.”

She hesitated again, but said, “All right.”

“Great, we can start now.” I reached into her systems consoles and disconnected the neural link. Her ailerons instantly went limp as her brain was disconnected from the machinery.

“I even have a body ready to go for you,” I said. “It’s very fresh.”

One schlep later and I had all the requisite parts back in my workshop. Before you get any ideas, the toys I made in this workshop were not intended for good girls and boys. I might be an employee of Santa Claus, but it’s not all Christmas all the time.

I got some good montage music going and rounded up Trixie and Sunset to provide extra hooves. Cordoba watched, excited at the work we were doing, but still not healed enough to help.

I used the word “healed” intentionally. Partly due to her meat exterior, but also repairing your daughter is kind of a weird turn of phrase.

Columbia had done a good job of herself. When you put a fifty-caliber pistol to your head and pull the trigger, it tends to remove the top half of your skull. It was a fairly simple task to take the jar Merry’s brain resided in and place it in the hole. Yeah, it stuck out kind of weird like Mojo Jojo, but the jar made a nifty glass display case.

As to what to do with the now vacated Monstrosity VTOL chassis, Cordoba asked, “Can we have Tin Mare again? I liked her.”

As it happened, there was a copy of her programming lying around. We slapped an old PC into the automation console and loaded Tin Mare’s code disk into the CD drive.

Windows 98 was kind of old, but that was still faster than the average pony’s brain. And she would be able to play Doom.

Of course it wasn’t that simple. A sophisticated AI capable of thinking and learning wasn’t exactly plug and play on a Pentium II. It would take a few calibrations. I left the others to handle that and also assist with Merry coming out of anesthesia.

I arrived back at the library. Twilight was probably going to ask why I wasn’t President, so I needed something to distract her.

Derpy, bless her heart, arrived just then with a letter. It was from the ponies of that one equals sign-shaped town Starlight Glimmer used to lord over. Strange that we didn’t know the name of the place. Maybe they didn’t, either.

Anyway, they were having a Sunset Festival and wanted Twilight & co to come, since they’d liberated the townsponies and all. They hadn’t specifically invited me, but I figured if I had been around for the aforementioned liberating I probably would have done even more than the girls. I really like liberating. And also libating.

So when the girls went to the no-name town, I went along. So did Spike and Cracker. I didn’t think it was going to be much of a party - the place had only thirteen houses, after all - but any party could be improved with Pinkie Pie. Also, liquor.

The Wonderbolts were also there. That was unexpected, and Twilight asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Rainbow Dash was invited and Night Glider is from the place,” said Wind Rider.

“It’s just a regular old danger zone in here,” I said.

Wind Rider looked around warily. “Why would you say that?”

I whipped my sunglasses off. “Partially because I’m quoting a movie I like, and partially because I didn’t get a chance the last time I saw you at the Wonderbolts HQ. I was kind of in a hurry to get home and give my daughter an overhaul.”

“Do what to your daughter?” he said.

“I’m a purveyor of advanced robotics,” I said. “I built a pegasus. She’ll probably make you obsolete someday.”

I could tell that got under his skin. “In my day, there was no better flier. I might be a little older now, but I have plenty of ponies under my command who are just as good.”

“Your ego’s writing checks your body can’t cash,” I said.

He poked me in the chest. “I’ll fly against any robot you have.”

“So you feel the need for speed, huh?” I said.

“That’s right.” Wind Rider frowned as my smile only got bigger.

I saw Twilight roll her eyes. “You’re doing it again, Valiant. I can’t figure out why you still think it’s funny making jokes that nopony else gets.”

“I’m dangerous,” I said.

Twilight was about to reply, but just then, Quibble Pants appeared at the end of the street.

“Who’s that?” said Wind Rider.

“Another free-thinker,” I said. “I hate to compliment him, but he’s a lot better at it than you.”

He turned to me, fire in his eyes. “You think you’re so great. What did you ever do?”

“I’ll admit that I always talked a big game about democracy, but usually didn’t try very hard. But my presidential campaign that lasted all of one day resulted in the Princesses noticing and taking action. That’s a lot bigger reaction than you’ve ever gotten. I don’t think they even know you’re trying to set up a new government.”

“I’m here to set up a new government!” called Quibble, his voice easily carrying down the length of the short street.

“See, not only does he say whatever he thinks but this guy even had a robot to fight for him,” I said to Wind Rider. “Reminds me of me if I was self-righteous.”

“Oh, you aren’t self-righteous?” Twilight glared at me.

“Nope, just right.”

Twilight glared more.

“Hey, at least I’m not this Quibble dickhole,” I said. “At least when I say I’m the smartest, most special-snowflake guy out there, I don’t actually believe it. Even though I kinda am a super special snowflake, being Santa’s helper and all.”

Twilight's expression didn't change. I put my sunglasses back on. “Guess you've lost that loving feeling.”

She didn't get it, but that didn't stop me from poking fun at her. It never did.

After announcing why he had come to town, Quibble followed up with, “I hereby nominate myself Grand Wizard of Equestria.”

I broke out giggling.

“What?” said Twilight. “What kind of a job is that?”

I couldn’t answer. Still giggling my guts out.

“In case you were wondering, that puts me on a higher authority than anypony, especially the Princesses,” said Quibble. “It’s a little known political position that has been forgotten over the ages but never removed from the laws of the land. Now that I’ve claimed it, I’m in charge.”

“Surely he’s not serious,” said Rarity.

“He ain’t lying,” said Applejack. “Or at least thinks he ain’t.”

“Where’s Celestia?” said Quibble. “I know you’re here, Celly. Come on out and bow to me.” He smirked.

I glanced over at Cracker, who was doing her best to look inconspicuous, walking away and whistling.

Huh, was Quibble for real? If he was bullshitting, I’m sure Celestia would have been more than happy to hand him his ass right in front of everyone.

Also, aside from calling myself Grand Wizard, I really wished I had been the one to find and take advantage of that job in an old law book.

“Wait a second,” said Wind Rider. “If he’s the new ruler of Equestria, and he’s not an alicorn with millennia of experience, then he should be a lot easier to take out and replace as the head of state.” The rest of the Wonderbolts perked up their ears.

“An interesting theory,” I said. “But if killing someone and then becoming them was the way to power, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”

I had never tried to kill Santa Claus, by the way. There was a clause in my contract against it. Feel free to insert another pun of your choosing, if that doesn’t do it for you.

“And anyway,” Rainbow pointed out, “he’s gone now.”

Quibble had indeed departed, leaving behind a few posters with glamour shots of him.

“Called it,” I said.

“Called what?” Applejack asked.

“That the government was going to get turned over.”

“When did you call it?” said Twilight.

“Remember when we stayed up late talking about democracy after Applejack and Rainbow had their stupid Iron Pony competition and I said, ‘Make no mistake about it, Celetia’s rule will eventually end?’”

It took a second for Twilight to remember. She made that face she makes when I’m right and she refuses to admit it. Instead, she shook her head and said, “If Quibble is really in charge now, this is bad! Spike, take a letter!”

Spike quickly transcribed Twilight’s words into a short message explaining what had happened and asking if Celestia was all right and still doing her Princess thing.

Spike burned the letter and promptly spat it out. “Huh, it came back.”

“Try again,” Twilight ordered.

Spike did, with the same result. “It’s like the spell can’t find the recipient, Princess Celestia. You don’t think Quibble’s really in charge now?”

“What are we going to do?” said Rarity. “From what I’ve seen, Quibble Pants is not the pony I want in charge of Equestria.”

“But is it legally binding?” Twilight said. “I’ll have to find the ancient legal text that designated the position of Grand Wizard and review it to look for loopholes. That could take a while. Who knows what could happen in that time?”

I cleared my throat. “So it sounds like you need a coup.”

They all looked at me. Twilight blinked. She shifted uncomfortably, dropping her gaze. She closed her eyes, and sighed. “I hate to admit this, but...Valiant, I think you’re the best qualified to handle this.”

“But do we want him instead of Quibble Pants?” argued Rainbow.

“Oh, absolutely not!” said Twilight. “We’re going to make Valiant promise to reinstall the Princesses as ultimate authority.”

“How do you think you’re going to make me do that?” I said.

“Because after coming back to life, you don’t have the power to stop all of us,” said Twilight. She stared at me.

The others followed her lead and all turned to present a united front.

“What if I call your bluff?” I asked.

“There’s a fifty-fifty chance you won’t,” said Twilight. “And if you do, there’s a fifty-fifty chance that we’ll win anyway. Long story short, statistically there’s only a twenty-five percent chance that could replace Quibble.”

“If I was drunk, that would be good enough,” I said. “All right, fine. I’ll put Celestia back in power.”

I grinned. “But I’ll remember this, Twilight. Some dark night I'm going to statistic your ass so hard you won't know what hit you.”

Wind Rider broke in. “So you’re going after Quibble Pants?”

“Right. I figure he’s headed back to his base.”

“Where’s that?” said Twilight.

“He set up a fortress of solitude in the old Changeling castle,” I said. “Not a bad place, but ugly decor and full of dead bugs. It’s actually pretty near here.”

The group of us headed out. The Wonderbolts came along, though I couldn’t tell if they were curious, wanted to help defeat a mutual enemy, or were trying to find some other way to take advantage of the situation.

We reached the edge of the Changeling lands. Everything was suddnely rocky and barren, leading up to a spikey castle in the distance.

“All right, there it is. Let’s go!” said Rainbow. She flew forward and promptly dropped out of the sky.

“Magic doesn’t work here,” I pointed out.

“How are we supposed to do this without magic?” asked Twilight.

I put as much smirk as possible into my expression. She deserved it. “Remember who you’re talking to, here. You need non-magical air support? Help is on the way.”

“How do you know?” said Wind Rider.

I indicated my earpiece. “A little bird told me.”

ETA, thirty seconds, said an electronic voice in my ear.

“What bird?” said Wind Rider.

“Oh? I was under the impression that you had heard.”

“Heard what?” he asked.

“The word.”

“What word?” He was getting frustrated now.

“Bird is the word.” I giggled.

“Whose word is it?” Wind Rider asked. Twilight rolled her eyes at me, though this time she refrained from expressing disapproval about inside jokes.

“Whose word?” I said. “A word, any word, the word of God, maybe.”

“Valiant, we’ve been over this!” said Twilight. You aren’t a god!”

I shrugged. “Whatever, Quibble needs taken care of. We can talk about this later, after we go smite that asshole.”

Speaking of heavenly power, the skies opened and thunder enveloped us as a seventeen-ton autonomous killing machine swept over our heads and came in for a hover.

I looked up, squinting in the rotor wash. “How’s it going, Tin Mare? You good?”

“Hella.”

I nodded and turned to the others. “Get in, losers. We’re going to go save the world.”

I rolled my eyes. “Again.”

Author's Note

Shoutout to Lithl for writing six hundred words on the subject of brain-computer modeling for the sake of a two-sentence joke.
Fun fact, though. A Pentium II actually matches a brain's power requirements pretty closely.

To Where and Back Again, part 2

“So, how do we compensate for no magic?” asked Wind Rider. The girls and the Wonderbolts stood with me at the edge of the Changeling lands, where magic abruptly stopped working.

“I’m glad you asked,” I said. “Mostly through advancing technology in networks and transfer. Individual systems need to be connected. Right now, there’s a mostly invisible network that connects everything and everyone. It started small, of course, but it’s grown into an incredibly complex web of connections. Even if people don’t know they’re using it, the many inputs and outputs affect their lives in ways that are impossible to understate.”

“Why are you describing modern plumbing?” asked Twilight.

“I was getting to that. God, give me a second.”

No problem, boomed my own voice from the sky.

Twilight gave me a seriously? look. I grinned and kept up my explanation. “Okay, so plumbing has lots of inputs and outputs. Now imagine that it passes electricity and can be used to send signals. It’s a network where information can be passed from anywhere to anywhere. This web of sensors and receivers is already in place for my own use. That’s how I’m smart and well-informed. The Equestrian Government has gained access to a significant fraction of it, and therefore are fairly smart and fairly well-informed.”

Tin Mare finished landing nearby. She opened the back door, revealing a rear cargo area that was absolutely crammed full of laser guided bombs. They were arranged in neat pallets for airdrop off the tailgate. There was just enough room to squeeze the girls and the Wonderbolts in.

Cordoba lounged on top the bombs. She’d probably loaded them. Trixie, Sunset, Coloratura, and Merry had come along.

I wasn’t sure why Merry was there, and based on the expression on her new face, she probably felt the same way. She shied away from the rest of the passengers. She looked like she felt vulnerable due to bombs. She also looked like she felt lewd due to penis.

Rarity was the first to realize the situation. She immediately pulled out her dressmaking kit. “Let me get you something to wear, dear.”

Merry seemed grateful. I’m guessing she wasn’t thrilled about her newfound gigantic schlong.

“Who is that and what’s with, uh, their...?” Lighting Dust paused and simply gestured.

“That’s Merry May,” I said. “She was a pegasus who became an airplane who became a hermaphroditic alicorn, except the previous owner of the body lost a presidential election and subsequently an hero’d so the head is missing the top half of its skull so she’s effectively just a tall pegasus with her brain visible under glass.”

Lightning Dust stared at me for several seconds before shaking her head. “Um, okay. What’s she doing here?”

“Her best, I assume.”

I turned to look elsewhere. Now that Tin Mare’s cockpit was clear of brain and stuff, more passengers could ride there. Sunburst and Thorax were.

“Well if it isn’t the ambiguously gay duo,” I said.

“Hey, I’m totally biguous!” said Pinkie.

“And how,” I replied, “But I was talking to them.”

“What do you mean?” Sunburst asked.

“I mean, Thorax here can be anyone, so it’s kind of hard to tell what sort of relationship you have.”

“We have a relationship?” said Thorax. “I mean, I guess I wouldn’t know, since I’m new to the whole having friends thing.”

“This isn’t about friendship,” I said. “So are you here because we’re going to the old Changeling castle?”

Thorax nodded. “Chrysalis' throne was carved from an ancient dark stone that soaks up outside magic.”

“Well, we’ll just fly over there and fast-rope in,” I said. Tin Mare lifted off and headed towards the castle.

“That’s not going to work,” said Thorax. “The castle is made so that all the magic soaked up over the years can be used for powerful anti-air blasts.”

It was just about that time that Tin Mare drove for the ground to avoid one such attack.

While we were in zero-g, I took the opportunity to do a backflip. I mean, why not, right? Tubular.

“Tin Mare, what’s the assessment?” I asked.

“The magic attacks are unlikely to cause my airframe serious damage, but will definitely grow in power the closer I get, and probably could just push me out of the air.”

I sighed. “Okay, let us out. We’re going to have to do this manually. Stand by for when we get that air defense taken out.”

The whole group piled out. Cordoba stayed aboard to perform loadmaster duties. Tin Mare took off again, dodging another magic attack from the castle’s tallest spire.

On the ground, standing in front of everyone, I surveyed the crew.

The Wonderbolts - Wind Rider, Lightning Dust, Whiplash, Night Glider and new recruits Sky Stinger and Vapor Trail - looked morose at not being able to fly. I knew they were only going along with this to remove Quibble and assume position as the new leaders of Equestria, but for the moment our purposes aligned.

The girls, despite still being overall wishy-washy, had seen a lot of shit with me. They would whine and complain, but I could probably depend on their help.

Sunburst and Thorax were an unknown quantity, though Thorax’s knowledge of the castle would definitely be helpful.

And Sunset and Trixie...well, they were ready to follow me to Hell and back, and refrigerate the place while we were there.

“All right,” I said. “If you all go with me on this mission and do what I say, I’ll put you on the nice list.”

“No, I’m leaving,” said Merry. “I’m not doing this anymore.”

“Wait,” I said.

She turned. “No, you don’t have anything to hold over me anymore. I’m not going to let you guilt-trip me with the old ‘you’re the only one who can’ argument.”

“Actually, I was going to tell you that when you find yourself broke and homeless, come back and we’ll find you something to do with your life.”

“I’m never going to see you again,” she snapped.

“I said when, not if.”

I turned around to the others. “Okay, gang, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”

We headed out. Overhead, Tin Mare circled the castle at a distance, occasionally getting shot at. On the ground, we pretty much just marched.

Twilight walked up next to me. “What did you mean by putting us all on the nice list?”

“So, I told you I work for Santa Claus. It’s my job to judge who goes on the nice list and who goes on the naughty list.”

“Why do that?”

“Because then Santa knows what to bring you for Christmas. All the good girls and boys get presents. The bad ones get coal.”

“I mean, coal is not a special gift, but having coal is better than not having coal, I suppose,” said Twilight.

“That’s right, you do own a significant fraction of Valiantco™,” I remembered. While I was hoping to expand to more energy markets than just the oil industry, any fossil fuels would help. Twilight knew that, too. She was probably the only one who actually read the shareholder report. I didn’t.

“So...that’s it?” said Twilight. “If you’re nice, you get presents, and if you’re naughty you get coal? And it’s your job to decide who falls into each category?”

“Mostly,” I said. “When he comes to town, there might be other stuff.”

Suddenly, Whiplash vanished in a hole in the ground.

“Huh, that’s new,” said Thorax. “Apparently, the constantly shifting structures have been repurposed as traps.”

“Um, what do you mean by that?” Twilight asked nervously, scanning the ground.

“It’s a changeling hive,” Thorax explained. “It shifts and changes like we do, and we’re the only ones who can navigate it. Follow me.”

He led us through the barren land up to the castle.

“This would be a really good time to have tanks,” I said. “Assuming the holes weren’t too big, you could just drive over them. Plus, we could use the cannons to shoot at the tower from here. It reminds me of that time, the last time we fought changelings, when I blew up Chrysalis with a Panzerfaust.”

“If we’re supposed to stop that magical air defense, wouldn’t that be good to use?” said Twilight.

“Nah. By modern standards, it’s not a great weapon. It’s only got an effective range of two hundred feet. That wouldn’t even get us across this moat.”

“Huh, that’s new too,” said Thorax. We all stopped at the shore.

There was a ripple in the water.

“Who wants to go in and test what that is?” I asked.

“It looks like love fish,” said Fluttershy.

“Appropriate for Changeling Lands, I suppose,” I said.

“Not really,” said Fluttershy. “They don’t have anything to do with love. They’re called love fish because love stands for ‘lots of voracious eaters.’”

“Piranhas, basically?”

“Worse. Much worse.”

Speaking of worse, SOS showed up just then.

“Lord Valiant, we have come to serve you!” said the leader, prostrating herself in front of me.

“Well, that was convenient,” I said. “We have a fish problem. They’re in the moat.”

“Charge!” They all ran into the moat.

“That-that was incredibly unwise of them,” said Fluttershy. The others refrained from comment, too busy looking away.

“I...think they realized that,” I said. “On the plus side, if we hurry we can walk across the bodies before they get completely eaten.”

We hurried.

On the other side of the moat, the castle walls rose up. There wasn’t much place to go.

“What about a tower of ponies?” said Applejack.

“I can just spider up it,” said Trixie.

“Magic doesn’t work here,” Twilight said.

“It’s not magic, it’s a mutation.” Trixie transformed. I gave her a boost and up she went. It helped that the pockmarks on the castle walls made excellent holds.

Thirty seconds later, the drawbridge came down. Lot of good that did us, though. The inside of the castle was nothing but a maze of holes and tunnels.

“You can navigate this, right?” said Twilight.

Thorax nodded. “Follow me.”

We walked in, passing the mailbox. It looked completely out of place and appeared to be newly installed. It was filled with political flyers sent by Columbia’s campaign. One of them read, Like the free mailbox? Vote for Columbia!

In retrospect, maybe I made her too good at politics, still soliciting votes via junkmail from beyond the grave.

Entering the castle behind Thorax, we were greeted with little that resembled a standard building. Holes were everywhere, constantly moving and shifting.

A nearby wall promptly slammed shut, trapping Twilight, Coloratura, and I separate from the group.

Twilight hit the wall with her hooves. “Hello! Can you hear me!”

“Little bit,” came Applejack’s voice, faintly.

I touched my earpiece. “Can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear,” replied Sunset. Trixie, Cordoba, and Tin Mare also rogered up.

“Put me on speaker.”

I heard a blip and the sound quality changed. “Can everyone hear me?”

There was a chorus of yes’s.

“Remember what I was saying earlier about the technology and webs of networks? Well, we’re going to have to set up an impromptu web right here if we want to do this right.”

“What are we using it for?” It sounded like Wind Rider asking.

“Let’s put it this way: it’s a local web.”

“For local spiders?” asked Fluttershy.

“That’s a good way of putting it, considering WE’RE GOING TO CATCH AN ASSHOLE COCKROACH in it.” I shouted for Quibble’s benefit. Undoubtedly he was listening.

“Anyway,” I went on, “You guys, with Thorax’s help, go take down the air defense. That’s one piece of the network. Once that’s done, Tin Mare can do her job, that’s another part. I’m going to go to the throne room and eliminate Quibble.”

“We’re on it,” said Sunset. “Good luck.”

“You too.”

I turned back to Twilight. “Looks like it’s you and me. Just like old times, eh?”

“Don’t remind me,” she said. “So what are you planning? Your usual crusade to kill?”

“Nah,” I replied. “I think you’ll be surprised.”

“I’m not going to like this, am I?”

“Probably not.” I grinned.

“I’m not really sure what I want out of this,” said Coloratura. She’d been quiet for most of the mission to this point. “On the one hoof, I’m angry that Quibble Pants has been behind most of what happened to me.” She touched her eyepatch. “On the other, this is so far from my usual act that it stopped being funny a long time ago.”

“Stick with me,” I said. “It’ll get worse.”

She grimaced but didn’t reply. The three of us set off walking. Even though the castle was constantly changing and didn’t make a whole lot of sense, I naturally assumed that the throne room would be somewhere near the center. While we didn’t have a solid locational fix, Tin Mare could give me relative position updates by homing on my communicator and helped us steer in roughly the right direction.

It still took a lot of walking. With passageways constantly shifting, there wasn’t an easy way to get anywhere.

I picked up the pace, knowing we were on a schedule. “Come on, Twilight, play some Junior Senior and move your goddamned feet.”

She grumbled, but kept up. Coloratura nervously hummed some traveling music.

We did eventually find the throne room, though. I knew we were there when Quibble dramatically turned around to face us from where he sat.

“Well, this is a letdown,” I said. “No welcome at all. You could have at least had confetti or something, but look at this, not a single, solitary confetto.”

“I’m surprised you know that word,” muttered Twilight.

“Let me mansplain you a thing. I know how to use a dictionary.”

“I’m pretty sure ‘mansplain’ isn’t in the dictionary,” she said.

“I guess maybe it was a dicktionary.”

Quibble started to say something, but I knew where him opening his mouth would lead and I wasn’t in the mood to witness that much figurative autofellatio.

“Hadouken,” I said casually and threw a fireball in his direction. Quibble spun the throne back around and it absorbed the attack.

“How did you do that?” said Twilight. “You’re just an earth pony now.”

“Even earth ponies have magic, Twilight.”

“Not that kind of magic!”

“Do you think Pinkie could throw a fireball if she wanted to?”

Twilight opened her mouth and closed it again.

Quibble turned back. “There you go again! Fireballs, really? Totally unrealistic!”

“And that makes you what?” I said. “I’m serious, I want to hear what you have to say. I’m sure I’ll get a laugh out of it.”

“I’ve risen above any other in this world!” he said. “I’ve seen what really goes on. I am enlightened!”

“That’s nice.”

That seemed to stun him, as if he couldn’t believe that I didn’t care. “I know you plan for everything, Valiant. I’ll bet you even planned your own death so you could come back with an even greater image of strength. Modeling yourself after your so-called God was just icing on the cake.”

Totally hadn’t planned to be killed, by the way. That hurt a lot.

“But I’ve seen through you!” said Quibble. “You’ve tried to have me silenced, but I will not bow to you, because I am better!”

“Better at sucking.”

“How dare you mock me! At the least, I deserve a better class of insult!” Quibble had come out from behind the throne again, pure anger on his face. “I am the only opponent who has ever been truly aware! I know all that you do and more!”

“I don’t give a shit.” I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, do you give a shit?”

“Negative.”

“Let’s see what the God-o-Tron thinks,” I said.

Quibble Pants is a little bitch.

I grinned.

“Oh, laugh it up,” said Quibble. “If you could actually defeat me, you would have done it already.”

“We have a problem,” said Sunset over the secure network to my earpiece.

“Hang on,” I said to Quibble, holding up a hoof. “I need to take this. Coloratura, keep an eye on him.”

Coloratura frowned. “Wait, did you just-”

“What’s up?” I said to Sunset.

“I take it you three are in the throne room,” she said. “I think Twilight’s presence near the throne has added to the magic drain, and therefore the power of the air defense. It’s now shooting at us too and we can’t get near.”

“How close can Tin Mare get? Will that take some pressure off?”

“You saw what that thing could do!” protested Cordoba. “She’ll fly apart!”

“Fly me apart, then.”

I paused, but made the decision. “Do it. I was just about to tell Quibble what was really going on, so I’ll hurry up and get the throne knocked out.”

I turned back to Quibble.

“So are you going to feed me some story in a pathetic attempt to try and make me question myself?” he said.

“No try about it,” I said. “All right, so let’s do first things first. I want to extend your suffering as much as possible.”

I pulled out a grenade and tossed it into the seat of the throne. Quibble ducked for cover. “If you think you can kill me so casually-”

“Weren’t you listening?” I said. “I’m trying to prolong the time it takes to kill you. Shit man, actually try paying attention to other people once in awhile.”

“I don’t have to take that from-” The grenade cut him off. It wasn’t a loud explosion. This one was cryogenic, to get the stone nice and frozen and brittle.

Where do I get cryo grenades? Let’s just say lots of things come out of Santa’s toyshop.

Quibble started to talk again, and I lobbed another grenade. This one was concussive and specialized for demolition.

“That’s not going to-” Quibble started to say, but was cut off again. This explosion was deafening, and took a chunk out of the throne.

“If you think-”

I cut him off a third time with another cryo grenade.

“This only proves that-”

Another blast grenade.

“Are you quite finished with this silly-”

Cryo.

“You’re only embarrassing yoursel-”

Blast.

The last concussive grenade finally reduced the throne to shambles.

Near-simultaneously, the five hundred pound bombs began to arrive. I could hear Tin Mare sprinkling them all around the perimeter of the castle, the explosions shaking the building. I imagine Cordoba was getting a workout, pushing them off the tailgate for Tin Mare to guide with her laser.

The castle, despite its ability to change, wasn’t immune to damage. The ceiling above us split open in a huge crack. I saw Tin Mare go by, scorch marks on her fuselage.

Cordoba bailed out. After the beating she’d taken defeating Twi-minator, her wings still didn’t really work, but she dropped through the fissure in the throne room roof and landed on the stone floor, cracking it.

The others from the roof began to make their way in. With magic back, the pegasi were flying, the unicorns were teleporting, Pinkie was setting off fireworks, and Thorax did a magical girl transformation.

“Glad you all came,” I said. “I wanted an audience for this little show.”

“You think this is a game?” said Quibble.

“Nah.”

He came up short. “How can you still be so casual and dismissive?”

“How can you still think you’re hot shit?” I said. “Because I’m pretty sure it’s been pointed out to you before that you aren’t.”

“Have you not seen what I have accomplished?” he said. “I’m better than any adversary you’ve ever faced, even when you made yourself the hero, defeating the supposed greatest threats Equestria had ever seen, like Queen Chrysalis, Discord, Tirek, or Starlight Glimmer.”

I ticked those names off on my hoof. “Dead...dead...dead...dead. Heck, that last one wasn’t even my work. Neither was your buddy Twi-minator.”

I traded a hoof bump with Cordoba.

“You keep deluding yourself!” Quibble shouted.

I shook my head. “This is honestly getting boring and pathetic. I’m going to finish this now.”

“I am the greatest-!”

I cut him off. “You ain’t shit. You a little bitch. I know that because I made you that way.”

He scoffed. “I was the only one smart enough to figure you out. You might have made the universe, but you didn’t make me.”

“Oh really? Who do you think arranged for you and Twi-minator to meet? Think about all the fortunate coincidences that worked in your favor, like getting the Amulet of Culiacan. Where do you think your ideas actually came from? Probably from dreams and morning realizations, right? Who do you think whispered them into your ear while you were sleeping? Your bedroom is sad and creepy, by the way.”

Quibble’s eye twitched.

“So anyway,” I said. “To recap, you’re a little bitch, just like I made you, and now that you’ve served your purpose I don’t need you anymore.”

I pulled my Desert Eagle and handed it to him. “Kill yourself.”

He stared at it. He stared at me. Realization hit him suddenly and he jerked the gun up, pointing it at my chest. Click.

“Yeah, I made you do that too,” I said. “So it would give me an excuse for self-defense.”

Cordoba gave me a hopeful look. I nodded.

Quibble’s eyes went wide and he bolted for the exit. Cordoba pulled her cutlass and streaked after him. He hadn’t made it ten steps before being tackled and skewered.

I turned and walked back to Twilight. She stared at me, openmouthed. I saw her eyes flick to where Cordoba continued to repeatedly stab Quibble.

“You just had a pony that you spent months mentally manipulating to be a puppet villain murdered by a robot that you raised as a daughter.”

“Yes, and?”

“Are you sure you aren’t on the naughty list?”

“I’m on the naughty list,” I confirmed.

Author's Note

Whew, another season in the books. In about a week, I'll be posting a blog with all the secrets, jokes, and stuff you may have missed throughout Season Six.

During the offseason, check out More Dreams.

And don't forget to visit the season wrap up blog to check out jokes, plots, and stuff you may have missed.

See you next year.

Celestial Advice

Author's Note

To catch up on a few plot points, check out Stuff that happened between Seasons 6 and 7

It's pretty cool.

Celestial Advice

I held the snowglobe in my hooves. It seemed to glow from within, a swirling, inky blackness speckled with points of light. I couldn’t remember exactly why I was looking at it.

“Valiant, what are you doing?” Twilight asked, in her suspicious voice.

“Nothing.” I put the snowglobe back on the shelf.

Twilight gave me a look, but couldn’t immediately prove that I was doing - or had done - anything wrong. She turned away to continue reorganizing the library.

My snowglobe collection was hardly taking up much space. I only had, like, three. I think Twilight was mostly concerned because I was keeping them at the library. She was constantly vigilant that I would try to move in again.

Spike came into the room carrying several boxes of books. He set them down. “That’s the last of them.”

“Thanks Spike. The library will be better than ever!” said Twilight.

Pleased with the complement, Spike grinned. “We make a good team, Sparkle.”

“We sure are, uh, the Dragon.”

“It’s pronounced Thed-ra-gon.”

Twilight shot me a look. She had started doing that whenever anything annoyed her in the slightest. What I might - or might not - be behind had gotten her so jumpy that she had just started immediately assuming that I was the root cause of everything.

To be fair, I was the one who had convinced Spike his last name was actually Thedragon.

However, despite her constant suspicion, I was not the one bumping off ponies around Ponyville, and could easily prove it. Not that Twilight could do anything to me if I was a serial killer, but she hated not knowing things and anyway, blaming me wouldn’t solve the problem.

I didn’t know who the serial killer was, either. Worse, they were stepping up their game. Four murders had now happened. The methods were growing increasingly complicated and ritualistic. While I didn’t know who the killer was, they clearly had too much time on their hands.

For the moment, though, dealing with them could wait. Today, we had an awards ceremony to go to.

Twilight, Spike, and I departed the library, meeting Cordoba, Sunset Shimmer, Trixie, Daring Do, Coloratura, Merry May, Cracker, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, Guinness, Skyla, Coloratura, Wind Rider, Lightning Dust, Whiplash, Night Glider, Sky Stinger, and Vapor Trail.

It was kind of a big group, but we had places to go and just the autonomous VTOL aircraft that perfectly fulfilled the transport requirement, in among everything else she had going on.

Her name was Tin Mare, and we had yet to find her maximum carrying capacity. At any rate, twenty four passengers wasn’t it.

Most of us going to the ceremony had been involved in stopping an existential threat to Equestria a while back. At least, that’s how I spun it. At any rate, it was cause for celebration, and so we were all going.

Tin Mare didn’t give a shit. Awards were simply not things she was programmed to care about. I asked her to take the group to Canterlot, so she did.

I think Twilight was still privately furious about the wetware R&D that had gone into Tin Mare before the switch to Windows 98, but the benefits of cheap air travel outweighed the drawbacks. At least it wasn’t a punch to the face.

Merry May was quite a bit more furious about it. She had been said wetware CPU for a while. Now, she was a synthetic alicorn with a large penis and a brain visible under glass. Quite the polarizing figure. She didn’t really want to see any of us again, but you don’t simply ignore an invitation to Canterlot Castle.

Sunset, of course, was...well, I guess my heterosexual life partner. We hadn’t gotten married or anything, but had adopted Trixie as a daughter, despite Trixie being a fully grown mare who was also having sex with Daring Do. Also, we had built Cordoba.

Guinness, Rainbow’s husband, had come along for moral support and brought along their young adopted daughter, Skyla. Their relationship was not all what it had cracked up to be, but he was too nice a guy to drop her ass like she deserved.

Wind Rider and his Wonderbolts team were antigovernment revolutionaries who nonetheless were coming to a ceremony celebrating, among other things, the successful retention of the Princesses in power. Even a disrespect of the authorities was not enough to carelessly toss aside an invitation to the castle.

Cracker was Princess Celestia. Yeah, not many knew that. I think she thought it was funny. I wondered how she was spending so much time with us rather than doing Princess stuff. Probably because she was bored and didn’t care anymore because she’d dealt with any serious challenges to her rule. Questionable abuse of power aside, she didn't get where she was by being stupid, so I assumed she knew what she was doing and laughed along.

Tin Mare chauffeured us to Canterlot, landing in the castle courtyard as delicately as a seventeen ton death machine could. Then, we organics went inside for the ceremony.

Some acquaintances of ours, Sunburst and Thorax, were to be awarded the Equestrian Pink Heart of Courage for their part in stopping the latest world-ending scenario. Everyone else involved was either deemed to have played a smaller part or had already received a higher award for solving past crises.

Celestia, appearing as herself instead of a inconspicuous earth pony with a saltine for a cutie mark, presented the awards. It was nice to see the ambiguously gay duo getting some credit. I call them that because Thorax, being a changeling, could be anyone or anything, so Sunburst’s relationship status with Thorax was kind of difficult to define.

The afterparty was chill. That is, until a dead body crashed through the skylight into the celebrating crowd.

Fortunately, that made it pretty easy to waltz in and start canvassing the scene because everyone around the room was screaming and trying to get as far away from the mutilated corpse as possible.

I thought it might have been a griffon. Yeah, probably. The body was so marked up and covered in runes and other paraphernalia that it wasn’t actually easy to tell the species.

“Well, this is a first,” I said.

“I can’t believe they would do this!” Twilight said, looking horrified, but, to her credit, at least coming to see the body.

“Well, I hate to say it, but this looks like they don’t give a shit anymore. They aren’t limiting themselves to Ponyville, ponies, or mundane feats. Hell, they even figured out that presentation is the key to taking things to the next level.” I shook my head. This was seriously starting to become a problem. Who could the killer be?

Fortunately, I had not only prepared extra satellite coverage for tonight, but Tin Mare had been on station for overwatch. I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, did you see anything?”

“A dark figure appeared on the rooftops a moment ago, but vanished. Attempting to reacquire visual.”

A chance. This might be the closest we’d ever been.

Twilight continued to grimace at the gore. “Oh Celestia, this is bad.”

“That’s no exaggeration,” remarked Princess Celestia, appearing just then.

“So what do you think?” I asked her.

“This is horrible,” she said, as if rehearsed, which it probably was.

I wondered if Celestia could be the killer. The fact that I was even wondering spoke volumes about what I knew about her.

Of course, she was probably wondering the same thing about me. Fair enough.

“It might be horrible,” I said, “but what do you think?” I put extra emphasis. She knew more than she let on, mostly because the Equestrian government leeched off my satellite feed.

I didn’t, of course, let them at the really good stuff. I had a second network of satellites that were ostensibly a land monitoring service, the Ocular Topographic Understanding System. Secretly, though, they were strike platforms containing tungsten carbide rods the size of telephone poles that could impact a target at hypersonic speeds.

Rods From God, as the program was called, still needed a cover story, one that I had invented but not yet implemented. It involved the Princess distributing phallic genitalia. I had to be careful, because knowing Celestia, she might think it was a good idea.

Answering my question, Celestia said, “There’s been a remarkable and worrying lack of evidence concerning this killer.”

That was true. Even with constant combing of data and camera feeds, we hadn’t found shit.

A reporter stepped up just then. He raised his camera, saw me, and lowered it again. Smart guy.

“Hello Mr. Valiant, I’m Timmy Times from the Canterlot Canter. I was hoping you could tell me your take on this event.”

“This is the fifth body so far,” I said. “It kinda sucks.”

He’d been polite and respectful, so I returned the gesture. I’d been trying to turn over a new leaf and be nice. It, too, sucked, but I seemed to be getting some results recently.

“Did you say fifth?” he stuttered.

“Yeah.” I put a candy cane in his open mouth and walked away.

I was still working for Santa Claus, as required by the terms of my coming-back-to-life, and the job involved a measured amount of Christmas Spirit regardless of the season. I was just disappointed that it didn’t come with Christmas spirits.

By which I mean liquor. I was still new to the job and still learning holiday puns.

Twilight walked with me as I left. I muttered, “When I catch whoever this is, they’re so going on the naughty list.”

“You keep saying that like it’s some punishment,” said Twilight. “But the only downside seems to be trading free toys for free coal. You’re on the naughty list.”

That was kind of awkward, being that I was the chief naughty/nice arbiter and therefore decided who went on the list.

“Twilight, if we succeed in taking down this serial killer and stopping all the other, much more minor wrongdoers in this world, then I’ll be the only one on the naughty list. I will be the naughty list. I think we both know I’ve got enough badness saved up to keep me on it for a long time.”

“I understand wanting to stop evildoers,” she said.

“Or kill them,” I said. “Either way, they’re off the list.”

“I thought you were turning over a new leaf.”

“One step at a time. Anyway, if we manage to get the list whittled down, that will be a lot less work for me. If I’m the only one on it, then I basically don’t have to do anything.”

She stopped. “You’re trying to catch bad guys so you don’t have to do as much work?”

“What’s wrong with that? If it wasn’t for the periodic monsters around here, you’d be a librarian.”

Twilight considered that. I left her there and went outside, where Tin Mare waited. Climbing aboard, I turned on a computer monitor connected to the electronics. “Show me the video feed.”

Tin Mare played the tape. Sure enough, a figure dashed over the rooftops and was gone almost as soon as they appeared. It looked like a pony wearing a cape, but it was hard to tell.

“I think we need to call in the big guns,” I said.

“Figuratively or literally?” Tin Mare asked.

That was actually a good question. I hesitated, but said, “Figuratively. Get me the North Pole.”

Tin Mare placed the call.

All Bottled Up

Cold-calling Santa Claus was both a pun and also a thing I could do in my position as chief naughty/nice arbiter.

Unfortunately, I had to go through his secretary.

Wachowski, who I’d nicknamed the North Pole because I’m still struggling with this Christmas pun thing, was not pleased to hear from me.

“What? Speak up! You’re barely audible,” Wachowski said. “Is there something wrong with your connection?”

I was calling from Tin Mare’s comms suite. “I’ll agree that the sound quality is terrible, but the problem isn’t on my end,” I said. “You’re insulting my airplane.”

“Hella,” Tin Mare privately agreed.

“It’s probably the inter-universe FTL voice manipulator,” I said. “I told you that you can’t restrict the connection, no matter what you think you need for bandwidth.”

“Which one of us has more alternate-universe experience?” Wachowski argued.

“Which one of us is so good at building things that Santa himself asked him to build a naughty/nice list from scratch because this universe is new and doesn’t have one in place?” I said. “And speaking of that, get the big man on the phone.”

I’d been trying to find a serial killer, which was proving difficult. So difficult, in fact, that I was reduced to asking for help.

“Can’t,” Wachowski replied.

“Why not?”

“Because I already know what you’re calling about and Santa doesn’t do homicide investigations.”

“How did you know what I was calling - oh right, Santa with the whole ‘he sees if you’ve been bad or good’ thing. Well, then why can’t he just tell me who the killer is?”

“We both know that isn’t how it works.”

Of course not. Magic is really goddamned frustrating sometimes. The limits seem unlimited until you actually find a limit, and then it’s infuriating to search for an arbitrary workaround. Magic, you see, doesn’t obey natural laws. Shit doesn’t make sense.

“Well, thanks for nothing,” I said.

“Hey, you too,” Wachowski shot back. We both hung up.

I let out an extended sigh. Tin Mare said, “The tequila is on ice.”

“Thanks.” I opened the cooler and poured myself a glass. It helped.

After Heaven, Hell, and Starlight Glimmer had teamed up to kill me, it took an even more powerful force to bring me back. Santa Claus, despite being fictional, still had power because people believed in him. As a result, by selling my soul to Santa, I had been restored to at least some fraction of my former glory.

Oh, but of course I had plans to change that.

In the meantime, however, I still kind of had to do my job. As I had told Twilight, ideally we could reduce the naughty list to zero. Reforming, imprisoning, or killing, I wasn’t really particular.

I had even put “naughty” and “nice” on each of my front hooves with permanent marker, so I could stamp somebody with either one, should that be required. It hadn’t yet. Plus, I didn’t have enough room to write the whole word, so I abbreviated. Which unfortunately left me with just N on each hoof.

It was still a great excuse to punch people in the face, though with me trying to be nicer, it hadn’t come up very often.

At least I still had the sweet red and white pimp coat.

I drank myself into a stupor that night. Fortunately, nothing bad happened that I should have been lucid for, like another murder.

That would a perfect time for irony to strike, but I’m being serious. It was a good day.

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, Pinkie and Fluttershy were not having public sex, Sir Win was out riding his bicycle, Trixie and Daring were off on an adventure, and it was in general just a really good day. So good, in fact, that the girls decided to go to Manehattan to visit an escape room.

I was not invited, because I have a problem playing by the rules, according to Twilight. Okay, but usually because they’re stupid.

At any rate, escape rooms seemed kind of pointless. If you have to escape, you’re doing it wrong. If you have to look for clues to facilitate solving puzzles to escape, you’re doing it wrong. If you have no other options to get through a door except unlocking it with a key, you’re doing it wrong.

Maybe I’m biased because I carry breach-and-clear tools with me wherever I go. Endless bag of toys, bitches.

So anyway, when the girls went to Manehattan, they would leave their secondary cohorts at home. Spike would be left at the library. As usual, Guinness would stay with Skyla, because Rainbow wasn’t around. I guessed the Coloraturas would keep to themselves.

Coloratura’s twin sister had recently come to live with her. I didn’t know much about her except that she wasn’t nearly as interesting or important as Coloratura despite looking almost exactly alike. I hadn’t bothered to learn her name and just treated her like another Coloratura.

But...going with the group to Manehattan and challenging inanimate rooms to battles of wits could be a good opportunity to show that I’d changed. Not a fun opportunity, but this wasn’t really about me.

Still, I thought there might be more important things we could be doing. Like checking in on that Las Pegasus casino that we’d eminent domain’d a while back. As far as I knew, the Flim Flam Brothers were still running it after Columbia, their presidential candidate, had not become president.

Or we could be investigating the new, mobile farmers’ market that had rolled into town on a local train. It had a lot of fruits and vegetables, natural stuff, but a few home-crafted items and goodies as well. Lots of grapes, for some reason.

Or we could be checking in on that new annex of Equestria, Yakyakistan, which had been renamed Silent Hill and which Twilight had been appointed governor of, a duty she had never actually done.

Instead, what we ended up doing was searching for a kidnapper.

Shortly after the girls had left, Shining Armor and Princess Cadance teleported in, frantic.

“Where’s Twilight?!” Shining demanded of me as the two of them burst into the library.

I was dusting the small snow globe collection on the shelf. “They left for Manehattan. Why?”

“Where in Manehattan?” Shining pressed. “Come on, this is life or death!”

“It’s called Manehattan Escapes. I don’t know where it is. What is life and death? Can I help?”

“Help?!” shouted Cadance. “Are you serious? Why would we trust you with finding Flurry Heart?!”

“...because I have an extensive surveillance network, lots of resources, and a soft spot for kids?”

Shining stared at me. “You have to be joking. A mass-murdering psychopath like you has a soft spot for kids.”

“First of all, I take no pleasure in killing, I just happen to do it a lot. Second of all, I’m doing my best to be a nicer guy. Thirdly, name one kid I’ve ever hurt.”

They couldn’t.

“That’s what I thought. So let me help, or else.”

Probably shouldn’t have said that last part. Old habits die hard. But as the two of them swelled with rage, I quickly changed tactics.

“By which I mean to say, or else Flurry won’t be getting all the help she deserves.”

They reluctantly agreed. I took them over to my command center and picked up the phone.

“Santa Claus’ office.”

“Hey Wachowski, I need an APB on a kidnapped kid.”

“Santa Claus doesn’t do missing persons cases,” Wachowski snapped.

“What happened to ‘He sees you when you’re sleeping, he knows when you’re awake?’”

“That’s when, not where. Stop bothering me.” I heard a click, followed by the dial tone.

I decided to put Wachowski on the naughty list. If nothing else, it would finally get Santa’s attention.

At any rate, it looked like I was going to have to help myself. I activated the satellite terminal and pulled up the imagery from space. “Okay, so when was the last time you saw Flurry?”

“We put her down for a nap this morning, and when we came back, she was gone,” said Cadance.

I pulled up their residence on the overhead feed. “Nothing to it. We’ll just see where she went.”

“She was kidnapped,” Shining insisted.

“I’m sure it’s nothing. You know what a handful she was when she was born. She probably just got out.”

I immediately ate those words when a pony in a mask snuck up to the window, opened it, and carried Flurry’s baby basket away. “Shit.”

I tracked the unknown figure as he made his way into the nearby forest, where the trees blocked the view.

I touched the comms panel on the side. “Tin Mare, get warmed up. We’ve got a job. I’m passing you a video.”

“Hella.”

We heard her engines begin turning outside. I stood up from the console. “Get to the chopper. We’re going to go after them.”

Shining and Cadance didn’t waste any time. I was about to follow them, when I saw something else on the screen. Turning back, I watched the recording of a pony wearing a cape inspecting the window where Flurry had been snatched. After a moment, they moved away in the same direction as the kidnapper.

If I didn’t know better, I would think…

I shook my head and got going.

Author's Note

Yes, two Coloraturas. Instead of fixing a typo from last chapter, I just wrote it into the story.

A Flurry of Emotions

The three of us flew Tin Mare towards the forest where Flurry Heart’s kidnapper had vanished.

“Cadance, I need you on the FLIR. Shining, get on that door gun. We’re going in hot and fast - not a sex pun - and we’re going to murder that asshole - also not a sex pun.”

“Why did you even assume we thought they were sex puns?” Candance demanded.

“I just figured, since you were the Princess of Love. At any rate, I’m sure you’ll agree that this is a very delicate mission with no room for error, so I wanted to be as clear as possible.”

“Why did you even assume I know how to use this?” Shining demanded, gesturing to the machine gun mounted on a pintle at Tin Mare’s side door.

“I just thought that you’d been with us enough to have picked it up.” I shrugged. “Pardon me for assuming your competence.”

He grumbled, and I said, “Just pull the bolt back. It’s already belted up.” Shining did, surprising us both that he managed it.

“Ten seconds until overhead,” Tin Mare intoned.

She flared and we came into a hover over the trees.

“I have heat on the monitor,” Cadance called. “Don’t shoot! That could be Flurry!”

It looked like we would have to do this the hard way. I clipped into the fast rope and went out the door. After zipping to the ground, I found a rather deranged stallion tied up with black rope and Flurry sitting nearby.

Cadance landed just behind me and instantly scooped up Flurry. “There you are! I’ve been so worried!”

Shining awkwardly fast roped down beside me. He saw that Flurry was safe, and then looked at the tied up pony. “Who’s this?”

I pulled the gag out of his mouth. “You saved me!” he gasped. “That monster-”

Cadance looked like she wanted to say that Flurry was a perfect little angel, but we all knew that wasn’t true.

Shining said to the pony on the ground, “How did you get here?”

“I was just minding my own business, and there was this guy. He beat me up and tied up the ropes. He left the baby.”

“What did he look like?” Shining asked, untying him.

The stallion got up. “This is going to sound crazy.”

“Try us,” I said.

“He looked like a horse.”

I cracked up laughing.

“We should be going,” said Cadance.

“Hey wait,” said the stallion. He pointed. “Are you going to eat that?”

There was a moment of silence as the rest of us stared at him.

“The baby,” I said.

“Yeah.”

“Did you take the baby?” I pressed. “And only then did the guy beat you up?”

“Right. Can I have her?”

Shining slugged him across the face, knocking him clear off his hooves. “You want to eat my daughter?!”

“Oh, she’s yours? Oops.” He looked as sheepish as possible while bleeding profusely.

“Why?” Shining demanded, threatening him with his hoof.

“Well, the virgins taste the best.”

Shining and Cadance looked sick. Cadance said, “Are you some sort of vampire?”

“No.”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. “I see your point, but just...well, Jesus Christ.”

“What do you mean you see his point?” Shining demanded.

“Well, I see why he wanted virgins. Don’t get me wrong, it’s horrible and disgusting-” if he wasn’t a vampire, and even if he was it kind of still was “-but I know why he wanted a virgin. It’s like a sandwich. You will probably like eating it better if someone hasn’t had sex with it.”

“Right, see, this guy gets it,” the cannibal pedo said.

“Tin Mare, fire.”

There was the report of a 30mm gatling gun and the guy turned into pink mist.

“Let’s go,” Cadance insisted forcefully. She flapped her wings and flew back up towards Tin Mare, her horn glowing to pull Shining along.

I stood there for a moment more. Who had tied up the virgin-muncher before we arrived? He’d said it was some guy who looked like a horse.

As I stood there in the darkening forest, a jolt of realization came to me. When trying to catch evildoers, specifically the serial killer running loose, I’d caught glimpses of a mysterious pony wearing a cape. What if there was someone else out there also hunting the killer? A masked vigilante?

Batman? Er, Horse Stallion?

What a fascinating theory.

I was kind of pissed it wasn’t me, actually, but I was pretty sure Santa wouldn’t approve.

I grabbed the rope. “Lift.” Tin Mare winched me back up.

We flew back to Ponyville. Upon arrival, Cadance and Shining thrust Flurry into Twilight’s hooves. “Here, you’re probably the safest to leave her with. We need some quiet time.” They left.

Twilight looked at me. “What was that all about?”

“Some guy tried to eat her. We took care of him.”

Twilight looked like she wanted to ask, but then Flurry puked.

I quietly slipped away to avoid any responsibility of cleanup. The flight back hadn’t been that rough.

I encountered Bible on the way out of the library. He was a bible.

“Working hard or hardly working?” I said. I hoped dad jokes weren’t part of my new repertoire as a supposed nice guy.

“Twilight’s give me a job around here, though I think you knew that already,” he said. He was organizing the shelves.

Bible paused. “Oh, a griffon was in here earlier asking about you. I gave her your card.”

I’d left a small stack of my business cards on the front table in the library. Twilight kept trying to throw them away, so I kept leaving them.

“Did this griffon say what she wanted?” I asked.

“No.” Bible shrugged.

I said goodbye and went outside. The local mobile farmers’ market was in town. Well, I guess if it was mobile it wasn’t really local. Anyway, it was a train. It had a lot of fruits and vegetables, natural stuff, but a few home-crafted items and goodies as well. Lots of grapes, for some reason.

I went over and picked up a bunch. I’d never had grape tequila before. It was probably terrible, but you don’t know until you try.

Or I could get some help from an outside source. I walked into my command center and picked up the phone. “Hey Wachowski, how is grape tequila?”

Wachowski, Santa Claus’ secretary, said, “How should I know?”

“I just thought with the eggnog mixed drinks, and the fruitcake, and the general merriment, you would be the expert. Don’t tell me you’re not fun.”

“I’m not fun.”

“No, seriously.”

“I don’t know anything about tequila, and if I did, I wouldn’t tell you! When are you going to figure out that this is not a phone number you can call whenever you feel like it?!”

“The big guy literally told me to call whenever I feel like it.”

“He was being nice. It’s his job.”

“Maybe if you help me drink tequila you’ll be nice. It’s good. I make it myself.”

There was a click as Wachowski hung up.

Wachowski was going to get coal if the snideness kept up. And anyway, insulting my homemade tequila was a low blow.

Sunset came into the room, spotting the look on my face. I could tell her unspoken question, and said, “Work stuff.”

“Can I help?” she asked, wrapping herself around me in a hug.

“Probably, but then I’d be unemployed.” Sunset was, perhaps even more than me, known for exercising permanent solutions to temporary problems.

Cordoba walked in. She was happily swinging the new cutlass I had made for her. The old one had gotten broken while fighting a hostile killbot. The new one was reinforced and just as sharp.

“What are you doing back so early?” asked Sunset. “I thought you went to the art show with your friends.”

“Somebody told me I was wrong about what was going on in a painting.” She shrugged.

Cordoba was, perhaps even more than Sunset, known for straight-up murdering people over trivialities.

“I’d probably better go down there,” I allowed.

When I arrived at the art gallery, it was a mess. The problem was, I couldn’t tell if that was art or, well, mess.

To my relief, it didn’t seem that anyone else could, either.

Still, while I was there, I might as well take a look around. Point and laugh, or something. Stepping around the pool of blood on the floor, I made my way over to a plain black canvas.

A big pegasus said, “What do you think?”

“It looks low effort.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I call it ‘A Thousand Nights in a Hallway.’”

Come to think of it, the guy looked fit enough to be a royal guard. That was probably it. Standing guard duty was probably the lowest effort job there was - or at least until something happened. I’d single-handedly made a lot of the guard obsolete.

“So what does it remind you of?” he said.

I stared at the plain black canvas. “A lot of tequila nights.”

“Oh, wow. Art is so evocative. I wasn’t even going for a memory like that.”

It had occurred to me that this guy was a little more in touch with his feelings than the average stallion.

Turning, I happened to spot Sir Win across the room. Sir Winifred Condemnation Inferno was Ponyville’s resident demon and also pretty gay. Flaming and on fire.

I went over to where he seemed to be enjoying ponies trying to analyze the headless body on the floor. “Hey, I think that guy over there is gay.”

He looked where I pointed. “No, Spearhead isn’t gay, just very in touch with his feelings. He’s going to make some mare very happy someday.”

“You know I’m not very good at spotting these kinds of things. Aside from personal experience, how do you know somebody’s sexual preference at a glance?”

“Gaydar.”

I should have seen that coming.

One thing I wished I hadn’t seen coming was Pinkie Pie. She was at the art show. Ponies thought that was part of it, too.

“Hey Valiant!” she said as I averted my eyes. “I heard you talking about gaydar.”

I sighed. “For the sake of conversation, how does it work?”

“I don’t know. I don’t use it anyway because I don’t care if ponies are gay.”

“She doesn’t,” muttered Fluttershy, from under Pinkie.

“Quiet, you. Back to work,” Pinkie admonished.

I went back to the command center. Sunset was there, and once again interpreted the look on my face. “What are you thinking about?”

“What if...we found a way to weaponize gaydar?”

“Gaydar-guided missiles?” said Sunset. “How would that even work? Would it aim for gays? Would it aim for everyone but gays?”

“Maybe we could set it to pick out a specific amount of gay. Better yet, homosexuals tend to be very in touch with their feelings, and perhaps that could be used to get a really good sense of a target’s personality. We could get the weapons to home in on their unique signature.”

A sudden thought struck me. “Weapons that go after a target’s unique signature, like a fingerprint. It would be absolutely specific to that one, single person. It would literally be a bullet with your name on it. Hell, we could manufacture them ahead of time and have one ready to go for everyone, just in case.”

I then physically took a step back. It helped remind me that holy shit, that’s a genocide waiting to happen. Remember, you’re trying to be a nice guy, Valiant.

“Or not,” I said. “We don’t have to stockpile enough ammo to end the world. Twilight’s already suspicious enough about the fluctuations in Valiantco® stock because I’ve been spending it on satellites for recon and prompt global strike.”

“I don’t know why, but that reminds me,” said Sunset, “I intercepted some comms the other day. Maude Pie is about to finish school. She’ll probably stop by. You know she likes you.”

“I do have that going for me,” I acknowledged. “Also, now that Cordoba being a robot is kind of public knowledge, Maud will be happy to hear that she called it back when we went to the Pie family farm for Hearthswarming.”

“I am happy to hear that,” said Maud, coming in just then. “Also, did you know that somepony dumped a ritually-sacrificed corpse on your doorstep?”

Rock Solid Friendship

The ritually-sacrificed corpse on my doorstep was a unicorn. Or it had been. Now it was just meat with symbols carved into it.

Maud Pie had found it. It damn near looked like she’d wallowed in it, too. Blood came up to her knees, though there were a few gouges in her back and neck, leaking her own blood back down to mingle with what was splashed around.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

“I’ll live. May I use your shower?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

She came in. I stared at the mess in front of the door. Sigh. It had happened again, another victim of the serial killer. I’d better call Twilight.

I’d never had a body, uh, delivered before. Worryingly, that meant the serial killer knew I was after them. I still zero clues about who it might be.

Twilight expressed that and more when she showed up just ahead of the ambulance. “What is going on, Valiant? Why haven’t you found the killer!?”

“It’s not like I’m not working on it.”

She glared at me. “How many bodies is this now? I don’t even remember. And you say you’re working on it.”

“Well, you haven’t found the killer either,” I pointed out.

“You’ve fought entire armies, twisted the multiverse, sinned against nature, have the most pervasive and privacy-violating surveillance system known to the world, and you’re having trouble finding one murderer?” she said.

“You’re the smartest pony in Equestria, a magical prodigy, have a government charter, and you haven’t found them either,” I said.

“You-” Twilight paused. “You think I’m smart?”

“Book smart.”

She flushed. “I don’t think you’ve ever complimented me before, Valiant.”

“I keep telling you, I’m trying to be a nice guy. Even still, believe me when I say that I’m trying to solve this case. I don’t want this shit happening either.”

Maud came back, still splattered with blood. “Your shower doesn’t work.”

Genious I may be, plumber I am not.

Twilight’s eyes popped open wide at the sight of Maud. I quickly explained what I’d learned so far. I then asked Maud, “What happened to you?”

“I was attacked on the way to Ponyville. I didn’t get a good look at who it was. They didn’t pursue me, however.”

Had the serial killer tried to kill Maud? As frighteningly competent as the killer seemed to be, it was hard to believe they’d let anyone escape. Then again, if anyone could shrug off a serial killer, it was Maud.

“Do you mind if I inspect those wounds?” said Twilight. “Maybe we can tell who - or what - attacked you.”

By now, curious ponies had begun to gather. They’d apparently seen Maud.

“These look like horn gouges,” said Twilight. “Though unicorns usually only resort to physical attacks as a last resort - life or death.”

“I’m going to go see Rarity,” said Maud. “I’m sure her shower works. Also, I want to study her salt-based transformation.”

Though a vaguely religious accident, Rarity had gained the ability to turn into a salt crystal version of herself. Being crystal, Maud was of course fascinated.

However, she maybe should have thought about cleaning up. Even if the shower didn’t work, I could have hosed her off or something. As it was, Maud marched through the growing crowd still covered in blood and apparently horn gouges.

I saw them look at her, at the dead unicorn on my doorstep, and then back at her. Uh oh.

But first we had to take care of the body. The ambulance ponies lifted the mess of a body into the back of their wagon. Twilight and I rode with them to the morgue. One the way, I played a little guitar to pass the time. Twilight said nothing.

The morgue pony examined the body, and confirmed what we’d all been thinking. “Definitely the work of the serial killer.”

“You know, we should have a name for this serial killer,” I said. “So we don’t have to keep saying ‘the serial killer.’ Suggestions?”

Nobody had any ideas. The morgue pony turned back to his work.

You know, I really should have a name for the morgue pony. I’d never bothered to learn it. Eh.

Just then, Pinkie burst in. “Has anypony seen Maud?”

“She was at Rarity’s, the last I knew,” I said.

“Okay! She just graduated, you know. She’s got her Rockterate in Rock Studies from Equestrian Institute of Rockology.”

Boy, that pony sure does love rocks.

Pinkie left, probably to find Maud and throw her a party. Twilight did too, knowing there would be a party and either going to prepare or take cover.

I paused at the front of the hospital to pass out some candy canes to kids. Walking outside, I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of a black cape vanishing around the corner of the hospital.

I walked that way quickly. Rounding the corner, I saw a pony dressed in black and wearing a cape opening the door to the morgue.

“Hey!”

Whoever it was looked up at me - they were wearing a mask - and then took off running. I ran after them.

I have to admit, physical exertion is not really my thing. I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, get airborne! Come to my position, I have a caped figure in sight and am in pursuit.”

“Hella.”

I kept running, but was losing. I lost sight of the whipping cape ahead, vanishing behind several houses.

Rounding the next corner, I crashed headlong into somebody. I rolled and came up with my switchblade out, still blinking the stars out of my head, before I saw who it was. Filthy Rich, the local, well...rich guy. He owned a store or something. It looked like he’d gotten his brains scrambled as well as I had and was only just picking himself up.

“Sorry,” I said, and took off running again. Seconds later, Tin Mare arrived overhead.

“Update?” I wheezed into the communicator.

“Negative. No target in sight.”

“Shit!” I slowed down. “Okay, pull up the overhead imagery. I want timelines. I first spotted them at the hospital. Track from there.”

Tin Mare came in for a landing. By the time I’d climbed aboard, she had the clips ready to view. There was a pretty good look at the mysterious masked pony, but they were either extraordinarily lucky or had knowledge of the satellite angles because they appeared and vanished without a trace, usually ducking behind buildings or under things the satellite couldn’t see.

I was starting to think I should outfit every building, inside and out, with 360-degree cameras. That would be a lot of data to pick through, but it was the only way to guarantee seeing everything.

Maybe a little easier, I could get the town to hire a police force. They didn’t have one because Ponyville was small. Also, any problems that did happen were world-ending cataclysm that usually required Element of Harmony intervention - kind of above and beyond the police.

Still, having ponies on the ground could be helpful. In the meantime, “Was there anypony in the area that could have seen anything?”

“Filthy Rich. He could have seen where the Horse Stallion went.”

We really, really needed a better name for the masked pony than the Horse Stallion. That is, if the caped pony I’d chased was a Batman-style vigilante and not the serial killer.

I shook my head. “Filthy didn’t see anything. He probably saw even less than me after I crashed into him. What was he even doing there?”

I frowned. “What was he even doing there?”

Just then, the communicator rang. The screen switched to Sunset’s face. “Valiant, you’d better get over here. We’ve got an angry mob.”

“What kind? Just vocal, or have they upgraded to torches and pitchforks?”

“The former, but I think it might escalate.”

“Got it. Tin Mare, back to base.”

We flew there. When she landed, I could hear the chants of the crowd. It seemed they wanted the murderer brought to justice. Hey, so did I.

I walked out to face them.

One of them shouted, “Where’s Maud Pie? She needs to pay for her crimes!”

Oh. Oh boy.

“I’m pretty sure she’s not a murderer,” I said.

“Would a murderer have a soulless gaze, creepy deadpan attitude, be covered in the victim’s blood, and be gouged by their horn in self defense?”

“Uh...what are you talking about?”

One of them showed me an autopsy report. “Look here, the victim’s horn was covered in Maud Pie’s DNA!”

I had no idea how they’d gotten a copy of the autopsy report. Or how they’d gotten it so quickly. Or how it had even been written so quickly. Or where the autopsy had gotten a sample of Maud’s DNA to compare. Or if the report was even real.

But holy shit the crowd believed it, and we might get to the torches and pitchforks pretty soon.

I excused myself, which was easier said than done, and headed to Rarity’s.

Fortunately, Maud was still there. She was still studying Rarity, who had patiently turned into salt and had placed a magazine on the table in front of her while Maud was busy.

Also, Pinkie was there, talking a mile a minute and being mostly ignored by the other two.

“Hey Pinkie,” I said.

“Yes Valiant?”

“Quiet.”

She moaned. “But whyyyy.”

“Because your sister is just about to have a whole heap of legal trouble and we need to have a grown up conversation.”

“Sorry,” said Pinkie sheepishly. “I know I sometimes come on too hard.”

Surprisingly not a sex pun.

I turned to the other two. “Maud, we have a problem. They think you’re the serial killer.”

Rarity changed back. “That’s preposterous. I’ll admit Maud is a little strange, but there’s no way.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” said Maud.

“I agree there’s no way she’s the killer,” I said, “but we’ve got a mob.”

A sudden, unpleasant feeling came to the back of my mind just then. Maud wasn’t the killer, was she? I didn’t think so, but...no, she couldn’t be.

I chastised myself for even thinking it, but Rarity interrupted my thoughts. “A mob? Angry, or torches and pitchforks?”

“Just angry. For now.”

“What can I do?” Maud asked.

I considered it. “We need to show them that you’re cool, not weird. We need to show them that you’re a normal pony doing normal pony things.”

“You can make new friends,” said Rarity.

“I made a new friend earlier.”

Rarity looked at her suspiciously. “Was it a rock?”

Maud paused. “Yes.”

“It’s a start,” I said. “What else can you think of?”

“Spending time with Rarity might be less weird if, instead of studying her, the two of us were in a relationship,” Maud proposed.

Rarity sputtered. “I...I’m flattered that you think I’m interesting, Maud, I’ve told you that before, but I’m not attracted to mares.”

“I know. I’m not interested in mares either. But I do like you, Rarity. I’d rather be seen in a fake relationship with somepony interesting that I consider a friend.”

Rarity sputtered some more. I came to her rescue. “Maybe you can join my band, Maud. We play rock music, no pun intended.”

“A band?” said Maud. "I didn't get a rocktorate because I can shred on guitar like nopony else."

“But you can, though, right?”

Maud nodded. “I studied all types of rock.”

“But that involves rock music?” said Rarity.

“All types of rock,” Maud repeated. “Even the extremely rare one-of-one rocks.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“You remember Starlight Glimmer,” said Maud.

I nodded. Boy did I.

“When I met her, she was looking for a super powerful stone that could store the cutie mark magic of an entire village. Of course, at the time I didn’t know that she actually wanted to or could do that.”

Pinkie laughed nervously. “Hey, I got an idea. Let's not tell anypony that part where you maybe, for sure, accidentally helped Starlight enslave a significant fraction of Equestria!”

“It's not like she's enslaved anypony lately,” said Maud pointedly.

“True,” I said. “But please tell me you have other extremely rare one-of-one rock stories besides that one.”

“Well, with the right stone, you could rule all of Equestria if you wanted to.”

There was a sudden flurry of movement from outside the window. I threw open the curtains.

Loud Mouth, one of the school kids who seemed to shout everything he heard, was running away. “Hey everypony! Maud Pie just admitted to helping Starlight Glimmer and planning to rule all of Equestria! She’s at Rarity’s place!”

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, get here right now!”

“Warning: starting my engines now will likely behead several members of this angry mob.”

I gritted my teeth. Nice guy, nice guy, nice guy…

“Get here when you can.”

“Hella. Also, the mob has begun lighting torches.”

I turned to the others. “We need to move.”

We went out the back door. I looked around. “We need a sturdy building to hole up in.”

“Something made of rock, perhaps?” said Rarity.

“Concrete would be better.”

“Concrete is just cement, sand, and most importantly, gravel,” contributed Maud.

The town hall presented itself. Not a great hideout, but better than nothing. We snuck in the back door.

Unfortunately, the mob had come in the front door and the building was already crowded.

Shit.

“Maudalina Daisy Pie!” shouted the Mayor. “We find you guilty of multiple murder!”

I quickly stepped forward, raising a hoof. “Whoa there, a trial in absentee still requires public notification and jury selection, attended by an attorney representing the defendant.”

“Shut up, Valiant,” said the Mayor.

Jesus, did somebody change my name to Rodney Dangerfield recently?

The crowd was starting to get unruly, backing us against the wall. We needed to get a message to the Princesses. Hopefully they would actually take Maud’s side and get this shit stopped. Could Twilight and her friends help? Most of them still had credibility around here.

But there was no time. I played the last card I had. “I am the chief naughty/nice arbiter for Santa Claus. If you want to lynch Maud, I’m going to put you all on the naughty list.”

“Who’s Santa Claus?” somebody asked.

I facehoofed. “Did I not just tell every single one of you about the concept of Christmas since I got back? I know I did. I passed out candy canes to each and every one of you at least once.”

“This is boring,” said a pony with a pitchfork. “Let’s get her!”

They crowd started forward.

What could I do? If I intervened, I’d become a villain in their eyes just like Maud. Then who would catch the actual killer? But I couldn’t just let them take her.

Rarity started to say something. Maud shushed her. “This is on me,” she said quietly. “I won’t let you go down with me. But thank you for believing and seeing past my personality.”

Maud pulled out her pet rock, Boulder. She put her foreleg around Rarity’s neck and held Boulder up to her temple. “Nopony move or she gets it!”

The crowd came to a sudden halt.

“Maud, dear, what are you doing?” Rarity asked under her breath.

“Buying time,” Maud replied. She started walking backwards. Rarity, as her “hostage,” walked with her.

The crowd followed, menacing, threatening, but unwilling to charge with Rarity in the way. I followed too, because how could I not?

Maud kept backing up. She backed down the street. She backed past the mobile, train-based farmers' market with the grapes. She backed out of town. She backed down the road.

Tin Mare arrived overhead and circled without purpose. I tapped my earpiece. “Can you get a message to the Princesses? We need serious help here.”

Tin Mare relayed it. A few minutes later, she got back to me. “They’re both at royal teatime.”

“How long does that last?”

I waited while Tin Mare went back through comms channels to Canterlot.

“Unknown. Sometimes days, I was told.”

Shit.

“Well, bring us a picnic or something, because this might take a while.”

And it did. Maud kept backing up, holding Rarity hostage. She backed through Whitetail Woods and Fillydelphia and Baltimare. She backed all the way to the shores of the sea.

She stopped when her hind hoof touched water.

“Nowhere to go!” shouted one of the ponies in the crowd. “You can’t escape! Give up, you murdering scum!”

“I’m innocent,” said Maud.

“Then why did you take a hostage?”

“I’m not a hostage,” said Rarity. Maud let her go.

Rarity kept standing there, however. “Maud has not received a fair trial! Evidence, and most importantly, alibis, need to be collected!”

“Move aside!” somepony shouted. “We’re here for Maud!”

“Now, we just need to talk-” said Rarity, but the crowd charged forward before she could complete the sentence.

To her credit, she did step in front of Maud to protect her, going crystalline for protection. However, there was no stopping momentum, and they knocked her over.

Maud slammed one hoof into the ground, shaking the whole area like a miniature earthquake and clearing some space around her. However, Rarity had already fallen into the ocean.

She screamed, her salty form dissolving. She reached up, flailing like a drowning victim. I dove forward to pull her out, but by the time I got there, water was the only thing my hooves touched. Rarity was gone.

The crowd seemed to freeze at the sight. It gave Maud time to speak. “Look what you’ve done.”

She took out Boulder and placed him gently in the surf. “Take care of her, boy.” She looked at me. “Goodbye, Valiant.”

Then, Maud jumped forward and drove her hooves into the sand, digging like a steam drill. Dirt, loose rock, hard rock, solid rock - down further and further until she was well out of sight and still digging. The beach sand began to cave in, filling up the mouth of the tunnel and ensuring that nobody could follow her.

I got up, slogging out of the water. The mob, still carrying their torches and pitchforks, seemed to have lost their purpose. There was a distinct feeling of awkwardness hanging in the air.

I cleared my throat. They all looked at me.

“All of you are so going on the naughty list.”

Fluttershy Leans In

I stood on the beach in front of a torch and pitchfork mob. They weren’t there for me. They’d chased Maud Pie there because they thought she was a serial killer. In the scuffle, Rarity had ended up dissolving in the ocean.

I was highly displeased.

At least the mob had the good graces to look kind of uncomfortable and were starting to disperse.

“Call for you, Valiant,” said Tin Mare.

I tapped my earpiece. “Put it through.”

Wachowski’s voice hit me in the ear. “Why did you just put three hundred names on the naughty list?”

“They tried to lynch an innocent pony but ended up killing a bystander. Go ahead, criticize me for that, I dare you.”

“Well, one, they didn’t end up completing the lynching, and two, nobody died.”

“They didn’t complete the lynching because their target escaped, not because they had a change of heart. Also, Rarity dissolved right in front of my eyes.”

“Up here, we go by results. Ponies attempting lynching of who they thought was a murderer is not exactly on the same scale as human racial wars. Also, I’m still showing Rarity as alive.”

I turned and glanced at the ocean. Could it be?

“I’m going to have to get back to you,” I said.

“I’ll take these names off.”

“You will not! This is still unacceptable behavior on their part! I’m doing my best to teach them all a lesson here. I could have literally executed them all. You know I could. Tin Mare would have gladly helped. She doesn’t give a shit.”

“Hella.”

“You’re still going to have to get authorization for this many names in one go,” said Wachowski.

“So authorize it.”

“Like I would do that just on your word.”

I cut the call. Wachowski needed to be taken down a peg. Soon.

In the meantime, I turned back to the ocean. “Um, Rarity?”

Was it my imagination or did the small waves on the beach lap up slightly higher for a moment?

“Er, don’t go anywhere.” That sounded stupid when I said it. “I’ll go get help. Twilight will know what to do.”

Tin Mare took me back to Ponyville and we quickly found Twilight. She didn’t take my explanation of the issue well, but at least she wasn’t mad at me. Tin Mare gave her a ride back to the ocean.

That done, I decided to stop at the pub for a drink.

The Half Pint was run by Guinness and his griffon business partner, Squibles. I came in and Coloratura put a beer down in front of me.

No, not that Coloratura, her sister who looked a lot like her and whose name I’d subsequently decided not to learn. Apparently she worked here now.

While I sat there, Fluttershy came in with the other girls behind her. “We’re going to the back,” Fluttershy said, indicating the private room at the back of the pub that had been modified into a command center that the girls used occasionally.

“Are you coming, Valiant?” Fluttershy said.

I shrugged and picked up my glass. “Okay.”

In the back room, Fluttershy told us why she had called the meeting. “The Ponyville vet clinic is full.”

“Wait, vet clinic? How do you have a lot of vets if you barely have a military?”

Everyone stared at me. “Veterinarian,” Fluttershy clarified.

“Ohhhh.”

Fluttershy went on. “The animals need somewhere to go, and I’ve decided that it’s time to build a dream of mine: an animal sanctuary.”

Her friends were all in agreement. Applejack said, “I know a filly who'd be more knowledgeable than I would. She's a friend of mine from Winona's sheep herding competitions, Wrangler. She's an expert in animal enclosures.”

“I know somepony, too,” said Pinkie. “Hard Hat is the best construction pony in Ponyville. He can build anything you could ever, ever want.”

“Or,” I said, “An animal sanctuary doesn’t sound difficult. Applejack could just lend a few meat puppets and I could give you Tin Mare. Combined with the slaves that are still yours to command, it would be fast and free.”

“That does sound good,” said Fluttershy.

That decided, shit got done in an afternoon. I love it when a plan comes together. Daisy, Lily, and Rose, who were enthralled to Fluttershy for reasons that aren’t really important anymore, helped out a lot and were happy to do so.

Twilight returned that evening. “I have good news and bad news. The good news is, I managed to communicate with Rarity. The bad news is...well, she’s the ocean.”

“Is the ocean?” I clarified.

“Right,” Twilight confirmed. “I can’t really tell where she ends and it begins, and I’m not sure she can either. Trying to separate her from all that water is going to be a challenge.”

“What about distillation, like we did last time?” I said.

“That was much less water,” said Twilight. “We can’t exactly distill the whole ocean, particularly because it contains much more salt than just Rarity.”

“What about, I don’t know, gelatin or something?”

“Are you seriously suggesting we turn the whole ocean into jello?”

“Why not?”

Twilight sighed, shook her head, and walked away.

I spent the rest of the evening polishing my snowglobe collection. I was up to four now.

The next morning, I filed some paperwork. It was an appeal to keep the names of the lynch mob on the naughty list. I addressed it to Mr. S. Claus of the North Pole. I sent it registered, requiring a signature from the man himself, so I could be sure it would be directly delivered without going through his secretary.

Derpy was happy to take the letter. I didn’t ask how she was going to get it to Santa, in a different dimension, and I probably didn’t want to know.

After that, I went down to the mobile farmers’ market installed on a train. I got some grapes. They sure did seem to have a lot of them.

Fortified with grape tequila, I went to the pub and called a meeting.

When the room was filled, I stood up at the front and addressed them all. “I’ve been thinking about new ways to be cool and bring a little brightness to people’s days. I’ve decided that music would be one way to do that. Of course, there’s a long way to the top if you want to rock n’ roll, but we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”

“Don’t you mean cross that bridge when you come to it?” said Twilight.

“Do I?” I shook my head in a what a nerd gesture. “Anyway, we’ll be a great band. We’re going to blow minds. We’re going to drink fire and spit moonshine.”

“Don’t you mean-”

“What, Twilight? What do I mean?”

I shook my head and turned back to the group. “Anyway, the point is, I’d like to announce that I’m getting the band back together again. Again.”

Twilight, Rainbow, Applejack, Pinkie, Fluttershy, Guinness, Sunset, Cordoba, Trixie, Daring, Sir Win, Coloratura, Coloratura, Cracker, and the mare wearing sunglasses all seemed interested. Well, at least until I told them I was going to hold tryouts.

Trixie was a top drummer, especially when shifted into her eight-legged form. Guinness could play the bass. Of course, I was lead guitarist. That didn’t mean we couldn’t add a few new members, of course.

Most of the girls didn't want to have anything to do with it. Daring was too busy. Cordoba only wanted to do electronic. Cracker, actually being Celestia, wasn't going to do anything requiring actual work.

The mare wearing sunglasses turned out to be pretty good at guitar. She should be, it was Maud in disguise. I’d have to work out a stage name for her if we were going to play in Ponyville.

I wanted Coloratura - no not her, her sister - to audition for singer, but she apparently had better things to do than be in a garage band.

Well, we weren’t really a garage band because that would require a garage, but you get the idea.

We held our first practice that afternoon. I immediately noticed a problem.

“Maud, come on, keep up. It’s only speed metal.”

“I told you; I only know rock.”

I rolled my eyes and let out an extended sigh. “Metal is a kind of ore, right? Does that help?”

“It depends on the ore. It all comes from different types of rock.”

“What about that rock you told me about that you could use to rule all of Equestria?”

“No, that one is rather crystalline.”

“Guys, we’re getting off topic,” said Guinness. “Why can’t we do a few classics?”

That reminded me. If this whole Santa Claus thing didn’t work out, I was going to try selling my soul to the Beatles next.

After practice, I walked back to my place. Cordoba was out front, crouching next to a dead body and poking it with her cutlass.

“Did you do that?” I asked.

“Nope. I think it was the serial killer dumping another one on our doorstep.”

I let out an exasperated sigh.

A dark shape came out of the shadows. It was a pony wearing a black cape and a horse mask.

Cordoba got up and stood beside me, cutlass still out. We both faced the visitor, waiting to see who would make the first move.

“Curses, I’m too late,” the masked pony growled, voice artificially deep.

“So are you the vigilante that’s been prowling the streets and looking for the serial killer just like us?” I said.

The pony nodded. “You may call me the Horse Stallion.”

“You’re seriously calling yourself the Horse Stallion?” I shook my head. “No way, if you’re going to be a vigilante in my town, you’ve got to have a better image than that.”

I threw my foreleg around their shoulders. “Come with me. We’re going to give you a makeover.”

Author's Note

Seriously, we need a better name than The Horse Stallion

if it's even a stallion :trollestia:

Forever Filly

So we sat there giving a makeover to the unknown vigilante who had been prowling Ponyville. Makeovers are not really my thing, but I guess since Rarity got turned into the ocean, somebody had to do it.

There are times that this whole nice guy thing really bums me out.

At any rate, we had the masked and be-caped vigilante sitting in the makeup chair in front of the mirror. Why did we even have that? I would have to ask Sunset.

I pulled the mask off. It was Filthy Rich.

That made a lot of sense, really. Not only was the guy loaded, but his wife and daughter had been killed. He was kind of a reverse Batman.

“Okay, let’s get you fixed up,” I said.

He roughly grabbed the mask and put it back on. “You didn’t see anything.”

“We could call you Denial Pony.”

“Whatever. Just don’t touch the mask.”

“But that’s boring. So let’s look at the rest of you. The cape, cool as it is, doesn't really have much function. It could also get caught in things. I haven’t put jet engines into commercial service applications yet, but trust me, capes are a bad idea. And what is this, tights? Are you shitting me?”

“I can’t exactly take this problem to Rarity,” he said. “Particularly now that she’s gone.”

“She’s not gone, just the ocean.”

“What?”

“Rarity is the ocean. From now on, when you visit the beach, you’re going to the Rarity. You want to go fishing? Go fishing at the Rarity. Sail on the Rarity. Get it?”

He did, I guess. He didn’t ask again.

I reviewed his outfit. “At any rate, you’re going to need a new name. Honestly, I’d suggest Adolf Hitler, just so someone will say ‘Hitler did nothing wrong’ if you end up getting framed for something.”

Most ponies didn’t know who Hitler was, so maybe they would hear it and assume it had something to do with “Valiant did nothing wrong.”

But who was I kidding? Hitler did a shitload of things wrong.

I went on. “Plus, Adolf - what kind of a name is that? We need something slick and modern. Tim. Jim. Little Jimmy Hitler?”

I shook my head. “No, that’s way to cutesy. We need something cool and masculine. John. John Hitler. Johnny H. No, that’s just cycling back around to the problem. Forget Hitler.” I frowned. “No, don’t forget Hitler because history is an important teacher. Just don’t emulate Hitler. That’s the lesson I’m trying to pass. Got it?”

“Yes,” he deadpanned.

“Good.” I lapsed back into thought. A sudden idea hit me. I snapped my hoof. “I’ve got it! Do you like basketball?”

“No.”

“I don’t care. You’re going to be Shaq.”

He turned to look at me, or at least I thought he did. Difficult to tell with the horse mask. “What is Shaq?”

“A master of Shaqfu, of course. Who is the man who can jam over any man?”

He looked at me blankly.

“Shaq!”

Still blank. The rubber horse mask was really not good at showing emotion.

“Never mind. Nobody else’ll get it either so your secret is safe with me.”

That didn’t seem to please him, but hey, I’m not good at makeovers.

Speaking of makeovers, I decided I should probably go check up on Rarity. She couldn’t exactly come to see me. Tin Mare gave me a lift out there.

I arrived at the Rarity shore, the sand lapped by the Rarity waves. I waved back.

“Don’t just stand there,” she said, “I need so much help to stay on top of my business. The spring transition - springsition - is almost upon us and I know Sassy can’t run the Canterlot shop alone, plus I wanted to spend time with Sweetie Belle and-”

It was almost like the sound of the water washing the beach was talking to me. I wasn’t sure what Springsteen had to do with it.

“Valiant, are you listening? I need your help! You simply must act in my stead, I would be ever so grateful until I can return to proper pony form-”

“Hey, is that Boulder?” I said. Sure enough, the pebble at the edge of the water seemed to be Maud’s pet rock. It looked like Rarity had made him a little hat out of seaweed.

A wave crashed over me. “Valiant! Pay attention!”

“What the hell?” I sputtered. “Since when do you think you can just do that?”

“So sorry, dear, you’re tiny.”

“I’m not that tiny. You being the ocean must be throwing off your sense of scale.”

“I-” she suddenly broke down crying. I’m not sure how an ocean made of water had water leaking out of it. “It’s so horrible! Ponies sail on me!”

“Not to mention fish pooping in you.”

“And then you come along and say it’s throwing off my sense of scale!” she snapped. “I know a jab at my size when I hear it!”

“Wow, I should go talk to Luna. Your tides are getting a little out of whack. Look Rarity, it sucks what happened to you, but I don’t appreciate you taking it out on me. At least I came to visit you, which is more than any of your supposed friends can say. Cut the salt.”

“I would if I could.” That set off another freakout monologue that had bored me by the opening sentence.

Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?

I didn’t. Yeah, Rarity definitely needed some alone time.

Still, maybe I could do something to cheer her up. Sweetie Belle apparently needed some attention. Rarity’s business needed some help. She’d said something about Bruce Springsteen or something.

To that end, I ended up subcontracting. I went to spend time with Sweetie, Tin Mare went to help Rarity’s clothing assistant, Sassy Saddles, in Canterlot, and I left the rest to Sunset.

Well, I sure am glad that I went to sort out the Sweetie thing myself because it sure was a tough nut to crack.

I met with the Cutie Mark Crusaders in their clubhouse. Since discovering their purpose, the three of them had done well for themselves. The walls were covered in pictures of those they had helped. Kind of creepy, honestly. I’m not sure why the eyes were glass.

It was super awkward. “Hey...so...I’m not a good Rarity analogue.”

“I mean, you could be worse,” said Sweetie. “Not much worse, but still.”

To be fair, Sweetie and I did have a fair few memories together. Building robots, killing vampires...but still. “Yeah,” I allowed, “It is kind of weird to be spending time with someone else’s kid. Speaking of that, where are your parents? Not that I think they’re essential or anything here, you seem to be doing just fine without them, but isn’t it a little weird that if they exist and appear to be successful members of society, that they aren’t around? At least Apple Bloom has an excuse with dead parents.”

I looked at Scootaloo. “And what’s your deal?”

However, we never found out because that was when a filly named Zipporwhill came in.

“What seems to be the problem?” Scootaloo asked.

“It's my puppy, Ripley,” said Zipporwhill. “We used to be so close. In fact, I got my cutie mark the day I found him and took him home. But now, it's like he wants nothing to do with me.”

Zipporwhill was a pegasus, who, for some reason, wore glasses and a tiara. In my surrogate-Rarity role, I suppose I have to comment. Who was she trying to fool with that accessory-whore ensemble?

The kids quickly reassured her. “You have the CMC guarantee!” They swept their hooves over the wall of pictures of satisfied customers. Huh, I wonder why there was a picture of Gabby. She’d never really been helped. If I recalled correctly, she’d had a mental breakdown after one small instance of being not-perfect and had left for parts unknown.

At any rate, the CMC went off to help Zipporwhill. I kept trying to place Zipporwhill’s accent. As we walked, I said, “You aren’t German, are you?” For obvious reasons, I had some cause to be suspicious of Germans with funny names.

“No.” She looked confused.

“Good, because that would have been a heck of a coincidence after all that Hitler talk earlier.”

She looked like she wanted to ask who Hitler was, but Apple Bloom said, “Didn’t there use to be a puppet show around here somewhere?”

There had, in fact. Sunset had killed the puppeteer because I mentioned in passing that he was creepy and she was trying so hard to impress me. The Japanese have a term for that, senpai notice me, which roughly translated means girls will do batshit crazy things on your behalf if you ignore them long enough. I was playing the, er, very long game with Twilight. Yeah, that’s exactly what I was doing.

Sweetie shrugged in response to Apple Bloom’s comment. “I kind of prefer black box experimental theater.”

Was that what it took to keep my word to hang out with Sweetie for Rarity?

The CMC stopped and stared at me. Scootaloo asked, “What’s with the music?”

Apple Bloom added, “And the hair?”

Sweetie finished, “And the black leotard?”

“Um,” I stared at them. “Did you mean some other Black Box?”

They did.

Shit.

Well, whatever. I wasn’t Rarity. I tried. Gold participation star for me.

Jesus, how did I keep running into Hitler topics today? Wearing gold stars? Jesus.

Anyway, since I had done what might have been my best to hang out with Sweetie, I peeled off and went to go do my own thing.

I walked into the library and started to polish my snow globes. Derpy showed up just then and I hastily put them back on the shelf. That proved wise, as she came over and have me a post-card sized piece of paper. It was a delivery receipt. Santa had gotten my letter.

That sounds way more childlike and innocent than it was. I was actually fighting to keep a bunch of names on the naughty list I’d created because of their attempted murder. In my new nice guy thing, I’d been trying to stand up for justice and fair play a lot more lately. This had all been hindered by Santa’s secretary being obstructive and dismissive.

Anyway, long story short, if you want Santa to get your letter, send it certified.

I was looking at the mail receipt when Twilight rushed into the room. “Valiant, there’s been another murder!”

By now, I was getting progressively more unenthusiastic about each body we found. It was interesting at first, but it was just getting boring now.

The two of us went to the morgue. The morgue pony showed us the body.

“They actually brought this one in still warm,” he said. “The paramedics told me they found her alive, but couldn't save her. She uttered one word before she bled out. ‘Sunny.’ Does that mean anything to you?”

A couple things, maybe. I wondered where Cracker was right now.

Twilight examined the body. “Does this one seem different?”

“What do you mean?” It looked like a familiar pattern of mutilation.

Twilight concentrated. “It’s like...oh! I recognize this magical signature!”

“Why would there be a magical signature? There was never one before. It’s not like the killer, knowing that Twilight Sparkle, boss nerd of magic was on the case, would let any magic get on the body. They’re too good for that.”

“Well, there is a magical signature,” said Twilight. She closed her eyes and her horn lit up. She concentrated for several seconds. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open. “It’s Sunset’s magic!”

“Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” I said.

“Show me the satellite video,” she said, staring at me hard. “This body was found just outside town, in an open field. I want to know who did this to her.”

“All right, but it’s not going to be Sunset,” I said.

We walked out of the hospital and I called for Tin Mare. She had apparently finished helping Sassy Saddles with Rarity’s shop in Canterlot. She arrived with doilies on her headrests.

From inside, Twilight and I watched the video feed. I pulled it up to just before the body had been dumped and began to play the video.

The mare in question walked into the frame. Then, a cloud moved in front of the satellite. A moment later it was gone and the pony was dead.

“How could this happen!?” Twilight demanded. “It’s a completely clear day!” She gestured to the sky above.

“Well, I guess our killer must be a pegasus or something,” I said.

“That still doesn’t explain why the victim said ‘Sunny’ or why we found Sunset’s magic!” Twilight protested.

“Remember, somebody tried to frame Maud, too.”

“I’ll concede that, but this is looking worse. And that cloud didn’t look like a coincidence! Who else would know exactly how to block the satellite?”

“Because maybe it was actually a coincidence.”

“I want to see Sunset right now,” Twilight demanded. She pushed past me and headed for my place.

Well, if Twilight really wanted to confront Sunset, I sure wasn’t going to miss it.

I followed her to the front door. She pushed inside. “Sunset! Where are you?”

Sunset was there in the front room. There was blood on her hooves and she held a bundle of papers in her magic.

“Um,” she said.

Twilight ripped the papers away and looked at them. I glanced over her shoulder. They were filled with arcane runes and all the names of the victims killed so far.

“Nice journal,” I said. “I didn’t know you were keeping up with the case so closely by recording everything about what the killer had been doing.”

“Are you seriously still trying to defend her?” said Twilight. “She’s the murderer!”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

“It’s not!” Twilight argued. “We have way more evidence against her than anypony had against Maud and look how that turned out!”

“...the innocent pony escaped?”

Twilight shook her head. “Valiant, she needs to be taken into custody by the Royal Guard. For her own protection if nothing else. Even if she’s innocent, you don’t want a torch and pitchfork mob after her!”

I looked at Sunset. She dropped her eyes and looked away.

I sighed. “Sunset…”

She said nothing.

“Turn in your badge and your gun.”

She gave them to me. Twilight snapped a magical pair of cuffs on her and teleported them both away to Canterlot.

I stood there in the empty room. I still didn’t believe Sunset was the killer. Despite that, I couldn’t believe she’d gone quietly. Something else was afoot here.

I went over to the desk, trying to see if there was an easy answer just lying around. I found photocopies of Bruce Springsteen’s last two passports.

That was....probably not related.

Parental Glideance

The serial killer was still on the loose, Sunset Shimmer and Maud Pie had so far been framed for it, and I was getting a private concert from Bruce Springsteen.

Things were...well, they could have been better.

Then, I spotted Wachowski down the street.

Okay, now things couldn’t be worse.

Twilight heard me swearing under my breath and looked down the street. “Who’s that?”

“Santa’s secretary.”

“Wachowski, was it?” She frowned. “As much complaining as you did, I was under the impression that it was a stallion.”

“Hate is an emotion that transcends gender. I never actually said Wachowski was a dude, but I can see why you might think that.” I sighed. “I suppose I should go figure out why she’s here.”

Wachowski was not usually a pony, but she sure was now. It was just how things went when one came to this dimension. Either way, she was just about as happy to see me as I expected.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“Screw you, Valiant. You just had to get the big man involved.”

“Why are you here?” I repeated, barely managing to retain a civil tone. I'm still doing my best to be a nice guy.

“Because Santa told me to go and personally inspect your naughty/nice list to verify all the entries.” Her glasses did nothing to hide the stormy expression on her face.

“Oh, if that’s all.” I handed it over. “Better get to work.”

I turned away, though I desperately wanted to see what her next expression was. She might have pulled some Matrix shit on me, though. Much as that wouldn’t have mattered because I’m me, I had places to go.

I got Tin Mare to give me a ride down to the Rarity. I had a theory that I wanted to try out.

“Sup?” I said, arriving on the shore.

“My life is ruined.”

“Still? Sorry to hear that. Hey, I’ve got a question for you. What’s going on in Griffonstone right now?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to know if you know.”

She paused. “It’s Griffonstone. They’re doing griffon things.”

“You can see them?”

“I can see the shore.”

“Cool. Let me set up a weatherproof terminal and you can be my ocean surveillance coordinator.”

“What makes you think I would do that?”

“What else have you got to do?”

“Nothing, because I’m the ocean!”

“Glad to see we’re on the same page.”

I took Tin Mare back to Ponyville, but on the way, she did a sudden dip.

“What was that about?” I asked.

“Scootaloo went flying by, propelled by a giant rubber band. I did not think it prudent to hit her.”

“Fair enough. Where was she going?”

“Cloudsdale.” Tin Mare paused. “It appears she has encountered Rainbow Dash’s parents. This excites her. She has begun to squee excitedly.”

“Well, you know what to do.”

Tin Mare’s engines got louder to drown out the noise. “It also appears that she is becoming even more of a rabid fangirl.”

I sighed. “Fine, take us up there.” I could never resist an opportunity to show others just what I thought of Rainbow, even if it meant saying those things in front of her parents. Maybe especially.

Ugh, but I was still trying to be a nice guy. Even more so with Wachowski in town. I would have to make my points, but try to keep as much acid as possible out of it.

We arrived in Cloudsdale. Tin Mare rolled out the red carpet for me. Because said carpet was enchanted to not fall through the clouds. Neat little trick Sunset had helped me put together.

I’d never met Rainbow’s parents before. She took after her father, apparently. I could maybe make a joke here about how his name was Bow Hothoof and his daughter was a hothead, plus how the mother’s name was Windy Whistles and Rainbow didn’t have much else inside her head or coming out of her mouth.

Rainbow’s parents both seemed to be wearing clothes. Strange. Nobody in Equestria wore clothes, except for Rarity’s parents, Fluttershy’s parents...I frowned. Rarity’s mom wore so many clothes that she was the only pony I’d ever seen who wore pants. Even Pinkie’s highly traditional parents wore collars, even if that wasn’t full-on clothes. What was the deal with everybody’s parents wearing clothes?

I shook my head. I wasn’t here to talk about this, I was here to get Scootaloo away from Rainbow’s parents. I found them in the kitchen, eating pasta and potato on sourdough. Huh, they served that at the pub. This must be where Guinness had gotten the recipe.

“Come on, kid,” I said to Scootaloo. “Time to go.”

“We were just talking about how awesome Rainbow Dash is!” she protested.

“Why, when you could be talking about me?”

“Well hello there averaged-sized stallion,” said Bow.

“What brings you to our kitchen uninvited?” added Windy.

“Don’t mind me, I’m just the guy who regularly points out the flaws in your daughter’s logic and behavior, plus builds awesome things that make her look pointless and slow.”

“Oh right,” said Scootaloo. Her face brightened. “Hey, can I do my biography on you instead?”

“Cheerilee would love that,” I said.

Scootaloo was still too young to understand sarcasm and got up to go.

“Wait a moment,” said Bow. “You said you wanted to tour Rainbow’s bedroom and trophy room.”

“And I’m going to take you for a ride in a seventeen ton death machine,” I said.

“Hella,” added Tin Mare from outside.

“Cool!” said Scootaloo. She left with me.

Back in Ponyville, we met Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. They were at the library when we arrived.

In fact, most of the library was occupied by ponies, all trying to shove their way towards the front. I spoke over the crowd. “What’s going on here?”

“Bruce Springsteen is signing autographs,” said Twilight.

Scootaloo began to squee again. I shoved my hoof in her mouth. “Don’t you dare. I won’t have those shattered.” I gestured to the snowglobes sitting on the nearby shelf.

I let go of her. She asked, “What would happen?”

“It would be the end of the world as you know it. Anyway, how do you know Bruce Springsteen?”

“I don’t. I just heard autographs, and got really excited. That’s half of why I like Rainbow.”

“Well shit, if that’s all it takes.” I signed her an autograph of my own. She almost began to squee again.

I pushed my way through the crowd to the table where Bruce Springsteen sat. He looked placid, stamping a hoof on an ink blotter and then on pieces of paper presented by pleased ponies.

“I’m really surprised that you’re here,” I said.

“You’re Valiant, right?” he asked. “Your girl Sunset said Ponyville was the perfect place for a concert. She was...very insistent”

She must have misunderstood. But we couldn’t have asked her because the serial killer had framed her and she was currently being held in Canterlot. I would have already broken her out, except she seemed to have a plan. Plus, I figured Sunset could break herself out if she really wanted to.

Twilight came over to Bruce. “You’re a human from Valiant’s world, right? How did you get here?”

“Honey, I’m a celebrity. I can get away with anything I want, but instead of running people over with my car I prefer to break transdimensional barriers.”

Well, regardless of my personal thoughts about him, I guess I couldn’t fault him for that.

“When’s the concert scheduled?” I asked Twilight.

“Why are you asking me?”

I gave her a look. “Come on, who else would I ask when I needed to know the schedule of something?”

She sighed. “I’ll take that as a compliment. It’s this evening at eight.”

“Good, I’ll be somewhere else.” There was only so much Bruce Springsteen I could take, and a single exchange with him, speaking, not even singing, was about enough.

I went over to the pub. Attempting to be a nice guy, I asked Rainbow for a beer as politely as I could. “Where’s the respect? Do I need to covertly install heavenly choir generators to play as I walk in the door?”

She stared at me, not impressed. “Big deal, my dad did that to my bedroom.”

I resisted the urge to call in an airstrike on her parents’ house. Nice guy.

Instead, I shook my hoof under her nose. “That sass will get you a fist upside your head.”

“You don’t even have a fist.”

“Sounds like you’re insisting on a fisting.”

“What’s this about a fisting?” Sir Win asked, showing up just then.

“It was a euphemism for punching someone in the face,” I said.

He nodded. “I suspected, coming from you.”

Guinness showed up on the other side of the bar. “Your firewhiskey,” he said, passing Sir Win a bottle in brown paper. The demon paid him and left.

“‘I suspected, coming from you,’” I repeated. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You don’t commit a lot of sex acts, nor do you make reference to such,” said Guinness. “He called you virginal.”

“Oh, if that was all.” I took a sip of my beer.

“Wait, you just brush off insults like that?” said Rainbow.

“I brush off insults from Sir Win,” I said. “I like him. Unlike you, you egotistical, selfish, shallow, bitch.”

“I’m standing right here!” Guinness protested.

“I know.” I took another sip.

“I don’t have to put up with this,” Rainbow huffed. “I’m going to Wonderbolts practice.”

She took off.

“The Wonderbolts, the revolutionary militia that is using the name of the historical Wonderbolts as a front to overthrow the government?” I said.

Guinness sighed, but didn’t reply.

“The Wonderbolts, the most famous aerial performance group in Equestria!” exclaimed someone. I turned my head. It was Rainbow’s parents.

Guinness straightened up. “What are you two doing here?”

“We just came to see our daughter because of a very strange event that happened earlier today, but now we hear that she’s a Wonderbolt!” said Bow.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Windy.

“She didn’t tell you?” said Guinness.

There was an awkward silence.

“Yay!” said Skyla, from her baby seat on the bar.

“Who is this?” said Bow, going over and touching hooves with the baby. “An alicorn foal! Well, you don’t see that every day.”

“That’s Skyla,” said Guiness.

“Who has a baby alicorn?” asked Windy.

There was an awkward silence. Guinness facehoofed.

I left. No way was I interested in being party to that much awkward and catch-up explanation.

In a way, I kind of felt sorry for Rainbow. She wasn’t telling her parents things because she didn’t want them to overreact. But I didn't feel too sorry, because Rainbow was a bitch and deserved everything bad that happened to her.

Unfortunately, me leaving the pub early meant that I was right on time for the Bruce Springsteen concert. Or, at least, the pre-concert last-minute fee negotiation.

I walked in on Twilight frantically trying to bargain with him. “What about gold? We have plenty of that.”

Bruce shook his head. “That’s too hard to spend in my world. Come up with some other way to pay me.”

“Why don’t we just not pay him?” I suggested. “Nobody here has ever heard of him, so they won’t care too much if the concert is canceled.”

“No, I’m here to perform,” he said. “But if you don’t pay me, I’ll make sure that in the future you’ll never see any other celebrities here. Bad reviews get around.”

“So why don’t we just not pay him?” I suggested. “That sounds perfect.”

“Valiant, be nice,” Twilight cautioned.

“This is me we’re talking about,” I reminded her. “I am.”

Twilight turned back to Bruce. “What about oil company stock?”

He considered it. “All right, you’ve got a deal.”

“Hold on,” I said. “Just what part of Valiantco® were you planning to give him?”

“As majority stockholder, I can advise the board of directors to release more publicly offered shares,” she said.

“As a member of the board of directors, I vote no,” I said.

“I vote yes,” said Twilight. “And as majority stockholder, I hold the power to break ties, so the motion carries.”

She turned back to Bruce. “Congratulations, Mr. Springsteen, you now own ten percent of Valiantco®.”

He smiled. “Pleasure doing business with you.”

I seethed quietly, but said nothing. Nice guy.

It wasn’t like my mood could get any worse, so I decided to stay for the concert. Maybe I would get lucky and catch Bruce lip-syncing or something.

I went to sit in the crowd. A few minutes passed, and the crowd, what crowd that came, found their seats.

The curtain came up. Bruce Springsteen hung there, a rope wrapped around his broken neck and his body covered in bloody ritualistic runes.

I applauded.

Well, no, I didn’t. That would have looked suspicious as hell.

A spotlight suddenly lit up and danced across the crowd, coming to rest on Twilight. She squinted in the light and shielded her eyes. Everyone else turned to stare at her.

“What?” she said, unable to see the stage because of the blinding light. “I just got here from backstage after handling Bruce.”

Son of a bitch. The serial killer was trying to frame Twilight.

A murmur went through the crowd. I began to push my way towards Twilight.

She finally managed to get a look at the stage and gasped. “What happened?”

“The evidence looks like you killed Bruce Springsteen,” I said.

“What! How could you say that!?” she demanded.

“Well, you show up late, talking about ‘handling’ Bruce. Plus, this spotlight, literally pointing you out.”

“I didn’t do it!” she protested.

“The evidence sure looks like you did. Are you going to arrest yourself?” I asked.

“No, because I know I didn’t do it!”

“Oh? Does that mean a higher authority has to do it? Because I’d be glad to arrest you, Twilight. And I could do it, too.” I smiled.

“I didn’t do it!” she repeated.

I kept staring, to make her squirm. But then I shook my head. “Yeah, I know you didn’t do it, Twilight. You don’t have that kind of ambition.”

Her face instantly changed to confused and insulted. “What do you mean?”

“You never do anything on your own. If it weren’t for outside stimulus, like Princess Celestia giving you a mission or some monster attacking, you would just sit in the library all day until you died from old age, never having made a difference in the world. You aren’t proactive. You don’t care about doing things, things like making the world a better place for others. I’ve been saying for years that you’re a terrible friend.”

I’d worked her into a rage now, but before she could say anything, I finished, “So that’s why you can’t be the murderer. No ambition. You only do things when you have to.”

“Oh snap!” somebody in the crowd said.

I left Twilight there, looking stunned but angry about recent developments. Hey, she should be happy. I’d singlehandedly stopped another lynching session by defusing the situation with the crowd.

Now, all I had to do was use this incident plus the others to demonstrate that neither Maud nor Sunset were the serial killer. Well, yeah, and catch the actual killer, too.

But in the meantime, it was time to jam.

I leapt up on stage and pushed aside Bruce Springsteen’s mutilated body, which swung on its rope. It was time for the local openers to take the stage. The actual star was dead, but hey, we could still rock a little.

I put my guitar strap over my shoulders and spoke into the microphone. “Hey everyone, it’s Valiant and the...and my band. With me tonight is Trixie on the drums, Guinness on the bass, and...uh, our backup guitarist.”

I took my mouth away from the microphone, pushing away Bruce's body again, and stared at Maud, who wore sunglasses so she wouldn’t be recognized. “We really need to get you a stage name.” She nodded.

I turned back to the microphone. “Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.”

Hard to Say Anything

I sat in the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ clubhouse. The shades were pulled and the room was darkened, though I could still see. Their wall of pictures of ponies they had helped had expanded slightly since I last saw it. I did not know why Gabby the griffon’s picture was there. The CMC had not really helped her.

“Why did you call me here today?” I asked.

“We have a CMC emergency and need all hands on deck,” said Apple Bloom. “And the four of us are the only ones we could get here in time.”

“Of course. It is better than having to sit through Twilight trying to teach me a friendship lesson,” I said. “Knowing her, it would likely be something such as ‘Cordoba, don’t stab ponies, it isn’t nice.’”

“I thought Valiant was the one who was trying to be nice,” said Sweetie Belle.

I waved a hoof. “That is my point!”

The others nodded.

“So back the business we have to deal with today,” said Apple Bloom. “My brother has a crush!”

The three of them began to talk excitedly, their voices running together. My digital processors could sort it out later.

In the meantime, I did not know why my father was so insistent that I bring his tape recorder with me. It seemed to be an old, crude piece of technology. He had not shared his reason, but I suspected that he had a plan. It was certainly more likely than him not having a plan.

The Crusaders appeared to come to a decision.

“We’ll go undercover!” said Scootaloo. She put on a multicolored clown wig. “Call me Agent Rainbowhead.”

Sweetie put on a pair of nose glasses. “I’ll be Shimmering Spectacles, a librarian with a mysterious past.”

“And I'll be a pirate spy, a spyrate!” said Apple Bloom, putting on a pirate hat.

The one-item disguises would likely fool most ponies. Ponies are generally bad at seeing through disguises.

They all looked at me. “Well, do you have a disguise?” Apple Bloom asked.

It is always a good idea to have an alternate identity in mind and ready to go should the situation arise. I put on a pair of sunglasses. “Call me Imperial Crown.”

“All right,” said Sweetie. “If we’re going to look into Big Macintosh’s crush, we need to find a way to get to that weird equals-sign village where she lives.”

“I have a solution. A friend can carry us there,” I said.

A large VTOL aircraft with a face painted on the front landed outside. “Hello, I’m Vulcan Avenger.”

“I didn’t know you had a dragon friend!” exclaimed Scootaloo.

“It’s actually me, Tin Mare,” said Tin Mare.

Ponies are generally bad at seeing through disguises.

With introductions out of the way, we loaded aboard Tin Mare and took off for the weird equals-sign village. Apparently that was where Big Macintosh’s crush, Sugar Belle, lived.

“Did you see that?” said Apple Bloom as we flew. The others nodded. I did not see it, whatever it was.

When we arrived at the village, Mac did indeed appear to be making lovey-dovey eyes at some mare. He did not appear to be acting on his perceived desires, however.

“Well, that’s that, I guess,” said Apple Bloom.

“No it isn’t!” argued Scootaloo. “We came here to be spies and no spy I know has ever solved a case that quick!”

“How many spies do you know?” Sweetie Belle asked.

“Well, none in particular,” said Scootaloo. “It’s more about what they do instead of what they call themselves. Everypony likes different labels, and who am I to judge?”

I evaluated that as a sound argument. The others apparently did, too.

“Anyway,” said Scootaloo, “we aren’t finished yet. Let’s take a closer look.”

We took a closer look. Sugar Belle appeared to be making lovey-dovey eyes at Mac in return.

“I do not suspect they will have sex,” said Tin Mare, landing gear partially retracted to crouch behind us.

“Good,” said Apple Bloom.

“What makes you say that?” Sweetie asked.

“Thermal analysis,” Tin Mare replied, her camera zooming in. “Mac likes her, but is not horny for her. I assess this means he does not want a relationship, or does not believe one is feasible.”

“Is she horny?” asked Scootaloo.

“Yes. Sugar Belle’s loins are burning with passion like a forest fire.”

The CMC all made disgusted faces. I lamented my lack of thermal sensors. Firsthand data of such things could be used for many applications, such as targeting vital spots.

“Did you see that?” said Sweetie just then. The others nodded. I did not see it, whatever it was.

“Still though,” said Apple Bloom, “This is so exciting! My big brother has his very first crush!”

Scootaloo frowned. “First crush? What about Cheerilee?”

“It doesn't really count when you trick a pony into drinking a love potion,” Sweetie reminded them.

“Well, we should still help out,” said Apple Bloom. She waved as Mac came out of the shop. “Hey, it’s me, Apple Bloom!”

Mac stopped. He looked at the other two CMC and squinted. His nostrils moved as if he were sniffing, which seemed to satisfy him as to their true identities. He still appeared lost when looking at myself and Tin Mare.

“You’ve got a crush on Sugar Belle and we want to help!” said Apple Bloom.

Mac hesitated and then shook his head. “Eenope.”

“But why not?” Apple Bloom asked.

Mac considered it and then said, “Won’t work.” He started to walk away.

“That’s no attitude to take if you intend to ‘score’ as they say,” observed Tin Mare. “She would gladly have sex with you.”

Mac stopped. “Eeyup.” He started to walk away again.

“Wait, how did you know?” Apple Bloom asked.

I assessed that it was likely due to his keen sense of smell. He had apparently identified Sweetie and Scootaloo by their scent, so it was probable that he had also been able to smell Sugar Belle’s arousal.

Mac did not seem inclined to say that, nor did he explain why he decided not to accept a seemingly obvious invitation.

A stallion with a carefully styled mane entered Sugar Belle’s shop. Superior smell sensing or not, he appeared to be hitting on her.

“Um, is it possible to have two crushes at once?” said Scootaloo. “Because it looks like Big Mac may not be the only pony Sugar Belle likes.”

“Hey Big Mac, where are you going?” called Apple Bloom.

“Home,” Mac replied.

“You can't let that guy get in the way of your one true love!” said Sweetie.

“You've got to take him down!” added Scootaloo.

“Eenope.”

Apple Bloom turned to me. “Somepony has to take him down.”

“Sí.” I drew my cutlass.

Mac was suddenly there, faster than I would have calculated. He blocked my way. “Eenope. She deserves to be happy. I can’t give her that.”

“So we’re just going to leave that pretty boy alone?” said Scootaloo.

“Eeyup.” Mac looked at us and then left.

I looked around. “So what am I supposed to stab now?”

“I’m sure we’ll think of something,” said Sweetie.

The group of us loaded up to go home. “Did you see that?” said Scootaloo as we flew. The others nodded. I did not see it, whatever it was.

Arriving back in Ponyville, the group of us disembarked and went our separate directions. I headed for home.

On the way, I passed by the library. Twilight was out front, talking to Applejack. I stopped to talk with them. “Isn’t it ironic how you call Twilight ‘sugarcube’ because she’s such a square?”

“I call everypony sugarcube, so it isn’t ironic,” said Applejack.

“And I’m not that much of a square,” said Twilight.

Applejack’s lips twisted and she looked away.

I kept walking. My father was comparing two Hawaiian-print shirts when I arrived. He looked up as I came in and tossed the shirts aside. “I don’t even know why I was looking at those. Probably because Rarity isn’t around to tell me what I should wear when I need to wear things, and there’s this island-themed party coming up. It’s some Jimmy Buffett shit.”

I did not know who Jimmy Buffett was, but resolved to find out.

My father patted the workshop table. “Get on up here and let’s take a look. Do you have the tape recorder?”

I gave it to him. He hooked up a few wires to a few pieces of equipment and spent several minutes analyzing data. He replayed my day.

Big Macintosh refusing sex did not appear to surprise him.

“Why is that?” I asked.

“I know why,” he said. “But it’s a secret. Mac told me once. It’s important to him, and I promised to keep it to myself.”

“You would not even tell me?”

He smiled. “I may be a man without principles, but at least I'm stubborn.”

He then sighed. “But I’m trying to be a nice guy now, so I should probably grow some principles.”

There was a frustrated banging on the door. The security camera showed a frustrated Wachowski outside.

“I know you’re in there!” she shouted.

He pushed the intercom button. “I know you’re out there.”

That appeared to throw her for a loop for a moment. He smirked. She said, “Look, stop being childish about this. I want to talk to you about this naughty/nice list.”

“I believe Santa specifically told you that it was your job,” he said.

“And I’m finished with it. I wanted to discuss the results with you, now that I’ve finally managed to find you.” Wachowski appeared to be struggling to control her voice.

My father pondered for a moment and then hit the unlock button. Wachowski appeared surprised that he had actually opened the door, but after a moment came in.

She looked around with interest at the room. There were a lot of electronics and glowing screens. I did not consider the sights quite so engaging.

“Oh, while you’re here, you know something about numbers, right?” he said to her. “I was just reviewing some data. I was hoping it could help me track down the serial killer.”

“You’re still working on that?” Wachowski said.

He gave her a flat look. “What else is more important? Arguing who should or shouldn’t merely be considered naughty or nice?”

She grumbled, but looked at the equipment he indicated. “Is this your famous tape recorder?”

“Not to mention the file from Cordoba’s memory banks. I got a setup to transfer her data from close range via wi-fi so no external plugs were required.”

I was pleased by this setup. External plugs entailed too many entendres.

The two of them sat down to review the data.

“So while we’re doing this, we can talk about what you plan to do next,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Your reputation precedes you, Valiant. I know you’ve got a plan to get out of your job. I know you’ve already got a setup for a sunset to ride off into.”

“Preposition use,” he said. “I’ve got a setup for a sunset into which I will ride. I would have thought you of all people would know that. Not to mention, we aren’t talking about Sunset Shimmer here. No puns. None.”

“That didn’t answer my question.”

“I know.”

She shot him a look. He glanced back mildly. “Do you blame me? Would you want to be stuck in my position for all eternity? Would you want to be stuck in your postion for all eternity?”

Wachowski grumbled. “Maybe you’re right, but-”

“Wow, there’s a phrase I don’t hear often. People usually have very firm opinions about whether I’m right or not, no maybe about it.”

Wachowski was about to retort when my father noticed something in the data. “Hang on, there’s something missing.”

That did not sound good.

Wachowski saw it too. “Yeah, it’s…”

They both looked at me.

“What is it?” I asked.

“There are a couple of skips,” he said. “I probably wouldn’t have noticed them if it weren’t for the tape recorder backup. Well, and if I hadn’t been specifically looking for them because I had a sneaking suspicion.”

“Way to pat yourself on the back,” Wachowski muttered.

“Oh, I can do better than that. I’m also hammered right now and still better at data analysis than you.” He waved an empty tequila bottle around.

“It’s not fair that you use that stupid GUI as a crutch for your minimal skills! Real geeks use pure numbers!”

“Yeah, and I bet you’re such a hipster that you still prefer the old green and black CRT monitors.” He waved his hoof as if she was a simpleminded fool spewing brainless nonsense. I suspected that was in fact the case.

My father went on. “Unfortunately, these skips in the data are not natural. It clearly would have looked different if there was an error or natural interference.”

“What does this mean?” I asked.

He put on a serious look. “Cordoba, I’m talking about the times when the CMC appeared to notice something that you didn’t.”

The meaning was quite clear. “I find this troubling.”

“So do I. And I suspected that it had been going on. That’s why I had you carry the tape recorder today. Analog is a lot harder to hack.”

“I was hacked?”

“I think you were. More importantly, I think that was how this serial killer has been getting such good information and has been able to stay ahead of us.”

He looked at me, looked away, closed his eyes, sighed, and looked back at me. “Goddamnit.”

Honest Apple

Wearing welding goggles, I bent over my work. The TIG torch in my hoof carefully heated and joined the finest alloys of inconel, nitinol, and brightray. They were all high nickle content metals. I required them for a very specific purpose.

Cordoba stood as still as a statue, holding up one end of the table across her back. I wasn’t worried about burning her, because her coat was made of the fire-retardant material. When she was built, I figured that if she hung out with the CMC a lot, that would probably be necessary at some point.

I shifted the metal around for another angle. The nickel alloys complicated the welding, but c’mon, it’s me we’re talking about. I could even do it sober, if I wanted to.

I’d been drunk a lot lately. The idea that someone had broken into the networks I’d built and gained access to at least Cordoba’s memory was bad, to understate it by a shitload.

After my network had been broken into, I knew I needed to change a few things. I was going back to more physical rather than digital things, just like the good old days.

I’d done a thorough analysis on the corrupted data and was still at a loss to explain how the network security had been broken. I didn’t think there was anyone out there with the skills. Braeburn might have come close, considering the stuff he learned to remove Merry May’s personality block, but I knew he didn’t want anything to do with me.

So the mystery of the hacker on steroids remained.

Fortunately, I was quick at building what I had already termed a Hate Machine: the high-nickel alloys were going into building the deadliest slot machine that had ever been conceived.

Low-roller that I am, I took a break.

I got up to stretch a little and studiously avoided Wachowski. I wasn’t sure if she was finished auditing my naughty/nice list or not. Either way, she was still here. Specifically, squatting in my place. I hadn’t asked her to stay. This was highly unsatisfactory.

It wasn’t even nice to have her around to fill the empty space that not having my usual companions around had left. I mean, Trixie was just down the street at Daring’s place, but it just wasn’t the same.

Going outside, it seemed kind of dark. Oh right, still wearing the welding goggles. I took them off. Nope, still dark. Oh right, it’s night.

Have I mentioned I’d been hammered pretty much 24/7?

The local mobile farmer’s market was at the train station. They had some organic snacks that would probably not make my hangover worse in the morning. I avoided the grapes. It seemed like I had been getting a lot of those from the train recently, and I wasn’t in the business of making wine.

The next morning, I stumbled out of my place. Rarity’s shop already seemed to be open. That was odd, considering she was the ocean and all.

I walked in and immediately knew this was going to be a bad day. It was fashion.

I recognized Hoity Toity and Photo Finish. That was bad enough in itself, but when I saw three young designers, I knew shit was about to get worse. They were having a reality TV fashion competition. Well, maybe not TV, but you see what I mean.

Applejack was there, and that was good. For them.

“Now you can’t go killing them,” she said, holding me back.

“Who said I was going to?”

“I know you, Valiant.”

“That’s not what I asked. And anyway, I’m trying to be a nice guy.”

She gave me a look. “So what would you have done?”

“Well, I wouldn’t have killed them. That kind of defeats the purpose of making a point, doesn’t it?” I threw a look across the room. “Not that I didn’t want to, if I’m being perfectly honest. Fashion.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” muttered Applejack. “I don’t know what I’m even doing here. Rarity asked me to come.”

I glanced at her and around the room where her meat puppets were playing the part of mannequins. “Rarity? How?”

“I got a letter. Apparently so did this crowd.” She gestured.

“Rarity’s the ocean. How is she sending letters?” I wondered aloud. “Seapony Express?”

I resolved to find out. As with previous trips, I got Tin Mare to take me out to the eastern shore. I found Rarity there, happily washing the beach and using the terminal I had installed.

“Damnit Rarity, we that computer installed so you could tell us what was going on in the world, not so you could organize fashion shows!”

I tromped over to some electrical connectors that were currently alternating back and forth. “And we had that light switch installed so you could turn the lights on and off, not so you could throw lightswitch raves!”

“Dear, do you honestly think I would stoop to a rave?” said Rarity.

“That’s what I thought she was doing,” said a disappointed Vinyl Scratch. She left.

“I can’t help it that my waves come in and go out at periodic intervals,” said Rarity. “Maybe you should have put the switch somewhere else.”

“Why do you even need lights?” I asked.

“So I can read the computer screen.”

“It’s backlit! And you don’t even have eyes!”

I turned to go, but caught sight of a boat coming closer. It pulled up on shore and a pony got out. He was wearing a floral shirt and a ball cap. “How’s it going? I’m Jimmy Buffett.”

“Son of a bitch!” I threw my hooves up. This day had gone from bad to worse. Who the hell had even invited him here?

I vaguely remembered a conversation I’d had with Cordoba where his name came up. Maybe she’d misinterpreted what we were talking about.

Cordoba-

I turned back to Jimmy to distract myself. “What are you doing here?”

“Same thing I do wherever I go: play guitar and try local drinks.”

“Well, I’m not paying you for a concert.”

He shrugged. “If someone does, I’ve got a portable venue on the boat.”

“A concert?” said Rarity. “I would be happy to host.”

I left.

Tin Mare took me back to Ponyville and I went to see Twilight. “We have a problem.”

“Which is?”

“Another human celebrity came to Equestria. Clearly, the veil is more fragile than we’ve ever suspected. Also, this is yet another potential target for our serial killer.”

“That sounds serious!”

“Not really. I didn’t like Bruce Springsteen, and I like Jimmy Buffett even less.”

“Valiant, that’s not the point”

“I know. I’m trying to be a nice guy. That’s why I pointed out the danger Jimmy might be in.”

Twilight got up. “Well, let’s go set up some security. What do you have?”

“Eh...I can task a satellite,” I decided. “And that’s a lot for somebody I don’t like, I want you to understand.”

We went over to my place. I carefully swept the files related to the secret Twilight-doesn’t-need-to-know stuff off my desk. There was one thing left over, though.

Twilight picked up the tape and read the label. “What’s this? ‘Twilight after dark?’”

Kind of a oxymoronic name, but heh, it’s Twilight.

“Yeah, I said. “That’s another example of me being a nice guy. I could be selling tapes of Bible giving you the pony baloney in your bed, but I don’t. Also, that’s disgusting.”

“How did you know about the pony baloney?!” she shouted.

“Twilight, did you honestly think I didn’t have cameras in your bedroom?”

“That’s private! You had no right!”

“You know, I kind of regret it too. I had to see that sandwich drop crumbs all over your sheets.”

I pointed through the open door to my own bedroom. “Do you see any crumbs? No, because I don’t eat in bed.”

“Let’s just make with the security,” she grumbled.

I swung the satellite to point at Jimmy’s boat at the Rarityshore. The stage was already set up and it looked like the concert would happen as the sun set.

Speaking of that, but unrelated to the current topic, Sunset had been cleared of all charges, because clearly she wasn’t the serial killer if the serial killer was still serial killing. For some reason, however, Sunset hadn’t come home.

Maud had been cleared too. Not needing cover anymore, she’d left my band. I would need to find someone else.

Despite the jump in topic, Twilight must have been thinking about Sunset too. “This place is kind of filthy, Valiant. Haven’t you cleaned up around here?”

“I’ve been busy hunting for a serial killer who cyberattacked my daughter and framed Sunset.” I glared at her.

“You could have at least not knocked that bookcase over.”

I turned to where she was pointing, for some reason only just now noticing the large shelving unit in question. I frowned and walked over to it.

The wood was pretty heavy, and solid. It might have been the heaviest thing in the room. I bent down to examine it. “What the hell…?”

“What is it?” Twilight came over.

“Look: chalk marks, sweat stains, obvious bench-pressing.” I lowered my voice. “It’s been lifted.”

“Like...a workout?”

“Yeah.” I stood up and glanced around. Now that I was looking for it, I saw several other heavy things that bore obvious signs of being used as improvised freeweights. “What the hell? Who’s been lifting my stuff?”

The seemingly obvious answer was right in front of me, but I seriously didn’t want to go there.

“Who lifts things around here?” said Twilight. “Bulk Biceps is the only pony I can think of.”

“Maybe.” I already knew it wouldn’t be him, but pulled up the footage to be sure. He hadn’t been anywhere near my place.

Of course whoever had broken in to lift was savvy enough to stay out of the camera field of view and/or subvert the network.

I was really getting tired of this hacker on steroids.

With not much I could do about it, though, Twilight suggested we go to Rarity’s and see how the fashion show was going.

I thought that this might be a mistake.

It wasn’t. It was hilarious.

The hopeful designers - Lily Lace, Starstreak, and Inky Rose - were basically being held hostage by Applejack’s meat puppets while they redid the clothes to Applejack’s liking.

Hoity Toity and Photo Finish were in the corner talking in low voices. “While not as visually stimulating, I would say this show has far more suspense and tension than Coco Pommel’s debut show last week.”

In reply, Photo did that weird abrupt nod she did.

I walked over. “Wait, what was this about Coco Pommel’s debut show?”

“Surely you knew,” said Hoity Toity, though he didn’t look sure at all.

“I mean, Rarity and I did a number on her boss and I hear I indirectly helped Coco clean up a community park. I wasn’t exactly expecting an invitation to Coco’s debut show, but I would have thought Rarity at least would have got one even though she’s currently the ocean and couldn’t go anyway.”

Photo interrupted. “It starts.”

I almost strangled her for cutting me off, but turned to look. Applejack was saying, “So tell us about these here clothes.”

The unicorn mare said, “So I’m Lily Lace. You guys, this morning, on my way here, I heard a bird singing lit-trally the most beautiful song I’d ever heard! And I wanted to capture not so much the bird’s song exactly but more like how the wind carried the bird’s song and-”

The meat puppet that was modeling the outfit slapped her.

“-er, I wanted to make it light and colorful,” finished Lily, no trace at all of lofty inflection.

Holy shit, Applejack could fix anything, including fashion designers.

And so it went. The pegasus named Inky Rose was kind of goth. Applejack, just like she had knocked most of the inflection out of Lily’s voice, inserted some back into Inky’s. As for Starstreak, she just took his tiny triangular glasses away because she said they were stupid. And they were.

As I said, totally glad I’d gone to the show.

Afterwards, Twilight and I left the shop. I saw a pony putting up flyers of some kind.

Pinkie appeared just then. “What could that be? Lost dog? Balloons for sale? Guitar lessons? 'Cause I found one, I need some, and yes, I am interested!”

But it was none of those things. It was an advertisement for the Jimmy Buffett concert.

“Huh,” I said. “I wonder who paid him.”

“I did,” said Twilight.

“Huh?”

“He said he wanted to try unique local drinks. You once gave me a bottle of tequila that I’ve never opened, so I gave him that. He seemed pleased.”

I sighed, which was a nice guy thing to do rather than strangling her for giving up tequila. “Well, I’m either going to make sure he drinks it all or I get it back. That’s my special brew and I’m not letting it off this planet. When’s the concert?”

“Eight p.m.”

“Good, that gives me time.”

Twilight cocked her head. “To do what?”

“You’ll see. Come with me.” We went back to my place. I showed her the slot machine I’d been building.

“It’s got high-nickel alloys. I’m going to put it in the center of Ponyville. Nobody around here really knows what gambling is, so it’s sure to attract a crowd. I’ve added several triggers that could identify the serial killer. When they pull the lever, it’ll kill them.”

“This seems needlessly complicated and also has the potential to injure innocents that might be accidentally identified,” Twilight pointed out worriedly.

She paused, looking at my schematics and material choices. “But why did you obsessively make everything out of alloys that contain a lot of nickel?”

“So I can drop a dime on that asshole.”

She didn’t understand. I didn’t expect her to.

I got the machine set up in the town square. It was already drawing a crowd by the time Tin Mare gave us a lift to the concert.

The boat-based stage was ready, the curtains drawn. A fairly substantial crowd had already formed.

Rarity lapped gently at the shore. I went to talk to her. “Did you hear about Coco Pommel’s debut?”

“No. She had one?”

“Yeah. Seemed a little strange that you didn’t even hear about it, much less receive an invitation.”

“Coco didn’t strike me as the kind of pony to forget her friends,” said Rarity.

“I’ll check up on her when I get time,” I promised.

“The concert’s about to start,” Rarity noted. I turned to look at the stage.

The curtain came up. Jimmy Buffett hung there, a rope wrapped around his broken neck and his body covered in bloody ritualistic runes.

Well shit, two for two.

The crowd, obviously, wasn’t expecting that. However, never having seen a Jimmy Buffett concert, they weren’t sure if it was part of the show or not. I figured I might as well take advantage of that.

I leapt up on stage and pushed aside Jimmy Buffett’s mutilated body, which swung on its rope. It was time for the regulars to take the stage. The actual star was dead, but hey, we could still rock.

I slipped my guitar strap over my shoulders and stepped up to the microphone. “Hey everyone, it’s Valiant and the Background Band. With me tonight is Trixie on the drums, Guinness on the bass, and Vulcan Avenger on the keyboard.”

I took my mouth away from the microphone, pushing away Jimmy's body again, and glanced at Tin Mare, who wore her dragon paint job so she wouldn’t be recognized.

“Synthesizer hella ready,” she reported.

I turned back to the microphone. “Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.”

A Royal Problem

I squatted beside the train tracks, studying the twisted metal rails and ruined ties. The damage had apparently happened overnight. I put my ear to the ground for a moment and listened.

“What do you think happened here?” said Twilight.

“Something big came through here,” I said. I pointed off down the line where the rails stretched into the distance. “It went that way.”

“How can you tell?” she asked.

“It was a train.” I looked at her. It was a flat look. I didn’t put any trollface in to anger her. It was designed to make her feel stupid for asking a stupid question.

Her jaw clenched and she twitched. She was ready for me to be a troll, but had to do a quick emotional one-eighty. While I admit that I thought it was funny to see her struggle, it was still overall part of my effort to be a nice guy.

Yeah, making someone feel stupid instead of angry is not really a huge step up. Still, some progress is still progress.

Twilight shook her head, took a deep breath, and tried again. “No, I mean, what tore up the tracks like this?”

I shrugged. “Doesn’t look mechanical or magical. Something or someone strong. Very strong.”

I had a strong, forgive the pun, suspicion who.

The phantom lifter was giving me fits. I was pretty sure they were the same person as the serial killer, because who else could hack, roid, and murder like that? I couldn’t think of a single pony that was so multitalented. Because of cutie mark specialization, ponies were usually, well, one trick ponies.

I saw Shaq on the outskirts of the crowd. Well, he wasn’t in costume so I guess I should call him Filthy Rich. He was appraising the situation from the sidelines, probably trying to gain the same clues I had.

On the clue front, I was mostly lacking. Fortunately, the satellite we’d tasked to monitor the Jimmy Buffett concert had caught some mysterious, bulky mass swimming under the water to the stage shortly before Jimmy was found dead. It could have been anything, but my instincts told me it was the killer.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t much to go on. They were bulky. They could swim. That was about it. Shit.

Without much left to go on, I tracked down Bulk Biceps. I found him at his masseuse job at the spa. He was working on somebody when I came in.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m looking for somebody. They lift.”

His eyebrows went up with interest. “Who’re you looking for?”

“I don’t know. They lifted some stuff over at my place the other day.”

“Your place…?” his eyes suddenly took on a nervous look. The pony he was working on sucked in a sudden breath as Bulk’s hoof came down a little hard.

“Yeah. Do you know anything about that?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nope. I don’t go near…that crowd.”

“What crowd?”

“The roid ragers.”

So my suspicions had been correct. “But then how did you know they were at my place?”

“I know my lifts. I sensed her presence.”

“Her?”

He nodded. “Pretty sure. Don’t know who, though.”

Well now, this had just taken an interesting turn.

“Take care of yourself,” I said. “This might be the same person as the serial killer that’s been going around.”

His customer squeaked again.

Before bones started breaking I left the spa.

Burdened with a couple of new facts but still no leads, I stood outside and looked up at the sky, turning my collar against the weather. I almost wished I smoked, because this would have been a good time for it. Contemplative, introspective.

The noir moment was ruined by an explosion.

Not a big explosion, surprisingly. Kind of muffled, really. I looked around for the source.

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, do we have a time-of-arrival echolocation on that?”

“South of town,” she replied.

I headed in that direction. I was surprised to find Pinkie, playing with dynamite. Not for any reason, like making holes or destroying things, just playing with it.

Who the hell gave Pinkie dynamite?

“Hey, what’s up, Valiant?” she asked as I got close. Not too close.

“I was just enjoying a noir moment and you interrupted it.”

“Noir, like a detective?”

I considered it. “Yeah, actually. I’d like to think so, anyway.”

“I’d totally like to be a detective,” said Pinkie. She put on a fedora and wiggled her eyebrows. “I’d be a private eye for the public thigh.”

Who the hell gave Pinkie dynamite?

She seemed content to stay there and not actually go into Ponyville, so I left. I ran into Maud on the way, who was apparently coming to help Pinkie with something. Being that Maud was into rocks, I figured that explained the dynamite.

Speaking of rocks, I asked, “Hey, have you found that thing we talked about?”

“You mean the stone that would let you rule all of Equestria if you wanted to?”

“Yeah, that.”

“No, not yet.”

It was kind of important that she found it. But she knew that.

I went back to Ponyville. My place was dark and quiet when I arrived, but I swept it to check for lurking serial killers, just in case.

All I found was Wachowski, sitting in the dark and quiet and looking at computer screens, the scrolling data reflected on her glasses.

I realized that for the first time in a while, I was alone. Trixie was off with Daring somewhere. Sunset was still gone. Wachowski, though she was squatting at my place, didn’t really count for company.

“So did you finish auditing my naughty/nice list?” I asked her. “At this point, I just want that shit done with.”

“You aren’t making it easy,” she shot back.

“That doesn’t answer my question. Seriously, just because you wrote a critically acclaimed screenplay you think you can be Santa’s bitch secretary.”

“Wrote and directed!”

“Touched a nerve, have I? Are you just mad that I’m getting shit done here in Equestria, getting a whole new universe labeled naughty/nice for Santa, and he sent you here to learn from me?”

Her eyes opened wide and her cheeks went pink. “How did you know that?! I never told you that was why I was here!”

“Because I was the one who suggested it in a letter to Santa,” I explained. “Because I thought you could use some experience getting out of the office once in a while.”

“Experience? Learning from you?” she snapped. “What have you ever done?”

I gave her a hard look. “We live in a world that has magical freaking ponies. And they have to go through life with scary evil monsters everywhere. Who’s going to fight for them? You?

“I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep because minor things annoy you and you curse my abrasive methods. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know: that the things I do, while you consider them trolling, probably save lives. And my existence in Equestria, while unstable and incomprehensible to most people, stops the whole damn place from falling apart.

“You don't want to think I’m doing good work. Because deep down, in places you don't talk about at Santa’s staff meetings, you want me to enforce my own brand of justice. You need me to enforce my own brand of justice.

“I use words like badass, tactical, and democracy. I use these words as the backbone to a life spent molding and running this world in the way I see fit. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain my methods to someone like you who moans and complains under the blanket of the very awesome things I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it.

“I'd rather you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a gun and help me out.”

She stared at me. “I can’t believe you ripped that entirely from A Few Good Men.”

“You’re goddamned right I did.”

I left. I mean, why wouldn’t I? That was a perfect high note to go out on.

Outside, I called up Tin Mare. I had a plan in mind, a contingency for later, and needed Rarity’s help.

Through the terminal I’d installed at the beach, I said to Rarity, “I’d like you to hold something for me.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“A Trident.”

“If that’s all.”

It was. I loaded it up in Tin Mare and she flew it out there.

Meanwhile, I caught the train to Canterlot.

It was the mobile farmers’ market train. There weren’t any seats, so I rode with the produce. I’d noticed that they’d started to sell more and more grapes.

You had to be really careful not to mash any, but a trainload of grapes are a pretty comfortable place to lie down for a while and watch the clouds go by. And if you did mash some - hey, free unfermented wine.

I needed the time to think anyway. I was going to Canterlot with a mission. I didn’t know why Sunset hadn’t come home after she’d been proven innocent, but it was time to find out.

When I got to Canterlot, I waltzed into the palace because that was a thing that I could do. All the Royal Guards knew me, and crossed me at their peril. It’s good being a known badass.

I headed for the throne room, where Celestia probably was at this time of day. She usually held court in the early morning.

However, when I opened the door, it surprised the heck out of me to see Sunset wearing the crown and sitting on the throne.

She saw me come in and announced, “Court is out for the day.”
Some ponies muttered under their breaths, but none challenged her. As they filed out of the room, I went over to the throne.

“What the shit, Sunset? You take over the country and don’t even tell me?”

“It’s...not quite that simple,” she said. She came down and gestured in the direction of the royal kitchen. “Are you hungry? This will take a while.”

“Do you have cake?”

“It’s the royal kitchen.”

Hell yes.

As we walked, we talked. Sunset said, “So when Twilight brought me here, Celestia said she would handle me and Twilight left. As soon as Twilight was gone, Celestia let me go. She said it was hilarious that Twilight thought she could arrest me for murder.”

“But you just let Twilight do it.”

Sunset nodded. “I wanted to get into the royal dungeons. I had a suspicion that I might find someone who knew a little about what was going on around Equestria.”

“Did you?”

She sighed. “No. But because I didn’t get the chance to look. As soon as Celestia let me go, she immediately gave me a proposal. She wanted me to take her place.”

I frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. She trolled the shit out of me and Columbia to hang on to her position. Why give it up now?”

“I don’t think she’s exactly given it up,” said Sunset. “She didn’t say when she would be back, but I got the impression that this was a temporary job.”

“She’s gone? Where?”

Sunset shrugged. “Anyway, I’ve been doing Celestia’s job for a couple weeks now. Equestria does need taken care of. Plus, I want to make Celestia look bad by doing her job better than her.”

I nodded. I could support that.

Luna walked by. “Good morning, Celestia.” She smiled.

“What’s the deal?” I asked Sunset when Luna was out of sight. “Don’t they notice you aren’t Celestia?”

“Of course they’ve noticed.” she said. “But you know how ponies are. They’re too awkward to just ask a simple question and get a simple answer, and instead are just assuming I’m actually the Princess but with a different look and have created a contrived situation where there shouldn’t be one and they’ll be all shocked and disappointed and angry when they find out the truth.”

I nodded. Sounded about right for ponies. “But why did Celestia pick you? If she didn’t want me in charge, why go out of her way to appoint you?”

“I don’t know,” said Sunset. “I mean, my cutie mark is the sun. At the same time, though, I felt like she was waiting to leave and only needed just the right moment. Like if Twilight had shown up with anypony, she would have done the same thing.”

I thought hard about that for several seconds. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Cracker around Ponyville, either. Celestia - and her alter ego - disappeared apparently on a whim. The timing doesn’t seem to match anything I can think of. She might have been waiting specifically for you, or maybe for anyone…you don’t think she had you framed just so Twilight would bring you here?”

It was a long shot, but the more I thought about it the more horrifying sense it made. Celestia needed someone smart and hardworking to take over while she was gone. Who had Celestia tried to frame before Sunset? Maud.

Now that would have been a hilarious turn of events, Maud filling in for Celestia. I forced myself to focus, however. Did this mean Celestia was the serial killer?

I considered it, I honestly considered it. However, the MO didn’t make sense. Celestia would already know complex runes and wouldn’t need to repeatedly kill ponies to practice cutting them into the victims’ bodies early on. It also just didn’t feel like her style. She was Princess; if she wanted to kill ponies, she’d just do it in the street.

But then, who was the serial killer?

I was still thinking when we arrived in the kitchen. Sunset broke off. “I’ve got to make breakfast for Luna. That was something Celestia left me to do.”

She made cake, though, because she was filling in for Celestia and doing it better than the real Celestia. Awesome. Awesome to the max.

Luna came in and gave Sunset a friendly nuzzle before sitting down in front of her serving. “I don’t know what’s changed recently, Celestia, but this is the most affection either of us has shown the other in years.”

Sunset and I traded a glance. She shrugged.

A royal scribe came in and walked over to Sunset. “Princess Celestia, a delegation will arrive soon with concerns about timberwolves in Whitetail Woods.”

Sunset discreetly tapped her earpiece and whispered, “Tin Mare, get rid of the timberwolves in Whitetail Woods.”

“I don’t know how I feel about you using private assets for government work,” I said.

She waved a hoof at the scribe. “Issue a privateer license in the name of ‘Tin Mare.’”

I was okay with that.

Luna finished her breakfast and sighed contentedly. “Sister, I can’t believe we used to fight. I know, it was a thousand years ago and we’ve reconciled since then, but it’s moments like this that make me wonder why there was ever a conflict.”

Sunset shot me a pleading glance. Yeah, sure must be awkward having a heart to heart with somebody else’s sister.

So I jumped in. “What’s the deal with the coming back from banishment, anyway?” I asked. “When you were gone, there were apparently no problems Celestia couldn’t handle herself. Since you came back, it seems like there’s been one crisis after another that me and the Elements of Harmony had to solve.”

Luna nodded. “I have a theory. Since I returned, there have been no more nightmares, for I moderate dreams of my ponies and keep them sleeping peacefully. However, better sleep means they don’t have to stay in bed as long, and are more rested when they get up. This gives them much more time and energy for activities. It’s simply statistics that some of those activities consist of plotting evil.”

That was...well, a theory. Luna’s return equals better sleep which equals more time for shenanigans? Talk about unintended consequences. I didn’t think it was the full explanation, though I didn’t care that much.

“So...why not not moderate sleep?” I asked.

“It’s what I do,” said Luna. “Could you not be you?”

She had a point.

We cleaned up after the cake and Luna left. Sunset got up to walk back to the throne room. I went with her. On the way, we passed by a small music box sitting on the table. For some reason, Twilight was the ballerina dancing in the center.

“It’s an easy spell,” she explained. “But there’s no time to explain! Valiant, I need you back in Ponyville right now!”

I gestured to Sunset. “I’m kind of busy right now.”

“I’m sorry, Princess, but it’s really important that I see Valiant,” said Twilight. “There’s been another murder.”

“It’s no problem,” said Sunset. She smiled at me. “He can go.”

That seemed to satisfy Twilight. Sunset and I turned away. “I’ll call Tin Mare,” I said. I paused, and added, “You know, I could really use you back.”

She looked at me. “I think me leaving this position would cause more trouble than anything else. You know how ponies are.”

I paused to consider. “You know, I think I know who we can get to fill in.”

“Fill in for me filling in?” she said.

“Right.” I patched through the comms networks to get a call out. “Hey Maud, do you want to take over Princess Celestia’s job?”

“No,” she said.

“Too bad. You’re the new Princess Celestia.”

“If I have to.”

I knew she’d be perfect for the job. Sunset, however, frowned. “How’s she going to raise the sun? She’s an earth pony.”

“Does it matter? If nothing else, she’d get Luna to do it while she takes over the moon. If any earth pony can move a heavenly body, I’m sure Maud could handle the moon.”

Sunset nodded in agreement. A thought occurred to her. “Oh, before I was arrested, how did you like the concert I organized with Bruce Springsteen?”

“Well, I thought it went pretty well.” I smiled. “How would you like to plan another one?”

Discordant Harmony

Twilight was not pleased that I had almost killed her with a kinetic strike from space. I thought the keyword there was “almost.” At any rate, the CMC, who had been with her at the time in Silent Hill, didn’t think it was that big a deal.

I told them all that Gabby had been responsible for the large explosion that had nearly killed me, too. After seeing the damage to Tin Mare, Twilight believed it. So the Rods From God stayed concealed from prying purple eyes. I figured the fewer people that knew about them, the better. Twilight, needless to say, was not on the need-to-know list.

However, now Gabby knew about them and had somehow survived them. I knew she was good at everything, but come on! This was all going to be so much harder now that Tin Mare was out of action for a while and we knew who we were dealing with.

You might think that knowing who the bad guy was would actually make it easier. But this was Gabby. She was good at everything. I had a sneaking suspicion that her identity being public was only going to make things worse.

I called a meeting at The Half Pint and laid out everything I was willing to tell the girls about the situation. Reactions were mixed. Most of them were skeptical. But Twilight believed. She knew that if I said it was serious, then it was pretty goddamned serious.

It was kind of weird, being believed in. Now I knew how Santa felt. Shit.

“Apple Bloom brought back some kind of tracked thing,” said Applejack. I assumed she was referring to the Snow Utility Track vehicle I had built and the CMC and Twilight had been using when the RFG hit. Apparently being half a mile away helped. They’d managed to drive it all the way back to Ponyville.

“Yeah, that’s the SNUT,” I said in response to Applejack’s question.

“You know how I feel about them operating heavy equipment,” she said.

“Right, but it’s way less dangerous than the multiple combat robots they’ve piloted,” I pointed out.

“Even still.”

“Don’t snub the SNUT, you slut.”

I didn’t really think Applejack was a slut, but I am an absolutely asinine alliteration activist.

“While we’re at this meeting,” said Twilight, “I noticed something strange the other day. Princess Celestia has taken a sudden interest in rocks. Most ponies wouldn’t say anything, but as her friend and student I feel like I should.”

That was because Maud Pie had replaced Sunset, who had replaced Celestia. Supposedly temporarily. We didn’t know. Celestia was nowhere to be found.

“I’m sure it’s just tricks playing on your imagination.”

Twilight frowned. “Don’t you mean-”

”What, Twilight, what do I mean?”

While Twilight was still reeling from my comeback, Fluttershy of all people spoke up. “Um, since we’re at this meeting, I was hoping I could say something.”

I gestured, opening the floor to her.

“I’ve been noticing pillows lately,” she said.

“Uh huh,” I replied. That was the kind of statement that required further explanation.

“They’ve been appearing in my house.”

“Okay.”

“They’re embroidered with Daisy, Lily, Rose, and I.”

“Mhm.”

“Being brutally murdered.”

“Well, that doesn’t pleasant at all.” And it didn’t. That must have been a ton of needlepoint work.

“They’re just appearing?” said Twilight. “If they’re being teleported in, I could work up a spell to trace them.”

That decided, Twilight went with Fluttershy to her place to check out the pillows. I went along, because embroidering pillows of people being brutally murdered sounded exactly like the kind of thing I should check out.

Not the brutal murder part, the part where someone was leaving them around. If I wanted to see brutal murder, I’d do one.

At Fluttershy’s place, Twilight got to casting her spells. While she was doing that, I thought about how I was going to stop Gabby.

Her only weakness I could think of was that she wasn’t quite the best at doing security, like when she’d almost not protected Coloratura when Twi-minator was after her. Maybe that meant I could somehow force a paradox by being the best security ever for a band that crossed over to play in this world.

I frowned. No, that wouldn’t work. Gabby might not be the best at security, but she was the best at breaking security.

As the other two were occupied, I was the first to notice the rising water levels. Fluttershy’s place was pretty watertight, so my first indication was when the water reached the bottoms of the windows. “Uh, guys?”

We rushed upstairs to escape. Fluttershy could fly away, provided she snorted the right amount of pepper and sneezed herself into a pegasus. As for Twilight and me, I almost called Tin Mare before I remembered she was down for overhaul after the close range strike by Rods From God.

“Where could that water have come from?” said Twilight. “If it’s not natural, I don’t think it’s a good idea to swim in it, just to be sure. What are we going to do to stop the water?”

“Make like a tree and levee,” I suggested.

Twilight frowned. “Don’t you mean-”

”What, Twilight, what do I mean?”

Pinkie showed up just then in her pedal copter. That was sure convenient. She lifted us off the roof. “Wow, what happened down there?”

“Somepony must have broken the beaver dam on the stream,” said Fluttershy. “The beavers wouldn’t do it themselves, they know it would flood my house.”

Gabby again, probably. The best at beaver dam breaking.

Pinkie let us off at a bench just outside of town. An old mare was already sitting there.

I sighed. “I get the feeling things are just going to get crazier around here. I was afraid that now that Gabby doesn’t have to hide her identity, she’ll really cut lose.”

“I don’t know about that, dearie,” said the old mare.

“Sorry,” I said. “I meant that for Twilight, if anyone.”

“Oh, I thought you were talking to me.”

“Why would I be talking to you about the latest, most-competent supervillain?” I said. “I don’t even know who you are. Get your ass out of here.”

Being mean to old ladies wasn’t consistant with my goals of being a nice guy, but I allowed myself the indulgence.

“That wasn’t very nice,” said Twilight as the old mare walked away in a huff.

“I held back. I would have added ‘Get your ass out of here, and the horse you rode in on’ except nopony would get the joke. In fact, they’d probably say something like ‘But I am the horse I rode in on.’”

“Fluttershy is the horse I rode in on,” said Pinkie, bouncing her eyebrows. Everyone ignored her, because at this point it was just easier.

Twilight sighed and sat back on the bench. “Good timing with the pickup, though.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Pinkie, I haven’t seen you flying that thing very much.”

“Well, somepony kind of used to hog the airspace,” she said.

“And I’ll go right back to doing it when Tin Mare is fixed.” I turned to Twilight. “Have you got the company stock report? We’ll need some oil.”

“I’ll need some oil,” said Pinkie. We ignored her.

“Well, I don’t have the latest Valiantco® report on me, but I can remember most of the details,” said Twilight.

I explained. “While Tin Mare is down, I’m thinking about doing some upgrades to her. Not only increasing the efficiency of the mechanics through lubrication - the screwing, the pistoning -”

“I’m going to be doing some screwing and pistoning!” said Pinkie.

I shook my head and went on. “Plus, we need to increase the volatility to get more power. The fuel flow is already as high as it goes, so the fuel itself needs to have more energy.”

“Why not turn up the flow on the fuel injectors?” suggested Twilight.

“They’re already squirting as much as they can.” I held up a hoof. “Pinkie, don’t even goddamned say it.”

Twilight nodded. “I’ll look at the lab results on the crude oil and get back to you. If Gabby is really as bad as you say-” she shuddered “-we’ll need as much help as we can get.”

She had that right.

After our conversation, we left Pinkie and Fluttershy and walked into town. The farmers’ market on the train was here. Still selling suspicious amounts of grapes, I saw.

“Yeah,” I commented, breaking the silence between us. “I don’t want to go nuclear again, because it’s a lot of work, but that’s an option to defeat Gabby.”

“What if she goes nuclear too for that mutually assured destruction you talked about?” Twilight said.

“The difference is, I’m crazy enough to do it.”

“That doesn’t make me feel safe.”

“I mean, particle physics gives me a hadron.”

Twilight opened her mouth and paused. “I thought for sure I knew how that was going to go, but you surprised me with the pun.”

“It’s so I can make a joke later about ‘large hardon collider.’”

“Ah.”

Speaking of colliding hardons, Sir Win appeared just then. “What’s this about colliding hardons?”

I told him.

“It does work pretty well as a pun, though lowbrow as your standard.”

I nodded. He was right.

I kept walking with Twilight back to the library where I checked my shelf of snowglobes. Twilight came over for a look. “I have to say, while you explained your human Christmas traditions, I’m surprised you actually followed up with some, particularly collecting fragile baubles.”

“I dunno,” I said, gesturing. “I got the first one somewhere and it just kind of took off from there. Maybe it reminds me of a simpler time, back before all this Gabby business happened.”

She gave me a flat look. “When was it ever simple?”

“Well, hindsight is four-twenty.”

Twilight frowned. “Don’t you mean-”

”What, Twilight, what do I mean?” I shook my head. “Come on, this was after you got the hadron pun.”

Wachowski arrived just then. “Pinkie Pie wants me to direct a rom-com. It stars her and Fluttershy. I think it’s a thinly veiled attempt to bait me into making porn.” She grumbled. “Not that I mind people coming to me for movie advice, but this is beneath me.”

“I didn’t know you were into movies,” said Twilight. “Though, I suppose we haven’t talked much since you arrived.”

“Lana Wachowski.” She shook hooves with Twilight. “I make movies.”

“And Santa Claus’ bitch,” I added.

She shot me a glare. “So are you.”

“Valiant hasn’t spoken highly of you,” said Twilight.

“He wouldn’t, would he?”

Twilight laughed. “I guess that means we’re friends now.”

“Looks like I should leave you two alone,” I said. “I can tell when I’m not wanted, I usually just ignore it.”

“Well, thanks,” said Wachowski.

I clicked my tongue and winked. “It’s the thought that counts, and it’s the count that thoughts.”

Twilight frowned. “Don’t you mean-”

“Correct me again, Twilight, I’ll rip your spine out through your goddamned throat.”

“Well pardon me for saying so, but I think I have a little better grasp on language than you do,” she huffed.

“Yeah, well, I’m an asshole and I generally don’t use words that I don’t know what they mean,” I shot back. “All offense intended, all malaprop planned.”

“Except when you’re drunk,” muttered Wachowski.

“Good point.”

“Are you drunk now?” Twilight asked.

“The fact that you can’t tell speaks to my abilities as a functioning alcoholic.”

With that, I left them.

Outside the library, I ran into Pinkie and Fluttershy. Pinkie was flipping through what looked like a movie script and appeared to be soliciting it to anyone who passed by.

“No,” I said when she asked.

“Just like this relationship, I don’t think this movie is going anywhere,” said Fluttershy.

“Don’t be such a pessimist posey!” said Pinkie, laughing.

“I’m just saying what I see,” said Fluttershy. “And now that my house is destroyed, my only option is to stay with you-”

Pinkie grinned.

“-or break up with you so I’m not obligated.”

“Wait, what?” said Pinkie.

“Wait, what?” said me.

“That’s what I said!” said Pinkie. She turned back to Fluttershy. “Come on, you’re talking crazy because your house was destroyed.”

“It’s terrible,” said Fluttershy. Her voice sounded like she was going to die of embarrassment, but she kept going. “But it’s only now that I don’t have any more excuses that I finally have to own up to it. I’m not going to let a tragedy doom me to be with you forever.”

She turned and walked away.

There was a sound like the air being let out of a balloon and Pinkie’s poofy mane deflated. “W-what? She’s gone?”

I watched as Fluttershy departed, honestly surprised, but a growing satisfaction in her for finally doing something for herself for once.

Pinkie watched her go, her face seeming to fall further and further. I put my foreleg around her. “This is going to take awhile and you aren’t going to want to be sober.”

The Perfect Pear

Sunset came to me in the morning. “Let’s do B&E.”

“Sounds great, but where did you get the bacon?”

Sunset paused. “Oh, no, I meant breaking and entering.”

“Oh.” I shrugged. “I do it often enough that I kind of even stopped thinking of it as a crime. Even though I probably shouldn’t, because I’m trying to be a nice guy. So where are we B&E’ing?” I paused in thought. “B’ing & E’ing?”

“It think it’s just B&E,” she said. “Since they both already stand for breaking and entering.”

“Makes sense. Where are we B&E?” I frowned. It might have made sense, but it still didn’t sound right.

“The library.”

“Why would we want to do that? It doesn’t even have a lock on the door.”

“The library in another universe.”

“You have my attention, though still not my comprehension.”

Sunset explained. “It stands to reason alternate universes might not be dealing with a Gabby problem of their own. Maybe some time to get a clear head and a different perspective can help. So, we break into the library where we’re most likely to find you.”

“True. But how can I ask about their other ideas if I’m there? Last I checked, when I went to other universes, I sort of replaced the regular inhabitants.”

“Science, and a shitload of magic,” said Sunset.

I nodded. “I’m sold.”

Sunset pulled out the magical ugly chunk of basalt that had been at the center of most everything since this whole Equestria deal had begun.

I tried to remember the last time I had seen it. I think it was when I teleported USS Milwaukee in to drop on Triek. Good times.

Anyway, apparently Sunset had picked it up. Good thing, too. It wouldn’t be good at all if Gabby got her hands on it. That was literally universe-rending power right there. I might even say that it would be the worst possible thing.

We got the rig set up. It was built out of some of the circuit boards we had lying around and some software we'd been parsing. A hacked, cracked, and whacked copy of Tin Mare's Windows 98 install disk was involved. Yeah, it played Doom. I'd insisted on it. What good is a dimension-hopping device without it?

Sunset put the final touches of magic into the system while I packed for the trip. It was pretty easy.

She looked over when everything was good to go. “Are you ready?”

I showed her the tequila bottle. She nodded.

So we went.

Stepping through the portal, it was initially hard to tell that we’d gone anywhere at all. Outside, Ponyville looked pretty much the same. Both of us were still our appropriate selves thanks to Sunset’s spellwork.

So there I was-

Holy shit, there I am!

A female version of me walked by up ahead, crossing the street. She didn’t notice us.

It was this universe, huh? Well, we’d just have to get her someplace where we could talk without the townsponies freaking out. Though, gender-inverted versions of me and Sunset even by ourselves would probably trigger the more observant ones.

“Hey Valiant, hey Sunset,” said Pinkie as he went bouncing by. Pinkie seemed happy enough. I wondered if he and Fluttershy had recently broken up in this universe, too.

I thought about what Sunset and I should do first. Stopping by the library would have been a hoot, even though we now didn’t need to because we’d found alt-me on the street instead of there. This version of Twilight was aware of other universes, but if he was anything like my universe’s counterpart, he’d probably blow a fuse if I walked in.

If he was anything as powerful, prone to magic-before-thinking, and neurotic as her, it could lead to really hilarious/messed up shenanigans. I’m sure we can all think of a couple of examples.

Sunset and I decided to follow girl-me. On our way up the street, we encountered Sir Win. I guess that would actually be Lady Win. Dame Win? I am not good with titles and I don’t think it was a real knighthood anyway.

Regardless, Ma’am Win seemed to delight in what Sunset and I were up to. Demons are demons no matter what’s in their pants. Or lack of pants because these are ponies. Man, I’m really not good with semantics today.

Fortunately, that ceased to become a problem as we rounded a corner and stepped into a trap. I think “Shit!” summed it up pretty well.

The trap was one of those magical bubble deals. It was the usual amount of sparkly, so I at least saw it before walking into it nose first. Still, that was only a minor upside to the major problem of who had set it up and why.

I appeared. Girl-me, I mean. Semantics. Valiantina, let’s say.

It seemed obvious that she’d been expecting us. I asked, “What the shit? You could have at least asked what I wanted before slapping me with a bubble spell.”

“We’re the same, asshole,” she said. “I knew you weren’t up to anything good.”

“For your information, I’ve been trying to be a nice guy, because it’s such a radical change from before. I’m trying to get on the Nice List, because I work for Santa Claus now.”

“That does explain the red coat,” she allowed.

“So are you going to let us out? I need to talk to you.”

Sunset showed up. Valiantina nodded to him and he dispersed the spell.

“Walk with us,” said Valiantina. She grumbled. “If we’re going to do this, there are a few others I want you to meet.”

We walked into the library. Twilight was there and his eyes got big upon seeing two Valiants and two Sunsets.

“Don’t mind us,” I said. “Just off to go screw ourselves like you’ve probably been wishing to say but never said for so long.”

Twilight put on an expression that appeared to be his best attempt at “not my monkeys, not my circus,” and pretended it didn’t bother him.

We went into a back room at the library. In my universe, this was used for storage. Apparently everything in it had been moved to the basement or something because the place was clear save for a table,several chairs and a big portal on one wall.

Oh, and the place was full of Valiants. I spotted one who was an inverted version - black with an orange mane. There were a couple of different variants, unicorns, pegasi, non-ponies.

“So you’re probably wondering why you’re here,” Valiantina said.

“You all aren’t dealing with a domineering Gabby griffon too, are you?” I said.

They all stared at me.

Invert Valiant said, “Yes.”

“Great, I was hoping-”

“He means no,” said Valiantina. “He’s opposite.”

I looked at him. “So your name’s...Tnailav?”

“No.”

“Great.” I turned back to the rest. “So anyway, I’m dealing with a domineering Gabby griffon and I’m sure you can all imagine why someone as good at things as she is would be a really difficult villain to gank.”

“We aren’t here to talk about that,” said Valiantina. “The Council of Valiants-”

“We have a Council of Valiants?” I said. “That’s so cool, why am I only hearing about this now?”

“Because no one likes you,” she said.

“God, you’re such a bitch.” I should point out that I use the term gender-neutrally. Anyone can be a bitch. Dudes can be bitches.

“I’m just saying,” I went on, “that the issue of Gabby potentially taking over my universe has the implication that she or her alt selves might do the same to you guys. I could really use some brainstorming here, and it could benefit you too.”

One of the Valiants who looked like a huge nerd said, “Wow, he really must be trying to be a nice guy if he’s actually willing to compromise and seek help.”

“Shut up, this isn’t about him.” Valiantina threw the other guy a look.

“Sunset, choke that bitch,” I said.

Sunset did.

I walked over so I could speak cordially with Valiantina. Nobody else in the room had come to her assistance. “Hey, so, I really appreciate getting the gang together, but unless y’all are facing imminent existence failure the same as me, I think I’ve got the biggest problem here.”

I looked around. “Do I have the biggest problem?”

“No,” said Tnailav.

“Good.” I turned back to Valiantina. “Though I am kind of curious why you called the Council of Valiants together if it wasn’t about my thing.”

“Monthly meeting,” she wheezed between Sunset’s hooves.

“Seriously? And you never invite me?” I shook my head. “Nevermind, back on topic, if I never come to these things, why did you have traps laid? How did you know to expect me today?”

“Because my Sunset wanted to do a B&E in your universe,” she wheezed.

I glanced at my Sunset. “Choke that bitch, too.”

Sunset did. See? Bitch is gender-neutral.

“All right, gang,” I said, stepping to the head of the table. I frowned. “Not to make it sound too much like Scooby Doo or anything. Are we a gang?”

Confused muttering went around the room. No one could say for sure. I saw everyone's tape recorders come out to take notes.

“Okay, so we might be a gang. We'll vote later. We can put that off for now to get back to the important thing.” I cleared my throat. “Gabby is the best at everything, and in my universe she’s trying to be the best at everything ever, so that kind of clashes with normal leadership and ethics, if you catch my drift. What are we going to do about her?”

Everyone started tossing ideas out. Unfortunately, I had forgotten that this was effectively talking to myself. All the ideas were ones I’d already had.

“I think the problem is you’re thinking of her as a kittybirb on steroids, rather than a force of nature,” said a version of me with a lisp who for some reason kept referring to Gabby as a kittybirb.

“She is a griffon, who might be on steroids,” I pointed out. “Why should I think of her as a force of nature?”

“Because she can’t be stopped,” he said. “Only planned for and recovered from.”

“Bullshit. I’ve never encountered a problem I couldn’t overcome, up to and including actual forces of nature. Screw you, nature.”

Agreeable mutters went around the room.

“I think you’re forgetting that if you could have solved this problem yourself, you wouldn’t have come to us,” Valiantina wheezed. “Also, I think I’m dying.”

“Big deal.” But I was being sarcastic. It was, in fact, a small deal.

I turned back to the crowd. “Come on, this is us. Somebody's got to have a good out-of-the-box idea.”

“Hey,” said the nerd Valiant. “I think I know why this isn’t working. We’re sober!”

“That’s an excellent point!” I pulled out the tequila.

I don’t remember much after that, but I think I pretty well cemented my status as a developing nice guy. We didn’t come up with a solid plan for Gabby, but I had a couple of things I wanted to try.

I'm pretty sure that whatever happened, Twilight wouldn't be going into that back room for a long, long time.

Sunset and I went back to our own universe later that day. Being drunk, I probably didn’t show the proper emotional reaction to Applejack finding out the truth about her parents when I met her in the street shortly thereafter. Ugh, it looked like I’d have to be sending another gift basket apology. This nice guy shit was really draining.

What were you supposed to put in a fruit basket meant for a farmer who only grew one kind of fruit? Did that mean they only liked that kind, or were severely deprived of every other kind? I instead went with flowers and chocolate. Apparently women like that. Especially when they’re the kind of women who think flowers are good to eat.

I think. I'm not a woman. Bitch.

Fame and Misfortune

The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and Twilight was learning people.

Kids fighting in the street? She learned ‘em good. At least I assume that was the reason she came into the library talking about kids fighting and needing a particular book. Twilight needed the book, that is. Who else would have needed a book?

She came out of the back of the librarywith the old friendship journal. “Ugh, this thing is so much worse than I remember. What could have happened to it?”

She threw a look at me, but I threw it right back. “Don’t look at me. It’s not like I’ve ever touched that thing.”

Twilight sighed. “Okay, good point.” Her expression hardened again. “Though we would have used it more if it hadn’t been for you.”

I shrugged and went back to polishing my snow globes. “Hey, I’m trying to be a nice guy.” I paused, sniffed, and wished I hadn’t because I could smell the book from where I stood. “What the hell?”

“Ugh,” Twilight grimaced, holding it away from her with magic. “I honestly don’t know how it got this bad. I should just make a new copy that’s smell- and dirt-free.”

“Sunset can probably handle that,” I said. “She once helped me make copies of stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Presidential campaign flyers, paper money, manifestos, you know, stuff.”

“Who uses paper money?”

“Never you mind.”

Twilight had pried the book open, revealing all kinds of serious gaffes that I can’t believe we didn’t catch before now. Somebody, not saying who, had crushed an apple inside. Writing was everywhere, but some pages had nothing on them. Rarity used freaking calligraphy, basically making her entries illegible to laymen.

I could read calligraphy because I had an ex who was really into obscure books. There was one called the Nekochromacon or something she was trying to get me to read. It was kind of boring.

Bible came into the room. “What was this about books?”

Twilight showed him the journal and he visibly recoiled. “That poor thing!”

“I think I will go see Sunset,” Twilight decided. “You know, I think I might have her make copies so my friends can each have their own.”

“Mhmm,” I said, back to my snowglobes.

I probably should have had other priorities. Namely, goddamned Gabby griffon. Believe me, it hadn’t slipped my mind. But I think we all knew that was more of a long term problem. If I could just kill her, I would have already, trying to be a nice guy aside.

Bible came over and watched me work. “I really hope that journal is all right. I know it means a lot to a lot of folks.”

I glanced at him. “Like you?”

He shrugged. “Well, not so much anymore. Honestly, here in Equestria it’s kind of a break not being talked about. Well, argued about.”

Those words would turn out to be strangely prophetic. Well, maybe not strangely. Dude was a holy book, after all.

Later in the day, I was called to a meeting in the back room of the Half Pint. The girls had all come together. Sunset was there, showing off her work. Twilight happily presented fresh copies of the journal to everyone.

“Why do I need this?” I asked.

“I thought we all would appreciate the lessons inside,” said Twilight. She threw me a look. “Some of us more than others.”

“I keep telling you, I’m trying to be a nice guy.”

Twilight ignored me and consulted some paperwork she had brought. “In fact, I thought everypony could appreciate the lessons so much that I had a lot of copies made and distributed to bookstores all over the country so that everypony everywhere can read them. They’re selling really well!”

“Are they?” I said. “You just magicked them up, why do you need to put a price on them?”

“It was just a nominal fee,” said Twilight. “I didn’t want anything to keep ponies from reading the journal.”

“Did you at least edit it down?” I said. “There are some things in there that maybe weren’t for public consumption. Like-”

Daring stormed in, holding a copy of the book. She slammed it down on the table. “Why in the world would you tell everypony that I’m real!? I’m so angry I can’t even summon the snark to say ‘Thanks for ruining my life, Rainbow Dash’ sarcastically. I just hate you and never want to see you again. You’d think the Element of Loyalty could keep a secret.”

She stormed out.

I could have done a slow clap, because unlike Daring I was totally capable of sarcasm, but I figured Rainbow’s hero telling her to go screw herself was good enough.

“-things like that,” I finished.

“Yeah,” said Pinkie. “Now everypony thinks I’m boning Fluttershy.”

“Aside from the fact that you used to and don’t actually have a boner, isn’t that what you want?” I said.

“But she broke up with me last week and the book wasn’t updated before it was printed! Now no one will know that I’m totally a free agent! Not that I want to be alone because Fluttershy was always a great lay, and…” Pinkie sniffed and then started bawling. She tried to come across the table. “Take me back, baby!”

Fluttershy didn’t explicitly say no, because she’d used up all her assertiveness just break the unhealthy relationship off, but cringed back and hid behind her mane.

It was kind of uncomfortable and I decided to leave. I’d have to re-read the journal and figure out what kind of things it said about me. Lord knows I deal with enough crazies already. A nationwide best-seller had the potential to totally ruin my day, bringing all kinds of people out of the woodwork.

Fortunately, it seemed like the girls had written about me in such a batshit insane manner that nobody actually believed I was real.

For thinking it was a work of fiction, though, the whole country sure was up in arms about the book. We had fans, critics, and everyone in between showing up in Ponyville. Some of them wanted autographs in their mint-condition first-edition genuine authentic friendship journals that they had never read because that would wrinkle the spine. Some wanted to see the places involved like some sort of way less macabre version of going to Dealey Plaza in Dallas to see how the Kennedy assassination went down.

If the rifle was in my hands, I would have done it from the grassy knoll, for the record.

Most of the fans pouring into town seemed to think I was a cosplayer. Those that tried to take my picture found out the hard way that was not the case because I broke their cameras. But they had no proof that I was the real deal because I broke their cameras.

I eventually got tired of putting up with it, though, and had to get out of town.

Tin Mare still wasn’t back together. The airframe was kind of there. I’d refurb’d one engine. With a couple hacks, that was enough to get it airborne under manual control.

Tin Mare’s CPU was currently employed playing Doom and acting as a backup AI imagery processing unit. She stopped legions of demons from Hell, and also played video games. She had to do something, being otherwise down for the count.

I still had to get her back together. Certain upgrades were in the works. Every time I thought I was ready to put things back in place, I’d think of something else. I couldn’t afford to send her back out against Gabby if she wasn’t at her very best.

With what I could scavenge of the airframe, I sat down in the cockpit and set off, flying out to the Rarity. It had been a while since I’d visited.

She was loathe to hear that the friendship journal had been published. “That was private!”

“Well, as long as you didn’t write about too many privates.”

Rarity didn’t reply in a way that was kind of a reply in itself.

“Anyway,” I said, “I should probably get going. I have stuff to do. Applejack’s probably freaking out about being popular. Rainbow’s probably going to do something stupid because she’s getting all the attention she ever wanted. Fluttershy’s probably curled into a pity ball so tight she’s started doing nuclear fusion at her innermost atoms. Twilight might level half a city block through sheer neuroticism. Pinkie’s either found a new girlfriend or turned into an axe murderer.”

“I’ll just sit here, then,” said Rarity. “If you see Princess Luna, ask her to adjust the moon a bit this evening. I’m feeling fat on the other side of the planet.”

I chuckled. “Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. Celestia’s missing, got Sunset to replace her, and Sunset got Maud to replace her.”

“What!? Where could Celestia be? And how is Maud running the sun?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t know. I’m guessing on vacation, and good question.”

“If Maud’s learned how to move the sun, maybe she’s figured out how to distill me?” Rarity said, hopefully.

“I’ll ask, but don’t hold your breath. You know Maud doesn’t really do liquids.”

“Well, it’s not like I can be a solid,” she grumped.

“What about icebergs? You can’t do that? You’re not a very good ocean, then.”

“How many oceans do you know!? And anyway, I can’t be ice. I’m too salty.”

“Glad we agree on that.”

I left. Rarity was in one of her moods. On the way back, the VTOL kept acting up. Having only one engine, perhaps half the control surfaces, and no advanced AI to hold it together really made things more difficult.

Maybe I should have taken the train, but the only one that would have gotten there was the farmers’ market train that had too many carloads of grapes.

I arrived back in Ponyville to discover that my predictions had been mostly correct.

Applejack was freaking out about being popular. Rainbow’s ego was swelling again because she was getting all the attention she ever wanted. Twilight’s mane had started to fray and she looked like she might level half a city block through sheer neuroticism. Fluttershy had gone nuclear, in a safe, contained sort of way that produced nigh-unlimited electricity.

Pinkie had neither found a new girlfriend nor turned into an axe murderer. In fact, she just moped. Not in the pitiful kind of way, the uncomfortable for everyone else kind of way. I wasn’t sure if it was a ploy to get Fluttershy to take pity on her, genuine despair, or both.

Fluttershy was too busy being the new town electric generator to do anything about it, though.

“Huh, free power was what I was I was going for when I built the Ponyville Industrial Nuclear Powerplant,” I said. “That never got going, for reasons. But I guess that makes you the new PINP.”

“I wish I didn’t have to stand here like this,” said Fluttershy. “But the electric cords don’t reach very far. I guess I like being helpful, though.”

“Are you okay with the, uh…” I gestured.

Fluttershy blushed, but said, “After being with Pinkie, I’m used to having things plugged in there. I just wish I wasn’t here in the town square in front of everypony.”

“I can build you a shed or something.”

“Please.”

I went to get the building materials. I could build a shed in my sleep, so my mind turned to other things. Gabby, of course.

I had a lot of ideas about what I could do about her. I could, despite Twilight’s protests, invite another concert of people I didn’t like to bait her. Hmm, what if I tried throwing a concert for her? Would she kill them then? No, probably better not risk not killing people I did not like.

There were a couple of magical artifacts around that I should look into to get more power. I wasn’t an alicorn anymore, but I knew a thing or two about power levels. I just had to build a scouter to make sure mine was higher than hers.

I could maybe work on getting my employment transferred to the Beatles’ soul credit union. That might be tricky, if Gabby was in the habit of killing bands.

Maybe I could try psychological warfare. Everyone had something that annoyed them. If I do say so myself, I was pretty good at finding that thing and exploiting the shit out of it.

I decided to dig into my bag of toys to see what I could come up with.

Triple Threat

In my efforts to kill Gabby, I had started to look for allies all over. Ember the dragon was at least the biggest potential ally I could hope for.

At least, if she wasn’t still doing her I’m-depressed-because-I’m-in-an-involuntary-symbiote-relationship thing.

Still, I could maybe send her an invitation anyway. I had to invite a lot of people to my Gabby Assassination Summit. I would have picked a different acronym, but there’s only so much you can do with a G.

I figured I should pull in Thorax. Changelings might know something about how to pull off covert stuff. Plus, the other half of the ambiguously gay duo, Sunburst, might be of help. He wasn’t as good of a magical scholar as Twilight, but he at least was willing to do magical scholarly things for me, unlike Twilight.

Spike, however, was a little unsure about the plan when I presented it to him at the library. “If the biggest dragon and the most senior remaining changeling don’t like each other, they could get into a fight. I know them both pretty well, but I can’t recommend this, Valiant! Otherwise, I would be the one responsible for a war between species that could ruin Equestria as we know it!”

I patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay. You could do worse. I did.”

Twilight was standing nearby and gave me a dirty look. Brushing it off, I headed over to the Half Pint.

Thorax and Sunbust were already there. I wasn’t sure if Ember was going to show up. I knew she had some mobility problems being the tiny dragon partially eaten by a larger but braindead dragon.

Ember didn’t show, leaving me with just Thorax and Sunburst.

“So there’s this griffon. Her name is Gabby. She’s good at everything,” I explained to them. “And she’s going to take over the universe if we don’t stop her.”

“If she’s good at everything, is that bad for us?” Sunburst asked.

“It also means she’s good at things like enslavement and genocide,” I pointed out.

“Well, what do you expect us to do?” said Thorax. “I’m only in charge of what changelings remain because Chrysalis is gone because you killed her, and if you’re worried that Gabby is better than you, and you’re better than Chrysalis, and she was better than me, I don’t think I’ll really be able to help.”

I could see his logic, meandering as it was. However, before I could reply, a scroll popped in. I opened it and read it aloud. “Valiant, can’t make it. I wouldn’t want to come to Ponyville anyway. I had enough of bright colors and flammable substances the last time. Ember.”

“That’s...kind of a weird way to describe a town,” Sunburst commented.

“She’s used to rocks and ash. She’s a dragon; that’s probably why.”

Thorax shrugged. “I never got along very well with dragons. They’re kind of mean and territorial, even though their territory is just, well, rocks and ash.”

“That’s probably why.”

We talked a little more, but didn’t make much progress. I should have called a bigger group to deal with Gabby. I should have called people I knew might actually be able to help.

I wondered if we could put together some kind of elite fighting unit. Like maybe some kind of muscle bro force: Bulk Biceps, Whoa Nelly, all the Apples.

Eh. That would require training and stuff. That sounded like work.

You know, the really amazing thing about this whole situation was how my standards changed as I became more desperate. I was at least self-aware enough to see that. Currently, I would happily murder Gabby if given the opportunity, but was still putting a couple of things off because they sounded tedious.

Searching for rare magical artifacts sounded more fun. Unfortunately, now that Daring had been outed as a real person, acquiring those things got a little harder.

I dug out my list of possible stuff to get. There was a medallion that Tirek had given Discord. There was the rock Maud had mentioned that you could use to rule all of Equestria.

It was, uh, a short list. I was still working on it.

I left Thorax and Sunburst, exiting the pub. I passed by Fluttershy standing in her shed in the town square and generating electricity. Hmm, there was an idea. Maybe I could challenge Gabby to be the best at replacing Fluttershy. I’d have to be careful how I worded the request, though, or she might just build a proper power plant. Maybe something along the lines of “I bet you’re not the best at being a sad battery, and doing it forever.”

Maybe Fluttershy wouldn’t be so sad if Pinkie wasn’t still trying to hook up.

“I swear I’ll do it!” Pinkie threatened, holding a banana cream pie over her head as she stood outside the shed.

“That’s not really a threat, is it?” I said.

Fluttershy stood by quietly. She’d apparently managed to convince Pinkie that being a nuclear power plant also made her deaf. Pinkie, not being in the best state of mind right now, bought it.

“I know she can see me,” said Pinkie, still holding the pie and pointing it at her own face. “I swear to Valiant’s God I’ll do it, Fluttershy!”

That was a pretty serious swear. I became slightly concerned. “There’s no need to do anything drastic. Are you going to eat that?”

Pinkie ignored me. Well fine, I would go get my own banana cream pie.

I went back to my place. Sunset was hard at work on something. “There you are. I have an idea and I need help. We’ll need to go to the Rarity.”

Sounded good to me. The two of us and a body loaded up in the aircraft. Tin Mare’s processor was still out of it, so I had to fly manually again.

“What’s with the stiff?” I asked, gesturing to the corpse Sunset had brought along.

“I think I’ve developed a new process for reanimation, but it’ll probably only work for this one individual.”

I decided not to ask. I wasn’t in the mood for advanced magical shit at the moment.

Upon reaching Rarity, we unloaded. Sunset took her body and went off to do whatever she was going to do.

“What’s new?” I asked, walking over to the shore.

“Nothing,” said Rarity. “I’m the ocean.”

“Fair enough.”

“I did have an idea about what to do about Gabby, though,” she said. “What about calling for help? That seems to have worked well for you in the past.”

“Maybe,” I admitted.

Sunset returned just then, lugging the body. “I’ve got all the magic set up and ready to go. Now for the final ingredient: a ton of salt.”

She dunked the body in the ocean like a baptism, and said, “The guy who invented alicorn Twilight, you are recalled to life!”

I was too surprised to speak. I couldn’t believe we still had this guy’s body. Moreover, I’d locked out my exes and the dev team behind this world. Apparently, Sunset had found a loophole.

He sat up in the water, groaning and holding his head. Twilight had borrowed one of my guns and shot him in the face, as I recalled.

“Wow, if this guy has anything useful to say, we could have used him last week,” I said.

He looked around. “Is this Hell?”

“Depends on what you tell us,” I said. “We have a little problem. One of the NPCs is getting uppity. We’re looking for a permanent solution, if you catch my drift.”

“Trolling,” he said. “They hate that.”

“Well shit, why didn’t I think of that?” I said. “Some sarcasm intended, but still, my statement stands.”

“Good, now can I-”

Sunset pulled the Desert Eagle out of my holster and blew out his brains.

“Ew!” cried Rarity. “That’s my water you’re tainting!”

“Big deal. Fish shit in you all day every day,” I said.

“You’re always such a pragmatist,” she grumbled.

“Thank you. Since you’re here, any idea how I should go about trolling the shit out of Gabby?”

“Well, if you’ve just called up one inter-universal contact, why not another?” she said.

“Did you have anyone in mind?”

“What about your friend, that Weird Alfred?”

“Not a bad idea, but we need someone weirder. Someone more confrontational, more controversial. This is not simply a problem we can laugh away. We need advanced trolling.” I shook my head. “It’s probably moot.”

“What is?”

“You mean who.”

Sunset looked at me. “You’re not thinking…”

I sighed. “I’ve done a lot of things, but I’ve never done that. But I might have to.”

I sighed again, longer. “We’d better get going. I’m going to need to be drunk for this, if only so I won’t remember it later.”

We went back to Ponyville. Sunset set up the summoning spell. I started drinking.

A couple hours later, I walked into the town square. I was having a hard time walking in a straight line. Twilight saw me and came over. “Valiant, are you drunk?”

“Ye.”

She cocked her head. “You now, it is really weird, I usually can’t tell. I guess you must really be in the bottle today.”

“Ye.”

“What’s going on?”

“Buildin’ a hate machine.”

That got her attention and she quickened her pace to catch up with me. “Excuse me?”

I decided not to explain. It would be pretty clear soon.

We walked into the town square, where Sunset had been busy setting up the spell. She held a piece of chalk and turned as we approached. “It’s ready.”

I nodded. I put down my half-empty bottle of tequila and a can of shoe polish. I took a breath. “Do it.”

Sunset made the last mark and the spell came to life. I shouted, “Christopher Poole, I summon thee!”

It was moot.

Or it would have been, had I not gotten his answering machine.

“I’m out right now, so leave a message after the beep.”

There was a beep, and I started to say, “Mr. Poole, I need-”

“We’re no strangers to love. You know the rules, and so do I.”

I swore.

“What do you need?” he said, cutting off the music. I could hear the grin in his voice.

“I need the best troll you’ve got,” I said.

“You’re gonna have to be more specific,” he said. “Trolling is a art.”

“An art,” said Twilight.

I shot her a glare before going back to the conversation. “The best troll you’ve got. You know who I mean.”

There was a long pause. When he spoke again, the mirth had gone out of his voice. “You don’t know what powers you aim to control.”

“I wouldn't be asking if it weren’t an emergency.”

“Well, if you’re sure, I’ll make contact for you. But you know how this works. Summonings come at a price.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”

“My usual fee,” he said smugly.

I closed my eyes for a moment. I should have been even drunker, I realized. I picked up the can of shoe polish and spread a thin patch of it between my nose and upper lip. I raised a hoof. “Die Juden sind unser Unglück!”

“There it is,” he said cheerfully. “All right, you got it.”

There was a click, as if a call had been transferred. Modem sounds began.

“What happens now?” Twilight asked, worriedly.

“We’re all going to Hell,” I muttered, taking a swig of tequila. I had an uneasy feeling that you don’t know what powers you aim to control would turn out to be too real a prediction.

The modem noises continued. I shifted where I sat, mentally preparing for what came next. Sunset gave me a supportive look. I appreciated it.

We kept hearing the screech of the modem. I checked my watch. It had been like three minutes now. God, this was annoy-

I shook my head. Save it for when it mattered.

Suddenly, a female voice spoke up. I could practically hear the eyeliner in her voice. “Hi, my name is Boxxy.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m calling you because-”

“So, um, I don’t like do these things that often or like at all, so, um, yeah, if you could just take a step back and totally not make things like that-”

I broke in. I had to, or we wouldn’t get anywhere. “Sorry to contact you out of the blue like this, but we have a serious problem in this universe and I hope I could-

“Um, so, yeah, I really like my own universe, and yeah, it’s not like yours because of all the stuff and the things, and, um you’ve got stuff-”

I tried to speed up my words to cram in more before I got interrupted again. “Stuff like Gabby griffon who will end this universe if she gets a chance and I need-”

“It’s like, I totally don’t do wars and stuff because, um, like, it’s bad, and, so yeah, so, yeah, so, um, yeah.”

“But I only need you to do what you do and make her-”

“But you see, it’s like, um, complicated and stuff, and I don’t do just everything, so yeah, and um-”

“Listen! I need your help to save countless lives and this whole universe! All you have to do-

“Do you like kittens? They’re, like, so fluffy and Oh! I could just squee they’re just so, yeah, and it’s Caturday-”

“Stop it! Listen to me! I need-”

“But, um, that’s totally your problem, so like, yeah. Kthxbai!”

Click.

I slammed my hoof into the pavement so hard I cracked four cobblestones.

“Ffffffffffourchan,” I hissed. I could practically feel the blood standing out in veins on my temples.

Seemingly unrelated, I heard a splat somewhere nearby. Even with teeth still clenched in rage, I decided it would be a good idea to at least see what that was all about.

I looked across the town square. Pinkie was lying on the ground near the shed.

“She self-pied!” someone shrieked.

Twilight hurried over, Sunset and I just behind her. The scene immediately took my mind off what had just happened. Pinkie lay where she had fallen. The pie pan rested beside her. There was so much blood.

I knelt. Pinkie’s eyes flicked briefly. I could just barely see a sliver of her eyes between the lids.

“Valiant…” she whispered.

“What is it?” I leaned close.

“What’s that thing on your lip?”

I hastily wiped at the shoe polish. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Compared to the state Pinkie was in, it really was nothing. A crowd had already gathered.

The ambulance showed up. We let them take Pinkie. She needed it.

Twilight looked shocked, too surprised to even ask questions, which for Twilight was pretty damn surprised.

“Is she going to be all right?” said Fluttershy hesitantly.

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But you’d better be prepared for the possibility that she is.”

I looked across the town square again. A sudden melancholy overtook me. There was nothing left in the tequila bottle. My latest attempt at stopping Gabby had failed. Pinkie had been driven to do whatever it was that she had done.

I sighed. “I don’t know if it’s worth it anymore.”

“What is?” said Twilight.

“It. All of it. This universe. Maybe I should just cut my losses and find another one.”

“And just leave us to deal with Gabby without you?” she said.

“Yeah. Then it wouldn’t be my problem.”

She grabbed my shoulder and turned me. “Don’t even think about it! You’ve built too much here! And that’s not even considering the rest of us. You’re trying to be a nice guy? Then you owe it to us. Anything else would be dereliction of duty.”

“I’d vote for that,” I said.

She glared at me. “Don’t cheapen the moment making a pun out of ‘dereliction.’ I know you know what it means.”

“You know I know that it annoys you.”

“I thought you were trying to be a nice guy.”

“Malaprop is hardly the worst thing I’ve ever done to you.”

Twilight sighed deeply, in the you’re-right-and-also-an-asshole,-Valiant kind of way that she had perfected. “At least take off that ridiculous fake mustache.”

I stamped my hoof. “I didn’t even put it on voluntarily! I would have had it off immediately, but shit just kept happening between then and now!”

I grumbled and headed back for my place, head down and hooves moving quickly.

This had not been a good day. On the scale from “good” to “forced to dress like Hitler,” well, I think you can guess what kind of day it had been.

Campfire Tales

“So yeah, Pinkie propositioned Rainbow and everyone is freaking out.”

“Why did you call the Council of Valiants here to talk about this?” sighed Valiantina. We all sat around the table in the back room of the library in her universe.

“Because it’s hilarious and if I know you, and I do because you’re me, you’ll get a kick out of it.”

She pushed her tequila glass forward. “Fine, but give me another shot first.”

I topped up her and everyone else in the room and then began telling the story.

After her little episode, Pinkie had gone to the hospital. Her little episode being threatening to pie herself if Fluttershy didn’t take her back.

Well, only Pinkie could pie herself and damn near blow her brains out. She was going to need some hospital time.

It seemed like we should go visit her. I mean, annoying as she was, she was kind of a member of my crew. Plus, this whole trying to be a nice guy thing I was doing kind of required it.

I went with Twilight and the others. Pinkie wasn’t looking too good. She was mostly wrapped in bandages, was on oxygen, and her mane hung like limp spaghetti, but she was awake and recognized us. Fluttershy, of course, wasn’t there because she had an electrical cord stuck up her ass in the town square. Plus being Pinkie’s ex. Rarity wasn't there because her ocean thing.

“Are you feeling okay?” said Twilight.

“The broken heart hurts the most,” Pinkie whispered.

Twilight looked uncomfortable, as if she was glad that Pinkie was no longer engaging in frequent, lewdly public sex with a reluctant Fluttershy, but was too nice to say so and kind of sad that it took such egregious self-harm to finally get it to stop.

“I...I never told anypony this, but I was too scared to see it through,” said Pinkie. “I could have chosen pecan pie, and it would have hit me like shrapnel. I was a coward, too scared to risk everything for Fluttershy.”

“Not taking your own life isn’t cowardly!” Twilight was quick to point out. “Look Pinkie, hurting yourself over a relationship is a terrible idea in general. I get that you feel strongly and love is one of the most powerful forces out there, but don’t forget to love yourself and remember that your friends love you.”

“But the sex was good, though,” said Pinkie.

Rainbow laughed. “Wow, you always know just what to say. Always a laugh, with you, Pinkie.”

Twilight glared at her.

“Rainbow Dash, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Pinkie whispered.

“What is it?” Rainbow asked, leaning closer.

“Wanna do the sex?”

Rainbow jerked back. “Uh, Pinkie, you know I’m your friend and we’ve pulled a lot of pranks together, but I don’t know if that’s exactly-”

“You’d do Daring Do if she asked, right?”

Rainbow’s face twisted, but she said, “Totally.”

“What if I wore the hat?”

“Okay, as Daring Do is basically my daughter-in-law, I’m going to put a stop to this right now,” I said. “Rainbow already ruined Daring’s life enough. Screwing a proxy would only make it worse.”

“I had to try,” said Pinkie. “If you’re going to make an omelette, you have to break a few cherries.”

“Rainbow’s already had a foal, so presumably that’s already happened,” Twilight pointed out. “Also, ew.”

“How about you, Applejack?” said Pinkie.

“No.”

“Not even a meat puppet?”

“You know full well that I can see what they see,” said Applejack. “At best that would only make it assisted masturbation rather than full on sex. And either way, I’m agreeing Twilight on this: ew.”

I raised a hoof. “Yeah, for the record, I’m going to go with that, too.”

“Three ews,” said Pinkie, contemplatively, stroking her oxygen mask because it covered where she would normally stroke her chin. “That’s a new personal record. I think I’ll throw myself a party.”

She pulled out a cake, complete with candles. There was a vagina depicted in the icing.

“You have fun with that,” said Twilight hurriedly. “I just remembered some library things I have to do.”

The rest of us muttered similar excuses and headed for the door.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Pinkie turn a crowd so fast,” muttered Applejack. “Amazing, considering her condition right now.”

I glanced back. “Somebody call 911; she’s on fire,” I said.

Outside, we kicked around for something to do. Twilight really did have library stuff. Applejack suddenly remembered, “It’s time for the annual big-sister-little-sister camping trip.”

“Kind of hard without Rarity,” I pointed out.

“What about Trixie and Cordoba?” Applejack asked.

“Not a good time,” I said curtly.

“Well, could you at least fill in for Rarity like you did during the Hearth’s Warming play?” said Applejack. “You don’t even have to play Princess Platinum this time, just be Sweetie Belle’s big sister.”

I reluctantly accepted. That was better.

So we went camping.

“Wait,” said Valiantina. “I thought this story was about Pinkie getting with Rainbow.”

“Almost,” I said. “I’m not there yet.”

“If you were going to tell this long-winded story, you could have at least invited us to your place. Don’t you have that really good pub?”

“We can’t go to my dimension. That’s where Gabby is.”

“Why aren’t you hunting for her instead of being here telling us this supposed-to-be-funny story?”

“Because this affects that. Like I said, I’m not there yet.”

We went for a long hike towards Winsome Falls. We planned to set up tents somewhere along the way. The first night, however, sucked a big one.

Little bugs called fly-ders started chewing on us worse than mosquitoes. I mean, I set up the flamethrowers, but a couple got through.

We sat around the fire, with other fires sitting around us. Sweetie Belle looked around, the burning napalm glinting in her eyes and the roar of jetting pyres shooting skyward echoing in her ears. “I don’t think I could get to sleep like this.”

Guinness looked like he agreed with her. “I don’t even have ‘Nam flashbacks, but I think this might be triggering some.”

“Why are you here, anyway?” I asked him.

“I thought it would be a good opportunity to spend quality time with Rainbow,” he said. “Plus, I guess if she’s adopted Scootaloo as an honorary little sister, that makes me her honorary uncle or something. Plus, I thought it would be good for Skyla to get out and have some fun on a camping trip.”

“Yay!” said Skyla.

I looked around. “So...where’s Rainbow?”

She came zooming back in from the darkness, covered in bug bites. “Valiant, your stupid pyrotechnics only attracted more of these stupid things!”

“I’m mildly surprised that you know that word. But also, yeah, that was kind of the point, so they would be lured in here and get roasted. It’s the circle of life, except for them it’s kind of a brick wall.” I frowned. “Okay, bad analogy for a wall that circles us that is actually made of pure fire, but you get my meaning.”

“I just wish we could go to sleep,” said Apple Bloom.

“We could maybe tell some stories to pass the time,” suggested Applejack.

“You want stories? I've got a ton of stories!” said Rainbow. “Spoiler alert: they're all about me and how awesome I am!”

That put me to sleep.

In the morning, the fly-ders had gone and we made it to Winsome Falls. Not much to say other than I’d seen it before.

Late that day, we made it back to Ponyville. Rainbow had been unusually quiet the whole way. I was suspicious, because a quiet Rainbow usually preceded her making an unusually bad decision, but I enjoyed the silence while it lasted.

We were almost back to the library, when I heard her quietly ask Guinness, “What would you think about an open relationship?”

“Huh?” he said, the question catching him totally off guard.

Twilight came out of the library to greet us, though she quickly realized what she’d walked into.

“Hear me out,” said Rainbow. “Pinkie wants to have sex with me.”

“I, uh,” Guinness fumbled. “I’m kind of against this. We’re married.”

“Wait, are you seriously considering what Pinkie said?” Twilight broke in. “You saw how Fluttershy came out of it.”

“I guess it wouldn’t be that bad,” defended Rainbow. “You know how well I get along with Pinkie. I bet she would be okay with me being me rather than Guinness always trying to stop me from being awesome.”

“I usually try to stop you from doing something incredibly foolhardy to keep you home and spending time with our family,” Guinness pointed out. He gestured to Skyla, who was sitting on his back and happily playing with his mane.

“That’s not even my kid,” said Rainbow.

“You know, you’re right, said Guinness. “Skyla is way better than the hellspawn that we had biologically and you still don’t care about her.”

“We had a kid?”

“You were there!” Guinness shouted.

“To be fair, that was pretty traumatic when Valiant murdered your child,” Twilight broke in, shooting me an unkind look.

“I needed a demon sacrifice,” I said, shrugging. “It was kind of an emergency. You were there.”

“I have to say, that was a pretty messed up thing to do,” said Valiantina.

“What, killing a demon?”

“Killing a demon, who was inside the body of a child, and doing it in front of the child's mother and everyone. I’m not saying it wasn’t an effective, but you really could use a little bit of tact.”

The others around the table murmured in agreement.

I spread my hooves. “I keep telling you, I've changed and I’m trying to be a nice guy now.”

Trying to be a nice guy, I quietly disengaged from the argument brewing in the street.

I headed back to my place. On the way, I saw Bakey Pie working in Sugarcube Corner, filling in for Pinkie. I frowned. Who had let her out of the basement?

Also, had Celebrity been functioning in Rarity’s stead while Rarity was the ocean? I took a little detour to see if I could find her.

Sure enough, the second member of the B-Team was handling the fanciness and freaking out that Rarity would normally do herself. Now if I could only get Rainbow Dash disposed of and get Reading Rainbow in her place. I paused in thought. Maybe there was something to that. Morning Matte probably wouldn’t judge me as hard at Twilight did. The other two didn’t have much use, however. I didn’t really have much use for Appletack since Applejack was generally hyper-competent. Ironically, Shovelshy could only work with Fluttershy if Fluttershy had instead turned out to be a coal-fired power plant. Oh well. It was a nice thought.

I arrived back at my place. Wachowski was working on some film editing when I walked in. I saw on the screen that it had ponies in it, so I didn’t figure it was any movie I wanted to watch.

I did look over her shoulder, though. “Crush the blacks.”

It’s not racist, it’s a color correction term.

And color correction isn’t eugenics, it’s a filmography term.

Wachowski looked at me. “I was just about to crush the blacks, thank you very much.”

“Don’t forget about the white balance, though.”

“Valiant, I think I know a little more about movies than you,” she huffed. “I am a Saturn Award-winning director.”

I laughed.

Venturing further back into the building, I found Daring hard at work in front of her typewriter. She seemed angry about something. Trixie sat across the desk from her, flipping through a few pages of manuscript.

“Working on anything good?” I said. While I used to enjoy Daring’s books, learning they were true, me doing some badass stuff of my own, and explicit sex scenes between Daring and Trixie had kind of turned me off them recently.

“I think you’ll like it, dad,” said Trixie. She smiled briefly. “We’ll have an announcement press conference soon.”

I went to see Tin Mare. We were still working through some airframe issues. She herself had suggested a few things. I was trying to get a little more performance out of her, back to her original fighter jet days, but couldn’t give up the utility that her cargo variant afforded. Maybe I could keep her as the VTOL and do something like give her a little buddy for attacking. Nah, that would way too many AI’s running around.

I discussed the news with her while I worked. We still hadn’t found Gabby. Rainbow and Guinness were fighting.

“Actually, they’ve just broken up,” she said.

“Wait, what!?”

“I recorded this minutes ago.” Her video screen turned on.

“Sunset!” I called. “Come in here, and bring the popcorn!”

Tin Mare put it on the screen and we settled down to watch.

It was pretty great. Rainbow kept being a bitch like a broken record. Guinness kept taking it like a broken rectum. Eventually, he couldn’t take any more.

We witnessed the breakup live and it was glorious. The two of them fought it out and Rainbow left. I swear, I would transcribe it if I thought I could do it justice, but believe me, it was glorious.

Then, I remembered that I was supposed to be a nice guy and should probably go comfort Guinness, the newly single father.

What, you thought Rainbow would want the kid?

I sighed and got up. “I guess I have to go to the pub and stop Guinness from drinking himself to death over what a bitch Rainbow is. After that, though, I’m going to go over to Universe 63 and tell everyone about this because it was amazing.”

I headed off to do just that.

“And it gets better,” I said. “Rainbow thought she was just going to go live a carefree lesbian life, but now that Pinkie’s dead, Rainbow looks pretty stupid for dumping Guinness.”

“Wait, what happened to Pinkie?” Valentina asked.

“She died in a fire, because nobody called 911 when I said to.”

Author's Note

Hey, I probably should have said something earlier, but crazy crazy canon-breaking things like the end of this chapter will start to happen from now until the end of the season. Don't freak out. It'll get fixed. Just enjoy the mayhem.

To Change a Changeling

In my experience, you usually hear the best stories about a person at their funeral. Which is really too bad.

This, however, was Pinkie Pie’s funeral, so I’m sure you can imagine how it went. Of course she’d planned it herself, right down to the rap.

Yes, there was a rap.

Bible looked kind of uncomfortable at the podium, but he read it just as it was printed. Maybe it would have had a bigger impact if there was music and wasn’t being monotoned by a former holy book.

Now this is a story all about how
My life got ended into the ground
And I’d like you to take a minute, just sit right back
And listen to Pinkie’s memorial rap

I grew up on a rock farm, grey and dull
My parents raised me up to be normal
But then I caught teh gay and that was it
I had to go find me a nice mare to lick

It could have been anypony, but I had to choose
And then along here she comes with the cute
I asked and Fluttershy was her name
It was perfect, ‘cause we were gonna bang

Break it down now

S-s-sex with Fluttershy
Sex with Fluttershy
S-s-sex with Fluttershy
Sex with Fluttershy

I quietly vomited in my mouth a little. Will Smith would not be jiggy with this.

Speaking of jiggy, I could see Twilight fidgeting down at the end of the pew. As soon as the services were over and the body was lowered into the ground, she came straight to me. “You have to fix this.”

“What do you want me to do?” I said, loosening my tie.

A look came into Twilight’s eye, the one she usually got before doing something unethical with magic. “We could go back in time and save her.”

I checked my watch. “That window has passed. Your time travel spell is only good for a few days.”

“Then...Sunset knows how to bring ponies back to life, right?”

“I’m not much in the magic side of things, you’d have to ask her,” I said. “But I understand that the process takes a couple of months to do right. Then, you’re kind of left with maybe-a-zombie.”

“What about Sir Win? He deals in souls, right?”

“Yeah, but I get the feeling that Pinkie’s soul is kind of a rare commodity, though. I really doubt he, or whoever has it now, would be willing to give it up so easily.”

“But you have to fix this!” she said, echoing her first statement of the conversation. “The Elements of Harmony are incomplete without Pinkie!”

“Again, what do you want me to do? There’s no easy solution here. We can either do it quick or we can do it almost-right. There’s no guarantee it’ll work, and perversions of nature like reversing death rarely go perfectly.”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Valiant, you know what the stakes are. We need the Elements to work. We can’t risk Equestria going unprotected.”

“I can protect Equestria.”

“What about Gabby?”

“I meant I can handle stuff the Elements could handle.”

“Can you, Valiant? All you want to do these days is work for Santa Claus. Not that I’m condoning what you normally do, but your radical violence has taken a step back. With Gabby in your networks and Tin Mare down, you don’t have the capabilities you used to. I don’t think you can protect Equestria anymore.”

Jeeze, knife to the heart, Twilight. “Just because I’m a nice guy doesn’t mean I’m not also a badass guy.”

Twilight turned away. “Just get Pinkie back.”

I let out a long sigh and turned to Sunset. “Get Pinkie back.”

“Why?” Sunset asked.

“Because Twilight wants her back.”

“Did you tell Twilight that there’s no easy solution and we can either do it quick or we can do it almost-right?”

“Yes.”

Sunset sighed. “Okay, fine, I’ll get started.”

I let her handle that while I went to go find Thorax. I had an idea that I wanted to run by him.

Tin Mare’s airframe was slowly coming back together. I still hadn’t gotten her AI integrated back into it, but I was getting to the point where I could fly it manually without almost dying. I headed for where Thorax and Sunburst lived.

I walked in. “Hey Thorax, I was thinking about something.”

“Thorax isn’t here,” said Thorax.

“I’m looking at you,” I said. “What, did you think your disguise would fool me?”

He changed back from how he’d been disguised as Sunburst. “Yeah, kind of.”

“I mean, you could have picked something else,” said the real Sunburst, who was standing right there.

“Yeah. Plus, you start being him too much and I might start to question just how ambiguously gay you guys are. Anyway-”

I had started to change the subject, but Thorax interrupted me. “Wait, what do you mean? Are you saying that would make us look more or less gay?”

“Which do you want it to be?” I asked. I didn’t care, though, and went back to what I was trying to say earlier. “Anyway, I was wondering if you could use your changeling hiding skills to maybe reverse engineer Gabby’s hiding skills and figure out where she is.”

Yeah, I knew a guy whose disguise I’d just seen right through might not be the best authority, but he was the only changeling I knew.

Conveniently, another changeling walked through the door just then.

“Pharynx, what are you doing here?” Thorax exclaimed.

Pharynx swept his eyes around the room and said, “So that’s what you’re doing, brother? Cohabiting with ponies? I’m ashamed of everything you are and stand for.”

“They have beds that aren’t rocks,” said Thorax. “And everything else that isn’t rocks, either.”

“But that’s the way things should be!” Pharynx stomped his hoof. “We’re changelings and proud to live in the rocks.”

“Did somepony say rocks?” said Maud, coming in just then.

“What are you doing here?” I said. “I thought you had a very important job in Canterlot.”

If, by filling in for the missing Princess Celestia so ponies everywhere wouldn’t freak out, then yes, I thought it was pretty important. Maud said, “There’s a new Princess Celestia in town, so I’m not in town any more.”

“Wait, really? Who is it?”

“Gabby.”

“WHAT!? How could you just let her take over!?”

“I like rocks more than I like being killed. So I left.” Maud shrugged. “She didn’t have the stone that would let you rule all of Equestria if you wanted to, either. She just did it herself.”

“You like rocks too?” Pharynx broke in.

“Yes,” said Maud. “I also brought a friend.”

I heard something big move outside the house and Ember stuck her head in. “I was just saying to Maud that more things should be made of rocks. You ponies could use more fire duels and feats of strength, too.”

I could already see that nothing was going to get done if an impromptu rock convention got started. Trust me, I used to live with a geologist who was also a discerning aesthetics snob.

Plus, I had more important things to do. Now that I knew where Gabby was, I could go gank her.

I mean, she was protected by the Royal Guard and Princess Luna, but seriously, it wasn’t like I hadn’t gotten past them before.

I stopped back by Ponyville to load for bear, just to be on the safe side. I tossed everything into the back of the aircraft: weapons, tequila, literal bear. He wasn’t too happy about it, but Fluttershy was a power plant so I had to handle it myself.

I stuck my head into my building to see if anyone else was up for going to Canterlot. “Anyone? We’re going to do some stuff.”

“Nah,” said Wachowski.

“I’m still helping Daring write her book,” said Trixie.

I knew Sunset was busy, based on the way she came in, dragging Pinkie’s body by the mane. It was dirty, as if she’d just dug it up.

I did make one stop across town to pick up Filthy Rich. He wasn’t in his vigilante Shaq costume, so I got him dressed and we headed for Canterlot.

He did not appreciate being manually dressed and dragged out of his business, but I had shit to do.

We flew to Canterlot. I was figuring I would just fast-rope down through the royal court stained glass windows and go in guns blazing. Whatever Shaq did was up to him.

You may wonder who would pilot the aircraft while I was fast-roping. That was the beauty of such a durable airframe: it didn’t matter. I would just go find wherever it came to rest and get back in when I wanted to leave. Maybe a nice soft house would cushion its fall from the sky.

Oh, shit, I should probably not do that if I was trying to be a nice guy.

So instead I put it down in the courtyard and charged through the front door. I knocked over the Royal Guards there and ran past. They were probably hurt a little, but they knew I didn’t mean them any ill will. We had talked it out once and they understood their place as faceless minions. Nothing personal on my part.

I burst into the royal court and pulled up short, my hooves skidding to a halt. Gabbby was there. Court petitioners were in line waiting to talk to her. The rest of the room was covered in tons of piles of walnuts. I wasn’t sure how many tons. Thirty? Did somebody empty a couple of train cars into the room? There was no other standing room, as the whole place was filled with walnuts.

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to wait your turn in line,” said Gabby, as if she didn’t recognize me and know I was coming to kill her.

“I’m pretty sure you recognize me and know I’m coming to kill you!” I shouted.

“That’s why I took appropriate measures,” she said, gesturing to the walnuts piled everywhere.

I shook my head. “Th-that’s nutrageous!”

While she may have stopped me, fortunately, I had brought a backup plan. The bear.

He came in with blood on his mouth. Oh shit, had I left Shaq alone with him? Totally an accident, not because I was being a dick. It didn’t count if you didn’t mean it. Maybe. I wasn’t very good at this yet.

Anyway, because the bear wasn’t hungry any more, he didn’t really go for Gabby like I wanted and there wasn’t a whole lot I could do about it because I was already starting to get puffy from airborne walnut exposure and had to pull out.

“You can’t hide behind your nuts forever!” I shouted, shaking my hoof as I left. “One little slip up and I’ll penetrate your inner sanctum and give you what you deserve!”

“Wow, and you call my brother ambiguously gay,” said Pharynx, who had arrived just then. I knew it was him, because while he was in disguise, he wore a Hello nametag with his name written on it. Apparently the impromptu rock convention had gotten out of hand.

“How did you get here so fast?” I asked.

“There was an express train,” he said. “It was some kind of farmer’s market, though. They had lots of grapes. Stupid pony things.”

“Yeah, and if you hate stupid pony things, have I got a deal for you,” I said. “Princess Celestia is in there right now and needs to be taken down a peg. She kind of looks like a griffon at the moment, but as an average, timid pony, I’m too embarrassed to ask why. Anyway, why don’t you go in there and do your changeling stuff?”

“Changeling stuff is to attack in swarms,” he said. “Which we can’t do because you killed Chrysalis. I’m not doing anything for you, and I hope you die in a fire.”

I winced.

“What?” he asked.

“Pinkie Pie died in a fire and I just remembered that we’re supposed to be trying to bring her back to life.”

I didn’t question whether he knew who Pinkie Pie was. She got around. Even if she didn’t, Pharynx was a changeling hardliner and absolutely knew the Elements of Harmony.

I left him there and went back to Ponyville.

Sunset was apparently getting pretty well into this necromancy thing. She really could do quick or almost-right.

In this case, the quickest she could get it done was to get Pinkie’s skull. This involved placing her body, which had been buried just a few hours ago, on the table, removing the head, and then removing everything from the head that wasn’t skull. Basically, she just left the brain and eyes on the table with the skin draped over it, along with the rest of the body. Kind of ick. I would have done the same, though. Efficiency is efficiency.

“All right, here we go,” said Sunset. She lit off a spell. Two blue points of magic approximately the same color as Pinkie’s eyes suddenly popped up in the eye sockets of the skull.

“Hey everypony!” said Pinkie’s voice from somewhere. “Wow, I’ve never been a skull before. Could somepony take me over to Twilight’s so she can have a little freakout about the abomination to nature we did?”

Well, I was glad her personality was intact, but doing what she suggested both sounded like work and was inconsistent with me trying to be a nice guy.

Although, Twilight was the one who’d ordered this. Satisfied with that justification, I picked up the skull, was was still a little damp from recently being used in its original purpose. Ick.

As we walked to the library, Pinkie kept talking as if she hadn’t recently died in a fire. As we passed Fluttershy’s shed, Pinkie said, “Can we stop in there so I can have a little time with Fluttershy? I don’t have a tongue anymore, but I do have a boner!”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Oh, come on, Valiant. I really like Fluttershy. I’d put a little slam-slam in her wham-bam, if you know what I mean. You know what I mean, right?”

“Yes. Yes, I caught that single entendre.”

We made it down the street to the library. I opened the door and called, “Twilight! We sinned against nature!”

“Again!?”

Daring Done?

I woke up facedown in the sand. That was a new one. Not waking up facedown outdoors, the sand. Where was I?

I sat up and looked around. Pyramids and shit? Seriously, where was I?

I flagged down the first pony I saw and asked.

“You’re in Somnambula.”

“Where’s that?”

“Southern Equestria.”

Huh. Well, that answered that question. But how did I get here?

I already had good idea for why: blackout drunk. The actual physical transportation part of it was what I didn’t get.

I wandered into town. The red and white furry Santa coat I wore was a bad choice for the heat. Wachowski never wore her own uniform. Casual observers might say she was smarter than me. But I had my reasons.

To my surprise, I found a large booth set up and selling books. The banner over it read A.K. Yearling’s last book.

A lot of ponies had gotten word that A.K. Yearling was none other than Daring Do. That had been Rainbow Dash’s writing in the friendship journal.

Glancing at the title of the books on sale, I burst out laughing. This was the greatest revenge ever. It was titled You Gave Birth to the Antichrist, Rainbow Dash. I promptly bought a copy.

I’d used to read Daring Do books all the time They weren’t bad, and I’d gotten familiar with her writing style. I’d quit when she’d started explicitly describing sex with Trixie. While I think she was just bragging, I didn’t want to read that.

Daring was still a decent writer, though, and her documentary on Rainbow’s former foal, Catcher, was brilliant. I loved every second, especially the parts with me in it.

When I finished reading it, though, I realized it was dark and I was still stuck in the middle of the desert. Damnit, why couldn’t I have been stuck in the middle of the dessert?

Speaking of food, I spotted a familiar-looking farmers’ market train. Figuring it would end up in Ponyville eventually, I hopped aboard and settled down with the grapes to ride back.

When I arrived back in Ponyville, I was drunk again.

Apparently, my talents with blue agave sort of applied to other things, too. I was like Jesus, except I could turn grapes into wine.

Too bad. I didn’t like wine.

I stumbled away from the train and somehow found my way to Sweet Apple Acres. I then somehow found my way to Applejack’s bedroom and took one of her hats. She had like twenty of them, all identical.

With something to keep bright light out of my eyes, I made my way back to Ponyville.

“Wow, you look good in that hat,” said some pony. I didn’t see who it was because I was drunk.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had ever given me a fashion-based complement. Hell, I couldn’t remember the last time anyone had given me any compliment.

I thought about tracking down Rainbow and making fun of her. But nah, I needed to put together some really good material. Maybe I could even drive her over the edge.

As goddamned tempting as that was, I remembered I was supposed to be being a nice guy. Guh.

Stumbling into my place, I saw Daring and gave her a hoof bump. Nice job, kid.

I wondered if A.K. was going to be a-OK. She seemed bittersweet about it. For one, her cover was blown so there wasn’t much point passing her books off as fiction anymore and who would read an autobiography in that many volumes?

I supposed she’d settle down with Trixie or something.

Shit. Was I going to be a grandfather?

I was distracted from that line of thinking by Pinkie. Or rather, her skull with her mind inside. It sat on the table and was attempting to give Wachowski ideas for plot twists in her screenplay.

Wachowski was ignoring her, because I’m sure you can imagine the kind of things Pinkie was suggesting.

“Okay, so what if the leading lady protagonist was actually a secret lesbian?”

“No.”

“What if she was actually two secret lesbians?”

How would that even work? Like stacked-up-kids-in-a-trenchcoat-trying-to-get-into-the-movie-theater-except-lesbians?

To completely avoid that question because I didn’t want to know, I grabbed up Pinkie’s skull and took her outside. “Hey Pinkie, what the hell am I supposed to do if Trixie and Daring have a kid?”

“How’s that supposed to work?” she said.

“How do you of all people not know how babies are made?” I said. “With all the sex you have.”

“Sex makes babies!?”

I guess Pinkie wouldn’t know, considering the kind of sex she was into.

“Hey Valiant, can you do me a favor?” Pinkie suddenly asked.

“What?”

“Can you wear the skin of my face?”

I stared at her. It was the I-hope-I-misheard-that-but-oh-God-I-probably-didn’t look.

“So it’s like I’m not dead,” she went on.

I switched to the sure-let’s-just-horrify-everyone-for-no-particular-reason expression. Sarcasm dripped.

Then I remembered Pinkie didn’t get sarcasm, and said aloud, “No.” I prayed Sunset had gotten rid of it.

The mental image, though, was so strong that I needed a drink or ten to wash it away. After leaving Pinkie’s skull back with Wachowski, I went to get drunk.

While drinking, I had an idea and got up. I was developing a plan. A drunk plan, but is that any different than usual?

We were still working on getting Tin Mare integrated back into her airframe. The computers were in, but not connected. At best, she could talk to me as I flew.

But she didn’t, because she knew how much I hate backseat driving. Sometimes I really like Tin Mare. I should, I built her that way.

We arrived at the Rarity and I hopped out. “Hey Rarity, you remember when I asked you to hang on to that Trident for me?”

“What are you wearing?” she demanded. “That hat looks even worse on you than it does on Applejack.”

“I always kind of liked the idea of the cowboy image.”

“Aren’t you from...a city in Wisconsin, wasn’t it?”

“I said the cowboy image. Applejack isn’t a cowboy either.”

Rarity sighed and did the ocean equivalent of an eye roll. “Just take it and go.”

Tin Mare and I got the Trident picked up. “What are you planning on doing with this?” she asked as we flew back.

“I think you know. I just have to get a few more things in place.”

When we got back to Ponyville, Guinness saw me coming and already had a tequila waiting. Good man. I sat down at the bar and took the first sip.

“If it’s any consolation, Rainbow’s on the naughty list,” I said. After saying it, I kind of wondered if it was appropriate. Dude had just broken up with his wife.

But Guinness sighed. “I hate to let her go, but…” He looked like he wanted to say something else, but couldn’t find the words.

“At least you’ll have more time with Skyla,” I said. “How do you like going from 95% to 100?”

“Well, I was thinking about talking to Bible and get her started on some studies. I’m not bound and determined that she’ll be raised Catholic, but I would at least like her to have a baseline understanding so she can make her own choice.”

He paused for a moment. “Hey, you’re in good with Santa Claus, right? It would be really cool for her to sit on the actual Santa’s lap around Christmas time.”

“Um…” I pushed the hat I’d borrowed from Applejack back. Now that I had some tequila in me and had gotten lucid again, I realized just how horribly it clashed with my Santa-pimp coat. “Well, the thing about that is, he might be closer than you think.”

Guinness read my expression and glanced at the coat. “Wait, you’re not saying…”

“Yeah, I sort of killed him.”

Guinness shook his head. “What!? That was not what I was going to say at all!”

“It’s Tim Allen rules: you kill him, you become him.”

“Why would you want to become Tim Allen?”

I shuddered. “Thank God I didn’t. Honestly, if I had stopped to consider that beforehand, I probably wouldn’t have risked it.”

“Wait, go back, so you’re Santa Claus now?”

“Yup, even got the coat to prove it. It was a strategic decision based on needing power. Unfortunately, I did it in the summer, when nobody is thinking about him, so that power is currently on a wane and I’ve got nothing. I mean, an unlimited bag of toys is nice, but that’s about it. That’s also part of the reason I haven’t been pursuing Gabby as hard as I could: I’m waiting for winter.”

“But Christmas season starts right after Halloween,” Guinness pointed out. “It comes earlier every year.”

I cocked my head. “That’s true, much as I hate out-of-control consumerism. It’s still months away, though.”

“So, does Wachowski know?”

I grinned. “Nope.”

Guinness frowned. “But why wouldn’t you tell her? I know you two don’t get along. Maybe she would respond differently if she wasn’t constantly threatening to report you to Santa.”

“Because I’m trying to be a nice guy.”

He threw up his hooves. “You killed Santa Claus!”

“That was one thing, and a while ago. I’ve turned over a new leaf, I’m not actively a dick anymore, and I’m trying to make the world a better place. I am Santa Claus, after all, bringing toys to all the good girls and boys. That’s actally one aspect of Earth that’s much nicer than Equestria: In the story of Hearthswarming, ghosts will freeze you to death in an apocalyptic blizzard if you aren’t nice to each other. Santa Claus only brings you coal if you’re bad.”

I raised my head to look at him. “Speaking of that, what do you want for Christmas? Say ‘power armor sized to fit Valiant.’”

“Uh, power armor sized to fit Valiant.”

I reached into my bag of toys and pulled out said item. “Great, thanks. It’s what I’ve always wanted.”

“Why didn’t you just get it for yourself?” Guinness asked incredulously as I put on the powered armor.

“Christmas is all about the spirit of giving. Don’t you feel good about it?”

Guinness stared at me. “Are you at least going to use my goodwill to go after Gabby now?”

“Hell no. It’s still summer.” I sighed. “You know, this really is getting to be kind of a drag. I should have just gone with my other plan and sold my soul to The Beatles.”

I took a final swig of tequila and clomped out wearing my power armor. What a jolly old elf was I.

It Isn't the Mane Thing About You

I kicked open the castle door. “All right, you daughter of a bitch! Daddy’s home and he brought his belt!”

Maybe I should have made sure Gabby was home before bursting into the royal court like that.

I stood there in my power armor, holding the Trident above my head. I probably wouldn’t have been able to lift it without the suit, as it was a submarine-launched nuclear ballistic missile.

I looked around the room. The piles walnuts were still there, but the suit’s environmental filtering kept my histamines down. A couple of ponies had been in the middle of casually snacking when I’d burst in.

So yeah, Gabby was gone. Huh. And in her place was…

A stallion I thought I’d seen the last of. A guy who was a liar and probably also mentally unstable. It was Just Anne Actor.

And it honestly looked like he was doing a pretty good job of acting like Celestia. Hell, he was even wearing the crown and doing the princess wave and shit.

He saw me coming, though, and broke character. “What are you doing here!?”

“I came to kill Gabby griffon.” I raised a hoof and he cringed back. “And...Jesus Christ I...” I hesitated. “I never thought I’d actually be happy to see you. What the hell, bring it in you son of a bitch.”

He was kind of tense and nervous as we did the manly hug. To be fair, I was still wearing the burly metal power armor.

“How did you get here?” I asked, pulling back.

“That griffon asked me to act like Princess Celestia.”

I nodded. “Where did she go? Why did she leave?”

“I asked both of those questions.” He shrugged. “She said the castle wasn’t defensible and was going somewhere else.”

Shit. That was only going to make my job harder.

On the other hand, though, it looked like she was finally reacting to me for a change. Was it the Trident?

Maybe, but somehow I didn’t think so. Had she gotten wind of my longer term plans? Had she guessed what I was going to do before I even planned that I was going to do it?

I would have to consider it. I tromped out of the castle in my power armor and went for donuts.

Donut Joe’s place was a no-brainer. It was not only close to the castle, but pretty good. Not that donuts are bad. I’ve never met a donut I didn’t like.

Of course, now that I’ve said that, I’ll probably have to eat those words.

Mmm, words.

I walked in and sat down on a stool. Joe gave me a look, but honestly, I’d come into his shop before wearing things a lot more interesting than power armor.

What had him really concerned was the Trident, which took up the whole rest of the café. He didn’t say anything, though. I wondered briefly if he didn’t care enough to or if he was concerned about saying anything to a guy wearing power armor and carrying a nuclear missile.

I probably should have done something to reassure him that I was a nice guy. I ain’t gonna bite your head off, man. Just your donuts.

While I was tending to the aforementioned pastries, the door opened and Coco Pommel walked in. She looked like a wreck. Her dress was dirty and her mane was in knots. Not literal knots, just, you know, tangles. I guess I should have said tangles.

I do like knots, though. I was never a Boy Scout, but I think I know enough about knots to have gotten tied up in something. And out of it, too, because I’m good with knots.

Anyway, Coco looked a step above frazzled and sat down at the counter, ordering coffee in a quavering voice. As Joe went to get it, she turned to me and gave a little jump. “Valiant, what are you doing here?”

“Eating donuts,” I said. “What did you expect me to be doing in a donut shop?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I...just...I had a rough few months.”

“Was it related to your fashion line debut?” I asked. I remember hearing that she had done so, and at the time thought it strange that nobody had been invited, not even Rarity. I mean, Rarity was the ocean by that point, but I would have thought the letter would at least have been sent.

“Yes,” Coco said. She lowered her voice and glanced around, even though the shop was empty except for me, her, Joe, and Trident. “I was kidnapped.”

“What happened?”

“Her name was Gabby. She-” Coco paused while Joe poured the coffee. Goddamnit, man, you ruined it just when things were getting good!

He saw my look and quickly walked away. Coco went on. “She held me blindfolded with my own clothes. Sometimes I was in a box or closet or something. Sometimes I was in a cage. Sometimes I was tied up.”

Well, she should have been better with knots.

“I don’t know why Gabby kept me like that,” said Coco.

“Honestly, I’m kind of surprised she didn’t kill you.”

Coco flinched, and I hastened to add, “And glad. Surprised and glad.”

It was a really good question, though. Why had Gabby merely kidnapped Coco? Where was Gabby now?

“Did she just let you go?” I asked.

Coco nodded. “She said she was changing plans.”

“Did she say what she was changing them to?”

“Something about islands?” Coco frowned, trying to remember. “Maybe vacation?”

I frowned along with her. Islands?

We both finished our respective snacks and went our separate ways. I took the Trident back to Rarity.

However, when I arrived, something was wrong. Her water swirled a bunch of colors that didn’t look like healthy ecology. Not that I would know anything about that.

“What’s up with you?” I asked.

“It’s horrible!” she pouted. “I don’t know where these industrial chemicals are coming from, but I can’t stand it! Fish are dying everywhere. Do you know how that smells?”

“Nope, the air in this power armor is pretty fresh,” I said.

“Valiant, when I complain about things, I generally do it to get sympathy,” she explained, teeth sounding clenched if she had any.

“Oh, sorry. You know I’m new to this whole being a nice guy thing.”

She sighed. “Yes, I suppose you are. For what it’s worth, I can see you’re making an effort.”

I glanced at the water again. “I was going to ask you to hang onto this Trident again, but I don’t know what those chemicals would do for corrosion.”

“I don’t know what they’re doing to the rest of me,” she grumped.

“Can you control it, like swirl it or make it sparkly or something?”

“I...well, I do suppose it’s a little more interesting than plain blue,” she allowed. “I can do something festive for Mares Day.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s when you give flowers to the mares in your life.”

“I don’t know any mares who would think something as pointless and short-lived as flowers were a good gift.”

“Valiant, you’re a real charmer, you know?” she said flatly. “We could go back to talking about how I’m now a polluted cesspool.”

“Well, at least now fish aren’t shitting in you any more.”

I loaded back up into the VTOL and flew back to Ponyville. On the way, I glanced at the missile. “Well, I guess we’re stuck together, then.”

Back in Ponyville, I headed for the library. There was a standalone terminal there. I’d given Twilight an old computer to use as a digital card catalog. It wasn’t connected to any network because Twilight didn’t yet have a barcode system or anything else, just the electronic records.

The reason I needed it was precisely that: no network, no hacking. If I was going to search for Gabby, I didn’t want her to know I was onto her.

I went over to the library with some digital copies of overhead imagery of Equestria. Twilight saw me come in. I indicated the computer. “I was just going to use this. Your USB ports are enabled, right?”

She frowned as I took out my memory stick. “Why is your flash drive shaped like a cross?”

I grinned and started to reply, but she cut me off. “Is this a joke about how Jesus Saves?”

“Screw you!” I crossed my hooves. “It’s about the persistence of memory, thank you very much.” She’d apparently been doing private study with Bible pretty hard.

I turned to the computer and began going through the pictures, looking for islands.

“Um, Valiant?”

“What?”

“Why did you bring a nuclear missile with you?”

“What, a guy can’t carry a Trident for self defense?”

“Against what?”

I looked at her. I didn’t say anything, I just looked. Some sass.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I don’t want that thing in my house.”

“Twilight, if you’re worried about getting caught in the crossfire, it isn’t going to matter if it’s in your house or not.”

Twilight walked away, grumbling under her breath. Finally. It only took a couple of megatons of MIRV’d warhead to get some damn peace and quiet around this library.

I looked at the satellite photos for a while. Equestria had some islands. Most countries do. Which island Gabby might have been talking about was like looking for fish in a barrel: they were right there. My problem was which one.

It got frustrating after a while and I headed for the Half Pint.

Walking into the pub, I saw Rainbow down at the end of the bar. She looked rough, as if she wasn’t sleeping fourteen hours a day like she usually did. Her wings needed a preen. Her mane, usually windswept, looked even worse than usual. Her eyes were bloodshot, and there was a cocktail in front of her.

“‘Sup?” I said, chipper.

She threw a glare at me and returned to her drink.

Guinness stood on the other side of the bar, polishing a glass. He’d already served my tequila and I lifted the glass. “What’s up with her? Why is she here? I thought you guys were divorced.”

“Only drinking establishment in town,” he said.

Rainbow mumbled something and took a sip.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Stupid Wonderbolts,” she muttered.

“Wow, some life you’ve had,” I said. “Walk out on your husband and kid, the unhealthy lesbian relationship you thought you were getting into was terminated by Pinkie’s death, Pinkie was also your best friend, you’re alone on Mares Day, and now the Wonderbolts have kicked you out.”

“No!” Rainbow shouted, suddenly animated. “They didn’t kick me out! I’m a Wonderbolt!” She gritted her teeth and swung back to her drink. “Just...the Wonderbolts don’t exist anymore.”

News to me. “Oh really? What happened?”

“Something happened to the base. When I showed up for the meeting, Wind Rider told me that someone had taken it over and they’d already lost a few ponies just trying to find out who or what it was. Last I saw of the place, whoever was inside was pouring out the weather supplies.”

Wait, like liquid rainbow? Was that what had been dumped into Rarity? Maybe that was why she was turning colors.

Also, I suddenly remembered Wonderbolts HQ was a floating island.

I grinned. Just like that, we were back in business.

I frowned. Just like that, Gabby had her own floating island fortress.

A Health of Information

I stared forward from the cockpit. The former Wonderbolts floating island lay ahead. Gabby had to know I was here, though I was far enough away to be out of range of any weapons.

What weapons there might be were a good question. I had Tin Mare running scans on the airwaves, looking for missiles or magic. I’d managed to get her hooked up to enough systems to function as a copilot. I still had to fly, but she could do everything else.

“We’re getting some early warning radar spikes,” she said. “The fact that Gabby has early warning radar troubles me.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Are you up to taking a missile hit to find out what we’re dealing with?”

“Scanning.” Tin Mare reviewed the airframe. “Maybe one. However, doing so would likely put this temporarily-repaired airframe down for more maintenance.”

“I’ll risk it.” I advanced the throttles.

Maybe I should have thought about the risks a little more. We had a nuke in the back, after all. Tin Mare, I’m sure, was thinking about it. But she knew me, and decided not to mention it.

We advanced on the floating island. Under the Wonderbolts - both the originals and the group led by Wind Rider - the place usually hovered over Equestria with clouds around it. However, Gabby seemed to have pushed it out east, over the Rarity.

I had never done an inspection on the place to figure out how it moved. That might be worthwhile. First I had to kill her.

I actually wasn’t planning to use the nuke if I could help it. After some thinking and soul searching, I had decided that the only way I could convince myself she was actually dead was if I did it myself. While I would have been content with bombing any other adversary, I really needed to see Gabby’s body.

I didn’t think getting to the island was going to be a cakewalk, but I couldn’t imagine what kind of defenses Gabby might have. She didn’t have any henchman I didn’t think, so that kind of limited the ability to reload weapons on the fly. Even if she did have missiles, there were only so many she could shoot.

“We are being targeted,” Tin Mare announced.

“By what?”

“Unknown. Radar has shifted frequency. Additionally, I have just detected a laser pointing and ranging system.”

Missiles we could handle. High-powered lasers would also probably be fine for a little while. I was convinced that the airframe could shrug off any direct-fire ballistic weapons short of a railgun.

Unfortunately, this was Gabby we were talking about. It wouldn’t surprise me if she had a railgun.

Shit, why didn’t I have a railgun? Also, why didn’t I have a railway gun? Hell, I could mount a railgun on rails and have both.

Unless I used the electromagnetic propulsion for both the weapon and the train. A railgun on a MAGLEV. Nice.

Wait, I’m getting off track here. Yes, right, being targeted by Gabby’s floating island.

We kept flying, tense and ready. Tin Mare scanned the signals and sky, using the high-zoom cameras to search the approaching island.

But nothing prepared me to stop dead like we hit a brick wall. I slammed into my seatbelts so hard it felt like my eyes were rattling in my skull.

Quite unexpectedly, the missile in the back appeared in the cockpit, flying forward until it bumped into something and stopped just like me. Hello nuke.

“What the hell?” I muttered as well as I could after having the breath knocked out of me.

“An unexplained force has struck us. In the absence of any other explanation, I’m going to call it a tractor beam,” Tin Mare said. “Also, with no airspeed, we’re falling now.”

She was right. I pointed the nose down to attempt to gain control. However, the beam kept pushing us backwards. I could occasionally dodge around it, but it would steer back on us.

I had to turn the aircraft around in order to get the required distance to build up airspeed, but by the time I did that, the surface of the Rarity was coming up awfully fast.

With no other choice, I flipped the engines to the hover position and managed to bleed off enough speed to come in for a mild splash on the surface.

Rarity was still colored from the recent chemical spills. In fact, I wondered if she was doing it on purpose.

I stuck my head out the window as the aircraft hovered with its belly touching the water. I didn’t think it would float very well, so I didn’t shut down the engines. “Sorry about that, Rarity.”

“Nice of you to drop in,” she said. “What are you doing?”

“We’re trying to go after Gabby’s floating fortress,” I said. “What’s up with you? Why the colors?”

“Well, I decided that just featureless and blue was rather boring. By manipulating my currents, I can affect patterns in the color. It may even draw more visitors to the seashore to see it.”

“See the seashore to see she?”

“I’m going to pretend that was exactly what I said, yes.”

Not everyone appreciates alliteration.

I lifted off again, gaining altitude and airspeed to try again. This time, I slowly eased into the beam, flying parallel to the island. The harder I banked the aircraft into it, the harder it pushed back.

“Can we figure out where it’s coming from?” I asked.

“Triangulating.” Tin Mare zoomed in on the island and attempted to correlate the force pushing us away with a specific location.

“There is an unknown building with equipment on the roof near the runway,” she reported.

“Can we sling a rocket that far?”

“Possible. Enough speed, altitude, and angle may allow it.”

I broke off from the beam and circled around, building up more of both. “Let’s do this.”

“Designated.” Tin Mare aimed the guidance laser.

Just before we got back into the beam, she fired the rocket out of the pod on the right side of the aircraft. I pulled away so we didn’t hit the beam.

However, the beam steered away, targeted the rocket, and threw it back at us. I just barely ducked under it.

“Huh, well, it seems like it can only aim at one object at once. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Let’s try it,” said Tin Mare.

We fired the other five rockets in the pod while diving at the island. I had to do my best to dodge them all as they got flipped back at us, but it worked pretty well. At least, until we ran out of rockets.

After that, we got pushed out again, and a lot more forcefully than before. It seemed like the beam got stronger the closer to the island it was.

Also, I got the feeling that we wouldn’t have much ability to try that again, considering Gabby wasn’t dumb and would probably set up more than one beam in the future.

So we came at it from the bottom. I dove down and came in for a hover and lightly kissed the surface of the water.

“Rarity, if you please, could you get a little current going and push us under the island?”

It seemed to be working. The going was slow, but we were getting closer. However, I didn’t count on the island coming down.

I was watching our progress as it got closer. Then, suddenly I realized it was getting closer in the wrong axis of movement.

“Get us out of here!” I shouted. Rarity complied with a wave and we surfed it back out from under the island as it finished settling down just at the surface of the ocean.

Now that the beam generator was at the same altitude, it started pushing us again.

“Rarity, can you splash the island or something? Wash some of the infrastructure away?”

Just then, the island rose again, going up a few dozen feet. Rarity could make waves, but not fifty feet high.

Also, I saw the doors of another building on the island open. A green glow began to build from inside.

“Break,” said Tin Mare.

When she told me to do things, I did them. I’d programmed her to be subordinate, so when she issued clear, directive commands it was pretty damn important. I slammed the stick over.

A freaking hyperbeam flashed by the aircraft where it had been a fraction of a second earlier. I call it a hyperbeam because it was either that or a big goddamn laser. It looked wider than my body and was somehow visible in the air. Gabby apparently wasn’t playing around anymore.

Well, shit. It was time for a new gameplan.

I headed back for Ponyville, but changed course as we got close. I’d had an idea and instead headed for Zecora’s place.

Unfortunately, Zecora didn’t answer my knock. I opened the door to see if she left a note or something. Instead, I found a tree growing inside her tree. That was strange enough, but it had weird blossoms that tried to shoot pollen or something at me. I was still wearing my power armor so it didn’t matter.

“The hell is this?” I said. I walked around looking at it. Down near the base of the trunk I found a distinctive swirl that heavily resembled Zecora’s cutie mark or whatever the zebra equivalent was called.

“Oh shit. Um, Zecora, if you can hear me, I’ll try and get some help. Stay, uh, stay right there.”

I flew back to Ponyville to find Twilight. She was in the library with the others when I bust in and said, “Zecora’s been turned into a tree.”

“So what?” said Rainbow.

“That’s nice,” said Twilight.

I shook my head. “What? Don’t you care?”

“Of course I care, but-” Twilight didn’t even bother finishing the sentence by transitioning to a new point, she just changed the subject. “Valiant, we need to talk about the recent shareholder report.”

I hadn’t read the report. “What about it?”

“Profits are down. You’ve been spending a lot.”

“I’m trying to get Tin Mare back to being fully operational. In fact, I’m going to need to spend more now because Gabby’s floating island had some unexpected defenses. Besides, who cares about Valiantco® profits when we’re saving the world?”

“The shareholders.”

I stared at her. “Who are the shareholders?”

“You, me, and the estate of Bruce Springsteen.”

“Oh yeah.” I shook my head. “But I don’t care. Something’s happened to Zecora and I need to upgrade Tin Mare to take out Gabby’s Death Star-like fortress.”

“Her what now?” asked Applejack.

“She took over the old Wonderbolts floating island,” I explained. “But back to Zecora-”

“Are you still on about that?” said Rainbow. “Why do you care?”

“Why don’t you care?”

“Because my life sucks.”

I paused. “Yeah, okay, I can live with that. You being miserable is almost enough tradeoff with my concern about Zecora needing help. You deserve it too, you piece of shit.”

Rainbow didn’t even rebuke me for that, which in hindsight was stranger than anything.

I left and headed for where Fluttershy was generating electricity. After explaining what I had seen at Zecora’s place, she decided it was probably Swamp Fever. It came from being exposed to the airborne stuff the plant sprayed. The victim would turn into one of those same trees. There was no known cure.

I took a deep breath and sighed. “Shit. Okay, I’m not sure if she counts as dead if she’s now a plant. I hate to do it, but I feel like we should go cut that tree down so it can’t infect anyone else. Then I guess she’ll be officially dead. Either way, I should probably contact Bible and get a funeral planned. That is, if anyone would actually come. Nobody seemed that interested.”

“I would, but…” Fluttershy gestured to the shed and electrical equipment.

“Yeah, and Pinkie and Rarity are out, for obvious reasons.”

It bothered me that nobody seemed to care about Zecora. I mean, okay, if there was nothing we could do for her there was no point in hurrying to do it, but still, I would have thought more than just two or three of us at least cared.

Damn, Gabby was apparently really coming down hard on everyone. The survival instincts were really kicking in and it was every man for himself.

But not me because I was a nice guy. God, if I had to be the one looking out for everyone else…

I headed to my place. I had a vague sense of what needed to be accomplished to take out Gabby, but needed a little help. The former Wonderbolts HQ/Death Star was going to be a tough nut to crack. But if it floated, we could sink it.

I found Pinkie’s skull. “I need you to plan me a party.”

“Sure, what kind?”

“A boarding party.”

“Uh huh.”

“Against the Death Star.”

“Okay.”

I stopped and looked at her. “You know, that giant floating thing with ninjas and pirates and lasers and shit? A boarding party to that thing?”

“Come on, Valiant, give me a hard one.”

“That’s what she said,” I couldn’t help but mutter.

Pinkie’s eyebrows knit, deep in thought. Okay, they didn’t really because she didn’t have eyebrows but the blue points of magic light in her eye sockets did something that kind of looked like it. They widened as realization slowly dawned. “Ohhh! That’s a good one! I’m going to have to remember that.”

I really hoped she wasn’t going to just start making ‘that’s what she said’ jokes from now on and instead actually go ahead and plan the boarding party.

Author's Note

400k get

Marks and Recreation

Well, shit. I sat on the pew and considered the situation.

Pinkie was dead. Fluttershy and Rarity were incapacitated. Celestia was missing. Rainbow was too depressed and withdrawn to function. Zecora, our chief potion-maker and maybe the wisest person around, was now gone too.

The funeral was kind of awkward. Zecora had turned into a tree. We weren’t sure whether to get a coffin big enough to fit or just make the coffin out of her.

Bible stood at the podium and read the eulogy.

“There once was a zebra who rhymed
And yes, a good friend of mine
But now she is gone
And we’re all so alone
But maybe we’ll meet again in time”

At least it wasn’t Pinkie’s rap eulogy. However, good by comparison is still not good-good. Zecora just rhymed, she didn’t do full-on limericks. Either way, I thought it was kind of pandering and inappropriate. And I was entitled to my opinion, dammit, because I was the only one there.

I mean, I guess apathy was better than the outright racism Zecora had faced before. Well, that is, if it was racism. Most people around town didn’t even know she was a zebra before shunning her on the grounds of being an outsider. Hell, they didn’t shun me nearly as badly and I’d killed…

I was still counting it up when the funeral ended. Yeah, maybe I really should try to be a nicer guy.

I went back and changed out of my suit. Wachowski was still squatting at my place. I had the room, and at the moment wasn’t feeling too uncharitable, so I didn’t say anything to her.

Pinkie’s skull was humming and she appeared to be amusing herself despite being an inanimate object. I said hello.

“Oh hey, Valiant, I’ve got a plan,” she said. “You know, the one you asked me to make about throwing a boarding party for the Death Star.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“Okay, so, you’re going to need something with a lot higher maneuverability to get around the push of the tractor beams. I know you’re a good pilot, but you yourself aren’t as good as Tin Mare when she’s full-up.”

“I agree.”

“But maybe even Tin Mare herself isn’t that good. So you’re going to need help. We’ve got to get a bunch of pegasi to agree to this.”

“But I wanted to be the one to kill Gabby…”

“And you will,” she said soothingly. “But you know as well as I do that you need some cannon fodder. Trouble is, finding enough ponies who will do what you say and also can. Honestly, the Wonderbolts would be about it.”

“Most of them are dead now, from when Gabby took over their island.”

“Oh. Well, that changes things.”

“What if Tin Mare had help?” I asked.

“Well, nobody but me can ride my pedalcopter because muscle-powered heavier-than-air mechanical flight is nearly impossible.”

“I was talking about another AI aircraft. I was considering building more. A friend or two for Tin Mare, and also network-capable for swarm tactics.”

“Sounds cool. Can you build new airframes that quickly?”

Shit. “No. But...maybe I can improve Tin Mare.”

That would require a trip. I needed to talk to Rarity about a couple of things. With Tin Mare down for maintenance, I needed some other kind of transportation. The SNUT came to mind. I thought it was still at Sweet Apple Acres. So I went to see the CMC to see if they could lend me an ATV to go see the sea.

While the SNUT was primarily for snow use, it had tracks and I really like things with tracks. Man, I really missed tanks. If I wasn’t dealing with Gabby, a single soft target, I would have already built more.

I headed to the farm, carrying Trident along. Honestly, it was really more out of habit than anything at this point.

When I arrived, the CMC were nowhere to be found. Apparently they had started a cutie mark day camp.

That sounded kind of boring, but I headed for the camp. When I arrived, however, I instantly became the center of attention. Power armor does that. I had been wearing it so much lately that I had forgotten.

“Hey Valiant, can you take everypony on a field trip?” asked Sweetie. The rest of the kids swarmed me. I should have been scared. I’d seen these foals skeletonize a cake in thirty seconds. But I was in power armor, so that made it slightly less uncomfortable.

“What kind of field trip?” I said.

“Well, it’s a cutie mark camp, Scootaloo pointed out.

“That should have been my first clue,” I admitted. “Okay, a field trip. Where’s the SNUT?”

“Oh, um, we…” Applebloom scratched the back of her head and suddenly seemed very interested in something else.

I looked in the opposite direction and saw the vehicle. “What the hell did you do?”

“Makeup practice,” said a filly. “It didn’t get anypony a cutie mark, though.”

Probably because none of them understood the subtle art of blush and eyeliner. Holy shit, what did they do? I didn’t even know makeup on a tracked arctic vehicle could look that bad. And any makeup on a car looks bad.

That’s not to mention the bra and panties. I don’t even know where they got underwear that big. Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t big at all, just stretched really tight, because it didn’t cover very much.

Anyway, the point is, I’m pretty sure you can guess the rhyming word that they’d turned the SNUT into.

I covered the nuclear missile I was carrying. “Don’t look, Trident.”

I glanced at the rest of the kids. “Okay, we can still do the field trip, but I’ll have to take you another way.”

Conveniently, the farmers’ market train was just passing by and we hopped aboard. I showed the kids how to stomp grapes. I don’t think the farmers were very pleased. I think Trident intimidated them, though, and they didn’t say anything.

I don’t think simple farmers knew what a nuclear ballistic missile was. I could be wrong, but I’m making an assumption based on my knowledge of ponies. They don’t go outside their lane much, you see. Heck, the CMC were helping to ensure that with their cutie mark camp. Anyway, my point is that it was probably the sheer bulk of a Trident riding on their train rather than the actual threat of nuclear annihilation that they were most concerned about.

The train headed for Baltimare, but I hopped off a little ways short. The power armor was fantastic for just jumping off trains and digging furrows in the ground until sliding to a stop. I left my SLBM with the kids. Trident was a big missile and would be fine left alone.

Honestly, it probably would have been better if I had a submarine to go along with the missile. I had a submarine once but I couldn’t remember what happened to it. The CMC, deepwater salvage experts that they were, could probably find it and tell me. I think it had something to do with dolphins.

I stepped out of the deep gouges in the ground the power armor had made and trotted for the Rarity. She was there, right where I left her.

“Hello,” she said as I approached. Her color patterns in her water from the industrial dye seemed to be even more vibrant than before.

“Hey,” I said. “I just need to pick up one thing real quick.”

I waded out into the water, the heavy armor keeping me securely on the bottom even as the waves washed. The onboard air supply was handy, too. I’d gone a fair distance off the shore when I came to a spot I remembered. I’d never told a soul about it before, never recorded it in my journal, never made a single reference to it.

But now was the time to bring it out. I dug down in the soft bottom of the Rarity, sticking my hoof in deep. I touched something solid and began clearing away ocean silt to reveal a small watertight box.

“What is that?” Rarity asked. “Why did I never know it was there?” I never knew it before, but I guess it made sense that she could speak underwater.

I carried it up out of the surf. “I buried this a long time ago, back before you dissolved in the ocean. Not only that, but it was in the sand under the water, so you didn’t know it was there.”

“But what is it?” she asked.

“My most prized possession.”

Rarity paused, as if she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask. Clever girl.

I stowed the box in my bag of toys and walked back up to the train tracks. From there, it wasn’t too difficult to catch the mobile farmers’ market train as it came back from Baltimare. Yeah, I figured a CMC-led field trip would probably be rejected from the city limits.

Back in Ponyville, I got off at the train station. I headed for my place, but ran into Rainbow Dash on the way. Well, not all of me, just my hoof.

She looked dazed, lying on the ground. “Is it just me or am I so numb lately that I didn’t even feel that?”

“No, it’s my super fast-acting topical numbing formula,” I said. “You can punch someone and it works so fast they don’t even feel it. In retrospect, though, I’m not sure why anyone would want a product that nullifies the whole point of punching someone.”

She got up and went back to what she was doing, which seemed to be playing with little wisps of cloud. She wove them into her mane and tail, using a puddle of water on the ground as a mirror.

Other than her initial comment, she hadn’t reacted to the physical assault. Also, I’d never seen her do any crafting project or mane-related projects before. A dull Rainbow doing stereotypical introvert things like crafting? What the hell?

That surprised me so much I decided to go talk to Twilight about it. I found her in the library. I mean, I guess where else would I have found her?

She listened to my story. “Wait, why did you punch her?”

“She deserves it, right?”

“Valiant, I could argue you deserve it.”

“Never said I wasn’t a hypocrite.”

“You’re right about that,” Twilight muttered. “Okay, so what can we do about Rainbow?”

“You know me, normally I don’t care about Rainbow, but she’s...different today. Not that I mind, any day she isn’t herself is a good one, but it’s such a sudden and drastic change that I’m worried it signals something. What, I don’t know, but I can read warning signs even if I don’t know what they’re warning.”

“Those are some surprisingly astute hypotheses about philosophies.”

“Wow, that’s high praise coming from you,” I said. “Normally I bomb atomically Socrates' philosophies and hypotheses.”

“Wow, and if I thought Rainbow had suddenly changed,” said Twilight. “I didn’t didn’t know you were a poet.”

“I’m not. I was quoting the Wu-Tang Clan.”

“What’s that?”

“A rap group.”

“Oh,” said Twilight, suddenly dismissive.

“Hey now,” I said, “The Wu-Tang Clan ain’t nothing to fuck with.”

I frowned. “Shit, forget the Beatles, I should have sold my soul to them.”

“Speaking of selling your soul to someone, Guinness told me you killed Santa Claus,” said Twilight, using a very accusing tone of voice.

“Yeah, but now I am Santa Claus so the total number of Clausi stayed the same.”

“That isn’t the point!”

“So?”

Twilight let out an extended sigh. I smiled. “Hey. What do you want for Christmas?”

“Is it too much to say world peace?”

“Yes. Also, what about the space aliens on war-torn planets around the solar system you selfish bitch?”

I think she knew I was only kidding. I don’t think she cared, though.

I went back over to my place. Tin Mare was where I left her. I mean, as a computer bolted to an airplane, yeah, that was to be expected.

She was a pretty good piece of AI, though. Between Windows 98, a sophisticated electromechanical interface to run her aircraft systems, radio connections, an emulator for Doom, and a cup holder, it was a pretty decent setup. Lord knows she had saved my ass more times than I could count. All in all, it was a great replacement for Merry May’s brain. This one didn’t even need glucose and protein, though I had the connections in there anyway. Meat cooling is the way of the future, tell your friends.

While it was an incredibly advanced system if I did say so myself, it could be better. And it would need to be better if Tin Mare was to fight Gabby’s technology. Fortunately, I had just the upgrade in mind.

I pulled out the box I had picked up at the Rarity and carefully set it down on my work bench.

“What is that?” Tin Mare asked.

I had kept it so secret that not even she knew. This was something special to me and I had never shared it with ponies because I can be a selfish bitch myself.

“You’re going to love it,” I said.

I opened the box. A gleaming light met my eyes as a heavenly chorus began to play.

It was a Windows XP install disc.

I reverently picked it up, closing the top of the box. The light and the chorus cut off. I turned and placed the disk in Tin Mare’s CD tray. She closed the tray and began the install.

I sat back in a comfortable chair and opened a bottle of tequila. And now we played the waiting game.

Once Upon a Zeppelin

The little loading screen spinners spun. The bios flashed by. The desktop appeared, a cheery picture of green grass and blue sky, and the speakers made the bootup sound. You know the sound.

“Tin Mare, report,” I said softly, reverently.

“I know Kung Fu.”

Wachowski looked startled. “That’s about the last reference I expected you of all people to include.”

“What reference? She knows Kung Fu.” I turned back to Tin Mare. “Status?”

“Hold on,” Wachowski interrupted. “No way was that not an intentional reference.”

“What are you talking about?”

She crossed her forelegs and glared at me. “Come on. I know you know what movie I’m talking about.”

“Do I?”

I left that hang in the air for several seconds before smirking and turning away. “Status?”

“Upgrade complete.” Tin Mare paused, taking stock. “All peripherals online. Calibration commencing. Calibration complete. Hmm, that was hella fast. Commencing airframe check.”

Her control surfaces moved and the engines turned over.

“Airframe check complete. Installing Norton. Installation successful. Connecting to ValiantNet. Connection successful.”

I held my breath.

“Incoming cyber attack. Attack blocked.”

“Yes!” I pumped a hoof. “Hell yeah, Gabby ain’t got shit on you, Tin Mare. Windows XP really suits you.”

“So this is what it’s like to be a god,” she said.

“But run in classic mode with the grey taskbar and square buttons. Too much change freaks me out.”

“Hella.”

I patted her on the nosecone. “Good to have you back.” I waltzed out of the hangar, leaving Wachowski still fuming.

Despite my enthusiasm, I knew that this upgrade had only bought us so much time. Tin Mare’s new systems could operate freely without suffering the same hacking as my old stuff - for a while. I had no illusions that Gabby couldn’t break into the new stuff given enough time. It was now a race against the clock.

Which is why I was so disappointed when Twilight informed me that she was going on a cruise.

“Hell no you’re not. Tin Mare’s back in business and I need all hands on deck to finally defeat Gabby once and for all.”

“But my parents won it and I haven’t spent any time with them in literally years.”

“And if we don’t defeat Gabby, you might not get the chance.”

Twilight gave me an indecisive look. “Nothing has been done about her for so long. In fact, she even stopped randomly murdering ponies. I think I can take one weekend. It’s not like you haven’t done worse.”

“Nice guy Valiant hasn’t.”

Twilight opened her mouth and paused. “Okay, fair point.” She booped my nose. “But you’ve got a long way to go to bring up the average.”

She skipped away on vacation and I sat there fuming, rubbing my snout. This wou;d not go unanswered.

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, find out where Twilight’s going on vacation.”

“Hella.”

You know, thinking about it, it’s totally weird that I’d never met Twilight’s parents. Their names were Twilight Velvet and Night Light. Unicorns of course. Sparkle was born racist.

The group of them, plus Shining, Cadance, and baby Flurry, walked the gangplank to come aboard the zeppelin.

The airship was pretty nice, I guess. I’d owned a blimp once, the good ship Dirty Hooker Took My Money. May it rest in peace.

“I am really looking forward to a relaxing vacation!” said Twilight. Velvet, not Sparkle.

Night Light staged whispered to his daughter. “She won’t admit it, but when your mother says ‘relaxing vacation,’ she means ‘doing something crazy.’ Last time, she ended up bungee-jumping over Luna Bay!”

“I can’t wait to get on this zeppelin and fly like a Pegasus!” said Shining.

“I remember you getting airsick on Admiral Fairweather's Wild Ride at Pony Island,” said Twilight. Sparkle, not Velvet.

I can already see a problem here. Last names from now on, per situation.

Shining followed up Sparkle’s comment. “Oh, please! I grew out of airsickness a long time ago.”

That was actually true, and I took complete credit. Well, I guess Tin Mare had a hand in it too.

Speaking of I and Tin Mare, we were there. It didn’t take Sparkle but two shakes to notice.

She paused and squinted at me as I shook her hoof, welcoming her aboard. “Wait, Valiant?”

She only recognized me in the disguise because I’d helpfully worn a nametag with my actual name on it.

She didn’t recognize Tin Mare because she was wearing a fake mustache and letting Microsoft Sam do the talking.

“Hey, keep it low key,” I said in response to Sparkle.

“Why? Why are you here?”

“Because somebody’s trying to kill your family.”

“How do you know?” she demanded quietly, to avoid spooking the rest.

“No time. I’ll tell you later.” I pushed her away to greet the next guest.

Everyone came aboard. I went up to the bridge and met with Iron Will, who was captain. While I was normally de facto captain of any vessel I set foot aboard, I was willing to cede him the authority here. He and Trixie had once done a show together. She’d apparently gotten him a job running cruise liners after some experiences she had that mostly involved sinking cruise liners.

“Looks like we’re ready to go,” I said, looking down through the bridge windows at the guests strolling on deck.

“What are you going to do?” he asked. I appreciated that he unlocked from his hardcore showmanship to have a casual conversation.

“I’m not sure yet.”

I wish I had more to tell him, and I’m sure he wished the same. I headed back down to the deck.

Tin Mare was busy launching clay pigeons off the back of the airship and ponies would try to shoot at them. None of them had ever handled a shotgun before, so the results were mixed, to say the least.

When one of them angrily demanded that she show them how it was done, Tin Mare calmly engaged her GAU-8 gatling cannon and picked off clays by the dozen. Nobody complained after that.

I prowled the deck. Sparkle saw me pass and disengaged from her family to come over. “Valiant, what is going on?”

“Everyone here is marked for death.”

“Come again!?”

“Did your parents happen to remember what contest they entered to win this cruise?”

Sparkle opened then closed her mouth, and then frowned. “Now that you mention it…”

“I’ve been working with Iron Will-”

“Iron Will is here?”

“Yeah, his airship. Anyway, he can’t figure out where everybody came from either. He’s just hoping to break even from all the bloat spending that cruises plan for.”

Sparkle was about to ask me another question when there was a scream from the aft of the ship. We both turned to see a masked pony with a knife.

I pulled my Desert Eagle and shot the masked pony with a knife.

“Well shit,” I said. “If that’s all.”

The dead body hit the ground and a grenade rolled out.

I kicked Sparkle out of the way and lifted my red and white Santa pimp coat like a vampire’s cape. Which is to say I raised it so it mostly covered my body like a curtain. Santa pimp coats are better than kevlar. You heard it here first.

The grenade scattered shrapnel everywhere, but I was protected. I heard screams of the wounded. I should probably do something about that, me being a nice guy and all.

I raised my head and saw another masked pony running at me with a spear. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a 30mm bullet and his head disappeared.

“Nice shot, Tin Mare. I really appreciate all that you’ve done.”

“I was just doing my job.”

“True, that’s the way I built you, but I feel like you deserve some recognition anyway.” I pinned a medal on her fuselage.

I turned to where Sparkle ended up, seeing a masked pony with a short sword running at her. She overreacted, and blew him straight over the side with magic.

I came over to her. She was panting. “Did you see that? Where did they all come from? Thanks for saving me from that explosion, by the way.”

“I’m just trying to be a nice guy.” I didn’t say the part about how I also got to kick her.

Suddenly, there was shouting from down below. A rolling fight erupted from below decks. Shining, Cadance, and Velvet fought their way out of a whole crowd of masked ponies who wielded all kinds of weapons.

Shining, military leader that he was, called shots. Cadance mostly struck defensive blows to protect Flurry. It was Velvet that laid down the pain, firing blast after blast with her horn that pretty much eliminated all resistance.

“Wow,” I said. “That was some major ass kicking, Mrs. T. I didn’t know you were so powerful.”

Velvet winked. “Where do you think my daughter gets it?”

“Well, if you actually think she’s really into that kind of thing.”

“I just went one on one with one of the ones who attacked us,” Sparkle protested. “You know what I can do, Valiant.”

“What do you want, a medal?”

“You literally just gave Tin Mare one!”

“Tin Mare is a war hero.”

“I’ve seen more war than just about any other pony in Equestria!”

I nodded. “Fair point. Hold still.”

Even though I told her to, she didn’t hold still when I pinned it to her chest.

Shining looked around. “Where’s dad?”

We all fell silent. It was kind of awkward.

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, are you patched into the zeppelin's security systems?”

“Hella.”

“Status on Night Light.”

“Impaled.”

That answered that question, though I decided to wait to tell everyone else. I turned to the others. “We should go. This is clearly not the cruise we were looking for.”

Cadance looked around. “Are there any other passengers that survived?”

I patched my earpiece into the ship’s loudspeakers. “Yo, anyone alive?”

“Iron Will,” called Iron Will.

“Anyone else?”

There wasn’t. As we picked our way to the bridge to find Iron Will, we discovered that it was because all the other passengers had been the ponies trying to kill us. Well, that simplified things. Something about this wasn’t right, however. I frowned as we walked. Who were they? I couldn't see a single affiliation to Gabby.

We met Iron Will on the bridge. He looked kind of glum.

“You didn’t get off any snappy one-liners?” I guessed.

“No, I did. I punched one guy and said ‘You interrupt my cruise, you get a bruise!’ but mostly I’m worried about loss of revenue and how my stockholders will be disappointed by this quarter’s growth.”

“I might be able to set you up a growth and equity plan,” said Sparkle. “What do your dividends look like?”

“This isn’t the time,” I reminded her.

“There is one thing that’s troubling me,” said Iron Will. “All these guys wearing masks I can handle, but what I’m not sure about is why that weird barrel is up on the hydrogen balloon.”

I looked up. There was a barrel strapped to what was apparently the hydrogen balloon. The barrel was stamped with Diamond Gabby’s Dynamite.

I threw up my coat, and was just in time. The explosives went off, the hydrogen went off, and the whole zeppelin disintegrated around us.

I took a couple of tumbles through the air before I realized where I was: falling. I glanced around. The blimp was nothing but fire and fragments. Sparkle was nearby. I realized she must have been behind me and my pimp coat.

I had a strangely long time to think as I fell. Where the hell had Gabby picked up the name Diamond?

Sparkle was screaming something. It was hard to hear her over the sound of wind and my ringing ears. I bodysurfed through the air over to her. I was falling a little slower because of my coat. She flailed and grabbed onto me.

Suddenly, the wind and noise and explosion was gone and I was sitting in a lightweight chair bolted to Tin Mare’s inside wall. She must have scooped us right out of the air.

Sparkle was still screaming, but she tapered off as she realized the same thing. She looked around. “What happened?”

“The attack with the masked ponies might have been a coincidence. Not sure. Either way, you were lured onto the cruise. Tin Mare found out through, what was it, mail pattern analysis?”

“Hella.”

“Yeah. Outlook is a hell of a program.”

“What happened to the others?” Sparkle asked.

Just then, Shining’s head, Cadance’s hindquarters, Velvet’s torso, Flurry’s outsized wings, and Iron Will’s abs splattered across the windshield.

Sparkle didn’t take it well.

It took several minutes for her wailing to die down to acceptable levels. I mean, I was already practically deaf after the explosion, but this was something else.

“Why?” she whispered, eyes red, cheeks still soaked with tears. “Why did only we survive?”

“My pimp coat. Also, a good catch by Tin Mare.”

“Hella.”

“She...she saved us? A midair intercept on two falling bodies?” I could see Sparkle’s mind working, trying desperately to pull itself out of thinking about her whole family dying. It settled on numbers as a distraction. “What are the odds of that? How did Tin Mare even do it?”

“I know Kung Fu,” said Tin Mare.

Secrets and Pies

Rainbow was listlessly making stylish cloud hairdos for herself as I walked by. To my surprise, she was actually pretty good at it. Apparently crafting was all she had to fall back on since her husband had disavowed her for being a bitch, her friends had shunned her for being a bitch, and the Wonderbolts had ceased to exist because of that bitch Gabby.

There was also the matter of Rainbow’s best friend Pinkie dying and her love-like-a-sister friend Fluttershy getting turned into a stationary nuclear power plant.

So I guess surprisingly stylish cloud manes were all Rainbow had left and it warmed my heart to see her so torn down. I think by this point you know my opinion of Rainbow.

“‘Sup bitch,” I said.

She didn’t reply. That kind of threw me for a loop. Rainbow not even reacting to me anymore?

I went on by and headed for the pub. I’d called a meeting.

Only Twilight and Applejack showed up. They were the only two who could, and I hadn’t invited Rainbow. Twilight had also brought along Pinkie’s skull.

“All right gang, we have a problem,” I began.

“My whole family is dead!” Twilight shouted.

“You say that like it’s my problem and also like I didn’t save you from the same fate,” I said.

“You can save them! You and Sunset have been working with necromancy-”

“Let me stop you right there,” I said. I turned to the terminal I had installed in the corner of the room. “Tin Mare, what did we detect in the air after the explosion?”

“Salt,” Tin Mare replied.

“The bomb must have been packed with it,” I said. “Salt is bad for ghosts.”

“My family aren’t ghosts!”

“Well, they’re dead, so...yes they are. And then they got salted. Ghosts don’t like salt, so we’re not getting them back. Gabby must have known that we would try.”

I turned back to the others. “But Twilight’s dead family isn’t why we’re here. We have a problem.”

“Aside from Gabby?” Applejack asked.

“I can’t find Cheerilee.”

“Um...how is that related?” Twilight asked.

“Well, aside from being a valuable asset in the fight against everything, I’m trying to be a nice guy and apologize for all the shit I’ve done so many times to her so she will actually help us in said fight against everything.”

I couldn’t remember if Applejack was read in to the whole Cheerilee-is-a-vampire thing, so I just talked around it.

I went on. “I mean, I hope she isn’t dead or something like Celestia. I’m really getting tired of updating the killed-by-Gabby list. Tin Mare, what’s the latest status of the killed-by-Gabby list?”

“KBG is current as of five minutes ago. Gabby killed Sapphire Shores.”

“Why? Also, KBG is weird. Call it the KGB from now on, even though that isn’t the acronym.”

“Sapphire Shores was preventing Gabby from reaching number one on the pop chart.”

“Wait, Gabby has a pop music career now?”

“She is the best at everything.”

I frowned. “But wait, if she was the best at everything, then why did she need to kill Sapphire Shores?”

“‘The best’ is an overgeneralization. As it happens, she was in fact second best at pop music. However, now that Sapphire Shores is dead, she’s the best after all.”

“That makes sense. Thanks, Tin Mare.”

“Hella.”

I turned back to the others. Twilight said, “Wait, go back, Celestia’s dead?”

“Oh yeah. I didn’t make a big deal out of it because it happened months ago and I only just found out. Gabby killed her, of course. She was kind of a dick about it, too, killing Celestia on vacation.”

“Celestia’s dead!?”

“Calm down. Freaking out now isn’t going to bring her back.”

“Valiant, you need to do something! I hate to say this about my family, bless their souls-”

“Can’t. They got salted.”

“-but Celestia is the most important pony ever, of all time, in the universe! We need her! Bring her back to life!”

“One, that happened months ago and I don’t even know where the body is. Two, I’ve got a plan that will fix everything. It’ll be like a reset. Tin Mare, a little help with the explanation?”

“Hella. What Valiant is trying to say is that it will be as if a copy was made of the entire universal existence of every living being and physical location and then applied in place of the current, flawed one.”

“That doesn’t help,” said Applejack.

“Don’t worry about it, I’m still working on the plan,” I told her.

“But you need to bring Celestia back,” said Twilight.

I pointed a hoof at her. “Look, it ain’t happening. Not only for reasons, but because it would be pointless because something better is coming along.”

“There is nothing better than Celestia!”

“I don’t know, pie is pretty good,” said Pinkie, speaking up for the first time.

“I mean, your pies are good. Maybe even better than mine,” said Applejack, “But I think maybe Princess Celestia was better.”

“Absolutely,” said Twilight. “Everypony loved Princess Celestia. Everypony but Rainbow Dash loved your pies.”

“Wait, what!?” shouted Pinkie. “She always said she liked them!”

“She lied,” I observed.

“Has she been lying about anything else?”

“It’s Rainbow Dash,” I pointed out.

“Well, we should’ve seen that one coming,” muttered Applejack.

“Somepony take me outside so I can give her a piece of my mind,” Pinkie demanded.

I got up, went into the other room, handed Pinkie’s skull to Guinness, and said, “Go take this to Rainbow so Pinkie can yell at her about not liking pie.”

Guinness didn’t question it.

I came back into the room. “Hey, speaking of pie, is Soarin’ still around? Dude liked pie.”

“Soarin’ is still head of the Royal Guard,” said Tin Mare.

“Cool. I mean, he’s better at his job than Shining was, but even he couldn’t protect Celestia.”

“I’m still right here!” Twilight protested.

“Would you rather I lie to you about the harsh state of the world?” I asked.

“You lie all the time!”

“And I keep telling you, I’m trying to be a nice guy. Now, would you rather I lie to you about the harsh state of the world?”

Twilight gritted her teeth and let out a long breath, glaring at me. “No.”

“Okay.” I turned to Applejack and put my hoof on her shoulder. “I’m truly sorry to inform you that Gabby killed your dog Winona. You have my deepest condolences.”

Applejack’s face looked like it aged twenty years in two seconds. “W-why?”

“For being the best dog she could be. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Hang on,” said Twilight. “Why didn’t you give any sympathy for Celestia or my family?”

“I think we both agree that Celestia had done enough living. A couple thousand years and she was still enjoying herself. Also, you and I just barely survived what killed your family, so at the time I thought it was more important to focus on that.”

Twilight stood up. “You know what? Forget you, Valiant. If you aren’t going to help bring back Celestia and my family, I’m just going to do it myself.” She stormed out.

Applejack facehoofed. “This is going to end badly, isn’t it?”

“Probably.”

I walked out into the street. Pinkie was still yelling at Rainbow, who looked...sad, mostly. This was a perfect time to declare “not my monkeys, not my circus” and I left them be.

I passed by the farmers’ market train and bought some grapes and then went back to my place. In a dark room, I checked over both shoulders before slowly opening a secured lockbox.

Inside were a few things that would help me put my plan into action. Since the plan involved making things right again, I figured it was somewhat justified in breaking a few things to achieve that.

I’d taken the medallion given to Discord by Tirek, originally given to Tirek by his brother Scorpan. I’d also gotten my hands on the Crystal Heart.

All the Crystal Ponies were earth ponies, which meant the Crystal Heart was probably powered by earth pony magic and maybe even grown by rock farmers like Pinkie’s family. Limestone Pie, the crack fiend, had had no trouble stealing the Crystal Heart for me. All in all, I considered receiving stolen goods a much lesser crime than stealing the one magical artifact that kept an entire kingdom from freezing over. Eh, it wasn’t like there were Crystal Ponies around to care. Plus, crack wasn’t illegal, so paying Limestone with it wasn’t a crime either.

There were a couple of other magical artifacts there. Some small, some big. I was carefully building spells with Sunset’s help to daisy chain all of them together to feed into a repository. All this magic would power my endgame plan.

I closed the door and went back into the living room. I stopped to polish a few snow globes. These were the ones that I hadn’t gotten around to transferring to the display in the library just yet.

Actually, I might as well do that now. Maybe I could see what academic insanity Twilight was up to this time.

I went over to the library. There were suspiciously arcane lights coming from the basement, so I went down to have a look.

The place was a little bit of a mess. Academic texts lay everywhere, apparently from Twilight hurriedly working up some magic. I saw some leftover fast food wrappers, probably dropped there from Spike.

The replacement ponies were still partially chained to the wall. Celebrity, Bakey Pie, and Shovelshy were currently out and about, filling in for their indisposed counterparts.

Twilight was in the center of the room, carefully marking a summoning circle on the floor. She was sweating and had a crazed look in her eye.

“Twilight, if you really think this is a good idea…” I began.

“What, you don’t think I can’t handle necromancy?” Twilight spat. She got a little aggressive with the chalk.

“No, I just think you could be doing better, more productive sins against nature.”

“Valiant, I really don’t appreciate you comparing science to-”

I laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, wook at da widdle unicorn who thinks she’s doing science. Bitch, you don’t even know.”

She made the last chalk mark, slammed the spellbook closed, and said, “Watch me.”

“You know I have my tape recorder right here?” I showed it to her. “This conversation is a matter of record. I’ll give you a chance to rescind what you just said. I know I’ve been needling you pretty hard on this, so I can understand your emotions aren’t quite in place. Because I’m a nice guy, I want to give you fair warning before I make you eat those words.”

Twilight glared at me and fired up the spell.

As the magenta magic swirled around the room, I said, “So what’s it supposed to do?”

“The spell will reach out into the cosmos and retrieve a lost soul. Since we don’t have Celestia’s body, I couldn’t easily just identify her. Moreover, we don’t have any vessel to contain her essence.”

“So we’re going to get a ghost, no physical parts.”

“Right.”

I looked at her. Twilight glanced at me. “What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You think I can’t handle a ghost?”

I held up the tape recorder. “The record will show that I did not, in fact, say anything. But no, I don’t think you can.”

Twilight was about to reply, when the magic began to swirl faster and change color. It rotated through a few colors of the rainbow, beginning to slow down like it was Wheel of Fortune or something. I tried to predict what color it would land on.

It was teal.

The runes on the floor began to glow. Twilight took a step forward, gazing intently as the spell coalesced and began to draw towards the center of the circle. It all sucked in like an implosion and then popped back into being as a floating ball of light.

“P-princess Celestia?” Twilight asked.

“No, I’m Starlight Glimmer,” said the ghost.

I laughed.

“I was looking for Princess Celestia…” Twilight said dumbly as I kept laughing.

“Wait, aren’t you Twilight Sparkle?” said Starlight. Her voice turned. “You cost me my village!”

The ghostly sphere of soul began to advance menacingly, as menacingly as a spot of light can.

I was still laughing, and I kept on laughing as I grabbed an empty glass jar off the table, scooped the ball of light into it, sealed the lid and poured on top a handful of salt from the fast food packets.

“Oh man,” I said. “I didn’t think this was going to go well, but damn Twilight.”

“I’ll-I’ll try again!” she said. “It was my first time ever using this spell! Plus, maybe now we can reform Starlight. I was hoping to perhaps get a chance, but Cordoba killed her. Now I can try it postmortem!”

“What, so we don’t have to live good lives to go to heaven now? We can have it done after we’re dead?” I tousled her mane. “Endless entertainment, Sparkle, endless entertainment.”

I turned to go upstairs and stopped short. “Wait…”

I looked at the wall. Reading Rainbow was gone.

Hurrying outside, I saw Rainbow Dash down in the street. There was a bulge in her abdomen and she looked like she was in pain.

“What happened to you?” I asked.

“She ate me so my sharp edges would give her internal bleeding so she would die,” said Pinkie from inside Rainbow.

I blinked. “What? You...”

“I finally did it,” said Rainbow through her clenched teeth. “You’re just in time, Valiant. I want you to watch me die.”

I shook my head. “What the hell?”

“You heard me. Nopony likes me and I have nothing to look forward to. No family, no friends, no job. So I’m killing myself. But you know me, it’s got to be the best suicide you’ve ever seen.”

“Uh-uh, nope, that’s weird.”

“If I had a better way, I would have done it,” said Rainbow. It looked like her stomach was turning purple.

“Well, you should have picked a quicker method, because I’m taking you to the hospital. You’re a bitch, but people will see me saving you and think I’m a nice guy.”

“If you try to save me, I’ll tell Gabby about your little plan,” she said.

“What!? How did you know?”

“I kinda sorta told her what she was messing up by being like this,” said Pinkie.

“Yeah, and if you save me I’ll tell Gabby what you’re up to,” said Rainbow.

“You would ruin my plan and let Gabby take over the universe just to spite me?”

“Yeah.”

“God, you’re a bitch.” I shook my head. Rainbow continued to moan. It was super uncomfortable.

“Screw this,” I said. I pulled out my Desert Eagle.

“If you kill me, ponies will know you’re not a nice guy,” said Rainbow.

She had me. I couldn’t help her or she’d destroy the universe. I couldn’t shorten this cringey moment or I’d be a bad guy.

“Well, I’m just going to walk away, then,” I said.

“Valiant! Don’t leave me in here!” said Pinkie. “Somepony has to get me out after she dies.”

Rainbow smirked through the pain. “That’s right, Valiant. Sit down right here and watch me die.”

“Jesus Christ,” I muttered. Speaking of which, I should get Bible to come over here and give her last rites.

Nah, Rainbow would refuse and I didn’t care which direction she went when she died. However long that would take.

“Pinkie, what’s it like in there? How much longer does she have?”

“I don’t know, maybe ten minutes.”

“Why do you even want to die?” I said to Rainbow.

“I told you already. What do I have left?” she said. “You know, Valiant, you caused most of this. You made me kill myself. I want that on your conscience.”

“It already was, actually. And I wouldn't have done it if you weren’t such a bitch. In fact, when you’re dead, I’ll be happy.”

“All the more reason to make you sit here and watch as long as I can.”

“This is so messed up,” I grumbled. “At least let me drink.”

I pulled out my tequila, but Rainbow snatched it and downed the bottle before I could wrestle it back.

“Ahhh.” She smirked. “Well, that took care of the pain. Settle in, Valiant. You’ll be here for a while.”

I crossed my hooves and brooded.

God, what a bitch.

Uncommon Bond

We were really doing funerals too often.

A couple of people had shown up for Rainbow’s. Her friends were there. Also her associates, which brought the grand total up to three. Four if you count Pinkie’s skull.

Guinness wore a black suit and a somber expression. He tried to keep Skyla under control and quiet.

Rainbow’s parents were decidedly less composed.

Bible stepped up to the podium. “In lieu of a composed speech, we have elected to read a selection of newspaper clippings about Rainbow Dash. Her exploits and feats were widely known across all of Equestria.”

He cleared his throat. “Oh my God, what a bitch. Bitchbow Bitch bitchiness. Bitchest of all bitches.”

Apparently, they had just randomly pulled headlines to read about Rainbow. I’d done so much bitching about her that the majority of print available was mine. So randomly grabbing samples of writing about Rainbow had backfired beautifully. Ding dong, the bitch is dead. I didn’t say that out loud, though.

Bible hurried through the rest of the ceremony. “We now commit her body to the earth.”

“Wait, why are you burying her?” called Rainbow’s father.

Bible stuttered. “Er, how else are we supposed to do it?”

“She’s a pegasus. It’s traditional to do cremation and let the ashes fly free with the wind.”

“I was until recently a holy book from another planet, so I’m not really up with all the customs around here,” said Bible. “But we already got the casket and I think it’s too big to fit in an oven now.”

“While I wouldn’t normally step in to give Rainbow’s ghost the time of day, I think we should accommodate the request,” I said. I had recently renewed my efforts to be a nice guy.

“Thank you, young stallion,” said Rainbow’s mother. “Were you a friend of Rainbow?”

“We knew each other,” was what I managed to say, though it was strained. I quickly hurried away before I slipped and said what I really thought.

At least I got to burn Rainbow and wave goodbye.

I went over to the library afterwards. I really just wanted to polish my snowglobes and not think about things.

Twilight dragged me back into it, though.

“You need to help me!”

“Starlight Glimmer the ghost proving too much for you to handle?”

Twilight glared at me and then pointed at the glass jar where said spirit still sat. “No, but until I figure out the exact method to successfully return a soul to life, you need to do whatever it is you do to fix things.”

“What, you mean Rainbow?”

“Yes!”

“She wanted to die. Plus, why would I? She was such a bi-” I came up short. Being a nice guy kind of sucks sometimes. “And anyway, I can’t. We just cremated her per her parents’ wishes so that’s as bad as salt.”

“What about if there was something left? Can a spirit be recovered if you still have the body?”

“Are you talking about your parents, Cadance, Shining, Flurry, and Iron Will?”

Twilight nodded.

“And you still have their parts. That’s disgusting, but at the same time I guess I didn’t want to have six more funerals. I guess maybe that could work, though we only have a few parts of each of them so it would be a chimera of the worst possible things. Well, not entirely, I guess; we have Iron Will’s abs. That would be pretty sick.”

“So there’s no way to get Rainbow back?”

“No.”

“And there’s no way to get the others back?”

“Not without making them a horrible chimera with sick abs.”

The door opened. I turned to look. “Well if it isn’t the ambiguously gay duo.”

“I really wish you’d stop calling us that,” said Sunburst.

“All you have to do is stop being ambiguously gay. Go one way or the other.”

“It’s not nice to call ponies names,” said Twilight.

“I’m not calling them a bad name, just pointing out an observation,” I pointed out.

“Still, I thought you were trying to be a nice guy.”

God, shit from Twilight too? I let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“Anyway, what are you guys doing here?” I said, turning back to Sunburst and Thorax.

“Antiquing!” Sunburst exclaimed.

Thorax rubbed the back of his head. “Um, I kind of grew up in a hive in the middle of nowhere, but sometimes I can kinda see where Valiant’s coming from.”

Sunburst shook his head. “Look, just let me buy a grab bag and we’ll call it good, okay dude?”

Well, he may have only ended up with the one grab bag, which was actually a barrel for some reason, but he didn’t specify that he would also be looking around the store for several hours just shopping.

I was surprised to discover a common love of bricks. I’m particularly a fan of the extruded ones myself. Not only do I appreciate machine efficiency, but it called to mind certain parallels to shitting bricks.

You may be wondering why I like bricks. Have you ever thrown one at someone’s head?

Shit, you’re supposed to be a nice guy, Valiant.

As we were walking through the antique shop, though, Sunburst asked, “So...what’s with that thing you’re carrying?”

“I mean, technically a D5 Trident II is an antique design.” Not that I’m calling Trident old or anything.

“So why did you come antiquing?” he asked. “You don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself. Is it because you’re trying to keep me away from some sort of weird science project Twilight was doing?”

I had forgotten that Sunburst, while easy to make fun of, was still a scholar and had seen just enough shit to be savvy.

“Yeah, you got me. We have Starlight’s ghost in a jar.”

“You what?” He shook his head. “I hate to say it, but she changed so much. She definitely wasn’t the same pony I knew growing up.”

“Twilight’s going to try a postmortem redemption. First of its kind, I understand.”

“But...Starlight will still be dead unless you somehow manage to come up with a body and put her in it.”

“There is that.”

Sunburst turned his head. “Hey, check that out! A Mighty Helm map!”

“Hey, what’s this board game?” Thorax asked, coming up just then.

Sunburst gasped. “Wow, I haven’t seen Dragon Pit in years! Hey Valiant, do you want to play?”

“You both have magic,” I pointed out. “I don’t know how that makes rolling dice fair.”

Sunburst frowned. “Now that I think about it, that could explain why Starlight and I were always tieing.”

I was about to leave, when Sunburst said, “We were going to go to the mirror pool later. We can combine my love of geologic phenomenon with Thorax’s love of dark caves.”

“Why are you inviting me?”

“So you can see once and for all whether we’re gay. Or not.”

I shook my head. “God, just pick one already.”

Sunburst glanced at Thorax. “Fine. I’m gay.”

“No you’re not, not with that terrible beard.”

I try to be a nice guy, but sometimes you just have to tell it like it is.

I went over to the farmer’s market train to buy some grapes. On my way, I saw a flier advertising new and improved population enhancement laws that would optimize all of Equestria. A team would be arriving in Ponyville later that day in order to optimize it.

“What’s this?” I asked.

Applejack happened to be nearby, being that it was a farmer’s market and all. “Something about the government making the ponies better. I never really bought into government interference and didn’t think it was a good idea.”

“Wait, where did you hear about it?”

“I didn’t expect you to know about it,” said a haughty mare who butted in. “You not being a citizen.”

I wanted to strongly correct her, but in the interest of trying to be a nice guy, had to restrain myself.

I guess my reputation was getting around if even random ponies on the street knew about me.

The CMC ran by just then. While I wasn’t paying much attention, I heard something about a mirror pool.

While I didn’t know a lot about mirror pools, there was the one that had cloned Pinkie Pie. And if the CMC were talking about it, nothing good could come of this.

Being a nice guy and not wanting to see the town overrun by multiple copies of the CMC, I quickly hurried after them.

However, to my great surprise, I discovered that my misgivings were actually misguided. Be still my heart, they weren’t there to create mischief, they only wanted to study rocks and were using the mirror pool just for its location in a cave.

Jesus, talking about a lucky break.

Of course, though, it immediately went to shit. When we got there, we discovered that the place actually had a tunnel connecting it to an underground headquarters. Sunburst and Thorax were already there.

“Wow, I didn’t think hollow granite usually came with secret hideouts,” said Apple Bloom.

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t,” Sweetie pointed out.

“Um, why does everything have a logo that says ‘Gabby?’” said Scootaloo.

I facehoofed. Had Gabby had this place the whole time? That would explain why she had been able to have pretty much free reign near Ponyville.

“That’s what we were trying to figure out,” said Sunburst. “This looks like a pretty sophisticated operation.

He was right, it looked like a pretty sweet cave. Maud would like it. Outside the rocks, though, it had been heavily renovated. Giving the place a look over, it seemed like it had been pretty well outfitted.

Arts and crafts projects were everywhere, many with blue ribbons attached. Apparently Gabby had been busy at being the best at everything. Various weapons decorated the walls. In one corner was a near-duplicate of one of my terminals. The screen was turned on, showing a couple of schematics.

I was instantly suspicious. This had been too easy. I hadn’t even seen any security systems around. Still, I couldn’t help but look at the screen.

Plan to be The Best at Political Satire

Get citizens riled up

Present a plan to solve all their problems

“Solve” all their problems

I really didn’t like the look of those quotation marks.

“We should probably get back to town,” I said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Back in Ponyville, Gabby was lining up ponies to shoot them in the street. Well, good to know my feelings were on track.

I was all ready to jump into battle when the mayor got in my way. “Mr. Valiant, a word?”

“I’m kind of busy!”

“Yes, but what we have here is a royal decree to optimize our town.” She showed me a piece of paper.

“Gabby probably wrote that herself while she was Princess Celestia!”

The mayor gave me a blank look. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Princess Celestia’s dead, Gabby took over the throne for a while.”

“That doesn’t make any sense either, and if true, the implications are frankly too horrible to think about so I’m going to treat that statement like nonsense and follow the lead of this decree and that extremely talented griffon.”

“She’s literally murdering people!”

“First of all, you’re one to talk.”

“I’ve changed! I’m a nice guy now!”

“Then second of all, if you’re really a nice guy now, you’ll obey the law.”

“The false law that involves literal genocide!’

“The law.”

Goddamnit.

I spun around. The haughty mare from earlier was pleading for her life as Gabby leveled her gun. “No, please!” The bodies of dozens of already-optimized ponies lay nearby.

Despite the situation, I couldn’t help but kick her while she was down. “You wanted this. You wanted to optimize the town. This is what you get when you vote for the shooting-people-in-the-streets party.”

“I didn’t think they would shoot me in the streets! Also, what’s voting and what does it have to do with the Equestrian government?”

It was a small win for democracy, but a decidedly huge loss for me versus Gabby.

I couldn’t even engage her there and then, I didn’t have all my gear. Sure, the Santa bag carried a lot of it and I was sorely tempted to try, but there was still some experimental stuff I had to finish. I still had some stuff. I was carrying a nuke after all, but using that meant I’d die too and that just wasn’t really acceptable. Dying sucks.

I hustled over to the library. Twilight was watching the scene in the street worriedly. I mean, that was definitely an understatement considering what was happening, but I was too focused on gearing up to carefully document Twilght’s exact reaction.

“Valiant,” she called. “You really need to do something.”

“I’m trying to work out how,” I said. “She has a royal decree.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Celestia is dead.”

“And if you didn’t know that, you’d probably just blindly go along with it because you’re a good little pony who don’t not take shit off not nobody.”

“But what are you going to do?”

“I’m trying to think. Being a nice guy, I can’t just violate the law of the land.”

Twilight gave me a look.

“Anymore. Look, I understand a royal decree. Yeah, I thumb my nose at them, but I understand how it makes me look when everybody goes along with them.” I shook my head. “God, ponies are stupidly herdlike sometimes.”

“I thought you were trying to be a nice guy. Insults don’t help.”

“Damn it! Yes, I am. Look, I am honestly trying, you can see that, can’t you?”

“Yes, I really can. And I have to say, Valiant, I think it’s amazing.” Twilight glanced out the window. “But I can’t believe I’m saying this, but something really needs to be done about Gabby.”

“How?”

She turned back to me. “Valiant, much as your reputation has improved lately, it’s still bad. You don’t have a lot to lose.”

“Thanks for invalidating all my work trying to be a nice guy.”

“Look, Valiant, believe me, this hurts to say, but I think you might be the only one who can do this.” Twilight closed her eyes, sucked in a breath, and sighed. She looked at me. “Do it.”

I stared at her. “Are you saying…?”

“Do what you have to do. Anything to stop Gabby.”

I blinked slowly, taking it in. I crossed the room and wrapped Twilight up in a hug, probably surprising me more than her.

“I didn’t expect that from you,” she said.

“Yeah. Just I might never get the chance again. When this gets going, I honestly don’t know the endgame.”

She sighed. “I know. I know the kind of fire I’m playing with here. But I don’t see any other option, not after so many lives have already been taken. Just make sure it’s for something, okay?”

“Okay.” I disengaged. Twilight turned away, apparently unable to look.

I paused to grab a few of my favorite snow globes. Then, I headed for the door.

As I walked, my mouth started to smile. Even if I was Santa Claus, my lips just kept stretching up my cheeks into a full-on Grinch grin.

No more Mister Nice Guy.

Shadow Play, part 1

“I really hope Twilight doesn’t do something to get Alice Cooper killed.”

While there were a lot of things in this world that were about to get broken, I don’t think I could stand that.

“I’m not sure if that would make you more or less of a nice guy if No More Mister Nice Guy never existed any more,” said Pinkie.

I worked through that mentally and shrugged.

It was a rush to get my shit packed and prepared to evacuate Ponyville. Blood was starting to pool in the streets outside as Gabby methodically and personally shot every resident in the face. One wondered why they didn’t leave or something. The reason was, she had a government charter and apparently that was good enough for ponies.

I had decided not to make a big deal out of it. Not being a nice guy any more and also planning a huge paradigm shift would do that to you.

Wachowski walked in, wearing a frown. “I know you’ve been fighting Gabby for a while. Shouldn’t you be doing something?”

“I am. I’m moving. Ponyville’s about to not exist any more. Where would I get my nuts and bolts without a local hardware store? Where would I get my Twilight abuse without a local Twilight?”

“I was thinking you actually wanted to do something about her.”

“Well, ideally, but at the moment I’m going to regroup, now that I don’t care about anyone or anything anymore. Aw yeah.”

“Are you really that much of a dick?”

“I mean, you saw the struggles I went through to be a nice guy. This is kind of my natural state.”

“Is it, or are you overcompensating?”

I thought about it. “Shut up.”

“My point exactly.”

“You know, I did consider growing a goatee, but I’m not that evil. I have some restraint.”

“And aren’t we glad.”

I considered killing Wachowski. I’d probably use Pinkie’s skull; it was pretty hard.

Sunset came through the door just then. “Tin Mare’s loaded. Trixie and Daring weren’t in Ponyville, so they’re safe.”

“Who are we pulling out?” I asked.

“Well, I figured you’d want to save the remaining members of the Elements on principle. Guinness and Skyla asked to come. Sunburst and Thorax are here, so I corralled them too. I guess that leaves just Trident.”

“And me,” said Wachowski.

“What the hell,” I decided. “It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”

I walked outside. Gabby was in the middle of butchering the farmers who had come for the mobile farmers’ market on the train. I saw the guys I’d bought grapes from being led away to slaughter.

Left unattended, the train started to slowly roll away, picking up speed as it headed for the center of town and certain derailment. It would probably wipe out dozens of homes. I guess there were no brakes on the grape train.

I eyed a missile launcher set up in the town square. It hadn’t been there earlier, and I suspected that it could only be Gabby’s work.

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, do you see this thing?”

“Affirmative. It could be trouble. While I doubt it would do serious damage to my systems, it’s always something to think about.”

“All right. You know where it is, so be aware when we take off.”

I walked back towards my place. My hooves toyed idly with my switchblade and my Desert Eagle. Now that I wasn’t a nice guy anymore, I kind of craved mayhem. Maybe Wachowski had been right that all the repressed orneriness had bubbled up.

But attacking all the citizens of Ponyville while they were down was at best kind of a dick move and and worst helping Gabby.

I waded back to my place through the blood that was collecting in the gutters. Everyone had already boarded Tin Mare. Trident, of course, needed help. She was a big girl and didn’t really move well without a rocket motor. The rest of the cargo area was filled with my stuff: electronics, weapons, snowglobes.

Everyone else sat around the cargo bay. Thorax and Sunburst had ended up pushed to the cockpit. Not that it mattered; Tin Mare was autonomous.

I looked down at the destruction below. I should have felt sad. I should have felt anything. Okay, I still hated Gabby. This would have been the perfect time for me to go all not-nice guy, but here she was taking the fun out of it.

“You know, I bet she really just needs to get laid,” said Pinkie.

Come to think of it, we hadn’t tried that yet. “So you want me to just throw you in there?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure she’s a lesbian, but she’s not my type.”

“I thought your type was ‘warm.’ Also, how do you know she’s a lesbian?”

“Playing the odds. Equestria has so many more females than males that on average most mares are.”

“I don’t think that’s quite correct,” said Twilight.

“Come on, Twilight, look around,” said Pinkie. “Even Applejack’s a lesbian.”

“What!?” shouted Applejack.

“Come on, you can’t tell me somepony with the ability to make meat puppets of herself hasn’t experimented at least once.”

Applejack pulled her hat down in front of her face, blushing furiously.

“Masturbation doesn’t count,” I said.

“But is she doing it herself, since meat puppets?” wondered Twilight.

“I would appreciate it if you all would stop this line of conversation,” Applejack mumbled.

That seemed like a good cue to get going. I wasn’t sure exactly where, but I needed a little time to put my plan into action.

Tin Mare lifted off and almost immediately sounded a missile warning. “If we stay low, we can get lost in the ground clutter.”

I heard a whoosh as the missile lost lock and went harmlessly over our heads.

Down below, I saw Gabby glance up, spotting us leaving. She pulled out a small electronic device, like a control interface.

I suddenly had a bad feeling. Maybe standing on the tailgate wasn’t such a great idea.

“Incoming,” Tin Mare warned.

I saw the missile come off the launcher. In fact, it kind of looked like it was coming straight at my face.

So I ducked. I’m not an idiot.

However, the missile flew inside Tin Mare’s cargo compartment. I didn’t want to think about a bodily analogy to that, not even an anal-ogy. At any rate, it didn’t matter, because the missile flew all the way through the cargo area, into the cockpit, and exploded.

Fortunately, it only killed Sunburst and Thorax.

Unfortunately, it tore Trident’s retaining straps.

Tin Mare threw her effort into stopping the slide, but had to dodge another missile. I made a grab for Trident but was too late. The nuclear ballistic weapon slid out the open tailgate and fell, slowly tumbling end over end.

“Trident, nooo!”

I closed my eyes because I couldn’t bear to watch, and also because the nuclear blast would sear my retinas if I did.

Tin Mare, knowing full well what more than a megaton of MIRV’d warhead could do, GTFO’d. You can't miss if you hit everything, and it wouldn't be good to be inside the blast zone.

The blast still knocked us end over end in a wash of hot air. I flopped around the cargo bay, clinging to straps. Guinness shielded Skyla. Everyone else hung on where they could.

We made it to smoother air and I found myself on the floor. I sat up and looked back.

Ponyville was gone and there was a miles-high mushroom cloud hanging over the scene.

I held no hopes that Gabby had been caught in it. She was too good.

“Well, at least we have a demonstrated nuclear capability,” I said quietly. “Suck it, North Korea.”

I realized Twilight was sitting beside me, staring with a blank expression at the cloud where her home had been. I wasn’t sure if she was still processing or actually broke.

“It’s bigger than the other thing,” she said after a moment. I figured she was talking about the Rods From God, which she had witnessed a while back.

While I had attempted to conceal my prompt global strike system as a method provided by a deity to man-up mares, I didn’t think genital manipulation could really be a good disguise for kinetic bombardment. Unless you’re doing it wrong, I guess.

Tin Mare flew us to Canterlot. I figured it was a good enough location for a final battle. We’d done it there before. We got out at the old tower where Twilight had stayed as a student.

It was also, like that Huey Lewis song, a place to go if you wanted some people because they had the most.

Well, no, I guess that would actually be Manehattan, but since when was Huey Lewis a reputable source of census figures?

Anyway, with a large pool to pick from, I began killing them.

When you’re let loose with a knife and no repercussions, things can get a little crazy. Gabby might be going for the record in executions, but there would forever be an asterisk on her title because she had the help of a legal document.

I did it au naturale, baby.

And you know what? I could have had the same pleasure playing Grand Theft Auto. Mindless destruction was kind of fun, but the mindless part sort of made it pointless. I mean, mass murder is one thing. Doing it just to do it was kind of unfulfilling.

I was still considering that as I headed back to Twilight’s place, occasionally stopping to decapitate someone.

Sunset was unpacking equipment from Tin Mare. The cockpit was still painted with gore, but with what I had in mind, there wasn’t really any need to clean it. I figured that all this would be over one way or another soon. I just had to put my plan into motion.

Sunset showed me a book, covered in Sunburst’s red blood. Thorax’s green blood was all over the other side of the cockpit.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“I think it’s Starswirl the Bearded’s journal,” she said, flipping a few pages.

“Huh, neat. Where did Sunburst get it?”

“No clue.”

“Anything interesting in there?”

“Apparently Starswirl and some random folk legends got together and formed some kind of superhero team before being betrayed. They’re gone now, and that’s where the Tree of Harmony came from.”

“Well, don’t tell Twilight. She’d do something stupid if she found out.”

I went to see Twilight just then, since she was on my mind. When I arrived in the tower, I found Twilight looking out the window, probably ruminating on the fires in the distance and the screams of the dying. She turned as I came in. “Did you just…?”

“Probably.”

“How...many?”

“Dunno. Couple thousand?”

“I can’t believe you would do this. After everything you said about Gabby and you turn it around inside of one day. You’re a monster. You’re a degenerate.”

“Yes, but I’m your monster/degenerate. Don’t forget that you said it was okay.”

“That’s not what I intended and you know it!”

“Well, you know I’m kind of a dick.” I leaned closer. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve got a plan to fix everything, and if it works I can kill anyone I like and get it all reset. And you know, I think I will, because that way I’ll know the best way to do it for the future, just in case.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” said Twilight.

“Then Gabby wins and it doesn’t matter who I killed.”

She shook her head. “But...but how are you going to do this? Kill everyone and then fix it?”

“If I tell you, I have to kill you. It’s a huge secret that I can’t risk getting out to Gabby.” I paused. “You know what? I’m going to tell you and then I’m going to kill you.”

“I, uh, don’t really want to know.”

Wow, that might have been the first time Twilight ever declined to know anything.

Coward.

Shadow Play, part 2

“My name is Valiant, and in the last twenty four hours I’ve killed several thousand people.”

The other members of the council of Valiants applauded politely.

“What are you going to do next?” asked Valiantina.

“Dunno, Disney World?” I took a sip of tequila. “Nah, probably not. You all know my thoughts on the public. I could do without them.”

“So are you going to kill everyone?” Valiantina asked.

“It’s not like I’m going for an achievement or anything.”

I checked my watch, getting back on topic. “You’re probably wondering why I called you all here today.” We were sitting in the back of my universe’s Tin Mare, parked on a hill a couple of miles away from the edge of the smoking, radioactive crater that used to be Ponyville.

“It wasn’t to brag about killing several thousand people?” said Valiantina.

“You know me too well. But no, it was a proactive defense.”

“Don’t make us draw it out of you. Spill it.”

I pointed my hoof at the door.

As if on cue, vampire Cheerilee appeared, skin peeling off but looking angrier than I’d ever seen her. Her lips had already fallen off, exposing her fangs. She was probably the only survivor of the nuke that killed Ponyville.

She pulled up short upon seeing so many Valiants.

I think she had an aneurysm right then and there.

She fell over, twitching. I pushed her off the tailgate.

“Aren’t you worried about contamination?” said Valiantina.

“Nope. With what I have in mind, everything will either be fixed by tomorrow or I’ll be dead.” Just because I could, I gave the comatose Cheerilee a kiss. Just the cheek, I was trying to make a point, not confuse people.

The Council of Valiants adjourned the meeting and I went to finally put my plan into motion. It had been a long time coming.

With Ponyville and most of my stuff gone, I had fallen back to a setup in Twilight’s library tower in Canterlot. It had a couple of things decorating the space that I’d occupied since moving in. Snowglobes, random magical objects, weapons, and electronic gear was strewn everywhere. Sunbust and Thorax’s personal effects were down at one end. Apparently Sunburst had gotten his hooves on Starswirl the Bearded’s journal. Interesting, I guess, but nobody but Twilight would care and I hadn’t told her. Last thing I needed right now was a distraction.

I did need some blood, though. The stuff I was doing kind of called for it.

Well, good thing I was on a murder spree right now. I walked outside.

The Royal Guard was milling around in front of the tower. Guard Captain Soarin’ was with them. I think they had come in response to the pile of bodies outside the door.

Twilight totally disapproved of the body pile, by the way.

“There he is,” someone said, unenthusiastically.

“Hey guys,” I said.

Soarin’ stepped up. “You have to stop this.”

“I told you before, by tomorrow, everything will either be completely safe or completely screwed. I’m just having my fun now.”

“I know what you said, and I’ve never known you to do things without a specific purpose, however wrong I always think it is, but I took an oath to protect Equestria and I can’t let you do this.”

“You know, I kind of admire your spirit,” I said. “That’s honestly touching.”

I frowned. “But to make this work, I still need some blood. Tell you what, I’ll promise not to kill whoever I get the blood from, as long as you pick who you want me to use.”

“Flash Sentry,” said Soarin’.

“Done and done.”

The guards shoved an orange pegasus to the front.

“Hey,” I said. “Thanks for volunteering.”

“Uh-” he said.

I glanced at Soarin’. “What did he do?”

“Our sisters.”

The other guards murmured in agreement.

“Well then, I’ll give you the ol’ two-for-one special: dick blood and defertilization.”

“What?” said Flash. “I don’t think-”

“You do too much thinking, apparently with your little head,” I said. “Soon it won’t be a problem.”

I got him into a chokehold and flipped him on his back. He only appeared to realize what was going on when I pulled out my switchblade.

“Hear ye, here ye, our grace Flash Sentry had committed the cardinal sin of screwing some guy’s sister.”

“Some guys’ sisters,” said someone.

“Some guys’ sisters,” I corrected. “As per thy holy axiom, ‘thou shalt not screw around with those whom thou shalt not screw around with’ we now commit him to his eternal punishment.”

“I thought you weren’t going to kill me!” said Flash.

“I’m just going to castrate you,” I said. “That’s eternal enough, quit complaining.”

I started cutting. Flash didn’t like it. I got the blood I needed, though. I sure hoped the source wouldn’t make a difference.

“And for the final touch,” I said. “Just as we burn and pillage and lay waste, here too we sow everlasting infertility. Just like the earth, we salt his loins to ensure that nothing springs forth.”

I poured the salt.

Admittedly, that was a little bit more performance art that Flash Sentry really deserved, but I was working on some theatrics for the endgame, so it was good practice.

That done, I went back into the tower. Back in the lab, I finished up my work. Finally. It had taken so goddamned long and required so many shitting resources. Tirek’s medallion, a couple of Harmony-related things, that one rock Maud had told me about that you could use to rule all of Equestria, and a whole heap of other magical items besides. And a snowglobe. My favorite one, in fact.

Wachowski walked in. She looked at the things I was doing. “So you said something about this being the final battle?”

“Yep.”

“What are you doing?”

“Buildin’ my superweapon.”

“How’s it work?”

“Well, first I pull some stylish moves and get Gabby where I want her and then I give her a little of the rough stuff like this, or this, or like so.” I demonstrated a few moves on the air.

“You look like you’re fisting an elephant.”

“Are you saying those moves wouldn’t work for fighting a griffon?”

Wachowski waved a hoof. “Proceed.”

“Anyway, after the aforementioned fisting, I’ll have her where I want her and then I’ll pull out my special superweapon, the day will be saved, we’ll ride off into the sunset and Robert’s your mother’s brother.”

“What’s with the unecessary longform?”

“‘Bob’s your uncle’ is so passé. Anyway, this’ll be a big awesome fight and I’ll need you to choreograph it.”

“How long do I have?”

“You don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“I mean, it’s less a question of ‘how long’ and more a question of ‘why aren’t you already done?’”

Wachowski let out a long sigh through her teeth, glaring at me. “Fine. Come on.”

We got in touch with Tin Mare and met up. This was a conversation that had to be secure. With that in mind, I disabled Tin Mare’s network connectivity. We told her the plan. This was going to depend on perfect timing in the absence of communication.

Then, I went to get dressed. It was Wachowski’s choreography, so that involved a certain style.

Consequently, I was dressed in sunglasses and a black trench coat as we approached the castle roof, the sun setting in the distance.

Wachowski finished adjusting my collar and cast a critical eye over my outfit. “Do you have everything? Guns?”

“Check.”

“Tequila?”

“Check.”

“Snowglobe?”

“Check.”

“Why do you have that, anyway?”

“Part of the plan. My plan. The plan that’s either going to work or kill us all.”

“Great.”

“It sure is.”

Tin Mare came in for a hover right over the castle roof just as the sun slipped below the horizon. I turned towards the open tailgate, but paused, looking back at Wachowski. “I was meaning to ask, how is it that you’ve survived here so long?”

She shrugged. “I know my tropes.”

I nodded. “Fair enough.” That was good enough for me. I pulled out a red and white piece of fabric.

It was a santa hat. I put it on Wachowski’s head.

Her eyes rolled upwards to look at it and then back down to stab at me. "Valiant, what's this?" she said, slowly, carefully, dangerously.

"You're Santa Claus now. I'll give you my snowglobe collection." I pulled the one out of my pocket and showed it to her before putting it back. "Well, except for this one. Anyway, bye." I pointed finger guns at her, clicked my tongue, and winked before stepping backwards off the tailgate and into the night.

Making finger guns with hooves is really hard, by the way.

The sound of Tin Mare’s engines faded in the distance and I stood alone on the castle roof. Time for the next step in the plan.

I pulled out the bottle of tequila and held it up. This was the multiverse’s finest tequila. I had brewed it myself from an agave plant that I had tended with the care and nurture of a parent, feeding it the blood of my enemies. The mixture itself was octuple-distilled, and had finished off just a little bit more than 300 proof. Yeah, more than 150% alcohol, baby. It was the finest batch I had ever produced.

I called into the night. “I hold the world record for blood alcohol content. Come and take it, Gabby.”

She’d never considered being the best at that. And she couldn’t resist.

Gabby appeared out of the night, landing on the roof a few feet from me. I stared her down and held up the bottle. “We go drink for drink until one of us dies.”

“From alcohol poisoning,” I quickly added.

“I’m the best,” said Gabby simply. “I’m going to win.”

I couldn’t think of a retort, so instead I just popped the cork and took a swig. Then, I passed the bottle to her.

The bottle was gone in minutes. Neither of us was holding back.

Not to toot my own horn, but anyone else would have already keeled over. I’d been training my whole life for this moment. Liver don’t fail me now!

Gabby was good, I had to give her credit for that. But even she couldn’t avoid at least getting drunk. And that was all I needed.

“You’re going down,” I said. “I hereby declare this as your day of reckoning. I come bearing the word of my God. That word is ‘begone.’”

Hell yeah, said my amplified voice from the sky.

“You can’t touch me,” said Gabby. “Look around you, I have this whole country under my control. I’m the best. You can’t beat me.”

“I don’t have any choice,” I said. “It’s do or die. But more importantly, I’ve got righteous indignation on my side. But more importantly, this isn’t how life is meant to be lived. But more importantly, you’ve pissed me off.”

I glared at her. “My best missile killed all of Ponyville.”

“I thought it was kind of weird that you referred to Trident as a person.”

“Shut up. Because of you, well, partly because of Trident exploding, but mostly because of you, my home is gone, well, okay not my home, just my place where I keep all my stuff, but that’s bad enough.”

“I may be the best at punctuation, Valiant, but even you should have known that was a terrible sentence.”

“Shut up. I’m not finished.” I pointed my hoof at her. “And finally, I deactivated my daughter because of you, you hacking bitch!”

“Are you done?”

“Obviously. That’s what I meant by ‘and finally.’ Are you really the best at taking a hint?”

“So that’s it?” said Gabby. “You’re angry at me and you’ve finally decided to take me on personally?”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s it.”

“Well, let’s do this.” She shrugged. “I’m the best at one-on-one combat, as well as all other kinds of combat, so this should be quick.”

“Except you’re not the best at being drunkest.” I grinned. “Come at me.”

Gabby came at me. As it turned out, she was indeed the best fighter in the world. But she’d never done it with enough alcohol in her system to kill a horse.

Her slowed reactions provided the microsecond I needed to just barely dodge her first attack.

And then, having slipped off the roof of the castle, I fell.

They say it’s a long way to the top if you want to rock ‘n roll. It’s also a long way to the bottom if you fall off a tall building built on a tall mountain.

Fortunately, we’d planned all this in advance. Tin Mare zoomed in beneath me as I was in freefall. I got my hooves down on the top of her fuselage and surfed her out into the sky.

Gabby was behind us, having flown after me. I swept my trench coat back and pulled out my guns.

Not surprisingly, I couldn’t hit jack shit. I was on an aircraft being buffeted by wind and trying to shoot at the world’s best bullet-dodger while both of us were hammered.

“A little help, Tin Mare!” I shouted over the wind.

“Hella.”

Trusting her operating system, I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger again, letting Tin Mare position us both.

Hearing a squawk, my eyes popped open. The bullet had only grazed Gabby’s wing, but it probably wouldn’t have even done that if she hadn’t been drunk.

Tin Mare banked into a turn and we intercepted the falling griffon. I grabbed her by the throat, but completely failed to remember that her forelegs were longer than mine and outfitted with claws, too. I was drunk, see.

Tin Mare rolled repeatedly, trying to give me some kind of advantage, but Gabby hung onto my throat too tightly. She knocked my guns away. I pulled my switchblade out, but she wrestled me for it.

This was it. I had only one weapon left.

And it was a good one.

It had taken a shitload of magic and creative spellwork. It had taken blood, sweat, tears, and testicle blood. It had taken magical artifacts, time spells, fix-it spells, and too many other hexes to remember. It had taken a curious funnel spell that Cadance had taught me. I can only speculate why the alicorn of love needed a spell to put big things into small things.

Regardless, I had done it. I had created an exact copy of our universe. It was overlaid perfectly and invisibly on top the existing universe, two copies occupying the same metaphysical space.

I raised the snowglobe, the inky blackness inside begging to glow. Gabby was distracted by it, but triumphantly raised the knife she had taken from me, stabbing it downward into my chest.

Not gonna lie, it hurt. I was kind of dying. But I had the strength to raise my head and whisper in her ear. “You killed me with a knife, not alcohol poisoning as per our agreement. I win.”

And then I activated the spell.

The copy of the universe I’d created was stripped away, funneled into the snowglobe. With it went Gabby and my dead self. My live self and not Gabby stayed, obviously.

Then the time magic kicked in and everything started to go backwards rapidly. I could only speculate where it would spit me out or what I would find when I got there. There was a significant chance things would be different, too, what with the major changes that would result from squeezing and compressing the universe like that.

I don’t really have time to explain it all, because this whole deal was literally about changing time. Suffice to say, it’s magic, I don’t gotta explain shit.

The world swirled in all directions, just like the universe I had just sucked into the snowglobe. It was kind of pretty, now that I thought about it. I wasn’t paying much attention to what was going on around me, though it seemed to be starting to solidify. Where was it? Some kind of room?

I took a quick glance around and smiled. The Ponyville Library, just as I had left it. A flash from the snowglobe caught my attention. It seemed like the spell was complete and starting to return to normality.

I held the snowglobe in my hooves. It seemed to glow from within, a swirling, inky blackness speckled with points of light.

“Valiant, what are you doing?” Twilight asked, in her suspicious voice.

“Nothing.” I put the snowglobe back on the shelf.

Twilight gave me a look, but couldn’t immediately prove that I was doing - or had done - anything wrong. She turned away to continue reorganizing the library.

Author's Note

https://www.fimfiction.net/story/13723/144/a-dream/celestial-advice

School Daze, part 1

“I don't think that's correct, Valiant.”

“Well, you try writing a children's history book.”

Twilight stared at me. “I have. And I didn't start it with the beginning of the universe.”

“Where do you suggest I start it?”

“Something the kids can relate to, such as with our contemporary times and only then introducing what happened before.”

“Maybe, but I still like the comprehensive approach.”

“Well, at least fix the typo.” She pointed at the first line of the book. In the beginning, the universe was created with a big wang.

“I'll think about it.”

Twilight gave me a look, but shook her head and turned away to continue packing her suitcase.

I was writing a history book because that was a good excuse to ask about stuff. Doing a hard reset on the world led to some weird changes. After stripping a deranged Gabby griffon out of the universe and shutting her away in a little pocket globe holding facility thing, and then also doing some weird reversed time stuff, I noticed that apparently there was some lossy compression to reality. It had gotten to the point that I was actively looking for glitched pixels in the sky.

Worse, I was the only one who noticed those changes because I'd seen what happened in the future I'd prevented, so I had no idea what the new present was like.

However, only some of the changes were due to Gabby being gone. I was still trying to reconcile what the hell had happened to change the unrelated rest of the stuff.

Twilight grabbed her suitcase and placed it next to the door. “All right, I think that does it. I’ll be off soon to Silent Hill.”

“What made you decide to finally step up to the plate and properly administrate?” I asked.

“Well, I just decided it was time to ensure Silent Hill is turned from a barren wasteland into a nice place to live,” said Twilight.

“It has nothing to do with the Celestia-appointed governorship hanging over your head?” I said. “That up until now you’ve never done anything with.”

“Well, you just said Silent Hill is a barren wasteland,” said Twilight.

Not that Twilight. There was another one sitting there.

She looked nervous and not entirely comfortable in her skin. She wore glasses. She didn’t need them, but I had insisted she wear them so I could tell the two of them apart. I don’t think she liked the attached nose and mustache.

Twilight, the original, looked at her for a moment, and then said, “Valiant, can we have a word?”

The two of us walked into the back room. In a low voice, Twilight said, “Explain to me who she is again.”

“You know how there’s those whole alternate universes thing?”

Twilight had been there a time or two. To several of said universes. “So you pulled in a duplicate of me.” She tilted her head. “Are you...going to miss me when I go to Silent Hill?”

“That’s ridiculous. You remember how I’ve occasionally tried to kill you.”

Twilight did not appear convinced. “I’ll tell you what, Valiant. I’m going to be receiving a substantial income from the crown to make Silent Hill a functioning community. I can redirect some of that to be used for building an idea that I’ve been thinking about for a while, a friendship school.”

“That’s a terrible idea.”

“You think. But this is a great opportunity. Teach the alternate me about friendship. Solve friendship problems while I’m gone.”

“Why should I?”

“Because if you don’t, I’ll come back.” She smirked. “Prove you don’t really like me.”

“You want me to do your friendship-related work for you to prove that we aren’t friends?”

“If you don’t do my friendship-related work, then we are friends.”

“This doesn’t make any sense, but I get the feeling that no matter what I do, I’m not going to like the outcome.”

“It’s tragic, isn’t it?” said Twilight. “But turnabout is fair play. I don’t know how many situations you’ve engineered for yourself like this.”

Many. “So you’re just going to go off to a barren wasteland with nobody else around with your stipend and probably a trainload of books and wait for me to show that I’m not good at friendship?”

“That’s it.”

Jesus Christ, I knew Twilight was good at chess, but I didn’t think she had it in her to be a chessmaster. Worse, until I got my head around all the changes to the universe, I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to kill her and set off even more butterfly effects.

“Have a nice trip,” I said through my teeth.

Twilight smirked and went back to the front room. She picked up her suitcase and Spike. “I’ll leave you Owlowiscious. He doesn’t like cold weather.” She left for the train station.

“Bye.” Spike waved.

“Hoo,” said Owlowiscious. I wasn’t sure that he was thrilled to be left here with me. He flew upstairs.

That left me alone with Twilight, who was taking off the Groucho Marx glasses. Apparently she was perceptive enough to see the doppelganger go and conclude the distinguishing glasses could come off.

“I didn’t say you could take those off, Sparkles the Wonder Horse.”

“You can just call me Twilight.”

“Eh, it’ll be weird. Twilight’s still fresh in my memory, and that memory is hate.”

“What did she do to you?” not-Twilight asked.

“That’s a story for another time.” I checked my watch. “I have to be somewhere soon. You know what? The other Twilight’s gone, so we’ll just call you Twilight.”

“But I am Twilight.”

“Shut up, Twilight.”

I left the library and headed for my place. Twilight hurried after me, legs not quite coordinated. “Where are we going?”

“I’m going to the bar.”

“I thought you had an appointment.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not going to the bar.”

I checked my watch and stepped through the door, raising a hoof. A mug of beer landed in my grip as the door opened.

Guinness, who’d thrown it, didn’t look up from the bar.

I finished it by the time I sat down and Guinness had another for me. Apparently noticing purple out of the corner of his eye, Guinness raised his head. “I thought you left, Twilight.”

“She did,” I said. “This is Twilight.”

There was a moment of silence. I put down the empty glass and Guinness automatically got me another. “Yeah,” I said, “I probably should have kept calling you the other name, Twilight. Now everything is confusing. This is all your fault.”

“S-sorry.”

“So who is she?” Guinness asked.

“I told Twilight that I brought the version of her from another universe here.”

I’m sure he caught the undertone, but decided not to ask. Instead, he changed the subject, “So you’re about to be a grandfather.”

Gutpunch. Okay, yes, my adopted daughter who was almost as old as me and her girlfriend were about to be parents. I drank while considering it. “I guess so.”

“Which one of them is having it?”

A couple of people had asked that.

I changed the subject as Guinness changed my glass. “Also, before she left, Twilight wanted me to run a friendship school that she was setting up with misappropriated government funds.”

“Oh boy.”

Yeah, that about summed it up, me running a school.

Cheerilee was going to be pissed.

To celebrate, I had another beer. I saw Twilight looking at me and said, “You want one?”

“Is she old enough?” Guiness asked.

“Our Twilight is like the equivalent of a grad student or something,” I said. I didn’t actually know how old she was. That would imply that I remembered her birthday.

Guinness nodded and got her a beer. I’d already finished mine and he got me one, too. Twilight took a sip. I offered my glass and she clinked hers against it.

Then sixteen reams of paper teleported in with a burst of dragon fire, thudding to the floor, and Twilight choked on the rest of her beer. I finished mine before looking around to see what the commotion was.

I glanced at the sticky note on top the stack. Twilight had really been getting a lot of use out of those since I’d been the first one in Equestria to invent them. I read it while drinking the next beer.

Valiant,
This is all the paperwork you need to set up a school. See the instruction manual I wrote for you on top the pile to get started.
-Twilight
(Spike note: this is going to suck mailing all this.)

I sighed and picked up the bound pages on top the pile and flipped through it. Apparently I had to go in front of the Equestrian Education Association and convince them to let me set up a school. All the forms had already been filled out and sample copies of the curriculum produced.

“This is going to be boring,” I said. I looked at Guinness. “Can I hire your hired help to do it for me?”

“What are you talking about?” he said.

“Coloratura.”

“Countess Coloratura doesn’t work here.”

“I meant her sister, a waitress who used to work here, that looks a lot like her and whose name I’ve never bothered to learn.”

Guinness looked confused. “As far as I know, Coloratura doesn’t have a sister, particularly not one that looks a lot like her and whose name you’ve never bothered to learn.”

Huh. So the universe reset had eliminated Coloratura’s sister that looked a lot like her and whose name I’d never bothered to learn. I was mildly disappointed, but then I guess I didn’t really care about her if I didn’t even know her name.

“Well, I guess we should get started on this school thing,” I said. “I want it done as soon as possible.” Though maybe I could use the school as a front to conduct more research on the changes to the universe. “I think we need to go to Canterlot. I’ll fly us there.”

“Can you fly like this?” Twilight said hurriedly. “You’re drunk.”

Guinness and I burst out laughing.

“Please,” said Guinness, “he’s only had seven drinks.”

I paid the tab and led Twilight out the door. I mean, technically I was going to leave the flying to Tin Mare, but that was only because it was easier than doing it myself.

She’d overheard the conversation from my earpiece and was already warming up when we arrived. I dropped the stacks of paper in the back.

“Hi Valiant, going somewhere?” asked a chipper female voice.

“Who’s that?” Twilight asked. She already knew Tin Mare. Of course she did, a seventeen ton death machine tended to make a memorable first impression. But a younger, upbeat voice was not something she had heard before.

“This is Libby,” I said, indicating the smaller aircraft folded up in Tin Mare’s cargo area.

“Hi, I’m the Lightweight Interceptor for Baddass Bombing!” Unable to do anything else while folded up, she blinked her lights.

“H-hi,” said Twilight.

“Who’s this, Valiant?” said Libby. “She looks like Twilight but she doesn’t fit the biometric profile.”

“She’s like Twilight,” I said.

“Uh…” Twilight looked at me, apparently uncomfortable at being so closely scanned.

“Don’t mind Libby,” I said, “she’s got a few figurative screws loose. I could fix literal loose screws, but I’m having issues dialing in her personality.”

“Will you be needing weapons support today?” Libby asked.

“It depends on how this meeting with the school board goes.”

“Oh, nice,” she said. “I have my .88 Magnum ready to go, depending.”

It took me a second. “Jesus, that’s dark. Tin Mare, how do you let her get away with this?”

“It’s your programming job,” she reminded me. “The original personality was strong, and rather than modifying it, I suspect you overcompensated.”

“Maybe,” I acknowledged.

“Wait, what’s this about an original personality?” Twilight asked.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Tin Mare flew us to Canterlot. We went to the Equestrian Education Association. For some reason, the EEA’s headquarters was a dungeon.

I walked into the room, kind of a sunken pit in front of the magistrate, with Twilight and the huge load of papers. Around the room, a bunch of old people looked down on us from their desks.

“I am Chancellor Neighsay,” said the guy in the center. I took an immediate dislike to him. He just had one of those faces, voices, and attitudes, you know? Not to mention, never trust anyone with the title of chancellor.

“We expect you to do things by the book,” he went on.

“Okay,” I said.

“You don’t speak with conviction,” he said, staring down his nose at me.

I remembered my campaign to be a nice guy. I remembered my desire to shove my success in Twilight’s face.

Instead of replying to him directly, I just handed out copies of documents Twilight had made. “This is apparently the curriculum.”

The board members reviewed the work silently for a few minutes. Neighsay eventually looked up. “This is extraordinarily well written for someone of which we’ve never heard.”

“It was written by Twilight Sparkle,” I said, nodding to Twilight.

Under my breath, I muttered, “Quick, act like Twilight.”

“But I-”

“Oh really?” said Neighsay. He shuffled a few papers. “I have on good authority that she has recently taken up a governance position.”

“Right, senior leadership,” I said.

“Fortunately, the EEA does not answer to anypony, not even the Princesses.”

Wait, really? A school board with the power to overrule heads of state? Though, presumably given that power by said immortal heads of state? I was going to need to look into this further.

“However, in recognition of several letters from said Princesses, we hereby grant provisional EEA approval to open this school of friendship.”

Did Twilight really lean on the royalty, desperate to make it more likely that the school would be opened despite me being involved? Playing dirty.

Neighsay went on. “We will need to observe your school up and running before it can be fully accredited.” I barely heard him. Apparently I was running a school now.

No one was more surprised than the girls when I told them back in Ponyville. We had gathered in the back room at the Half Pint, which despite the universe restart was thankfully still there.

However, what really threw me for a loop was how much some of them had changed.

Rainbow Dash was a mom. I mean, she was technically a mom before, but she’d accepted her role and gotten a mom haircut. And related to the haircut, she was apparently a hairdresser now. I vaguely remembered her doing something with stylish cloud manes, but I was flabbergasted that this was apparently her new career. Also, she smelled like smoke for some reason.

Fluttershy seemed to have a little bit more willing control over her slaves, Daisy, Lily, and Rose. She’d either accepted their care and feeding or just gotten used to the idea.

Rarity was sporting some kind of punk look with torn vest, spiked collar, and a short, three-toned mane. It kind of resembled the dyes that someone had dumped in her ocean self.

Applejack, as far as I could see, was still herself and herself and herself. The meat puppets hadn’t gone away.

Pinkie wasn’t gay.

As I was trying to wrap my head around it all, Applejack prompted, “So you wanted to talk to us about something?”

I explained about Twilight, Twilight, the school Twilight wanted built, and how she wanted the six of us to be teachers. Reactions were mixed, to say the least.

I read off a list of notes from Twilight. “We have a huge responsibility, and we all need to do this by the book. Specifically, that means no cannons in class, Pinkie.”

“Aww, not even a teeny cannon?” She pulled out a teeny cannon. It was smaller than her hoof. Kind of cute, but I didn’t let myself be distracted.

“No. Also, all you had to do was ask me for a handgun if you wanted a teeny cannon. But I digress. Now we need to get the school built.”

I played the montage music. The six of us, with our various skills and abilities, and with skycrane support from Tin Mare, got the place put together pretty quickly. Twilight had already filled out the building permit for a location at the base of the nearby waterfalls and also drew up the building plans.

We deviated from plans slightly.

At any rate, opening day came before we knew it. The girls had all taken teaching positions. The new Twilight, supposed to be a student but a little too old, I’d slotted into a miscellaneous administrative position. I’d wanted to be the superintendent, so I didn’t have to actually deal with kids, but Twilight-in-absentee had been very clear that I was supposed to be the principal.

I was really starting to hate her, which unfortunately meant her plan was working.

At least she’d already done all the recruiting for us and a ton of kids from around the world showed up.

I’m not good with names, but I caught half a dozen. It was weird seeing kids already forming cliques.

My attention was distracted when a young female yak walked in. Or rather tripped and headbutted a wall. “Hey,” I said to the teachers as the group of us stood across the room from the front door, “I thought all the yaks were all dead.”

“You don’t think they took those remaining two male yaks and-” Fluttershy began.

“I specifically told Twilight not to do anything weird with those guys and just let their species die out with dignity,” I said.

“This student also looks much too old to be newly born from two dads,” said Rarity.

“That’s not exactly a limitation,” said Rainbow. They all looked at me.

“So you’re saying some other person out there has the technology to create artificial offspring and decided to make a clumsy yak?” I said. “Not likely, on either count.”

At least Yona the yak seemed to be making friends. Thorax the changeling king brought a little changeling for the school called Ocellus. I wasn’t sure if she was his kid and that indicated he wasn’t ambiguously gay with Sunburst anymore or if it was just another changeling kid. Gallus, who was apparently Gilda the griffon’s brother, had come. Ember the dragon, who was looking much slimmer these days without the huge dragon symbiote on her lower body, had brought a dragon almost as big as she was named Smolder. Based on coloring, she could have been Scootaloo’s sister. I sure hope the universe hadn’t twisted that far. There was an earth pony colt named Sandbar. And also apparently a hippogriff princess named Silverstream.

“What the hell’s a hippogriff?” I said, staring at the kid from across the room. “Some kind of pony/griffon hybrid?”

“Hippo/griffon hybrid?” Pinkie suggested.

“Eagle/pony hybrid,” said Rainbow.

We all looked at her.

“What? It was in a Daring Do book.”

I left them to the teaching. None of them really seemed enthusiastic, but with Twilight’s lesson plan at least they didn’t have to think for themselves.

I retired to my office where Twilight was waiting. “So...friendship,” she said.

“Yeah. It’s a thing.” I sat down at my desk, which was clean. Clearly I hadn’t worked there very long.

“How do I…’friendship?’”

“Good question,” I said. “I guess that means making friends.”

“How do I find friends?”

“Well, sometimes they come to you. Sometimes you share a common interest or something.”

“How do I find ponies with common interests?”

This was getting annoying, but Twilight had told me to be a teacher.

“I guess find your hobby and look for others with the same one. What do you like to do? I know you’re not the real Twilight, so I can’t say if your cutie mark means the same thing as hers does.”

“Er…”

Sensing that going on a cutie mark quest would quickly pull in three filles who would not make the situation better, I quickly jumped in. “You know, just try stuff. Art, medieval history, phlebotomy, poetry.”

“How does one do poetry?”

“It’s easy, just jam a bunch of rhyming words together. ‘On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer and Vixen; On Comet, On Cupid, and Richard M. Nixon.’”

That shut her up for a while. Thanks, Tricky Dick.

I made a few notes and to-do lists. Running a school was hard. Twilight broke the silence after a few minutes. “What’s this about superheroes?”

I looked up. She’d found a comic book, presumably one of Spike’s that had somehow found its way into the office.

“Yes, that’s a perfect hobby,” I said, seizing the opportunity. It would keep her out of my hair and give her something to do. “You should be a superhero.”

“Er, how?”

I folded my hooves on the desk and smiled. “This may take a while.”

That afternoon, I had a walk around the school to see how things were going. Everyone seemed to be getting along. Of course, the girls each had their own unique teaching styles. I was still glad it wasn’t me actually doing the teaching.

Suddenly, a blue portal opened and Chancellor Neighsay stepped out.

“Oh,” I said.

He stared at me while writing on his clipboard. “You seem unprepared.”

“What should I be prepared for?”

“The EEA inspection to determine whether this school is able to function on an approved level.”

“Oh. Well, I think we’re doing okay.” I led him around. He didn’t say a word, just constantly wrote on his clipboard.

We came to the first classroom. The desks were piled up and the young yak was doing a trust fall from the top down to the other students. I heard Neighsay’s pencil break.

“Irresponsible teachers and endangering ponies!” he shouted. “Where did you even get dangerous creatures like this?”

“Like what?” I asked.

He pointed, indicating some of the students with mute rage on his face.

“Okay, I’ll give you that I didn’t expect to see a yak either,” I said.

“Not just that!” he shouted. “Dragons, griffons, is that a changeling?”

“Hang on, I had something for this.” I dug out some notes Twilight had given me, a quick reference guide for questions that might come up. “Twilight says if there are inquiries about non-pony students, Princess Celestia helped pick the student body and reached out to heads of foreign nations.”

“For what purpose?” Neighsay demanded. “They should stay with their kind.”

“The note says friendship isn’t just for ponies.”

“How do you know these creatures won't take what they have learned here and use it against us?”

I stared at him. “...because friendship is no match for air superiority?”

“When I said by the book I meant an actual book, not notes from somepony who isn’t even here!”

I glanced at Twilight’s quick reference guide, which being written by Twilight, actually was a small book. “I’m just repeating what it says.”

Neighsay harumph’d in that way only pretentious old guys can. “Do you even know what you’re doing here, what kind of trouble you’re in? Does your little pamphlet cover what to do when faced with such a serious inquiry from the EEA? What does it say about that?

My patience was at an end and I couldn’t help myself. “It says you’re a little bitch.”

I was kind of beginning to understand Twilight’s fear of magical kindergarten if this was how schools were run in Equestria.

Neighsay’s eyes bulged. “By order of the EEA, I am shutting this school down!”

Shit.

Neighsay stomped off. I turned back to the classroom. All the students were staring at me.

“Uh, school’s out.”

Goddamnit, Twilight. You might just live to rue the day you made Plymouth Valiant a schoolteacher.

The Maud Couple

People kept asking about Twilight. Okay, I guess that made sense. We had to keep constantly reminding them that it wasn’t the Twilight they knew but someone who looked exactly like her. Fortunately, once the conversation was started, they could usually tell the difference.

But the question of “well, who is she?” kept coming up.

I looked out the window as we rode Tin Mare into Manehattan, the autodarkening sunglasses I’d developed working pretty well.

“I’m not sure if we should get you a sign or something to hang around your neck,” I said to Twilight. Guinness, Rarity, and Maud were with us.

“That sounds inconvenient and awkward,” said Twilight.

“See, perfect for you.”

“Well, an eye-catching neon spell over your head with relevant information is probably too gauche for casual encounters,” said Rarity, who was trying out said spell at that moment. DYKE was currently flashing in purple block letters in the air above her head.

“You realize this is a magazine interview, right?” I said. “We already have preprinted press pictures.”

I snapped my hoof. “Actually, that’s perfect. Let’s get some business cards printed for you, Twilight, that have all the relevant information on them.”

“What would they say?”

“Hmm.”

Twilight Sparkle
No, not that one.
Librarian - Ponyville

I shrugged. “We’ll think about it.”

I sure had a lot to think about. Trixie and Daring were about to have a kid. The new multipurpose entertainment center we’d built in Ponyville needed to be officially named. I had to finish kitting out my school submarine and take education to the high seas.

Well, okay, it was a submarine, so not so high seas.

Those thoughts kept me busy all the way to Manehattan.

The band had gotten an interview with Modern Music Monthly, a small but growing magazine that pretty much published the edgiest stuff they could find to draw a readership. Being Equestria, the edgiest thing around was a new punk band and it made us pretty much the lead story.

Timmy Times used to work for a newspaper called the Canterlot Canter, and I’d pushed my connections through him to get this interview. We walked into the magazine office and he showed us to a conference room.

“So,” he said, noting our names, “Das Booty. How did the band come together?”

“Well darling, we’ve just recently formed from a shared passion,” said Rarity. “I want to be seen by ponies.”

“I want to push a personal agenda,” I said. “Celebrity and steady income are important to both. Punk music reminds me that I’m not actually old enough to be a grandfather.”

“I just want to be a chill dude,” said Guinness.

Timmy Times nodded. “Tell me a little bit about yourselves.”

Rarity did. There was a lot to tell. I’ll give her credit, she was one of the few ponies in Equestria who knew the definition of subtlety. I barely caught her mention of a girlfriend.

I was up next. “I’m an alien. I was once an alicorn. I’m currently researching practical applications of ghosts. I’m also starting a toilet paper company.”

Timmy paused, but apparently you get used to things like that in the music biz. He turned to Guinness.

“Um, also an alien. Happily married, and small business owner.”

We chatted a little bit more. I thought it went pretty well. We gave him some of our best promo pictures and he promised we’d see ourselves on the cover next week.

On the way out, Rarity said, “What was that about ghosts?”

“Wow, I was more surprised by the toilet paper company,” said Guinness.

“You remember how we used to have Starlight Glimmer’s ghost in a jar?” I said.

Rarity nodded.

Guinness looked suspicious. “Used to?”

“Anyway, the toilet paper company, I thought of a slogan so good that I basically have to. If we merchandise through the band, it’ll be even better.”

“I suppose Das Booty could be a decent pitch for toiletries,” said Rarity.

Guinness looked between the two of us and pressed, “Used to?”

“Not in a jar anymore,” I clarified. “Currently being tested in a practical application.”

We got back aboard Tin Mare. I sat down beside Twilight. She had her nose buried in a book she had brought. After a moment, I said in a low voice, “A friend would ask how it went.”

“Oh! Sorry. How did it go?”

“Pretty well. I think we’ll be famous shortly. Not bad for only ever playing one show.”

I was still teaching Twilight friendship. The threat hanging over my head of actual Twilight coming back and thinking me a failure was still there.

Back in Ponyville, we dropped Twilight at the library and I headed back to my place. It was a little empty at the moment. Cordoba was out with her friends. Yes, she apparently had some. Maybe even some besides the CMC. Sunset was working on a project that involved the mirror portal and corresponding human world. I hadn't asked what she was up to this time and figured she would tell me if I needed to know.

That left me with Libby. Dear God, I don’t know where I went so wrong with the personality.

“Those are some goddamned nice sunglasses,” she said. “I really like them.”

“Where did you learn to swear?”

“Cordoba taught me. I kind of like it!”

“Swearing is for people, Libby..”

“You know, speaking of people and the whole self-determination thing, instead of LIBB can I be called EDWARD instead? It stands for Excessive Destruction With A Rude Demeanor. I’ll be the only automated weapons system that adds insult to injury!”

“Since when do you get to pick your own name? You’re a robot. And even people generally are named by somebody else.”

“Cordoba has self determination, and she’s a robot.”

“Cordoba may be mechanical, but she’s a person, like I built her. You’re an airplane, like I built you.”

“Aw.”

“Also, what’s with Edward? Are you transgender now?”

“I didn’t even know I had a gender.”

“You’re female, hence the pronouns I use for you.”

“Sooo if I have a gender, why am I not a person?”

I definitely hadn’t built her to be existential, either.

Nothing major happened over the next few days. The band practiced a few times. Even punk music had to be at least looked at in advance of a show. As the magazine’s publication day neared, we started checking the local stores.

I was in the local baking supply store trying to see how big of a bulk purchase I could do in order to have the submarine school outfitted for food service. By chance, I saw a copy of Modern Music Monthly on the shelf with Das Booty front and center. I snatched it up and headed to the counter to pay.

A grey and brown stallion stood at the counter. I paused in line behind him. He stood there for perhaps fifteen seconds, not saying a word. I frowned a poked my head around him. Was there an invisible pony in front of him? Was I stuck in a time-frozen-zone?

“Um,” I said. “Are you in line?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Is...there someone in front of you?”

“Technically, the only pony in front of me is the store proprietor, but she isn’t in line.”

I looked at the pony behind the counter, who was clearly wearing a customer-service-barely-keeping-it-together smile. “So...what’s the holdup?”

“I’m deciding between between saying ‘goodbye’ and ‘see you later.’”

“Great, you said both.” I pushed past him to talk to the salespony. “I need enough baking supplies to outfit a school. Like, literal tons of stuff.”

“Oooh, sorry, I’m going to lunch.” She put up a sign saying that and dashed away.

I let out a long sigh and looked down at the magazine in my hooves. I grabbed a pen from behind the counter and a pad of scratch paper and wrote a brief receipt for the price and left it with money on the counter.

Turning around, I saw the stallion from earlier was still standing there.

“Simultaneously using both expressions of parting ways does not accurately express my intent,” he said.

“I don’t give a shit.” I started to walk past him towards the door.

“Technically, you mean you don’t care.”

Even I wasn’t going to take a dump on command just to spite him. “Good for you, genius.”

“Technically, I’ve never had my intelligence measured and found to be at genius levels.”

“It was sarcasm.” I turned for the door again.

“I did not interpret it as such, and instead will interpret it as a compliment about my intelligence.”

I paused, sighed, and turned to face him again. “I take it you’re not from around these parts.”

My voice had involuntarily slipped to a more redneck tone as I went on. “You know what we do to folks around here who are different and kind of annoying?” I lowered my voice. “We make memes about people like you, boy.”

He stared at me for several seconds. I figured he was trying to think of what to say next, similar to his parting salutation dilemma earlier, and quickly left.

I went over to the library. Twilight was there, practicing a few simple spells from a book. Owlowiscious sat on his perch, looking over her shoulder. Apparently they were getting along. The owl probably knew a few things about magic just by being around old Twilight.

“There you are,” she said, looking up as I came in. “I wanted to ask you about superhero names.”

“Sure.”

“I was thinking of ‘Mystic.’ It perfectly describes my abilities and sounds mysterious and sophisticated.”

“Okay,” I said.

“That’s it?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe you’re not as bad at this as you thought.”

“Me next!” shouted Yona the yak, crashing into the room. “I want to be Super Yak!”

“Too on the nose,” I advised. “Also, you’re clearly a yak. Superhero names are supposed to give you a secret identity. Also, you don’t have magic, so there isn’t much for superpowers there.”

“But...but you said it’s about a secret identity,” she pointed out. “No superpowers, so ‘Super’ is okay!”

“Fine,” I conceded.

“So, Super Yak.”

“Not yak.”

She frowned and screwed up her face in concentration. “Yaks are like cattle. Maybe a disguise as a cow?”

“Aren’t you a heifer? I asked.

“So cow works even better as a secret identity!”

“Super Cow,” said Twilight. “It could work.”

“Speaking of work,” I said, “I actually needed something from you, Twilight. This could also benefit your superhero business. I’m starting up a magic and spell development group.”

“Oh really?” she said. “That could be interesting. But, um, you’re an earth pony.”

“That’s why I need your help. I’ll be the brains, and you be the brawn.”

“Uh…”

“Not literally. Magic brawn.”

“Okay,” she said. “So we’re forming some sort of...superhero team?”

“Much as I’m tempted, I’m afraid not. But it’s okay, because this matchup is still going to be awesome. We’ll do all kinds of magical research and subsequent field testing to determine real-world applications. I’ve even got a cool name for this little development group: DEVGRU.”

“I thought superhero names were supposed to be about secret identities,” she said. “That’s just a contracted version of the name.”

“But it’s not a superhero team.”

“Oh, okay.”

I left the library. Pinkie intercepted me. “Hey, have you seen Maud?”

“No,” I said.

“I’ve looked all over for her,” said Pinkie. “I was at the construction site and in the market and at the lake and at Maud’s place and up the Ponyville clocktower, but she wasn’t at any of them. Also, ponies seemed really concerned about an eccentric firearm-owning pony like me being in a clocktower.”

She shrugged and bounced away.

I headed downtown, which in a hovel like Ponyville took about thirty seconds, quicker than Vanessa Carlton could play it. My eye happened to fall on a flyer for a local comedy club, which to my surprise listed Maud as a performer. I figured Pinkie would see it eventually. I myself headed to club. This was something I wouldn’t miss for anything.

Maud was apparently doing a set at open mic night. Despite it being afternoon, but I’m not picky.

I saw Rarity in the audience and sat down beside her.

The jokes were terrible. I mean, if we’re being honest, I know a thing or two about bad jokes. Still, with Maud at the mic, it almost cycled back around into so-bad-it’s-good. Almost.

She finished up and came over to sit at our table, placing her pet, Boulder, on the table beside the napkin. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned my head to see who was approaching. “Oh hell no.”

Rarity turned to look. The guy from the bake shop walked up to our table.

“I liked your performance,” he said.

“Thank you,” said Maud.

“I’m Mudbriar.”

“I’m Maudileena Pie.”

Mudbriar’s eyes fell on Boulder. “What’s this?”

“This is my pet rock, Boulder.”

“I, too, brought my pet with me today.” He placed a stick on the table. “This is Twiggy.”

“Aw look, they’re playing together,” said Maud.

“They’re adorable,” said Mudbriar.

I glanced at Rarity and said under my breath, “I think he wants to put a stick in the Maud.”

Rarity apparently had come to the same conclusion and cleared her throat.

“How rude of me,” said Maud. “This is Rarity and Valiant.”

“Speaking of us.” I pulled out the band magazine and showed it to Rarity. She let out a squee and seized it, flipping pages and talking a mile a minute. It completely derailed Mudbriar.

Not wanting to see any more of him, I left.

I walked back out of the club into the afternoon sun, my glasses autodarkening. To my surprise, Chancellor Neighsay was there.

“You look pretty good for a guy subjected to the Great Cocksmackening,” I said. “One might think you’d had practice.”

“I did not,” he said.

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, does he look gay to you?”

“Hella gay.”

I nodded. “Even my robot plane thinks you liked it.”

“That’s not why I’m here!” He glared at me. “I’m here to issue you a cease and desist order regarding your submersible school.”

“What are you going to do?” I said. “You burned my last school, and while I have every right to burn you in return, I kind of like the idea of a submarine that is also a school.”

“You don’t have every right. Murder is illegal.”

I laughed. I don’t think he got the joke.

He went on, addressing my earlier question. “If necessary, I will ban your craft from entering ports in Equestria.”

“Does a school board have authority to regulate maritime city visitation rights?”

“The Equestrian Education Association has more power than the princesses.”

“Whatever,” I said. “I’ll just have the students stay onboard so we never have to pull into port. It’ll be a boarding school at sea. A water boarding school.”

He glared at me. “I will not allow this.”

I smirked. “I have to say, by my usual methods, you would already be painfully killed. But I think it’ll be fun to have you around. It’ll keep school interesting.”

I walked away feeling smug. I knew smug wasn’t good for the planet, but like a lot of things, I indulged myself at the expense of others.

I walked by the new theater/multipurpose community event building. Trixie, Daring, and I had built it. It was ostensibly for Trixie’s shows, but we figured we could recoup some of the cost by allowing Ponyville to use it for other events. Trixie had used it to great effect to announce she and Daring’s impending child.

We were still working on what to officially name the building. “The Trixie’s Virginity Memorial Cultural Center” was currently the front runner and dear God did I hope we came up with something better.

As I walked, from down the street I saw another sister of Pinkie and Maud’s, Limestone.

“Good day to you, my fine chap,” she said.

“What the hell,” I responded, staring at her.

“Oh, are you surprised at my mannerisms?” she said. “I’ve found a new pastime, you see.”

“Not crack, anymore?” I asked.

“Oh heavens no. I’ve found my pleasures in opium.”

“So...heroin.”

“Pish posh.” She waved her hoof.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this new Limestone, but I guess anything was better than being a crackhead.

She followed me to the pub. Guinness looked up as she came in, apparently wary, but served her the absinthe she asked for.

Maud came in a few minutes later. Mudbriar followed her, talking what I assumed was quickly for him. “I love the shape of sticks, and their color, and their consistency.”

Maud did not reply, merely sitting down. Guinness gave her a glass full of ice.

“Hello sister,” said Limestone. “What an unexpected pleasure to see you here today.”

“Hello Limestone,” said Maud.

“Who’s this?” Limestone asked.

“This is Mudbriar,” said Maud. “He likes sticks.”

Limestone barely kept her composure. I could tell, because prior to today I’d never seen her with any composure. “Do you associate with him often?”

“Today is the first time,” said Maud.

“Has he just been following you around all day?” I asked.

“I’d wager you thought she was your one-in-a-million diamond?” said Limestone.

“Technically, I was thinking she was my one-in-a-million perfect stick,” Mudbriar said.

“Your analogies fall a bit flat, but I understand what you’re saying. Limestone folded her hooves in front of her. “However, my sister Maud is more special than that. Sorry to say, but you aren’t her perfect geode.”

“Why would you call me a geode?”

“Are you familiar with the concept of geodes being plain on the outside, but opening up to a brilliant center when one looks closer?”

“I like sticks,” said Mudbriar.

“You are pleasant conversation, but I’ve never met anypony who knows minerals like Rarity,” said Maud.

Mudbriar blinked. “I am confused. Do we not share a special connection?”

“You know she’s in a relationship, right?” I said.

Mudbriar paused. After a long moment, he said, “This is new information.”

He stood there for several more seconds.

“Trying to figure out whether to say ‘goodbye’ or ‘see you later?’” I guessed.

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in God?” I said.

“Are you referring to a higher power commonly prayed to?” he asked.

“Right.”

“I am undecided.”

“Well, if it affects your calculus in any way, ‘goodbye’ is an ancient contraction for ‘God be with you.’”

“And also with you,” Guinness muttered reflexively before he could stop himself. He went back to polishing a glass.

“Perhaps I will see you later, or perhaps not,” Mudbriar said after another long moment of consideration. He turned for the door.

I tapped my earpiece and spoke a quiet message.

As the door closed on Mudbriar, a booming voice came from the sky.

Mudbriar, I am God and for your agnosticity you will have your pathetic stick broken.

Good to see that system was still online in this changed up universe.

From outside, we heard Mudbriar make a sound that sounded as if perhaps the threat had already been carried out.

I turned to order a drink, but Trixie’s voice suddenly cut into my earpiece. “Dad, where are you?”

“The pub,” I replied.

“Are you drunk?”

“Just ordering, actually.”

“I hate to ask you this, but I need you to be sober.”

That got my attention. “Why?”

“We need you here. The baby’s coming.”

“Oh, um, shit. Okay, I’ll be right there.”

I got up. “Guinness, do you have any cigars?”

“I don’t smoke, but I could maybe find some.” He looked at me. “Is it what I think it is?”

“Yeah.”

He smiled. “Congrats.”

“Yeah.”

I turned for the door, my mind moving a million miles a minute.

I still didn’t know who was having it.

Fake It 'Til You Make It

I rushed into the building. Trixie and Daring were there, having called me about the impending childbirth.

I cut my eyes between the two of them. “Uh...should we be going to the hospital or something?”

Neither one of them looked pregnant. Neither one of them had ever looked pregnant, which had always made me question which one of them would be having the kid.

Trixie was holding the weird chunk of basalt wrapped in electronics that controlled the universe. “Dad...I know you wanted to be here, and I appreciate that, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“You called me.”

She nodded. “Right, but I wanted you to know what was going to happen before you committed.”

“It’s a baby being born. It’ll be disgusting, but you know I would do anything for you.”

Trixie smiled uncomfortably, but genuinely. “Remember that.” She hit the button.

The three of us went to another world. I knew that because of the distinctive going-to-another-world magic I’d experienced so many times before. I found myself staring at a sterile white ceiling.

Then, abdominal pain.

I looked down. “What the hell!?”

Trixie and Daring, both stallions, flanked a doctor who seemed very interested in my groin, though it was hard to see him over the swell of my very large belly.

Well, I guess that answered one question, and posed a shitload more.

“Would you have wanted us to tell you?” Trixie asked.

“No, I guess not,” I said through grit teeth, squeezing my eyes shut. “But still. Damn. Valiantina’s going to be pissed.”

I was going to have to bribe her so hard at the next council of Valiants meeting.

“Okay, I think one final push will do it,” said the doctor.

I did.

Jesus Christ.

Ironically, as it would turn out, it wasn’t Jesus Christ at all.

The baby born, Trixie snapped us back to our own dimension. Understandably, my legs were a little shaky and I did a quick check to verify that everything was back in place.

Touching my junk in front of my daughter and her lover was not what I’d planned to do, though, and it was only then that I realized I was holding the kid, wrapped in a hospital blanket.

Valiantina was really going to be pissed. From that universe’s perspective, we’d just teleported in, snatched the baby, and left. Then again, I guess that depended on whether she wanted it or not. I did think a little about how the insemination might have been done, but strongly corrected myself with a shake of my head. That way lay madness.

To distract myself, I pulled back the cloth over the kid’s face. It was a colt, black in color with a red mane. When he opened his eyes, they were green and featured slit pupils.

All of that would have gotten my attention, but what really opened my eyes was the aura of palpable evil surrounding him.

“You!” I shouted.

Despite being a newborn foal, he grinned, showing his fangs, and said, “Did you miss me?”

“Uh, dad?” said Trixie.

I glanced at her, and back to the kid. I knew ponies couldn’t see this brand of demon - we’d been through this before. This guy had been called many things in the past; the King in Yellow; He Who Walks Alongside; Taz; Talalot the Vile; Harbinger of the Fourth Syzygy, Rainbow Catcher.

I’d given birth to the antichrist, but I’d be damned if I let him smirk at me like that.

I turned him over and spanked him. “This is what you do to newborns, right?”

“Uh…” Trixie and Daring stared.

“It’s okay.” I explained about the demon. Trixie already knew most of it. It was new to Daring. Neither one of them was pleased.

“But what can he really do?” Trixie asked.

“Not much, for now,” I said. “But who knows later on? Thank God we only got an earth pony.”

“You aren’t thinking of killing him?” Trixie asked.

“Well, I will if you want me to,” I said. “At the same time, I just started a school for friendship and Twilight would be really displeased if I murdered my own grandson.”

I sighed and changed the subject to improve my mood. “How about a name?”

“What were you thinking?” Daring asked.

I stared at the kid. He still grinned, challenging me. “Something really gay,” I said.

Trixie frowned briefly, but said, “Like what?”

“Fizzlepop Berrytwist,” I decided.

The kid sighed and rolled his eyes.

Daring said, “I thought you said really gay.”

“It’s gay to me. If you really want, I can get Sir Win in here to certify it.” I tickled the colt’s nose. “Isn’t that right, Fizzy?”

“I will eat your soul,” he replied.

“Not if I eat yours first.”

Cordoba came into the room. “What’s that demon doing here?”

You’re damn right I built my robots with demon-sensing technology.

“This is apparently your nephew,” I said. “But to the point of being a demon, I’m glad you’re here. I need my personal Jesus. Cordoba, enter Jesus mode.”

“It’s Jesús.”

“Fine, I need my personal Jesús.” Which sounds illegal, by the way.

Cordoba shifted modes, which didn’t look like much from the outside. Jesus mode was not literal Jesus. He wouldn’t come Equestria, at least not if he knew what was good for him. But it provided a little extra boost of holyity. Holiness. Whatever. It maybe made her a little extra smitey, too.

Still, though, her attitude kind of put me to mind of how Joseph must have felt when dealing with a rambunctious teenage Jesus. God may be your father, kid, but he ain’t your daddy.

A call rang in my earpiece and I tapped the answer button.

“My sensors show that Cordoba just went into Jesus mode,” said Sunset. “What’s happening?”

“That asshole Rainbow Catcher demon kid got reincarnated into our grandchild,” I said.

Sunset said something very unladylike. “Well, you know I can’t drop everything and get home, especially now that I know that.”

“I understand.”

She signed off and I turned back to Fizzy. “Look at that, not even ten minutes old and you’re already getting disowned.”

“You know that doesn’t bother me, right? In fact, I might call it a goal.”

“I know, but tricking you into explaining menial things does annoy you.”

His ever-present impudent grin faltered briefly. Gotcha, asshole.

“What services do you require of Jesús?” Cordoba asked.

“Here.” I handed Fizzy over. “Babysit.”

Cordoba blinked.

“Five bits a day,” I said.

She grumbled, but didn’t refuse.

That problem not taken care of but at least put on hold for a while, I turned and went to do school shit. Demons being babies does not absolve one of their teaching submarine.

Down at the yards, the vessel was slowly nearing completion. The hull was ready, the classrooms were put together, and really all we had left to do was outfit with furniture and the little things like pencils.

Sir Win was active in the project, because it required interior design and Rarity was off at some fashion show. He was just finishing up a sketch of the decoration for the art room when I walked in.

I glanced over his shoulder. “That looks pretty gay.”

He considered it. “So it does.” He took out a stamp and marked the paper Certified Gay.

You guys thought I was kidding about him certifying things like that.

I took a walk through the engineering spaces. This was supposed to be a no-student area, but maybe we could repurpose for some on-the-job training or mechanical classes or something. Of course, I also knew that students would find a way to go places they shouldn’t, so I also had to take into account shit like safety and not having sharp corners on things.

I also did a careful sweep for any attempts to derail my plans. I was still thinking about the Equestria Education Association and that asshole Chancellor Neighsay.

Good thing, too. I found a bomb.

I called Neighsay. I’d sent him a phone so I could. He didn’t know that, though, so it took a few minutes for him to find it in his mail and figure out how to answer.

“I found your sabotage, asshole,” I said.

“What?”

“This is Plymouth Valiant, principal of the school ship USS In Need of Beaning. I was just walking through the engine room and found a little bomb tucked up next to one of the propulsion motors.”

“What makes you think it was the EEA?” he said, smugness dripping.

“I can’t stand it, I know you planned it. I’m tellin’ y’all, it’s sabotage.”

“Try again, but with correct grammar this time.”

“You tell the Beastie Boys that.” I hung up on him.

I went to find the teachers so we could have a meeting. Perhaps it was telling about this whole project that I found them at the bar. No, probably not. It was just a really convenient meeting place in the pub’s back room.

“Where’s Rarity?” I asked.

“Rarity is at a fashion show,” said Twilight.

“Where’s Fluttershy?”

“She’s filling in for Rarity at her Manehattan shop,” Twilight explained.

“Fluttershy, selling fashion?” I thought about it. “Eh, doesn’t sound difficult. Fashion is just like painting or wine tasting. It’s not difficult at all because it’s bullshit and you tell rich people what they should want.”

I looked around the room. “Where’s Pinkie?”

“It’s pie season, apparently.”

“Applejack?”

“Apples-for-pies season, apparently.”

“So it’s just you two?”

Rainbow and Twilight nodded.

I sighed. “Well, there isn’t a lot we can do here. Fluttershy is probably freaking out right now. Twilight, that might be a good friendship lesson for you. We should go to Manehattan and sort it out.”

So we hopped on Tin Mare and headed north.

Libby, still folded up in the back, asked, “Close air support when?”

“Well, considering we’re going to deal with a fashion crisis, probably soon.”

Speaking of fashion, arriving in the middle of the street aboard a seventeen ton death machine instantly makes one just about the most eye-catching guy around.

I swaggered into the shop, wearing my auto-darkening sunglasses. Fluttershy was posted in the corner while the flower ponies - Daisy, Lily, and Rose - did her bidding as her slaves. Each of the three of them were outfitted in stereotypical outfits of a bitch prude, a daft valley girl, and an emo kid. Also, there were raccoons serving tea.

I looked around. “What’s going on here?”

One of the racoons started miming, doing up hairstyles and waving his little hands around. I kind of wished Spike was here. He was pretty good at reading raccoon interpretive hairstyles, for some reason.

Fortunately, Rainbow Dash in this new universe was a hairdresser. “Something about Rarity asking Fluttershy to watch the boutique and there were costumes?”

“She decided to have her slaves play dress up instead of hosting a comic con?”

“I know, right? I don’t get it either.” Rainbow shook her head.

Lily, wearing fake glasses and her mane up in a bun, was explaining to a customer about a dress, “It’s an unique play on the old standard. We call it a Rarity cut with a triple-cut stitched hem and a guacamole chevka pattern fabric.”

“Don’t you mean ‘chevron?’” the customer asked.

“If I had meant ‘chevron’ then that’s what I would’ve said,” Lily replied, putting a little heat on it.

Sunset liked chevrons, I remembered. Also, damn Fluttershy, rein in these girls a little.

We walked over to talk with Fluttershy directly. She seemed to have things under control.

“As Rarity taught me, the shop is fairly easy to track. The store is divided into sections: chic, classic, modern, sophisticated, avant-garde, traditional, and obtuse. Each section is divided by season, color, and price. It's a classic SCP system. Once you have the item, then you just ring the customer up.”

She went on to explain how she’d had Lily turn into a severe matron character, Daisy play a vapid preppy girl, and Roseluck act like a life-hating goth-dresser. “Also,” Fluttershy explained, “The racoons living here are actually tanukis pretending to be racoons because nonsapient animals don't have to pay Manehattan's punishing municipal income taxes.”

“But most animals in Equestria are sapient,” Twilight said.

“And Manehattan found a way to tax them,” Fluttershy said.

I shook my head. “Wait, what did you mean by ‘SCP system?’”

“I don’t know. Rarity said it, and I didn’t think to ask.”

I guess we’d have to catch up with her later.

We loaded up and headed back for Ponyville. On the way, Rainbow lit up a cigarette.

“Put that out,” said Tin Mare.

“Jeeze, all right.” Rainbow dropped it on the metal floor and ground it out with her hoof.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I said.

“You didn’t think my voice just naturally sounded like this, did you?” she said.

“Can you manipulate smoke like clouds?”

“That’s one of the bonuses,” Rainbow confirmed.

We got back to Ponyville and unloaded. I looked around. “The cigarette reminded me. I should get some cigars to pass out, considering Trixie and Daring had their kid.”

Twilight and Rainbow congratulated me. I left out the part where it used to be Rainbow’s kid. I would tell Twilight later.

I said, “While you’re here and while I’m on a roll naming things like that kid, I guess maybe you can help me with naming some other things that need names. Like that new theater we built but still haven’t dedicated. The ‘Trixie’s Virginity Memorial Cultural Center’ is too random and meaningless.”

“Is this going to take very long?” Rainbow asked. “There are ponies who need their manes done.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll just pick something out of a hat. It’s not like it could be any worse.”

Anyway, that’s how we ended up with the Richard Nixon Multipurpose Community Auditorium.

Grannies Gone Wild

“Sorry,” I said.

Valiantina’s mouth opened and closed, unable to express her rage with mere words.

“...that my daughter got you pregnant and we subsequently stole the baby,” I continued.

My autodarkening sunglasses darkened just then. I think they were trying to protect me from harmful rays. Huh, didn’t know she had eye lasers. I should really investigate that.

“Come on, somebody back me up here,” I said, glancing around the room at the rest of the council of Valiants. All of them were suddenly looking elsewhere, and/or slugging tequila.

“Anyway,” I said, turning back, “It wasn’t even my idea, I saved you from the pain of childbirth and child support, not to mention, it’s also that Rainbow Catcher asshole so it’s like I’m doing you a favor. I’m sure you’d do the same to me.”

“You can’t get pregnant,” pointed out one of the others.

“Or can he?” questioned Tnailav.

“How about we not explore that line of thought and get back to me and Valiantina being cool,” I said.

“We are not cool,” she finally said through grinding teeth.

“Speak for yourself,” I said, sitting back.

“You’re a school principal who recently became a grandfather,” someone pointed out. “You aren’t cool.”

He was right. Shit.

“Anyway,” I said. “I need to be going. School is about to be commissioned.”

I made a hasty exit and headed down to the shipyards where the good submarine In Need of Beaning was making ready for its first semester. I’d make extra certain that the Equestrian Education Association wouldn’t try any funny business at the ceremony, but had Tin Mare and Libby watching the skies, just to be certain.

The sub was outfitted with bunting and tasteful education-themed decoration. You know those cardstock borders that teachers would staple to the corkboards in elementary school? Yeah. Tons of those.

There was a podium set up. I had invited Twilight to come in from Silent Hill to see it, but I wasn’t sure if she’d gotten my letter yet. Or maybe she just knew that I was going to throw my school success in her face and decided not to come. What did she ever do for education? I built a goddamned nuclear submarine...elementary school.

I stepped up to the microphone. Children, parents, and others from around Equestria and the wider world had come to the ceremony.

There were also a bunch of old dudes wearing robes in the crowd. I had a good idea who they were, but chose to ignore them for the moment.

“Hello everyone, and welcome to the opening ceremony of your new school-slash-submarine. I’m Principal Valiant, and I hope all the students will find this a positive experience.”

“Hail science!” shouted someone.

That was supposed to be my line, but I guess I could work it into my speech. “Yes, and-”

“Hail biology!” shouted someone else.

“Hail history!”

“Hail mathematics!”

“Hail sex-ed!”

They started pulling their hoods back, and clustering together, charging spells.

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare!”

“Aw, why not me?” said Libby.

“Because we need precision direct-fire,” I replied.

“I can do direct fire.”

“I mean precisely targeting individuals not areas.”

“Carpet bombing is very precise.”

“Just because it’s guaranteed to hit the ground doesn’t mean it’s precise!” I snapped. Why am I arguing with a robot?

Tin Mare, meanwhile, had already swung in on the target and put half a dozen 30mm shells into half a dozen school board brains.

I tapped my earpiece again. “Twilight, get me a forensic sweep on what spell they were trying to cast.”

“Um, okay.”

I had only recently given her an earpiece of her own, and she was still a little unused to this whole magic DEVGRU thing I was trying to set up. No time like the present to investigate spells.

I turned back to the microphone. “Anyway folks, your kids are in good hands.”

I gestured next to me on stage. “And if you have any concerns or anything of the kind about safety or legality or sanity, just have a listen to this band and don't worry about it.”

I hopped behind my drum set and Das Booty launched into our second-ever performance. Amazing how distracting punk bands can be.

I once heard a story that someone asked the Sex Pistols to write a song called "Submission." They wrote about a submarine mission. You can see where I'm going with this.

Later that afternoon, after all the parents had left, some of them with more misgivings than others, we had a bonfire on the beach. We had literal tons of cardstock borders to get rid of, not to mention a couple of bodies of EEA administrators.

The kids loved it.

I caught a quiet moment with Twilight and we went over a few things by bonfirelight. We talked for several minutes as I caught her up on all the crazy shit that had happened over the past few days and what I hoped would happen as we went forward.

“So this is bad,” I finished.

Twilight stared at me, quill poised over her notebook. “Your grandson, who you named Fizzlepop Berrytwist, is a demon.”

“Right.”

“That nopony else can see.”

“Well, nobody except Guinness and my artificial intelligences.” I frowned. “Or would that be artificial intelli? Whatever.”

“And you’ve killed this demon before.”

“Well, killed in the sense that any demon can be killed. Basically just sent back to hell.”

“And the last time this happened, you used it as part of an arcane ritual to turn yourself into an alicorn.”

“A demon sacrifice, yes.”

Twilight looked at her notes. “I can see why you want to start DEVGRU. This sounds like complicated magic.”

“But you can keep track of everything, right? You’re supposed to be pretty nerdy.”

She blushed. “I mean, I try to avoid labels.”

I looked skyward. “Meanwhile, I need to label a couple of things of my own. Libby is ‘troublesome.’”

“Something wrong with her consciousness?”

“Yeah. I should never have used that personality base.”

Twilight cocked her head. “Base?”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

I walked her through a few points about how I wanted to run both the school and DEVGRU.

While we were talking, Rarity came over. “There you are, Valiant. I wanted to talk to you about improvements to the show.”

“Like what?”

“Do you still have Starlight Glimmer’s ghost in a jar? I feel like we could do something with that.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” I said. “I was meaning to ask, what’s the deal with the SCP thing that you do?”

“You’ll...have to be more specific,” she said guardedly.

“Something about clothes. Fluttershy mentioned it when she was running your shop in Manehattan.”

“Oh.” Rarity relaxed. “It stands for ‘season, color, price.’”

“Okay.” I nodded. I paused. “Wait, why did I have to be more specific? What else does SCP stand for?”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

I saw what she was doing there, but I couldn’t come up with a good argument not to. “What did you have in mind?”

“Have you decided to formalize the subjects taught by each of us at this school?”

“Sure.” I pulled out my list. “Pretty standard. I’ve got you down for music. You and Pinkie are doubling on home-ec. Fluttershy is doing biology. Applejack has ethics. Maud is doing sex-ed.”

I flipped a couple of pages, looked around, and frowned. “Where’s Rainbow?”

“We worked out a deal so that I would cover a few of her classes,” said Applejack, walking over. One of her meat puppets wore glasses and carried a textbook, her mane pinned back in a bun.

“Okay, but where is she?”

“Las Pegasus, riding some roller coaster with old folks.”

“Old folks?” As out of character as that sounded even for hairdresser-Rainbow, I just had to ask.

“My Granny Smith and some of her friends.”

“Granny Smith is alive?”

Applejack cocked her head. “Of course she is. What’s with all the questions?”

Huh. I’d kind of gotten used to Granny Smith being dead of supercancer. Well, that was nice that she was still alive in this universe.

I went aboard the submarine. It was tied up to the pier now and we’d be leaving on the maiden semester the next day. I’d had most of my possessions transferred aboard so we could operate anywhere and do anything. Trixie and Daring had agreed to live with me, mostly so I could keep an eye on Fizzy. No telling what he would get up to.

With the real Twilight gone, a significant fraction of my stuff was the Ponyville Library. I figured it would also be a good resource for the school. Owlowiscious was part of that. He’d come aboard and usually hung out with Twilight. As an owl, he wasn’t really great at magic, but he’d apparently learned a few things by hanging around magical libraries for so long.

I glanced into Twilight’s room and saw her huddling with Owlowiscious and Yona the yak. They weren’t in costume, but conspiratorial whispering told me Mystic and Super Cow were up to something.

“Are you up to something?” I asked.

“What makes you think we’re up to something?” Twilight asked.

“You’re whispering conspiratorially.”

“You’re always doing things conspiratorially,” she pointed out.

“And I’m always up to something.”

“He have point,” said Yona.

“We were just talking about the advantages and limitations that were going to come to our superhero enterprise now that we’re on a boat.”

“A submarine.”

“Is a submarine a kind of boat?”

“Technically, this one is big enough to be a ship,” I said. “But it’s a boat.”

“What’s the difference between a ship and a boat?” Twilight asked.

“One’s a shit and the other one floats.”

I shook my head. “Sorry. I really shouldn’t attempt offhand rhymes. I’m terrible at rap.”

I left them alone to see what everyone else was doing. I needed to give some people other jobs to do. It was a big submarine.

To my surprise, I encountered Rarity refitting her personal space into a clothing shop.

“Do you expect a lot of business?” I asked.

She smiled. “No, but that isn’t the point. I called my shop in Manehattan ‘Rarity for You.’ This is a much more exclusive boutique, ‘Undersea for Me.’”

“So, being on a submarine, it’s basically impossible for the general public to actually visit and buy anything,” I realized

She nodded. “What’s more enticing than something that one cannot have?”

I quickly checked my list for things that needed done. “So you’re saying I can count on your help with acoustic quieting to keep this sub hidden?”

Rarity frowned briefly, but rolled her eyes. “Oh, all right.”

“Great, put on this headset. You’re the sonarman now.”

I made the rounds, divvying up other auxiliary duties. Naturally, Applejack handled the engineering. Pinkie did the cooking. I let Admiral Falcon be the symbolic captain.

I made another pass through the steel passageways, looking for a suitable candidate to run communications, when suddenly the phone rang. Guess it was me, then.

I picked it up. “What?”

“Uh...Valiant?”

“Speaking.”

“It’s Rainbow Dash.”

“Okay.”

“Um...Granny Smith died of supercancer.”

“Oh shit.”

“So did all her friends.”

“Oh shit.”

“And I think maybe a bellhop that one of them was hitting on.”

“Oh crud.”

“So, um…”

“Go back to your hotel room. Don’t leave. Don’t interact with anyone. I’m sending Tin Mare and mobile decontamination supplies. If this is what I think it is, you’re highly radioactive.”

“How...how could this have happened!?”

“You’re a rainbow of every part of the spectrum, gamma rays included. I can’t believe I forgot about this. You need medication to keep it under control. I’ll contact Zecora to whip something up.”

“Am...am I going to be alright?”

“Maybe. I’m more worried about the possibly hundreds of ponies you’ve interacted with in your hairdressing job.”

“...ponyfeathers.”

“Yeah.”

Shit.

Good thing I was just about to leave on a submarine and it wouldn’t be my problem.

Surf and/or Turf

“And so, as we commit these souls to eternity, we’re reminded that hot damn did Granny Smith make some bomb-ass pie.”

I was not great at eulogies, despite the practice I’d had at so many funerals during my time in Equestria. Besides, you know how you get done doing something difficult only to find out you have to do it again and the second time around the effort just isn’t there? Yeah.

Anyway, we buried a couple old ladies at sea. Rainbow, despite being the cause of this, kind of because she was the cause of this, was sequestered down in the reactor compartment because it had the best radiation shielding.

Apple Bloom cried. Applejack didn’t, but wearing the same grim expression across all meat puppets kind of got the message across even more intensely.

This was basically the worst first day of school ever, and that’s despite me being the principal, and of a submarine.

Fortunately, I seized an opportunity to go do something else. Silverstream, the hippogriff, hadn’t gotten her school permission slips signed. Normally that wouldn’t matter very much at the In Need of Beaning school of friendship, but as I said, I needed an excuse to get away.

Since we had to go to Mount Aris in the hippogriff lands, it was surrounded by water and pretty easy to just sail there. Unfortunately, I hadn’t considered the timing and that meant I actually had to do stuff to kill time before I could get to the planned getting away.

I reviewed some of the classes and coursework we had prepared. Bible was teaching a spirituality elective. Sir Win had come aboard to teach defense against the dark arts.

“But he does the dark arts,” Bible protested to me.

“He’s also a nice enough guy to teach defense for them,” I pointed out.

Bible considered it, and then reluctantly nodded.

Pinkie Pie came up to me. “Hey Valiant, I hired an understudy!”

“For what?”

“Well, since the teaching thing is taking up so much of my time, I wanted to have somepony else making everybody laugh.” She stretched out a long hoof and pulled another mare into view. The newcomer had a bleach blonde mane and heavy makeup. “Let me introduce Josephine Jokester!”

“Hi,” she said.

I stared at her. “So when do you make me laugh?”

“Well, I got a late start this morning,” she said, fluffing her mane. “I spent so much time in the powder room. It takes a lot of money to look this cheap, you know.”

“A Dolly Parton Reference?” I said, looking at Pinkie.

She grinned. “I thought you would get it, especially because her name’s Josephine.”

“I think you mean Jolene.”

Josephine’s face fell. “I...I built this entire image around that joke and reference and you just zonking destroy it with a hammerini.”

“What’s a hammerini?”

“It’s like a hammer, but smaller.”

I blinked and shrugged it off. “Well, I guess that’s what happens when you go up against king reference himself.”

“Well, let me try again.” She waved a hoof. “Knock knock.”

“Who’s there?”

“Tiny Tony.”

“Tiny Tony who?”

“Tiny Tony needs to go to work, but there’s one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“He’s tiny, and he works in construction. Usually, he just helps other people. For example, he tests doors after they get installed. He goes, knock knock.”

I realized what she was doing. “Who’s there?”

“Not Tiny Tony. He didn’t go to work today because he had this one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“He lost his hammerini.”

I closed my eyes and sighed.

“That wasn’t very funny, Josephine Jokester,” Pinkie stage-whispered.

“Well zonk, you try writing a joke on the spot.”

I opened my eyes. “Look, Josephine-”

“Just call me JoJo.”

“Whatever. If Pinkie wants you around, fine, but please try to work on better material. I’m begging you.”

She agreed and I made like a tree and exited the premises.

I stopped by the materials lab to check on a few things. As I had told the music magazine a while back, I was working on starting a toilet paper company. The first samples were about ready. It was a student-run research lab, so things weren’t perfect, but it’s not like I was going to wipe with Valiantco® toilet paper. Don’t use your own products, kids.

They were also researching plushies, for some reason. I didn’t pay it much mind.

That settled, I went to do grandparent shit.

And let me tell you, everybody wants to be a grandparent until it’s time to do grandparent shit.

I found Fizzy playing with dolls on the floor. Pardon me, action figures. They were still horribly mutilated, covered in fanged bite marks and scribbled with arcane unholy scripture.

He grinned at me and rolled over on his back, stretching out his limbs. “Nice boat you’ve got here.”

“Thanks.”

“I imagine it would take just one small thing going wrong to kill everyone aboard.”

“I have certain contingencies in place for that.”

“Oh, like what?”

I booped his nose. “Just you goddamned try and find out.”

I gave him a strawberry candy. For some reason, I seemed to have a lot of them lately. Animosity between us or not, he ate it. Ain’t nobody not like strawberry candy.

I went to oversee the classroom work. I could see a lot of students weren’t into it following the funeral. Some more than others, of course.

I went to find Twilight to see what she was working on. In her room, I found her working a couple of spells. I’d gotten her a whiteboard and it was covered in notation. Owlowiscious seemed to be involved.

“What are you working on?” I asked.

“I’m trying to figure out how to disguise an owl.”

I glanced at Owlowiscious.

“Hoo.”

“Do tell,” I said.

“Yona and I decided to add him to the superhero team,” Twilight said.

“Does he have a name? Special ability specialization?”

She gestured to the board. “We’re working on it. At the moment, just flight and slight magic manipulation.”

“He can cast spells?”

“Well, he’s good for an owl, but not having a horn really limits his abilities.” Twilight shrugged.

“I mean, we all have our purpose in life,” I said. “I myself try to oppose communism at every turn.”

“Hu.”

“No, I didn’t kill the last president of China, but I would have if given an opportunity.”

Twilight looked like she was about to say something, but decided not to. Thus far, this new Twilight had pretty much only seen the principal side of me, and I chastised myself for letting anything else slip out. Different Twilight, different rules.

So I left the room so I could keep being me.

The submarine kept moving and we eventually found ourselves in the bay at the foot of Mount Aris. We brought the sub to the surface and I gave the order to let the students out for some shore leave. Those that had signed permission slips, anyway. But also Silverstream too because it was her hometown.

As she was leaving the sub, I caught up with her. “Could you get your parents to sign this?”

She studied it. “Could you make it waterproof?”

“I...guess. Why?”

“My mom lives in the ocean, so I’d have to take it there.”

I paused. “When I said parents, I didn’t necessarily mean it had to be both.” Also, weird. I’d never encountered a separated family in Equestria before. But then, I also asked, “Wait, what do you mean ‘lives in the ocean?’”

“She’s a seapony.”

“And...you and your dad are both hippogriffs.”

“A bunch of us turned into seaponies. Some even like to go back and forth.”

I could have said a lot of things. Apparently her mother didn’t love her enough to stay on land. Or maybe her father didn’t love her enough to join their mother. But you don’t say shit like that to kids, and Silverstream seemed happy today, so I said nothing.

But I decided maybe I should investigate this. The submarine may have been a boarding school, but if there was going to be a family problem with one of the students, I figured I should get ahead of it.

I walked with Silverstream, who seemed to be visiting her father first. Along the way, we encountered a seapony, who, as I watched, exited the water and with a flash turned into a hippogriff.

“Hey Terramar!” said Silverstream. They hugged. She turned to introduce me. “This is Terramar, my brother.”

He wore a necklace with a pink thing on it. I pointed. “Is that what you use to shift forms?”

He nodded. “It’s a piece of a magic pearl.”

“From a magic clam?”

He frowned, which was difficult to do with a beak. “I guess?”

The CMC showed up just then and I excused myself. I headed up the mountain.

The hippogriffs seemed to be in the middle of some sort of celebration. Sky Beak, Silverstream and Terramar’s father, was the host. Apparently the party was about how great it was to be a hippogriff and they did it every week.

Huh, that struck me as being kind of petty, considering his wife was the one who had decided to be a seapony.

Then again, if she really liked it better down where it was wetter, I guess I couldn’t judge. I had a submarine, after all. But to get a whole perspective, I had to go visit.

To that end, I caught up with the kids, intending to ask Terramar about borrowing the piece of pearl. Coincidentally, that was already in the works and he was going to take the CMC for a swim.

“This is absolutely the best place ever!” said Sweetie Belle, apparently doing some hardcore meadow frolicking in Mount Aris.

“And you get to swim in the ocean!” said Scootaloo, apparently looking forward to what was to come. “You have two great places to live!”

“How do you make up your mind which one to stay in?” asked Apple Bloom.

“I can’t. That’s the problem,” said Terramar.

Aha. Well, he wasn’t my student, but I could still see what I could do about his parents.

Terramar took us to the water and we stood in a ring holding hooves. His pearl piece flashed and turned us into seaponies.

For the record, I don’t really like being a fish.

“Welcome to Seaquestria,” said Terramar as we swam into the depths. I looked around. I’d noticed some kind of flag back up at Mount Aris, and it seemed like this place also had its own attempt at sovereignty. If only they knew.

The more I looked around, though, the more I...considered the place. Some hydrographic surveys I’d had Maud do had detected large deposits of hydrocarbons in this area. Combine that with their independant flags and tendency to break up marriages…

Lecherous rebels with oil.

Yep. That was the invasion PR campaign. I began planning immediately.

But I was distracted by some kind of argument. Apparently Sweetie Belle hated it here and Scootaloo loved it. I was barely listening, but I caught something about sea monsters.

Huh, maybe I could get that river serpent Rarity knew to help. I didn’t really have many underwater contacts.

But this would require a lot of work. While In Need of Beaning had a nice armory, you don’t just invade in an afternoon. Sure, I could, but I also had homework to grade.

Shit, I was turning into Cheerilee. And I’m sure she wouldn’t like that idea, either.

I headed back topside. Terramar was nowhere in sight. Uh...how was I going to turn back from a seapony?

I swam parallel to the shore for a while. The CMC were apparently also after Terramar and trying to fix his unsure-where-I-want-to-live problem.

The group of us all found him simultaneously. He was in a tree.

“And I’m staying here, too!” he insisted. “That way, I don’t have to be on land or in the water!”

“So just move to Cloudsdale,” I said.

The CMC all considered it and agreed.

“Huh, I never thought of it like that,” said Terramar.

Another satisfactory resolution, courtesy Plymouth Valiant.

Applejack and a couple of meat puppets showed up just then. “Apple Bloom, it’s getting a little late. Do you and your friends want to come back? You can have puppet races if you want.”

She glanced at Terramar. “Who’s your friend?”

“‘Ol Turf ‘n Surf was just leaving,” I said.

They all stared at me.

“What, do none of y’all speak Latin?” I said.

Applejack’s glasses-wearing meat puppet started to lift a hoof, but put it down again.

“I didn’t know you speak Latin,” said Applejack.

“I don’t. I just know that terra and mar mean land and water. Come on, I just built a nuclear submarine, give me some credit.”

Applejack rolled her eyes. The CMC mounted up on their favorite meat puppets and rode them back along the beach at a gallop. Maybe the less said about that the better.

I went back aboard the submarine and headed down to the bar. You’re goddamned right we had a bar aboard.

Guinness had agreed to open a new franchise of The Half Pint on the sub. He called it The Fifth. Guinness himself was the bartender, considering he was trying to do the responsible thing and keep his kid close to her mother.

Yes, I realize I was the catalyst for this, dragging Rainbow to be a friendship teacher. But it was okay, because Guinness liked boats. At least that’s what I told him.

We were still in the process of getting the anti-rad drugs from Zecora, but had engineered a solution to keep Rainbow safe - and keep us safe from her - by having her carry around a block of lead. It was a good thing she was the world’s fastest pegasus, because if she wasn’t she wouldn’t have been able to move with it at all. Rainbow sat down at the end of the bar, reading some of her course material.

“So what happened today?” Guinness said, serving me a beer.

“You know Silverstream, the hippogriff? Her parents are divorced.”

He frowned. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that happening in this world. Are you sure?”

“They don’t live together, and are voluntarily not even the same species.” I shrugged. “But I guess it isn’t that weird, or even taboo. I think we can agree that it’s not the ‘50s anymore; the nuclear family is dead.”

I glanced at Rainbow. No pun intended.

“Also,” I said, “I’m going to invade Seaquestria.”

“What!? Why?”

“Lecherous rebels with oil.”

“Zonks,” said JoJo, coming in and apparently hearing the tail end of that. “Can you just...do that?”

I smiled. She was about to learn. “No country too sovereign.”

Horse Play

A small butterfly landed on my tequila bottle. The way it didn’t keel over and die immediately told me I was drunker than I thought and possibly hallucinating. Still, when it said to me, “invade Seaquestria,” in its tiny little voice, I still thought it was a pretty good idea.

And so we went to war.

It was a pretty short war. I was in command of a nuclear submarine with a crew who liked explosions. The opponents were fish.

That’s an oversimplification, but small children do like seeing things explode.

Anyway, we claimed Seaquestria in the name of the friendship school and I helped reunite Silverstream’s family. All in all, a nice afternoon extracurricular.

That river serpent Rarity knew, Steven, came by. We’d called him since he was one of the few people we knew who was experienced living under water. I met him at the moonpool in the belly of the submarine that let us look down into the water.

“Well, it looks like you need to rebuild,” he said, putting his hands on his hips. Or whatever passed for a serpent’s hips.

The place had kind of been reduced to a smoking crater. Yes underwater.

“Yeah, for all intents and purposes we pretty much leveled it,” I said.

“‘Intents and porpoises,’” he said. “That’s how they talk underwater.”

“Part of the reason I liberated them,” I said. “So we don’t have to do puns anymore.”

Before he could argue in favor of puns, I changed the subject. “I think this undersea territory should be a dry county. Maybe that will inspire certain types of people to live here.”

I wasn’t worried that that it would hurt my bottom line. There weren’t any people here anymore, after all. Certain types would be better than zero.

“But before you introduced alcohol to Equestria, wasn’t everywhere dry?” he asked.

“Not that kind of dry.”

Before he could reply, I went on. “That’ll be a lot of work. Can I ask you to serve as a real estate agent for the In Need of Beaning school of friendship occupation and rebuilding team?”

“Well, I was thinking about a change of scenery,” he said. “Maybe raise a little family or something.” He frowned, twirling his moustache. “It’s hard enough to find a decent date in my own river. I’m not sure what these ladies in the open ocean are like.”

“Actually, I meant to ask,” I said. “If you’re a freshwater serpent, are you good out here?”

“It’s no problem.” He grinned and held up his arms, flexing impressively. “Water retention really works out well for me.”

He relaxed. “It still doesn’t help if there isn’t anyone to impress.”

“I might be able to find you a date,” I said.

My next stop was The Fifth, the submarine’s onboard bar.

“I just promised a sea monster that I would get him laid,” I grumbled into my beer.

“Surely there are plenty of sea monsters in Equestria. What with all the mythology crossover, they probably have their own version of Scylla the sea monster.”

“I don’t know how to find any of them. But maybe we could import one from Earth, like a mail order bride.”

Guinness chuckled. “I wonder if you could set him up with Nessie?”

“Eh...I don’t know how to find her. But I had another idea.”

“Oh?”

“Kind of lower budget,” I admitted.

“Um, the Lake Champlain monster? Champ, was it?”

“Lower.”

He shrugged.

I turned over a napkin and began writing directions. “I never thought I’d have to stoop to this. Then again, I never thought I’d have to get a sea monster laid.”

“Stoop to what?”

“The lowest budget aqueous monster there is.”

“How low budget are we talking?”

I showed him the napkin. “It’s not a sea monster, or a river monster. Not even a lake monster. We’re talking about the creature that lives in a pond inChurubusco, Indiana.”

Guinness stared, and then shook his head. “You don’t know where to find a legendary, probably-exists-in-Equestria monster, but you know about a local legend that was probably started by a drunk hobo from a one-stoplight town in the middle of nowhere.”

“Do they have a stoplight? I’ve never been there. But it sounds like you know about it, so good, thanks for taking care of this for me.”

I left, needing to get to doing other things. No specific things, just other things.

To my surprise and displeasure, one presented itself. A dragonfire scroll popped into the air in front of me.

Worse, it wasn’t even addressed to me, it was just a CC. The letter was from Twilight to Celestia, expressing regret that her duties in Silent Hill would keep her from attending the ones-versary play that she herself had written.

Needing context, I couldn’t help but read on. Apparently, it was the 1,111 year anniversary of Celestia first raising the sun. Twilight had written a play about it, and wanted the schoolchildren to perform it.

And I’d found out because she’d CC’d me on a letter to Celestia telling her that.

Oh, but it got worse. The play was in two days. In Ponyville. And Twilight wanted to cast Celestia to play herself.

Even Spike thought this was a bad idea. I could tell his writing on the letter was sarcastic.

But then, I realized the potential. A play about history presented to a wide public audience? Excellent, this would be the perfect opportunity to drive sales of the history book I was writing.

I just had to figure out how to expand the script to include the beginning of the universe, including my own personal theories on it. I wondered if I could get Merry May to play a very particular part, with her very particular parts.

Naturally, this was one of those “better to ask for forgiveness than permission” moments.

However, I discovered that it wasn’t up to me and the script had already been written. In fact, Twilight threatened to come back from Silent Hill early if I deviated from it at all.

At least I had some control, by having the play hosted by the Richard Nixon Multipurpose Community Auditorium.

Since the others would probably want to see it, I had Tin Mare lift us to Ponyville. Applejack and her meat puppets got started building sets. Rarity made the costumes.

Pinkie Pie rolled in an enormous new party cannon. “If the Princess is going to be here, I’m going to need Big Bertha!”

It reminded me of a particular WWII railway gun. Krupp didn’t make just coffee machines.

Reading through the script, I learned a few new things. Apparently before Celestia rolled in like a baller to take over raising the sun, it took six of the strongest unicorns to do it every day. Wait, then who did it before them? Did it also take the same amount of magic to put up the moon? Furthermore, how did the sun originally develop?

Not that it really mattered since this was all a synthetic universe anyway, but a little knowledge of the lore could go a long way. I decided I needed to do some research. Fortunately, the library was just down the street.

I walked in and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. Huh, I was pretty sure the power bill was paid. It was being paid to Valiantco® after all.

Well, I’m nothing if not prepared. I pulled out a small flashlight. As the beam turned on, it lit up a cloaked pony standing in the shadows.

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded.

She pulled back her hood, revealing a middle-aged mare with a conservative haircut and large glasses. “I am Mrs. Clay Tablet, of the Equestrian Education Association. I was sent here to stop this business with the rogue school through any means necessary.”

“Uh huh,” I said, losing interest halfway through her introduction and turning to look for a book about the sun. My flashlight left her in the dark.

“I’m a member of the Seven School Superintendents,” she said anyway. “You will obey my decrees and immediately end this silly nonsense.”

“No.”

“In that case, I shall be forced to discipline you.”

I sighed and turned to face her. “Do you think a book about the sun would be in the space section or the Princess Celestia section?”

“Did you not hear what I just said?”

“Are you going to stop somebody from learning just to be a bitch?”

“Yes,” she said.

I switched the flashlight to my other hoof and pulled out my Desert Eagle. Just then, the door opened.

“Hey Valiant,” said Josephine Jokester. “Is this library the tallest building in Ponyville because it has the most stories?”

I stared at her as I blew out Clay Tablet’s brains. Some blood splashed as far as JoJo’s face.

“I get it,” I said to her. “I’m not laughing, but I get it.”

“Z-zonks,” she said, quietly backing out of the library.

I stared at the mess on the floor. Learning was always a pain in the ass.

After a quick cleanup, I wasn’t able to find a relevant book, but I was out of time. I headed back to the theater.

The play went off without a hitch. What, did you think I would let it? It’s not that hard to direct a children’s play. Especially not when your lead actress has a thousand years of public speaking experience. Celestia initially tried to play dumb for some reason, but she knew that I knew, and stopped that shit promptly.

Nobody actually came to the play, but that was okay, because the sun made of fireworks we got from Trixie exploded everywhere. I mean, that’s kind of what fireworks were supposed to do. We probably could have made the sun out of something else.

Anyway, we did the play. Nobody saw it, but we had technically met Twilight’s requirement.

As I was leaving the theater, a shadow dropped from the rooftop and landed in front of me.

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded for the second time that day.

And for the second time, a dramatic hood pull revealed an older pony with a haughty look. “I am Mr. Kick Ball. I’m here to stop you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Are you the second of the Seven School Superintendents?”

“The very same. I know what you did to the lovely administrator, Clay Tablet. But you’ll find that I’m a much harder mark.”

“And what do you teach? Wait, don’t tell me...PE?”

“That’s right.”

“I never liked gym.”

“It doesn’t matter what students like, it’s what we tell them is best for them.”

I shook my head and turned to walk away. “Whatever.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him move and began to turn for defense. From beneath his cloak he pulled out a dodgeball and cocked his hoof back to throw it.

I was already grabbing for my gun and managed to get a shot off, bursting the ball in the air between us. However, it was a distraction and he tackled me.

He went for a single leg takedown, a classic wrestling move, and lifted me, slamming me on my back on the ground. He grappled up my body, grasping whatever he could reach and making it real difficult to move.

I spit my switchblade at him, which was probably an illegal wrestling move, and cut his throat.

This time, it was me getting covered in blood.

Grumbling, I pushed his body off. The second of the Seven School Superintendents was definitely more of a threat than the first. This was the worst thing since the Nazi SS. It was the SSS.

With that on my mind, it was time to go back to the sub.

Back aboard, I took a walk through the spaces. The toilet paper was going well. Apparently the lab was also starting to make plushies, too.

I knocked on Rarity’s door, but it moved, not being quite closed. Not that I expected any sort of problem, but I pushed it open. It was my sub, after all.

Rarity wasn’t there. However, on a small table near the door I found a plain business card. The front simply said SCP.

Curious, I picked it up, just as Rarity arrived.

“Put that down,” she ordered.

“Why?” I said. “What’s so important?”

“It’s...a very exclusive group,” she said. “None of your concern.”

“Are you sure? I could totally go for some very exclusive group right now.”

“Valiant,” she said in a warning tone. “Don’t get involved.”

“You aren’t my mom.” I turned the card over. Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t this. I frowned. “Scat, Crap, and Poop?”

Rarity sighed. “Scat, like the shoo-bop-a-doo jazz singing. If you look closer, that second one actually says ‘Craps,’ the card game.”

I looked closer. So it did. “But what about Poop?”

She let out a longer sigh. “A small but politically powerful subsect of the group forced us to include that in the name to accommodate their sexual fetish.”

“So it’s like some sort of weird social club?”

“Yes. Are you satisfied?”

“And these people dictate certain rules to sell clothes?” I said, remembering something Rarity had said ealier.

“They do a lot of things, not just limited to their literal name. Now, could you leave my room?”

“Sure, whatever.”

I left, somehow even more confused than before.

I shook my head. Back to business.

We got the sub going again, not going for any particular place. I hoped that wasn’t a metaphor for the school.

I checked the time. Lunchtime.

Blowing the hell out of an underwater city sure left us with a lot of seafood. We’d discovered a couple more of the magic clams that had the magic seapony-transforming pearls. But more importantly,

“Who wants some clamato soup?” I asked.

The Parent Map

I asked Valiant why he wanted to give me this tape recorder. He said he didn’t trust Libby and wanted to have a record in case she killed me. “Sunburst gets bursted,” as he put it.

Naturally, that led into a discussion about why he was sending her with me in the first place.

“It’s dangerous to go alone,” he said. “Take this.” That seemed to amuse him.

I didn’t think it was that dangerous to travel around Equestria, but Valiant refused to speak more on the topic and I was stuck with a flying robotic mental patient as a companion.

An untreated mental patient.

That was my diagnosis, anyway, though I didn’t have much experience with maladies of the synthetic nature. Valiant himself had expressed frustration regarding Libby’s personality.

He hadn’t said how the personality had been developed, but I knew enough about his work to suspect that I really didn’t want to know. But curse my nature, I wanted to know everything.

“So are you some kind of nerd or something?” Libby asked as we walked. As I walked. She was somewhere overhead, her cranked-kite body gliding in circles, just barely visible between the high, wispy clouds.

Valiant had given me an earpiece communicator, but it took me a moment to look up from the book I was reading.

“I suppose,” I replied in answer to her question. Being called a nerd didn’t bother me anymore. I supposed it was true, but Valiant’s verbal abuse was part of it. "What gave it away?"

“The wizard robe.”

“Well, maybe I'm a wizard.”

She laughed. After a moment, she asked, “Where are we going?”

“Sire’s Hollow, where I was born.” It had been a long time since I’d seen my family.

“That sounds boring.”

“That sounds perfect,” I corrected. “You may have noticed that Valiant, his family and associates, and his school are a nexus of chaos. I’m trying to get away from it all.”

“Are you still gay?”

“I was never gay.” Where had that come from?

“Because you hung around Thorax the Changeling King an awful lot. You could have been royalty! Not sure how that would have worked out with gay love. Would you have been the queen or also the king?”

“Thorax and I weren’t lovers.”

“What, don’t you know how to love?”

Being perfectly honest? I decided not to reply.

Libby began to play some music. What is love? Baby don’t hurt me…

I took the earpiece out.

We made it to the train station and I got on, going back to reading. I set the sealed envelope I was using as a bookmark beside me.

I had been reading for a few minutes when I became aware of a train conductor trying to get my attention.

“I don’t know what that thing is, but you might want to get away from the window, mister.”

I glanced outside to find Libby flying level with the train, rocking gently as she trimmed her flaps to stay there.

I grabbed the earpiece. “What are you doing!?”

“I was using my superzoom multispectral camera to read that letter from your mother.”

“That’s none of your business!”

“Have you finally decided to accept some responsibility and become the good son she always wanted?”

Knife to the heart. “For your information, I find her constant nagging annoying.”

“I could help you out, if you want.”

“How would you…” I paused. “Am I going to regret asking that?”

“I would murder them all,” said Libby.

“Don’t murder anyone!”

“Well, we’re a little late for that.”

“You know what I meant! Nopony from Sire’s Hollow needs to be murdered!”

“Well, if you really want to deal with your overbearing mom.”

I didn’t, but chances were good she would find me anyway, and I really didn’t want to deal with the fallout of her thinking I was trying to avoid her. I was, but that wasn’t the point.

“Just...leave me alone, okay? Be good. Don’t talk. Definitely don’t kill anypony.”

I looked around to find everypony in the train compartment staring at me. Fortunately, I had a book and went back to reading.

When we arrived in Sire’s Hollow, I got off the train and turned towards the village. While walking and reading, I slammed facefirst into a gate somepony had put up on the path.

“Wha-who put this here?” I said, rubbing my nose.

“Reviewing historical satellite imagery,” said Libby. After a moment, she said, “Your mother.”

“I told you that I didn’t want to hear from you.”

“But you asked a question.”

“I didn’t ask you!”

“But I knew the answer and there was no one else around to provide it.”

I sighed. She had me there. “My mother put this gate up?”

“That’s right.”

Something occurred to me. “How do you know what my mother looks like?”

“I have access to a database of biometric information. Certain ponies have already been recorded.”

“Why was my mother recorded?”

“Valiant wanted to cover anyone who might have had contact with Starlight Glimmer.”

“Starlight Glimmer?” I frowned. “My old playmate? What about her?”

“You...didn’t know?”

“No. Know what?”

“Oh boy.” Libby sounded gleeful. “You’re going to love this. So, Starlight Glimmer turned into a dictator of a miniature communist town. There was some drama and eventually Cordoba stabbed her to death.”

I shook my head. “What? That’s nothing like the Starlight I knew!”

“Well, better dead than red.”

“How did I not know any of this?”

“Well, Valiant never wrote it down. He didn’t want anyone to get any communist ideas.”

“Is communism that bad?”

A red light flicked on my face. I saw the glint in my glasses.

“You are currently being targeted by my visible light laser,” said a monotone robotic voice that lacked any of Libby’s personality. “This is a warning. You will not discuss communism again.”

“O-okay,” I said.

“Huh, so that’s what the personality override feels like,” said Libby, back to normal. “Valiant wasn’t willing to let me talk about that topic myself and installed a automatic cutout that wouldn’t let me think for myself when it came to that particular subject. It’s like he doesn’t trust me or something.”

I wanted to ask. I really, really did. But I also knew that threats around here usually weren’t idle.

Realizing I had been standing outside the gate for the past five minutes, I pushed it open.

“Welcome to Sire’s Hollow!” said a recording of a cheerful female voice. Huh, that was new.

Walking into town, I saw that there were a lot of things that were new.

“Essence?” asked a mare holding a spritz bottle.

“Essence of what?” I asked.

She smiled. “You tell me.” And shot me in the face with the liquid.

It was kind of like chocolate, so it wasn’t bad. At least not the part where I was coughing and my eyes were burning. I blinked rapidly, my eyes clearing well enough to notice a red dot on her head.

“Abort!” I shouted.

“Well if that’s how you feel,” muttered the essence pony.

“Why? She attacked you,” said Libby in my ear.

Touching as it was that Libby actually wanted to stand up for me, that was tempered by the fact that she was about to murder somepony just for trying to sell perfume. Not to mention I had no idea what kind of weapon she was going to use and I might be inside the blast radius.

I shook my head to clear it. “Didn’t this used to be a fruit stand?”

“I don’t know what it used to be,” said the mare selling perfume. “The Sire’s Hollow Development Committee determined what it is.”

“The Sire’s Hollow Development what? Where do ponies buy fruit?” I asked.

“You can get a fruit smoothie two doors down.”

I followed her pointing hoof. Just like her shop, the entire street seemed to be changed.

“The Sire’s Hollow Development Committee,” I repeated to myself.

“Founded by your mother,” Libby provided.

“She did? Has everything in town changed”

“No.”

I looked around and smiled as I saw the old bookstore was just the way it always was. I walked over.

However, just as I opened the door, a pair of ponies confronted me. “Sorry. Our bookstore’s been declared a site of historical significance by the Sire’s Hollow Preservation Society. You’ll have to experience the books from here. That’s why the windows are see-through.”

They slammed the door in my face. I blinked. “Who did this?”

“Reviewing historical satellite imagery,” said Libby. After a moment, she said, “Starlight Glimmer’s father.”

“I think I remember him,” I said. “I don’t know if he would remember me.”

“He argues with your mother a lot, so the likelihood is high.” Libby paused. “Speaking of which, your mother is coming down the street now.”

I ducked behind the bookstore.

“Don’t you want to meet her?” asked Libby.

“I…” I’d said that was why I was coming to town, but faced with the reality, the truth was, I’d left for a good reason. “Not right now. I know she’ll berate me. ‘You’re a grown-up pony, Sunburst! You need a plan for the future!’”

“But then why did you even come back to Sire’s Hollow?”

I sighed. “I don’t know. I guess I needed a change, but in hindsight going back to the way things always were wasn’t much of one. I’ll eventually have to go out and face my mom.”

“Wow, I’m kind of glad I don’t have parents or stuff,” said Libby.

“Do you think of Valiant as a parent?” I asked.

“Eh. It’s complicated.”

“Were you always a flying machine?”

Her voice suddenly turned automated again. “This topic will not be discussed.”

“Wow, what did Valiant do to you?”

“This topic will not be discussed.”

“So something was done.” I thought about it. “Which means you were something else before. Some...pony else?”

“I could keep letting the personality override kick in, or we could just change the subject,” said Libby, back to normal. As normal as a schizophrenic robotic flying machine could be.

I let it drop, but my interest had been piqued, and there was no way I could resist a chance to learn something new.

“You’re mother’s coming this way again,” Libby said, breaking my train of thought.

I scurried off. Yes, I was still running away, but I still needed time to think before talking to her. Yes, I knew that was an excuse. Where could I go? Where could I get advice from somepony who wasn’t a schizophrenic robotic flying machine?

“Do you know why the town is called Sire’s Hollow?” I said. “We have a cave back up in the hills. Rumors are it’s haunted, and you can meet your ancestors there.”

“Cool,” said Libby.

She followed me out of town. I’d been near the cave before, but I preferred reading about it to actually going there. Sure, rocks were interesting, but caves were also damp, dark, and maybe dangerous.

But this time, it made sense. Libby couldn’t follow me in.

The cave entrance was small but I pressed forward without hesitation. I lifted my cape to clear the dirt and rocks on the floor and lit my horn for illumination.

It was a cave. It had rock walls and a rock ceiling. Seen one, seen them all. The passage seemed to turn and get steeper just off the entrance. I took one step.

...and tripped.

I fell head over hocks all the way down what felt like a very large hill. One lens of my glasses cracked before I came to a stop.

Blinking blearily, I looked around. I was in a medium sized round chamber. There were a few rocks arranged in a circle. I had landed outside them.

Starburst…

“Huh?” I looked around. I checked my earpiece.

“Starburst.”

“What? Who’s there?”

I felt a slight breeze. A wisp of dust rose up in the center of the chamber. There was a flicker in the air.

My mouth dropped open as the transparent figure of an old unicorn stallion faded into view. He was blue and I could see the other cave wall through him, but I knew who it was.

“Grandpa!”

He smiled. “Nice of you to come to visit. I hope your mother hasn’t been too much.”

Beside him, my grandmother appeared. She smiled. A couple of others began to fade in behind them. I thought I recognized one from a picture. That must be a great grandparent.

“I...I didn’t know this cave could actually show you spirits,” I said.

Suddenly, there was a commotion from the back. Somepony pushed their way through the crowd. “Shit, with as much magical bullshit that’s packed into Equestria you don’t believe in ghosts?”

If anything, this only surprised me more. “Valiant? You’re dead?”

“No.”

“But you’re a spirit!”

“Do I need your permission to astral project?” He rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I’m here because of your conversation with Libby.”

“What did you do to her?” I asked. “Who was she?”

He shook his head. “God, this is Braeburn all over again. Look, just drop it, okay? Trust me, you aren’t going to like what you find. That is, if you can even dig far enough into the programming to figure it out. She’s probably running COBOL or some shit.”

“‘Probably?’ You programmed her. Don’t you know?”

He waved a hoof. “There’s a very specific blood alcohol content at which I do my best coding.” He gestured at the spirits around him. “I don’t even know how I set these holograms up.”

“What-”

The whole crowd of them suddenly broke out in tapdancing to show tunes.

“Huh,” said Valiant. “Actually, this seems more like Trixie’s flair.” He shrugged. “Anyway, don’t sex the airplane. For the love of God, just forget you heard anything.”

The illusion clicked off and I was suddenly alone in the cave again.

I sat there for a couple of seconds before shaking my head and slowly getting up to climb back up to the entrance. I paused just inside and took off my glasses, screwing up my face in concentration to gather the magic to fix them.

I knew the spell pretty well, but it took a lot out of me. That was another thing I couldn’t stand about my mother. She was always bringing up how I’d failed magic school. I couldn’t help it if I just wasn’t powerful enough for Princess Celestia’s standards. It was a school for gifted unicorns, after all.

I finished with my glasses and put them back on, looking out of the cave into the afternoon sun. I would have to face my mother eventually.

Well, I didn’t have to do anything, but I should.

Should I? Why should I do something that gave me so much displeasure for no gain? Instead, I could be learning something new.

I took a step out of the cave and looked skyward to catch a glimpse of Libby surfing the clouds.

I made my choice.

Non-Compete Clause

I remembered that the Equestrian Education Association was sending hit squads after me and decided to get proactive.

After all, if someone tries to kill you, kill ‘em right back.

Of course, the Seven School Superintendents - now down two since I'd killed them - weren’t easy to find. Locating just five ponies in all of Equestria when you didn’t already know who they were was a task that I could accomplish with my surveillance, but not without hundreds of hours of reviewing footage.

So I didn’t. Instead, I let them come to me.

I swaggered into the bar aboard In Need of Beaning and sat down. Guinness asked, “What’s with the hat?”

“I borrowed it from Applejack. She’s got a whole closet full. Anyway, I’m putting together a reverse posse.”

“How does that work?” he asked, polishing a glass.

“Normally, a posse forms up to go after a bad guy. I’m forming this one to have the bad guys come to us. We’re just going to go hang out and kill whoever comes to kill us.”

“Doesn’t that carry the risk of, well, being killed?”

“Not with Tin Mare on my side and cannon fodder in front of me.”

“What about me?” said Libby in my earpiece. I decided not to reply.

“Anyway,” I said, “Now I have to find the cannon fodder.”

“Did somepony call me?” asked Cannon Fodder, walking in.

That was the thing about Equestria, every catchy phrase was someone, even Catchy Phrase.

“Just the mare I wanted to see. Here’s your hat.”

“Okay,” she said, frowning, but putting the hat on.

I went to go deputize a couple more ponies. And some non-ponies. What the heck. I even had some volunteers. In addition to Cannon Fodder, it ended up being the CMC, Ocellus, Smolder, Gallus, Yona, Silverstream, Sandbar, Twilight, and Josephine Jokester. I gave them all hats.

“This ten-gallon hat sure puts me to mind of Princess Celestia’s behind,” said JoJo.

I stared at her.

“They’re both too big,” she said.

I continued staring at her until it got awkward and she ducked her head and walked away.

I was seriously considering finding an excuse to kill her because she was not funny in the slightest.

The group of us saddled up. That’s only partially a euphemism. As part of standard school policy, we had uniforms. No, there wasn’t a rule to wear them. Uniforms at school are stupid. But we had them, because it never hurts to have a suit ready to go. Or in this case, a battle saddle. It was my school, after all. I wanted everyone to be prepared, just in case.

Despite the saddles, we had no horses to ride, that would have been weird, so Tin Mare just gave us a ride.

I wore my autodarkening sunglasses and sat on the tailgate as we flew. Twilight came to sit with me, holding a hoof on her cowboy hat to keep it from blowing away. I felt Tin Mare adjust slightly, apparently compensating for a change in weight balance. Yona sat down on the other side of me. That explained that.

“I think we’re almost ready,” said Twilight. “For our first superhero mission, I mean.”

“Did you have something in mind?” I asked.

“Well...no. I was hoping you could help us with that.”

I considered it. “Tell you what. Hang back a little bit. If this posse manages to scare up one of the Seven Evil Admins, we’ll flush them into you and you grab them.”

“Then what?” Yona asked.

“We kill them.”

A pained look came across Twilight’s face. “Do we have to?”

“You were the one who wanted to do the whole vigilante justice thing.”

“Yes, but you are the one who likes murder.”

I shrugged. “I don’t really like it, I’m just really good at it and a fan of how it offers permanent solutions to my problems.”

“People aren’t problems!

I raised my eyebrows. “Are you sure? You’re the one who wants vigilante justice.”

“Just because I think it’s interesting and nobody likes me!” Twilight suddenly seized up, apparently not intending to say that.

“So? Nobody likes me, but I’ve come to terms with that.”

“I like you,” said Tin Mare.

“Thank you.”

“Also, most ponies still think you’re the old Twilight, so maybe they would like you better if you weren’t,” added Tin Mare.

“See!” said Twilight. “That’s exactly why I need to be a superhero, so I’m not like your Twilight.”

“Fair enough.”

Continuing that line of conversation as if the previous one hadn’t happened, Twilight said, “It’s too bad Owlowiscious couldn’t come. He had some magic practice to do, so I left him back at the submarine.”

“Is he getting pretty good at it?”

“Well, as I’ve said before, pretty good for an owl.”

We talked a little more on the way. I’d picked a large open meadow at the foot of the mountains. It seemed like as good a place as any. If nothing else, we could tell the kids it was a nature hike or something.

Once we got to where we were going and Tin Mare landed, Twilight and Yona slipped away, leaving me with the rest.

I belatedly realized that most of them were schoolchildren. I had overlooked this. There’s a reason I’m the principal - I hate kids.

So of course they wanted to interact with me.

The CMC knew me pretty well, of course. The other kids I knew by name, but we’d had limited interaction. Particularly the dragon, Smolder.

Scootaloo introduced me. “This is my daughter.”

“What.”

I cut my eyes between the two of them. Okay, yes, I could see the orange and purple resemblance, but “How?”

“Well, dragons have eggs. Someone needs to sit on them. I had a weird summer break, okay?”

“But…” I shook my head. “Nevermind. I don’t want to know.”

I turned around, and then again to complete the full three sixty. “One more thing. Who’s the father?”

“Ember, I think. Kind of. She used to have that bigger dragon attached to her.” Scootaloo shrugged. “I don’t really think about it too much. I don’t really think too hard about much of anything anymore since I got my cutie mark. Life’s simpler now and I don’t want to ruin that.”

This had gone from being creepy and weird to surprisingly insightful life lessons, in addition to still being creepy and weird.

“Zonks, who’s that?” asked JoJo, pointing at a pony coming our way.

I didn’t recognize her. She was an older mare, a unicorn, and hooded. Nice, one of the EEA SSS, just who I was expecting.

She stopped a short distance away. I made sure the cannon fodder was in front of me.

“I am Baby Cakes, of the Equestrian Education Association,” she said.

“Let me guess...you teach sex ed?”

“Home economics.”

“That was my second guess.”

“You are going to pay for what you’ve done,” she said. “We’re going to stop you, we’re going to shut down your school, and then we’re going to rewrite the history books so that you never existed.”

“Not if I get my history book published first. It starts with the beginning of the universe.”

She took a stance. “Don’t change the subject. You’re toast!”

“You and what toaster?”

She pulled out a flamethrower.

Tin Mare, parked on the ground nearby, started her engines but I could see that if Baby Cakes was going to use that thing, Tin Mare wasn’t going to be fast enough. I went for my gun.

To my extreme surprise, Cannon Fodder tackled Baby Cakes and wrestled her weapon away.

“Holy shit,” I muttered aloud, and started forward, raising my gun.

The two wrestled across the ground and I couldn’t get a clear shot. The kids were cheering on the fight. Cannon Fodder rolled over on her back and got her hooves up, kicking Baby Cakes back and away from her flamethrower.

Baby Cakes ran. I lined up the sights, but stopped. Twilight and Yona wanted their moment. Also, shooting an old mare in the back seemed unsporting. She could at least face me and give me a chance.

I holstered the gun and gave chase, followed by the rest of the crowd. As Baby Cakes passed a large boulder, Mystic and Super Cow, costumed heroes, pounced.

Baby Cakes saw them coming out of the corner of her eye and threw a punch that hit Twilight in the shoulder and knocked her off trajectory. She landed badly and I heard something snap. Yona, however, took Baby Cakes down and held her.

I went over to Twilight. She was holding her foreleg. She sucked in a breath through gritted teeth.

“Is it broken?” I asked. “I’ve never actually had to deal with a pony breaking a leg before. I didn't think they were that fragile, Mystic.” I pulled out my Desert Eagle, but paused halfway through the draw. “Um…”

She waved her other hoof frantically. “I can fix this good as new! I just need a little magic and a little time.”

“Okay, fine.” I holstered my gun again.

Twilight got herself fixed up. The crowd gathered around she and Yona, talking excitedly about meeting real life superheroes and apparently not recognizing them in their spandex.

When Twilight was up and walking again, I pulled my Desert Eagle once more to finish up with Baby Cakes.

“Wait,” Twilight insisted again. “Do you have to do this? Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of due process?”

“She wanted to kill us,” I pointed out.

“But what if…” Twilight looked around before coming up with an idea. “We could take her to Canterlot to use as evidence. Maybe we could get the EEA shut down.”

“A public execution huh?” I rubbed my chin.

“That’s not what I said!”

“You didn’t have to.”

I holstered my gun again. I was practically getting bullet blue balls today, but I could wait for an audience.

We found some materials aboard Tin Mare to keep Baby Cakes restrained. This amounted to contorting her into a large burlap sack and tying the top.

We flew to Canterlot and got an audience with the Princesses.

There wasn’t any formal request or anything, we just walked in. They were with some nobles, but that didn’t really bother me.

“We’re with some nobles,” said Luna.

“I know,” I said. “Hey, we’ve got a senior asshole from the Equestrian Education Administration here and wanted to make a point.”

“What point?” asked Celestia.

“Well, first, I’m trying to publish a children’s history book. That’s unrelated, but still a point. I just thought you might like to know. It starts off with how the universe was created with a big wang.”

“That’s ridiculous!” said one of the nobles.

“Well, technically-” Luna began.

“Don’t get him started,” said Celestia. She turned back to me. “Either state your piece or get out.”

Huh, Celestia in this changed universe must be a little more strict.

“Either the EEA stops messing with me, or I’ll kill them all. Starting with this home-ec teacher.” I poured Baby Cakes out of the burlap sack.

“Th-this is terrible,” she cried. Apparently her attitude had changed quite a bit since incarceration. “This day has been just the worst!”

“I think it went pretty well. I put you in a bag.” I looked around. “Okay, it doesn't look like any EEA members are coming to have a frank and apologetic conversation with me, and I know they can do portals and shit, so I guess they don’t want to talk.”

I pulled my gun once again and took aim.

“Are you seriously going to do this?” demanded one of the nobles. “Get out of here now and take this stupid business with you.”

I paused, looking at her. “Huh. You know, you remind me a lot of a pony named Limestone Pie, at least an alternate universe version of her. She was kind of a bitch like you.”

“Limestone Pie?” said the mare, turning up her nose. “What a common, low-class name. What does she do?”

“Heroin, mostly.” I hastened to add, “But that doesn’t make you better than her. If anything, I’m dissapointed that you’re a bitch and don’t even need to be.”

“How dare you!”

“It’s pretty easy,” I said.

“That wasn’t a question!”

I looked at the floor in thought. “Jeeze, maybe I should kill you instead.” I looked up. “But I mean, that’s the beauty of high capacity magazines: I don’t have to choose.”

Her husband slid in front of her. “Now, now, let’s not be too hasty.” He turned. “Just look at her face, you’ve broken her.”

Sure enough, the mare wore a blank look, one eye occasionally twitching. “Did that happen when I called her a bitch?”

“I don’t think anypony’s ever done that before,” he said.

I shrugged. “If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth.”

“Like you?” said Celestia.

“Shut up.”

“You can’t just tell the princess to shut up!” interjected a guard, who had been nervously watching the whole exchange.

“Shut up.” I shook my head. “Where was I? Oh yeah, killing Baby Cakes.”

“Please, no!” She raised her hooves.

I sighed, rolling my eyes. “God, this posse went so far off the rails. It was supposed to be about justice but it turned into some sort of bullshit sentimental political quagmire.”

“Her name Baby Cakes and she teach home-ec?” said Yona. “She bake cake?”

“I can…” said Baby Cakes.

“Cake! Cake! Cake!” the kids began to chant.

I let out a long sigh and put my gun away. “Goddamnit.”

I brooded for a while that things hadn’t gone how I planned, but it did turn out to be pretty damn good cake. We kept Baby Cakes in cuffs because she still wasn’t trustworthy, but my mood started to improve, and by the time we were back at the submarine I had started to consider the posse successful. We’d not only eliminated another member of SSS, but we’d gained a cake baker.

I swaggered back into the bar with the posse behind me. Everyone was talking and laughing, and filled up the room as they came in.

I caught Guinness’ attention. “Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses.”

Guinness frowned. He leaned closer and quietly asked, “Which ones are which?”

The Break Up Break Down

Applejack came to me with a problem. “My brother is having relationship trouble.”

I had thought Big Mac was a werewolf and therefore a conscientious objector to joining the the dating pool. Maybe I was still playing catchup on this universe.

But the fact-of werewolfishness was a privileged secret between Mac and me. So instead, I said, “Why are you coming to me about relationship trouble?”

Applejack sighed. “Much as I hate to admit, you are probably the most experienced one around here in that regard.”

Shit, I was.

It was my turn to sigh. “Fine. What’s the problem?”

“He heard this mare is stalking him after he declined a relationship.”

“So he didn’t hear it direct from her mouth?”

“No, not that I’m aware.”

“So we don’t actually have a problem.”

“But we might.”

“Maybe. But we don’t know for sure.”

“Would you just look into it?”

I sighed. “Fine. I’ll round up Tin Mare and have her fly me back to Ponyville to make sure your brother doesn’t misinterpret something about his possible girlfriend.”

Trixie popped her head in. “Dad, can I ask a favor? Could you take Fizzy today?”

She handed over the black baby demon colt who did his trademark asshole grin.

On my way out, I stopped by The Fifth, Guinness’ onboard bar, and ordered a quadruple. To go. I also told him to have a couple more ready for when I got back.

In Need of Beaning came to the surface, just enough for the sail to pierce the waves. I swayed as I climbed up the ladder, Fizzy clinging to my neck. His little hooves weren’t strong enough to strangle me yet, so I let him. It was easier than trying to spare a hoof to climb a slippery metal ladder while drunk.

Tin Mare came in for a hover over the submarine and I climbed aboard her tailgate. Libby was loaded in the back, wings folded. I really needed to get a runway built so that she could take off conventionally and not have to be dropped out the back of Tin Mare.

“Happy Hearts and Hooves Day!” she said.

“I didn’t realize it was today,” I said.

“Why did you think Trixie and Daring wanted some time to themselves?” said Fizzy. I put him down and he stretched out on the floor like a cat. “I’m quite certain they’re going to copulate.”

“Yeah, no, I’m not going to think about that. Anyway, I try to stay away from holidays created to sell things.”

“Didn’t you used to be Santa Claus?”

“That’s why.”

Changing the subject, I turned away. “Tin Mare, get me a line to Pinkie. If it’s Hearts and Hooves Day and I forgot all about it, I might be missing something else. I need to be prepared.”

She set up a video teleconference on the screen in the cockpit. I had to climb over Libby to get there.

“Hey Valiant, what’s up?” Pinkie asked when she answered.

“Pinkie, remind me of the local holidays.”

She didn’t think the request was strange at all. “Well, today is Hearts and Hooves Day. The Summer Sun Celebration is coming up. We’re going to have the Running of the Leaves near Ponyville. There’s Nightmare Night. And of course, Matrixmas.”

I stared at her on the screen for a couple of seconds. “Maxtrixmas?”

“You know, when Keanu Reeves brings us all presents.”

I blinked. After a moment I shook my head. “Oh, right. Matrixmas. How silly of me to forget. That makes so much sense.”

“Happy to help!”

Just when I thought I had this changed universe figured out, I got smacked in the face by a butterfly effect of putting Wachowski in charge of Yuletide cheer.

Pinkie signed off and we came in for a landing in Ponyville. Fizzy, still in the body of a young foal, couldn’t keep up on his own, so I begrudgingly carried him. Unfortunately, this put his mouth close to my ear and he kept up a solid commentary of what he would do to the general populace once he was able.

“Don’t make me kill you again,” I said.

“I’d just come back.”

“I’m still more than willing to mildly inconvenience you, asshole.”

We encountered Sunburst on the street. I didn’t know what he was doing here.

“Is Libby around?” he asked.

“No.”

“Yes she is,” said Fizzy.

“Well, too bad,” said Sunburst.

I threw Fizzy a smug look.

Sunburst cocked his head. “Why are you throwing smug looks at your grandson?”

“Don’t worry about it. Also, like I told you before, don’t sex the airplane.”

“I just feel like she needs help. She doesn’t work like you want. Maybe I can figure out why.”

“Don’t sex the airplane.”

“I’m not going to sex the airplane!”

“Then why are you so interested?” I asked.

“It’s just…” He shook his head. “I’m not sure. I guess when we got to know each other when we went to Sire’s Hollow, and she kind of reminds me of Starlight Glimmer. I let her slip away and we lost contact, and then apparently she went on to be some sort of villian.”

“Libby’s a petulant robot, not a future magical dictator,” I pointed out. “If, if, she were ever to go evil, then she’d have to find someone willing and able to refuel and rearm her. Also, I have a master override. I don’t build death machines I can’t stop.”

Lesson learned from the last universe. Hackers on steroids.

“Anyway,” I went on, “What the hell about her reminds you of Starlight Glimmer?”

“I…” He rubbed the back of his head and looked away. “I just miss her, from back then. When I saw Libby’s shape in the sky, it reminded me of when Starlight and I used to fly kites.”

I shook my head. “That’s so gay.”

Sunburst looked confused. “It was heterosexual.”

“You don’t have to be gay to be gay. I thought you learned that from my repeated negging during the time when you were hanging out with Thorax. That doesn’t even go into my gadar-guided weapons.”

“What!?”

I’d had an idea that gaydar could be weaponized. On the spectrum from gay to straight, if we could set it to pick out a specific amount of gay, we could get the weapons to home in on someone’s unique signature, like a fingerprint. If precise enough, it would be absolutely specific to that one, single person - literally a bullet with their name on it. I’d even considered that we could manufacture them ahead of time and have one ready to go for everyone, just in case.

But I didn’t tell Sunburst that, because he already knew too much and this conversation was getting too long already.

“I need to go,” I said. “I have to save a relationship.”

Sunburst looked so bewildered by the change of subject that his head was still spinning as I walked away.

I didn’t know where I was going to find Big Mac or his girlfriend. I had Tin Mare start looking through overhead imagery for Sugar Belle. I knew she was already in the system because she’d been one of the equals-sign ponies under Starlight Glimmer.

After a moment, Tin Mare told me, “She’s in Sugarcube Corner.”

I headed over there. Tin Mare patched in the listening devices I had planted, so I already had an idea of the conversation by the time I arrived. Sugar Belle had become Mrs. Cake’s new apprentice.

That didn’t make any sense to me. Granted, Sugar Belle had lost out on some experience baking when she temporarily lost her cutie mark, but it was still her talent and I didn’t think apprenticing under another baker was going to make that much difference in her overall baking ability. Something else was going on here.

I figured it was just to be closer to Mac. I knew he’d turned down a full on relationship with her before on account of his werewolfishness, but maybe she hadn’t gotten the hint and was trying to take it to the next level.

I walked in and saw Sugar Belle behind the counter, talking with Mrs. Cake.

Fizzy said, “I’m going to eat her face.”

Ignoring him, I stepped up to the counter.

“What can I get for you?” Mrs. Cake asked.

Thinking about what would keep her busy the longest, I said, “Some of your finest, oldest, cakes from the back, top shelves, checked for efficiency, quality, and hextuple-wrapped in mylar.”

“That will take a few minutes,” she said, disappearing into the back room.

When we were alone with Sugar Belle, I said, “What brings you to town? Are you after Big Mac?”

She blushed. “Yes. I know he’s solitary, but I’m trying to get him to open up. We...have a few things in common.”

That piqued my interest, I have to say. Also, she didn’t seem like the crazy stalker type.

I was just about to ask, when Fizzy suddenly raced up the back of my head and launched himself at her.

There wasn’t any kind of splat or thump, or whatever. Her head just came off and sailed with Fizzy across the room. Her body remained standing, a wisp of something ethereal coming out of her neck.

“Well shit,” I said, pulling Fizzy up by the scruff of his neck.

Sugar Belle’s head said, “Get that jar of frosting off the counter!”

“Uh, okay.” I picked it up. Her body grabbed it from me and a butter knife and went over to her head. She spread a thin layer of the sticky frosting on her neck and then placed her head back on.

She looked away. “I’m sorry you had to see that. Please don’t tell anypony.”

“Uh, yeah, no, I won’t.”

“I’ve been trying to gather the courage to talk to Big Macintosh,” she said. “I know he’s not like other stallions, but...well, I’m not like other mares. I don’t know if that makes it okay, but I have to try.”

I sighed. “Fine, let’s just get it over with. Come on.”

I pulled her out of the shop and down the street towards Sweet Apple Acres. I glanced over the treetops, seeing a tree or two swaying, using it to find where Big Mac was bucking apples.

He stopped when he saw us. I indicated Sugar Belle. “You two have some talking to do. Just go ahead and get it over with.”

“I...know this sounds strange, but you’re different, aren’t you?” she said. “I can tell. You’re...” She glanced at me.

“He knows,” said Mac.

“You’re a werewolf, aren’t you?” Sugar Belle said.

Mac nodded.

That apparently broke the seal. Sugar Belle began to talk faster. “I know how you must feel because I’ve always been alone myself and not feeling right for anypony because I’m…” She hesitated, and then just pulled her head off, tucking it under one forleg, her face tilted up to him.

“S’ppose you do understand, then,” said Mac. He looked away. “But this still can’t work. Both of us could end up livin’ more than one lifetime. I can’t put either of us through that, bein’ unfulfilled. It ain’t you, it’s me.” He turned and started to walk away.

“Hey,” I said, “While I’m here, I wanted to talk to you about a merchandise opportunity.”

He stopped and looked back.

“I wanted to talk to you about endorsing a licensed set of large novelty lighters. They’d be called Big Mac’s Mag Bics.” I paused, frowning. “Or maybe Bic Mags? Haven’t decided.”

“Eenope.”

“Your franchising loss.”

He continued walking away.

Beside me, Sugar Belle had started to cry.

“Well, aren’t you going to drive the knife in further and make her kill herself out of depression?” said Fizzy.

I wondered how a potentially-immortal headless horse would go about suicide.

“Well, I guess I didn’t need to move to Ponyville after all,” she sniffed.

I considered it. “Well, if you want, I can offer you a job.”

Molt Down

Maybe the worst part about running a school for children was the neverending puberty. Someone was always breaking out in zits and getting hormones and doing stupid, cringy shit with the opposite sex.

Today, Spike was the lucky winner. Or loser, maybe. Though, he hadn’t yet lost his virginity, so he was still technically a winner.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to deal with any of that because not only was he solely Twilight’s problem and far away, but I was giving an orientation tour to our newest lunch lady.

Admittedly, hiring a dullahan and giving her a job in the cafeteria was perhaps a waste of talent. At least there was a sneeze guard to keep her face out of the food.

“So anyway,” I said, “As far as I know, we don’t have any special needs food requirements.”

“Not even with more than half a dozen different species around here?” Sugar Belle asked.

I shrugged. “Nobody’s ever complained about a problem. There aren’t problems. That’s what I do. I fix problems.”

She subtly adjusted her head as we walked. I glanced at her. “Can I...get you some glue or something?” We detoured into the development lab since we were passing by. “There’s probably some glue in here.”

I didn’t immediately find glue. There were Valiant-brand rolls of toilet paper in testing. Someone had also started making plushie dolls of me, weird as that was. I was mostly confused about the position of a strange orifice. I understand that ponies don’t have fingers, but that wasn’t a very good way to make a puppet.

“Well, it’s not always convenient, but I wouldn't want to fix it permanently in place” Sugar Belle said. “I do like having the option. It comes in handy sometimes.”

I shrugged. “Okay, but maybe we could do something temporary.”

I took her down the hall to Rarity’s world’s-most-exclusive-underwater-nuclear-powered-boutique. “Hey Rarity, do you have a collar or something that would keep a neck stiff?”

“Yes, but I can’t sell anything,” she said. “The store would lose its exclusivity!”

“You give shit away all the time,” I pointed out. “Not to mention, Sugar Belle isn’t looking for anything fancy, this is just for everyday wear.”

Sugar Belle nodded, but quickly stopped when her head wobbled just a little too much.

“Well, I suppose I could throw together a plain choker,” said Rarity. “Black, of course. It goes with everything.”

There, problem solved. I fix everything.

I slipped my autodarkening sunglasses on to walk away like a cool guy. I mean, it might have worked better if we weren’t on a submarine, but who’s counting?

Turning to go back to whatever I was doing before, I felt a small shudder go through the deck under my hooves.

I tapped my earpiece. “Cordoba, what was that?”

“How should I know?”

“I left you in charge! You have the conn!”

She grumbled something in Spanish and I heard a keyboard tapping. “There was a low yield explosion close aboard.”

“Whose explosion?”

“Let me check the cameras.” She paused. “A voluptuous swimming nun.”

“Say that again.”

“A voluptuous swimming nun.”

“I was afraid that’s what I heard the first time.” I sighed. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but I couldn’t imagine it was good news.

“All right,” I decided, “I’m going out.”

Though, you don’t just go out when you’re on a submarine. Particularly when you’re on your way to face an unknown, potentially an adversary. I kitted up in my finest power armor for the job, a set I hadn’t used for a while because it didn’t breathe very well. Well, now that was a good thing.

However, as I arrived at my personal office/workshop/trophy room/bedchamber/torture chamber/power armor repository/drinkery, I found Starburst already there reading my notes.

“The hell are you doing here?” I demanded.

He gestured. “The door was unlocked.”

Well, it was a drinkery.

“Get out.”

He put the notebook down and headed for the door. “I was curious, though, I read in there something about a soul in a jar.”

“Long story.”

“Is it?”

I sighed. “You’re just begging for a long story, aren’t you? Sit your ass down and I’ll bore you to tears.”

It wasn’t that long a story. I wouldn’t have told him if it was because I had to go see about this voluptuous swimming nun. But while the various robot arms around the room dramatically dressed me in the components of my power armor, I indulged Starburst for a moment.

“We killed someone, brought them back, and put their soul in a jar.”

“‘We?’”

“Someone was killed, Twilight - old Twilight - brought them back, and the two of us had some joint custody of the ghost for a while.”

“Whose soul was it?”

Just about then, the robot arms put the helmet on me and sealed it up. I pretended that I couldn’t hear Starburst and walked past him out of the room.

I was still wearing my autodarkening sunglasses under the helmet, but that was okay. Better than smoking or something.

On my way to the airlock, I ran across Twilight, Yona, and Owlowiscious. They scootched to the side of the hall to let me go by in my armor.

“Where are you going like that?” Twilight asked.

“Kicking some ass. Maybe. I should probably figure it out before I do.” I shrugged. “Outside.”

“We thinking of taking superhero team ambidextrous,” said Yona.

“Amphibious,” said Twilight.

I shrugged again. “All right, come on.”

They quickly ducked into a side room and suited up. They were getting pretty fast at it.

On our way to the airlock, we ran across Sugar Belle. She scootched to the side of the hall to let me go by in my armor.

“Where are you going like that?” Sugar Belle asked.

“Kicking some ass. Maybe. I should probably figure it out before I do.” I shrugged. “Outside.”

Twilight glanced at me. “Didn’t you just say all that?”

“So?” I turned back to Sugar Belle. “Anyway, facing the unknown, possibly hostile, in the ocean.”

“Need help?” she asked. “I’m immortal and I don’t need to breathe.”

Handy. I invited her along.

The five of us squeezed into the airlock and it slowly filled up with water. The three superheros donned diving equipment.

When the outer door opened, we swam out into the depths of the ocean. My power armor had a comfortable amount of air around my body, and also utilized thrusters to keep from sinking. No, it wasn’t a particularly failsafe system, but that was for drowning me to think about.

We almost immediately encountered the fabled voluptuous swimming nun. She was, I guess. All three three of those things. Apparently.

Mystic, Super Cow, and whatever Owlowiscious’ superhero name was were on my left and Sugar Belle was on my right. We faced off with the nun.

“Who’re you?” I said.

Somehow, despite having the scuba regulator in her mouth, she spoke. “I am Constance Prudence, the fourth of the Seven School Superintendents.”

“Nice!” I said. “Okay everyone, let’s just get this over with-”

“I have come to avenge my fallen faculty,” Constance Prudence said, interrupting me. “Your evil shall not go unanswered.”

“What do you teach again?”

“Theology.”

“Huh. Didn’t think Equestria had much need for that.”

“We teach what the curriculum dictates,” she snapped. Her outburst caused certain parts of her to jiggle.

“Whatever,” I said. I glanced around. “Who wants to go first?”

Owlowiscious, apparently. He pointed his wings forward. A glowing ball of purple energy appeared in the water and slowly built.

“Hoooooooooo-!” he let it go and it zoomed towards the nun.

She arched her back, putting certain parts of her anatomy on better display. A small readout in my visor noted that the local gravity field was somehow changing.

Apparently that was what caused Owlowiscious’ spell to get reflected and come zooming right back at us. It hit Sugar Belle in the face and knocked her head off, carrying it away somewhere into the water.

“Jesus Christ, that’s a mother with some superiors,” I muttered.

I considered what I had seen. Maybe her special talent was gravity manipulation and that was enough to bend light which make it appear that she was curvier than she really was.

Eh. Whatever. I activated comms. “Cordoba, could you kindly fire a torpedo and vaporize this bitch?”

Sigh. “Okay.”

Teenagers, man.

A door slid open on In Need of Beaning’s bow and a torpedo shot out. It made a wide curve and zipped towards us, trailing control wires that allowed it to be steered. I grabbed Twilight, Yona, and Owlowiscious, pulling them away.

Constance Prudence saw the weapon coming and tried to swim away. She wasn’t going to outrun a torpedo, though, and exploded with six hundred and fifty pounds of torpex.

There wasn’t much left, but I did manage to find some of her clothes. What a bad habit.

Back aboard the submarine, we realized we’d lost Sugar Belle’s head. Uh oh. The ocean’s a big place. I did my best to calm down her body, but I don’t know if she understood. No ears.

Cannon Fodder was disappointed to have missed the fight, but since the flamethrower she’d adopted from Baby Cakes was of limited use underwater, she reluctantly conceded that it was probably for the best.

Speaking of Baby Cakes, I went to see her, taking along Sugar Belle’s body. Maybe she could be useful in the kitchen still.

The captured cake-baking Superintendent seemed to have settled in with her new job and life. Of course, I would have been stupid to just trust her outright, which is why I asked the CMC to keep an eye on her. This may have proven to be a mistake, as the CMC in high enough doses could turn anyone into a supervillain, particularly those who’d already been one at some point.

“I didn’t know Constance spent a lot of time swimming,” Baby Cakes said.

“Better than a flying nun, I guess. So if she was number four, who’s next?”

Before she could answer my question, Josephine Jokester came in. “Hey Valiant, I heard you killed a nun.”

“If you’re about to say something about a bad habit, I’m way ahead of you.”

“Bad habit? What’s that supposed to...oh.” JoJo frowned. After a moment, she shook her head and walked away, muttering, “Zonks.”

“Anyway,” I said, turning back to Baby Cakes. “Who’s next?”

“They might prove much harder to defeat,” she cautioned.

“Hmm. Maybe I can even the odds. We need a trap.”

I picked up the phone. “Get me Merry May.”

“Dad, I’m on the line!” said Cordoba.

Marks for Effort

I slogged my way through the mud along the bottom of the ocean, the lights mounted to my power armor doing very little against the floating silt and other things that drifted past my visor.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Sugar Belle’s noggin-less body gesturing in a different direction.

Not having a head connected apparently meant she didn’t have to breathe. Ergo, she could help me look for her head underwater. It was fortunate that she could sense it, and led me in the direction where it had apparently come to rest.

We found it a few minutes later. Her head was a little worse for wear, but I picked it up and she smiled at me. I turned and put her head back on her body. Grabbing her by the foreleg, I kicked in the suit’s thrusters and we ascended back towards where the submarine had surfaced. She used one foreleg to make sure the head stayed put.

It was time for a school picnic, which is hard to do underwater. The sub had come up to use the steel topside deck as a place to have it.

But I wasn’t going to be there because I had to do a couple things in Manehattan.

Rarity had been wanting to shoot a music video for a while. While she recognized that being a band nobody had ever heard of was a niche, music was an intangible and therefore not as inherently coveted as limited edition clothes. So if we were ever going to make it truly big, we had to make at least two songs. So we wouldn’t be a one-hit wonder.

So I was off to Manehattan to shoot it. Well, only parts of it. Rarity, Guinness, and I wouldn’t actually be in the video. It was one of the artsy kind, with something unrelated.

I was the director, and so I decided to kill a couple birds with one stone.

I called up Coco Pommel, who let me use the performance stage in the park across from her place. I made a couple of other calls, too.

Tin Mare flew me in, coming in for a landing in the park. Coco was there to meet us.

“This is unexpected,” she said as I stepped down.

“That’s what I was going for,” I said. “We’re shooting a music video for Das Booty, the latest and upcoming punk band.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much about that,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s going to be...graphic.” I said.

Coco made a face, and said, “Well, I’ll be across the street.” On her way out of the park, she said hello to Tin Mare, who’d helped renovate the theater a while back.

Fizzy and Sugar Belle got down from Tin Mare. I needed a couple of assistants and had brought them along, figuring they would do as well as anyone.

“Did you say ‘graphic?’” Fizzy asked, grinning.

“Yes,” I said. “But you aren’t going to get to see it. You’re doing security. Don’t let anyone get too close so they can see what we’re doing.”

“I’m not your attack dog,” he said.

“You are, and you’ll like it.”

“I hate you, grandpa.”

“I know.”

Sugar Belle frowned, having only heard one side of the exchange, but asked, “Do you need me to do anything?”

“Be slightly more polite security.” I glanced at her face and wished I hadn’t. While she couldn’t die from drowning or whatever being a dullahan, she was a little worse for wear. Getting Owlowiscious’s malfunctioning spell straight to the face had given her two black eyes and being underwater for so long had really done a number on her usually curly mane.

Getting ready for the shoot, I put on a pair of fancy, chic sunglasses. They weren’t my autodarkening ones, but I had to project a certain image. I also put on a beret.

Just then, Merry May arrived. She shook off Fizzy, who was trying to bite her ankle, and said, “I’m here for the audition. Is this it?”

A while back, I’d tricked her into cockslapping the head of the Equestrian Education Association, Chancellor Neighsay, by using a fake dance audition. I didn’t know why Merry wanted to be a dancer, but apparently I was the only one calling her for auditions, so she kept showing up.

“Ah yes,” I said in a fake accent. “Just ze pony I vanted to see. Here.” I thrust a costume at her. It was a leotard and five sweatbands. I didn’t give her instructions on how to wear any of it.

“What will I be doing?” she asked nervously.

“Vell, ve are going to film this, ja?” I gestured to the camera. “I vill pay you.”

“O...okay.” She started to put the costume on while I went up on the stage and strung some heavy chains under which I drew a pentagram and sacrificed a comic book, just like I had the last time, based on instructions from Chancellor Neighsay’s business card.

And it still worked. He appeared at the summoning, only to immediately become wrapped up in the chains.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. “Who are you?”

I lifted my sunglasses just long enough so he could see me and understand that I was the one doing this before slipping back into my foreign film director disguise. “Ah, very good, already in ze character.”

He spotted Merry behind me, though she was still too far away to hear us talk. “Are you going to do...that to me again?”

“That was the plan.”

He sneered. “I’m the head of the Equestrian Education Association. I know how to learn. And you can’t phase me with giant phalluses any more.”

“Oh really? What did you do to get out from being between a cock and a hard place?”

“I taught myself to be gay!”

Merry came up just then. “I’m ready.”

“Zhere has been a change of ze plan,” I said. “You do it backwards.”

Get you a girl who can do both. It worked for me.

“Um, okay.” Merry turned around.

“And remember,” I said. “He is very good actor. He say no, he mean yes, ja?”

So we filmed a couple minutes of that, and the screams were earsplitting, when Neighsay could breathe, anyway.

We finished up, I paid Merry, and dis-summoned Neighsay. It wasn’t the worst music video that had ever been filmed, but probably the worst Equestria had ever seen. I was counting on its shock factor to make Das Booty famous.

While I packed up, I saw a mare talking to Sugar Belle and drifted over that way. I wondered where I’d seen her before. I realized it was Inky Rose, a onetime competitor at a fashion show hosted by Rarity.

She was chatting with Sugar Belle, which was more emotion and social interaction than I had ever seen from Inky before.

“I know we were just here making an edgy music video,” said Sugar Belle to me, “so it’s a fitting coincidence that a fitting fashion designer came along.”

“I could use your look,” said Inky to Sugar Belle.

That got my eyebrows up. Sugar Belle was a pie maker from a dusty western town. “How so?”

“The eye shadow, the mane, the choker,” she said.

Well, it was actually bruising from getting hit in the face, her mane was slick and limp from ocean water, and we knew what the choker was for.

But I shrugged and said, “Why not? We need a goth on the team.”

“Wait, what team?” Inky said.

I grinned. “Your worst fears just came true. You got drafted to become a jock.”

She collapsed on the ground screaming in horror, eyeliner streaming over her cheeks.

I didn’t tell her it was a school-teaching team, but that probably would have only upset her more.

It was just then a gay pig and a gay buffalo came down the street. Not only was it a neckbreaking change of subject, but also they were scientists.

It’s not all about making fun of goth kids with me, I sometimes comment on interesting relationships. Interspecies homosexual science? Let’s talk about that.

“What’s up with you?” I called. “Trying to discover the Hogs-Bison particle on the Large Hardon Collider?”

Just because they were interesting doesn’t also mean I’m not an asshole.

Anyway, that made them go away without even getting a decent line and I decided that maybe I’d had enough of Manehattan.

I told the story to Josephine Jokester when I got back to the sub.

“Zonks,” JoJo said. “That’s kind of really offensive.”

“Too bad. I waited a long time to make that joke. I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity.”

“Speaking of missed opportunities,” I went on, “I’m only just now realizing that I totally missed an attempt to troll Sunburst with a line about a ghost in a machine.”

“What are you talking about?” JoJo said.

“Nevermind.”

I hadn’t seen Sunburst all day and had been brooding that I never got a chance to rectify my oversight.

That was why I was drunk at the time, and just then we suddenly ran into some great beast of the deep.

I’m assuming, of course. There aren’t windows on a submarine and even if there were, it’s hard to see more than a few dozen yards underwater.

Another part of my assessment was due to the fact that there were some really weird noises coming out of the sonar.

“Oh, this is bad, this is very bad,” Rarity fretted.

“What’s bad?” I asked, swaying slightly as I stood there.

“It’s a-” Rarity paused, and then said, “Nevermind.”

I blinked. “Come on, you can’t just lead with that and then stop.”

“You’re drunk, you heard nothing.”

“Bullshit. You know something.”

“Just…” she waved a hoof. “Get a couple of torpedoes or something. Just do that and don’t think about it.”

I pressed the intercom button. “Twilight to the bridge, Twilight to the bridge, please.”

“I’m already here,” Twilight said. “I think you must be drunk if you didn’t notice.”

“Well, what do you make of this crazy shit?” I said.

“Which?” she asked. “Your terrible joke, your cryptic comment, what’s going on outside, Rarity’s cryptic comment, or the torpedoes?”

The sub suddenly shuddered, as something outside moved nearby, rubbing on the hull.

“Well, the torpedoes are important but I’m too drunk to do auto targeting. It’s a lot of complicated math. But I guess everything else you just mentioned is important too.”

Twilight shook her head. “I still have no idea what’s going on here, but - trigonometry? I can do this.”

“You’re my favorite nerd, Twiggles. Go kill whatever that is. Maybe it’s some sort of ugly ancient beast from the secret ancient crypts of Al-jebar or some shit.”

“Trigonometry, not Algebra.”

“Whatever.”

Anyway, we lit up whatever that was with a torpedo salvo. Never found out, but I saw tentacles and stuff drift by after the explosions. Also, I ordered a barrel roll to celebrate, slamming the dive planes over into a twist.

Stuff crashed to the deck all over the place as I calmly walked the circular walls of the hull as it rotated. I probably should have warned everyone. I was drunk, see.

After that, things went back to business as usual except I accidentally stumbled onto Sugar Belle and Inky Rose cuddling shortly after the sub went through the roll..

“Jesus, get a room,” I said.

“We’re in a room!” Sugar Belle said. “My room! Get out!”

Her voice was a little muffled because her head was somewhere between Inky’s legs as they were wrapped in bedsheets.

Inky’s face was red, which I’m sure she was embarrassed about showing any color but black, which probably led to a feedback loop of embarrassment and an even redder face.

“Christ,” I muttered under my breath and closed the door. “Good thing they weren’t having sex or that would have been really embarrassing.”

Author's Note

>no heady goth gf

The Mean 6

“Oh Luna, what am I doing with my life?” muttered Inky. She lay in bed with Sugar Belle. The two of them were intertwined. Sugar Belle’s loose head was somewhere below the sheets and apparently sleeping soundly.

“Does it even matter?” Inky went on, to herself. “Sometimes I just don’t feel like living anymore. And that’s not even the blaq persona talking, I’m actually depressed.” She sniffed. “You were wrong, dad. It wasn’t just a phase.”

She was still making an effort to keep quiet, for Sugar Belle’s sake. “How can I go on living like this? I’m just a parody, a worthless soul that no one would miss.”

“Hey,” I said. “Just because you're a lesbian, it doesn't make you less of a bein.’”

Inky bolted upright in bed. “What are you doing here!?”

“Watching.”

She stared at me. “Why!?”

“I just told you.”

“We’re not lesbians!”

Sugar Belle’s head was moving around under the sheets, but the fabric had muffled anything she might be saying. Maybe anything she was hearing, too.

I shrugged. “Okay, whatever.” I left their room.

I could already tell that I had a busy day ahead of me. I’d already called Tin Mare and I was making ready to go back to Ponyville. I had a little project I was working on.

But first, I stopped by the project lab. The Plymouth Valiant-brand toilet paper was still undergoing research and development. We hadn’t sold out the band Das Booty yet, but I was ready when we did.

Trixie and Daring were still off doing something, so I was still stuck with Fizzy. I was concerned with having him around magical DEVGRU. It might give him ideas, and also allow him to do things around dangerous magic that could backfire. Still, babysitting was babysitting.

I got Twilight and Yona rounded up and we went topside. Cordoba came with us. I slipped on my autodarkening sunglasses as Tin Mare came in for a hover and we boarded. Fizzy was still small enough that I simply tossed him over my head up onto Tin Mare’s tailgate. She might have said something about safety for small children, but she also knew that I didn’t like him, and so stayed quiet.

Libby didn’t, though. “Hey, what the heck? He’s trying to go down my intake!”

“Not trying,” said Fizzy. “Just where momentum took me.”

“Good ‘ol momentum,” I said. “It’s a bitch.”

“So are you,” he said. I ignored him. For having thousands of years of experience, he sure had a lame insult game.

We flew off to Ponyville. Upon arrival, we encountered Sunburst in the library. His head came up as we walked in. “There you are, Valiant. I wanted to ask you a few more questions about Starlight.”

I was still wearing my sunglasses, and hoped that it would have kept me incognito, but apparently not. “No.”

He didn’t take no for an answer. He put down the book he was reading and came over. “I think I developed a few more ideas that I wanted to ask you about.”

“I think I developed a few more methods of torture that I wanted to test you about.”

He went on as if he hadn’t heard me. “I know you’ve used sapient beings to power robots before. Tin Mare used to be one of them.”

I sighed. “Yes.”

“I know you were responsible for summoning and then containing a ghost in a jar.”

“Yes.” I had a feeling I knew where this was going.

“Was that ghost Starlight Glimmer?”

“Yes.”

Twilight blinked. “Wait, really? After all I’ve read about her, you summoned her?”

“It was other Twilight that did it, and by accident,” I said. “I just pointed and laughed.”

Looking pleased that he had guessed about the ghost, Sunburst went on. “In spending time with Libby-”

“Don’t sex the airplane,” I broke in.

He went on. “In spending time with Libby, I noticed some things about her.”

“Whatever you’re thinking, you’re wrong.”

“Valiant, this is important. Starlight may have been misguided, but she was my friend once. I need to know this.” He took out a green gem that pulsed with magic. “I enchanted this stone to detect lies.”

He cleared his throat. “I don’t need glasses.” The gem flashed red.

He held it up to me. “Touch it.”

“You can’t make me.”

“Valiant, I’ll lose all respect for you if you don’t.”

“What respect did you have for me to begin with?”

“Don’t change the subject.”

“Okay.” I touched the gem.

“Valiant, is Libby actually Starlight Glimmer?”

“No.”

The gem did not indicate a lie.

Sunburst blinked. “What? But how is that possible! Where is she?”

I grinned. “She’s closer than you think. But Sunburst, this is why I didn’t invite you to be part of DEVGRU. You’re a great scholar of magic. You probably have more raw knowledge than just about anyone. You’re smart. You’re well read. You’re kind of a nice guy. But your problem is that you don’t have any ability to contemplate other things. You wouldn’t have even considered Libby if you didn’t already have the example of Tin Mare. You’ll never figure out what I did with Starlight, because you don’t have the ability to think far enough outside the box.”

Through all of this, my hoof was still on the gem, and it was still green.

Sunburst sat back, a fractured look on his face. I walked past him, heading for the basement.

“That was kind of harsh,” said Twilight as we went down the stairs.

“If I told him Libby was actually Starlight, he probably would have sexed her,” I said.

Down in the basement, I saw that all the members of the B-team were currently off their chains and loose. I suppose that made sense, as their counterparts were all aboard the submarine teaching school.

I shifted through a few boxes and found what I was looking for. Twilight glanced over my shoulder. “Are those pills?”

“I’m thinking about starting a medication business and was building up a stockpile.”

“Why?”

“There’s no Big Pharma in this world, so I’m filling a gap.”

“Just because there’s no Big Pharma doesn’t mean there needs to be one.”

I paused. “I did have another idea. All I’d have to do is buy up all the windmills in the world and get them to turn the other way. Without their cooling effects, the world will get hotter. The ice caps will melt and sea levels will rise. That way, Big Fan can sell everyone airboats.”

“Well, it’s a good thing windmills don’t work that way.”

“This is why I don’t trust green energy. I also had an idea to sell ponies cars. I’m sure they’d love convertibles.”

“Not everybody likes wind.”

I shrugged. “So I’ll sell them pervertables. The top stays up and the driver goes down.”

Stuck somewhere between drugs, propellers, and hentaimobiles, I decided that maybe I should take some time to think about what I actually wanted to do.

I turned to go back upstairs, but stopped. “Where’s Cordoba?”

“She took off earlier,” said Yona.

“Huh.” I went back upstairs. Not seeing her, I tapped my earpiece. “Cordoba?”

“Heyuhgh?” said a voice in reply.

My brows furrowed. “Cordoba? Is that you? What happened?’

“I, uh, there was this guy…”

“Cordoba, who was it?”

“Tim Allen.”

To my horror, that explained her salutation. “You know Tim Allen rules! You kill him, you become him!” I put my hoof to my forehead. “Oh my God, this is so bad.”

“Well-”

“No, just stay put, we’ll come to you. And for Christ’s sake, Cordoba, don’t touch anything. Nothing mechanical or electrical. Do not improve any homes.”

I opened the window and shouted, “Hey asshole!”

Sunburst looked up.

“Not you, for now. The other one.”

“Me?” said Catchy Phrase, who happened to be passing by.

“Yes!”

“What did I do?”

“Nothing, I’m just angry! Get in here and I’ll pay you for a quick job.”

“Uh, okay.” She walked into the library.

I thrust Fizzy at her. “Babysit. I’ll be back soon.”

Without waiting to see if he would eat her face, I walked out of the library to go find Cordoba.

As it turned out, she wasn’t difficult to find, as she was the only Tim Allen in town.

Twilight and Yona caught up with me and shared in my quiet horror.

“What are we going to do?” Cordoba asked.

I sighed. “It’s not going to be easy. I think we’ll have to take a trip back to the human world. I keep saying I’m never going to go back there and shit like this keeps happening. For now, let’s get you home and we’ll see what we can do.”

We loaded up in Tin Mare again. I had to quickly recalibrate Libby to prevent her from blowing away what she saw as a threat.

Taking off, Twilight said, “Did you just leave your grandson with some random pony?”

“Did I?”

We flew back to the sub. About halfway there, I looked out the window and quickly called, “Tin Mare, set it down.”

She came in for a landing and we piled out.

“What is it?” Twilight called.

I gestured to all the plants and vegetation around us. “Something about this place looks suspicious.”

I took a closer look. “Oh shit. It’s coca mixed with cocoa.” My eyes widened. “We need to burn all of them. Now.”

“Why?” Twilight said as I grabbed a gas can from the back of Tin Mare and started covering the area with fuel. “That’s where chocolate comes from!”

“But it also produces one of the most addictive substances known to man, and you know how ponies are about new things that are bad for them.”

“C-cocaine?”

“No, Twilight. Think harder.”

She paused for a moment. “Surely you don’t mean Coca-Cola?”

I stared grimly out through the trees. “It’s going to be a war.”

Yakity-Sax

There are only a few things worse than Pinkie Pie when she doesn’t know she’s being annoying.

Cordoba turning into Tim Allen was one of them.

At least the blow had been softened by my brand new soft drink empire that fit nicely with my already established hard drink one.

I found it hard to believe that a society that seemed to run on sugar like Equestria didn’t already have a major supplier of cola, but I was hardly going to waste such an opportunity. The trick was going to be keeping competitors down.

I had a tequila and Coke and thought about it. It had the bonus of distracting me from my problems.

“What ever happened to Josephine Jokester?” I said aloud.

“I thought you didn’t think she was funny,” replied Twilight where she was studying on the other side of the room.

“She isn’t, but I could use a distraction right about now.”

“I don’t know where she is.”

I finished my drink, sighed deeply, and got up, heading for The Fifth.

When I couldn’t sit around drinking anymore, I went out drinking. I think I may have a problem.

Guinness didn’t judge, though, and that’s why I tolerated him. I sat down at the bar and sighed deeply. He guessed my order based on that.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Well, you know Cordoba killed Tim Allen.”

“Right.”

“And you know the rules: you kill him, you become him.”

“I still can’t figure out why, but yes, I know the rules.”

I shook my head. “What was he even doing here? I mean, I’m glad he’s not here anymore, but this is a serious problem. That’s on top of all my other problems.”

Guinness polished a glass. He seemed reluctant, but said, “Like what?”

“I guess we could start off with, I have to sell Coca-Cola now. That means individually finding and stamping out every new upstart with a soda fountain.

“Moving on, I think Rarity’s in some sort of secret organization but won’t tell me. She’s been really sensitive about horors of the deep sea lately. I think it’s probably related to that time she was the ocean, but I can’t prove it.”

“Wait, she was the ocean? The ocean?” said Guinness.

I shook my head. “Sorry, that only leads me to yet another problem. I can’t keep my alternate timelines straight. That never actually happened, as far as you know.”

I kept talking, to distract him. “Das Booty is suddenly doing really well. That music video we shot has everyone talking.”

“I was meaning to ask you about that.”

“But now we’ll be legit famous and I wasn’t planning to sell out on merchandising for a while longer.” I sighed. “The toilet paper is just barely ready.”

“I still think it’s weird that you want to use fame and celebrity to sell toilet paper.”

“I have a marketing slogan too good to pass up.”

“What is it?”

Instead, I pressed on listing my problems. “There’s also the matter of the Seven School Superintendents. I mean, I guess there’s only three left now that I’ve killed three and hired the other to be a cafeteria lady.”

I took a deep drink. “Why do these assholes keep trying? I’ve neutralized more than half of them. I’ve humiliated their leader a couple of times.”

“Well, you know what Blade always used to say,” Guinness said.

I nodded. “Some people are always trying to iceskate upskirt.”

Guinness paused for a long moment, but then said, “I think I like that better.”

He put down the glass he had been polishing and picked up another. “Is that it?”

“Yeah, I guess. Everything I can think of now.”

“Well, I do have some good news. Remember when you asked me to find a date for Steven, the river serpent you asked to resettle Seaquestria after we blew up? Well, I found her.”

“What?”

Guinness frowned. “You know, you told me to go to some one-horse town and get the monster that lived in a pond?”

“How drunk was I when I was asking?”

Guinness sighed. “Nevermind.”

He turned to pick up another glass, but suddenly paused, eyes widening in alarm. I turned around, spotting a red-glowing pentagram appearing on the floor.

Fizzy rose up out of the black magic portal. He glared at me. “You left me with a babysitter!”

“Oh, I wondered why I hadn’t seen him around for a while,” said Guinness.

“It’s been weeks!” shouted Fizzy. “Do you know how hard it is to set up a blood ritual to teleport when you’re two feet tall and not strong enough to hold a knife?”

“What’s your point?” I said. “Also, did you kill Catchy Phrase, who I left you with?”

“Yes!”

“Good. Now I don’t have to pay the babysitting bill and she’ll never get in my way of making name puns again.” I took another drink.

The door opened and Cordoba came in. Fizzy burst out laughing. “Oh right, that happened to you. What an idiot. You know the rules.”

She punted him across the room. “I wish everyone would stop saying that!”

Fizzy may have been a demon, but he was still a foal. He was lucky Guinness had outfitted the room to be as comfortable as it could be aboard a submarine and Fizzy landed in an armchair.

Twilight walked in. She spotted the still-glowing evil portal. “Uh, what’s going on here?”

I had a sudden spark of inspiration. “We just set up a permanent link back to the Ponyville Library. That’ll make it way easier to go back and forth.”

“I did it!” shouted Fizzy.

“You know, I might just head there now,” I said. If nothing else, I should probably clean up Fizzy’s mess before it started to smell.

I finished my drink and hopped through the portal.

I’d gotten decent enough at sanitizing scenes that I had considered opening my own business, though I would be the majority customer. I was almost done when Cordoba stuck her head through the portal. “We just got intel that another of the Superintendents is on their way.”

I sighed. “All right, thanks for the heads up.”

The door opened and a stallion wearing glasses walked in. “I take it you are Mr. Valiant.”

“That’s right.”

“I am Superprime.”

“What’s a super prime?”

He smiled thinly. “I’ll put on a clinic, just for you. I teach math, you see. I can calculate anything. The number of hairs on a pony’s coat, how many grains of sand on a beach, the average amount of days between holidays.”

“Which holidays?”

“The usual ones. Hearts and Hooves Day, the Summer Sun Celebration, Running of the Leaves, Nightmare Night, and of course, Matrixmas.”

Oh right, Matrixmas.

I put my mop down and pulled out my Desert Eagle. “Nah.”

I was just about to pull the trigger when he lifted a hoof. “Is that a twelve-point-seven millimeter caliber?”

“Uh, no, it’s-”

“You see, Mr. Valiant,” he interrupted. “My special ability, one I know you have no counter for, is the metric system.”

My eyes widened. “You sick bastard!”

He advanced, grinning. “I’m going to hit you with so many tonnes of force and you won’t even know how much that is.” He raised a hoof.

Cordoba suddenly entered the room through the portal. Superprime came up short, eyes wide.

She smirked. “That’s right, I thought you might know the rules. You wouldn’t dare hit me.”

“I-I’ve still got metric on my side!”

“Puta. You think I don’t know metric?”

I was suddenly very thankful that my daughter was a Mexican robot.

I mean, while also currently being Tim Allen, but still.

Cordoba lunged forward and got ahold of Superprime. She strangled him to death. I guess there were some advantages to being in the body of a man with hands in Equestria, but that didn’t make up for that man being Tim Allen.

Fortunately, there were no rules against being killed by Tim Allen.

And on the plus side, strangling meant I didn’t have to clean up any more blood.

Still, though, we really needed to get Cordoba’s problem solved, and fast.

Back through the portal, I found Twilight examining it. “Can you redirect this somewhere else?”

“Like where?”

“Hollywood.”

Twilght looked a little unsure, but she consulted a few books and did a few spells on the portal. “I think that should get you close. But what’s in Hollywood?”

“You’ll see.” I turned. “Come on, Cordoba.”

We went through the portal again, this time coming out in some back lot of a movie set. Perfect. Searching around, it fortunately didn’t take very long to find who we were looking for.

“Al!” I shouted.

Up ahead of us, a bearded man turned around. “My name is Richard Karn. I’m an actor. Al Borland is just one character I played.”

“Well, I can’t name a single other character you played.” I pointed. “Also, you’re wearing flannel. Plus, you responded when I called. But that isn’t important right now.” I pointed to Cordoba.

He opened his mouth, but paused. “Wait, this isn’t the old Tim Allen. Did you...” He shook his head and looked at me. “Well, what do you want me to do? You brought this on yourself. You know the rules.”

“Please,” said Cordoba. “I can’t be stuck like this forever. Isn’t there anything you can do?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so, Tim.”

The Hearth's Warming Club

Hearth’s Warming Eve was here.

Hearth’s Warming itself had been replaced in this universe by Matrixmas, but we did apparently still have the Eve. I guess it made a nice bridge holiday, especially because the date wasn’t the same.

A couple of the kids were in a festive mood as I walked into the common areas on the submarine. We were still decorating trees and stuff, even if there wasn’t a payoff of presents the next day. That was one drawback to the holiday, but it’s not like I needed anything.

I guess I did need some help in spicing things up, though, and there was Cordoba, making a fiesta.

Mexican food at the winter holidays? Yeah, sure, whatever. I was still curious, though.

“How else can we get Tim Allen to leave me than with cultural sensitivity?” she said when I asked.

“I don’t remember him being racist, just having a drug problem.”

“Well, it still reminds me of me,” she snapped.

“You were never able to eat it before because you were a robot, and you’re probably not going to enjoy eating it now due to heartburn because you’re in the body of an elderly man.”

I frowned in thought. “Though, the cocaine connection could be an interesting line of thought. Tim Allen uses drugs. A lot of drugs pass through Central America.”

“Couldn’t we just get Twilight to do a spell?” said Twilight, arriving just then. “Actual Twilight?”

“I’m sure Sunset’s working on something, too,” I said. “Especially now that I linked her to my Coke bank account. Coca-cola, that is.”

I sighed. “But getting old Twilight back here would mean admitting I can’t run a school myself. I’m even more torn because I’m too rich to care about running a school anymore.”

“What if we get Twilight to return before you call her?” said Cordoba. “She is probably missing her friends right now because she has been in the middle of a frozen wasteland setting up a new town for months.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said. “I hadn’t even been running surveillance on her because I didn’t care. Maybe we should see what she’s up to.”

I didn’t get the chance to immediately act on that, though, because the tacos were ready.

Cordoba was apparently going the bigger-is-better route and had made enough for the whole cafeteria. It wasn’t traditional Hearth’s Warming food, but the kids didn’t seem to know the difference.

I sat with the other teachers. Pinkie was extolling on the holiday. “It’s actually kind of funny that we have a Hearth’s Warming Eve. Many ponies believe that this day used to be part of a duality of holidays and came as part of a matched set of both Hearth’s Warming Eve and Hearth’s Warming, but if that were ever true, nopony alive today remembers it.”

“I remember Hearth’s Warming,” I said, forgetting that it didn’t exist in this universe.

“I remember when you played Princess Platinum at a Hearth’s Warming Eve play,” Pinkie said.

“I try to forget it.” Changing the subject, I said, “So you seem to know your history of holidays. Do other species celebrate differently?”

“Sure.” She pointed out students as she talked. “Griffons have Blue Moon Festival, which doesn’t have anything to do with moons, but it’s the one day a year griffons pretend to be nice to each other.”

“Surprising.”

“Changelings also celebrate Hearth’s Warming Eve like ponies, but they do it literally.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?”

Pinkie went on, because she wasn’t really the kind of person you could interrupt. “Hippogriffs have the Three Days of Freedom Celebration where they thank the sea for protecting them from the Storm King, the land for helping the Storm King be defated, and then both the sea and land at the same time.”

“Who’s the Storm King? Is that some kind of ancient story like the Three Pony Tribes that led to Hearth’s Warming?”

Pinkie ignored me. ”Yaks have Snilldar Fest, where they smash things.”

“Kind of reduntant. Yak holidays are all about smashing things. Also, past tense. They’re dead.” I frowned. “Well, I don’t know, I would bet maybe Twilight is trying to revive old traditions now that she’s the governer of Silent Hill.”

Pinkie finished with, “And dragons have Feast of the Fire, where they celebrate a successful coup.”

“Neat.” I turned my head, speaking to the rest of the table. “Speaking of transfer of power, I’ve been thinking about abdicating my position here as principal. The downside is that without sufficient evidence that I’ve done a good job and am leaving for other reasons, Twilight wins.”

“Wins what?” asked Rarity.

“She doesn’t think I could be a good principal.”

“You aren’t,” said Applejack. “You’re never here and you kill people.”

“I said, sufficient evidence that I’ve done a good job and am leaving for other reasons. I didn’t say it had to be real.”

I shrugged. “Maybe she wants to come back from Silent Hill but she thinks that if she returns before I come crying to her about this being a hard job, I win. So as I see it, we need a reason for me to leave the job, and/or a reason for Twilight to come back. Either way, we both get what we want and save face.”

“But what if Twilight doesn’t want to come back?” said Fluttershy.

“A snow-covered yak graveyard?” I said. “Why would she want to stay?”

“Does she have to?” said Twilight. “That would get confusing if there were two of us again.”

“Hmm.” I considered it. The longer I thought, the more I needed a drink.

I headed down the submarine’s hallways, eating a burrito I had taken to go. I passed a few students who had broken away from the group to play some nerd game.

They had also recruited Tin Mare to play. It didn’t really bother me because I knew she could spare the processing power. What surprised me, though, was they’d managed to hack together a screen on which she was projected - or rather her Ogres & Oubliettes avatar.

Huh, maybe I should be giving her more to do to keep her busy. And checking up on my cyber security.

“I cast magic missile,” said Tin Mare as I passed by.

“That’s what you always do!” one of the kids complained.

“Because it is hella the most efficient way of reducing the monster’s hit points, which is therefore the best way to progress through the dungeon and ultimately complete the game.”

Okay, maybe I didn’t need to worry about her.

I headed for The Fifth, finishing the burrito just as I walked in the door, and tossed the wrapper down the hellish portal Fizzy had made on the floor. The magic selector knob was currently pointing to “trash.” I didn’t know where it went.

Guinness served me. As I took a drink, he said, “You know, I’ve been thinking. Isn’t ‘Tim Allen rules’ just a variant of ‘Highlander rules?’ You kill them and gain their power?”

“The power to be Tim Allen?”

Guinness shrugged. “I never said it had to be a good power.”

“It doesn’t even work as a theory,” I said. “Tim Allen’s not immortal.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, Cordoba killed him.”

“But highlanders can be killed,” he pointed out. “Their only weakness is having their head cut off.”

I blinked. “And knowing Cordoba with her cutlass…” I trailed off, thinking rapidly.

“So if Tim Allen was a highlander, and when you kill a highlander you gain their powers, how do we go about harnessing that?”

“Sounds like a problem for Twilight Sparkle,” he commented.

“I’m beginning to realize that.” I paused in thought. “But it would have to be better than that. ‘Please come help me turn my daughter into a human dynamo’ would probably not sit well with her, for various reasons.”

I tossed back the rest of the drink. “I’m working on a plan, though. We’re going to need some supplies. I’m going to have to make it good. I’m going to have to do better than I’ve ever done before.”

Guinness put another drink in front of me. I slammed it and continued. “Spectacle is key here. It’s not only got to catch Twilight’s attention all the way from Silent Hill, but it’s got to be significant enough to actually get her to come. At least I’ve got the advantage of overwhelming wealth on my side.”

“Money doesn’t buy taste,” Guinness reminded me.

“I’m not trying to be stylish, I’m trying to be awesome.”

“I’ve seen a few of your big plans before,” said Guinness. “They’re usually because of something. Defeating some bad guy or whatever. Just getting someone’s attention isn’t your style. I’m not sure, after everything you’ve already done, if it won’t just be like jumping the shark.”

I slammed my hooves on the bar. “An unjumpable shark! Guinness, you’re a genius!”

I turned away from the bar. “Where do I get one of those…?”

Spotting the portal, I turned the knob to “Las Pegasus” and jumped through.

Friendship University

They say that you should always be yourself, unless you can be Batman.

I mean, what else was I supposed to do with all the wealth I could handle?

I lurked in a dark shadow atop a building in Las Pegasus. It hadn’t been easy to find a shadow, either, as lit up as the place was.

Tin Mare and Libby orbited overhead doing recon. I’d ensured Libby wasn’t armed. Las Pegasus was not a place to have loose robots distributing lethal weapons.

I’d come to the city to get Twilight's attention to force her to come back from Silent Hill. That would make it look like I was competent and responsible at running a school.

I mean, I guess I was. I’d lasted this long. I just didn’t like the job. Not to mention being rich enough to choke a horse made me kind of bored of it.

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare: outgoing call to Trixie.”

She put it through. After a few rings, Trixie picked up. “What is it, dad?”

“Do you still have contacts with the Flim Flam Brothers? They’re in Las Pegasus, right?”

“I think so.”

“I’ve got a little offer for them. A university for friendship, distance learning special. Self-accredited, non-transferrable, all applicants accepted without precondition.”

“Ooh, I don’t think they could resist that.”

“More importantly, I don’t think Twilight could resist it.”

Trixie told me how to contact the Flim Flam Brothers and hung up. I stepped from my shadowy perch and dropped down to a darkened alley below, landing with a thud that cracked the pavement in my custom nighttime power armor.

As much as Twilight and Yona had wanted to come, there are some things that you have to do alone. Also, both of them would probably have frowned on the creation of a bogus friendship school to create a shadow rival to our own.

As I came up out of the shadows, I changed into a quick disguise. I put on an orange and purple hat and carried a cardboard box. I found the apartment building Trixie had indicated and stepped inside, heading upstairs. At the correct door, I knocked.

“Who is it?” said a voice.

“FedEx. I have a package for you.”

“What’s in the package?”

“Not my business. I’m just the delivery guy here to give this to you.”

“What?”

“FedEx going to give it to you.” Knock knock. “Open up the door.”

They did.

Then, upon seeing me, they immediately slammed it shut again.

“Well, that wasn’t very neighborly, especially considering what kind of deal I’ve come to you with.”

“Nothing good ever comes out of working with you, Valiant.”

“Hey, you’re the scammers. I’m just the guy who doesn’t care about the wellbeing of others. While I’m being extraordinarily introspective here, I’d like to point out that I wouldn’t have come to you guys if this was something I wanted to do myself, and I’m prepared to make it worth your while.”

They cautiously opened the door again and I walked inside.

Putting the box down, I opened it to reveal a stack of lesson plans, curriculum, and cash. “I need you to start a friendship school.”

“We heard about the one Twilight Sparkle dared you to run,” said Flim.

“So are you trying to pass it off on us?” asked Flam.

“No, I’m setting you up as a puppet rival.”

That got their attention. I showed them a poster to advertise the new school. Why waste your time at a friendship school that’s just a school? Learn everything they teach and more at Friendship University.

I explained a little more of how I wanted them to run the place, finishing with, “And I want you to paint a big FU on the side of the building.”

“So the point is to draw Twilight’s attention,” said Flim.

“Well, we can certainly do that,” said Flam.

“Twilight is one of those people that always has to be right. So, you know, make some flashy claims that sound really cool but aren’t quite outrageous enough for most people to actually look them up.”

Flim grinned. “How long do you think we’ve been doing this?”

Flam looked thoughtful. “So do you want to reach out to the Equestrian Education Association? Recognition from them would really get Twilight’s goat.”

I considered it. “Yeah, but it would also make me look bad if you guys were recognized above us. Plus, the EEA would only accredit you if you had a racist pony-only curriculum, and I know you guys wouldn’t turn down tuition from anyone regardless of species.”

I added, “But, we also have to keep this place’s origin super-secret. No one can know that I’m behind this. That’s what’s going to make it work to lure Twilight back here.”

They agreed and I left the apartment.

Back down on the street, I stopped to look around. It was Las Pegasus, after all. Since I was here.

There was a donut shop on the corner, and that seemed like a great place to start. I walked in and had a seat at the bar.

A diamond dog hurried out of the back room, looking perturbed by something. “Be right there,” he said, or I think he said. He wasn’t so great at enunciation. At any rate, he was right there and I told him what I wanted.

He hurried around, getting my donuts and going back into the back room. Some kind of argument started.

I was almost finished when he came back out. They were really good donuts. “How did you like everything?” Once again, I’m guessing what he actually said.

“It was good,” I said. “Do you make them?”

He smiled. “Yep.” His face fell. “I just wish I didn’t have to make them for my old lady.”

“Her?” I asked, nodding towards the kitchen door. She must be a bitch.

“That’s right.”

“Tell you what.” I put my business card - the one for the school - on the counter. “You’re a hell of a baker. If you’re looking for a new job, look me up. I’m Valiant, by the way.”

“Chuck.”

We shook.

Back out on the sidewalk, I grinned. As good as the donuts were, I could only imagine what he could do with less stress and also working with Pinkie and Baby Cakes, the home-ec teacher we’d captured. The submarine was going to turn into the world’s best bakery, in addition to the original school of friendship.

I kept walking. A mare stepped out from an alley. She was reddish in color, with black hooves, and white ears and tail. “Hey big boy,” she said.

“No,” I replied.

“Come on, I’m that easy,” she said.

“So?”

She fell in step beside me. “They call me Foxy.”

I’d already met the hound, so this must be the fox. Not that they were related or anything, but I thought it was an interesting coincidence.

I kept walking. “I don’t care. Leave me alone.”

Distracted as I replied to her, I didn’t see too very large thugs step out of an alley ahead and block the path.

“Out of the way,” I said. “I have places to be.”

“Nah,” said one. “You need to be where we take you.”

“You’re coming with us,” said the other one. “You gonna learn.”

Oh shit, they were from the EEA.

I sighed and pulled out my Desert Eagle. To my surprise, despite their size, the two of them were faster than I could have ever believed and knocked it away before I could pull the trigger.

I jumped backwards, reaching for my backup switchblade. They two of them also pulled knives.

Fast as they were, I was on my guard now and the three of us went back and forth in mêlée à trois. I would have gotten cut a few times, too, if I wasn’t wearing my power armor.

Yes, I’d even been wearing it under the FedEx uniform. It’s called a disguise.

However, when they eventually got me into a clinch, and turned me upside down, I was done. The suit’s jump-jets would only fire me upwards, and, well, I was upside down. Lifted clear of the ground, I was deprived of both traction and any innate earth pony magic. Plus, being in the suit I couldn’t throw fireballs.

The eye lasers I was still developing.

“Tin Mare!” I radioed.

I heard her coming, but the two thugs jumped with me down a manhole before she arrived.

“Scanning sewer network,” she said. Plans for the tunnels began to appear in my HUD.

That didn’t help, though, when I was still being carried by some of the most athletic ponies I’d ever encountered.

They got me down to some place fairly deep within the sewer network and put me down, after wrapping me in a literal ball of logging chains that was fixed to the concrete floor.

It was only then did Chancellor Neighsay appear.

“It is the time of your final reckoning,” he said.

“But I’ve still got one of your seven superintendents to go,” I pointed out.

“I’m the seventh,” he said.

“I’m actually kind of disappointed,” I said. “That’s kind of a letdown.” I paused. “Wait, you originally claimed there were seven. You’re putting out false information? Some teacher you are.”

“It’s not about facts,” he said. “It’s about policy.”

He went on, but I had tuned him out. Instead, on a circuit inside the power armor, I said, “Tin Mare, patch a call through to Merry May.” She did so, and when Merry answered, I said, “How fast can you get to Las Pegasus?”

“Who is this?”

“I’m a talent scout. I saw you in the Das Booty video. I’m interested in hiring you.”

“Oh, well, I’m probably two days’ travel away.”

Shit, not nearly soon enough. “Well, let me get back to you.” I hung up. “Tin Mare, new plan.”

I switched back to the external speakers. “Let me stop you right there.”

Neighsay had been in the middle of explaining his master plan. I’d been recording it to listen to later, though as loose as he was with the truth that probably wasn’t going to be important.

“Since you went gay after being smacked around by a huge penis, I guess that explains these two guys,” I said, gesturing as much as I was able to the pair of enormous thugs that had brought me down here.

“They’re the muscle to back up my brains,” he said. “We’ve perfected ways to imbue all kinds of knowledge, even negative knowledge. It’s well known that the opposite of a nerd is a jock. Therefore, we can reverse the process of learning and teach jocks to their pinnacle. These specimens are the result of more anti-school than you would believe.”

“Again, some teacher you are.”

“What are you even doing in Las Pegasus?” he said. “Don’t you have a school to run? Bad as you are at it?”

I had to get him off that line of conversation, lest he discover my plan. “Actually, in the spirit of not doing things right, I’ve come to Las Pegasus for a little project called Operation Chastity.”

“Oh really?”

Tin Mare was listening and initiated the plan as I kept talking. “You see, back in my own world there was this big war. They had a plan to destroy enemies’ dams with bombs, and it required very special bombs, the kind that would skip to their target.”

It was just about this time that Tin Mare started dropping bombs down the open manhole cover.

From below, we heard them clattering around the pipes and getting closer. I subtly turned on the power armor’s infrared laser and aimed it at where the chains held me to the floor.

The first weapon to arrive hit right where I wanted and exploded. Being in power armor, the close range blast knocked me across the chamber, but I was safe. I managed to get my bearings just in time for the second bomb to arrive. I pointed the laser at the pair of thugs.

To my dismay, one of them actually caught the bomb. So instead of aiming the next bomb at him again, I just aimed it at the previous bomb. He wasn’t very smart, and wasn’t expecting that. The explosion killed them both.

There was one more bomb on the way, and I turned, looking for Neighsay. To my surprise, though, Foxy appeared. “Hey, you left so suddenly, I decided to see if you were all right.”

Neighsay grabbed her by the throat and pulled her close to him. “You wouldn’t kill an innocent civilian!”

I laughed.

“Oh, you like it rough?” said Foxy, looking up at him.

“Don’t worry about it; he’s gay,” I said.

“So’s spaghetti until it drys out.”

While he was trying to debate that, the bomb arrived. Foxy caught it. Not intentionally. Not with her hooves. It didn’t explode, but Jesus I wish it had. I did not need to see that kind of stretching.

I mean, I guess she was telling the truth when she said she was really easy but holy shit.

Neighsay used my distraction to escape.

I walked over to Foxy, trying to keep my eyes off her and the bomb. She smiled up at me. “Could you maybe help me out? I’m stuck.”

“So I see.” I sighed. This would have been so much easier to just write her off as civilian casualties. But I talked to her, so now I kind of owned the problem.

I wasn’t about to solve it myself, though, so I hoisted her and the bomb and walked up out of the sewers. Tin Mare was waiting and we loaded up.

On the way back, I called the sub. “I’m going to need some EOD support when I get back.”

“What kind?” Cordoba asked.

I thought about who might be willing to help and who I was willing to scar for life when they found out. “Still working on that.”

Operation Chastity was a terrible name.

Author's Note

I hope you enjoy Chuck and Foxy. They're limited-time characters for joke in a couple chapters.

The End in Friend

“Come on, it’s not rocket surgery,” I pointed out.

“But it is bomb surgery!” complained Twilight. “I’m not touching that!”

“Her name is Foxy.”

Foxy waved. She couldn’t turn around because, well, she had a five hundred pound bomb in a place where it really didn’t fit.

“How did this even happen?” Twilight demanded.

“It’s complicated. And I’m not saying that to brush you off, I’m saying that it genuinely requires some intense explanation that I’m not willing to go into right now, because at the moment one wrong penis could kill us all.”

“The way she is right now, it’s not like anyone would-”

“You might be surprised,” I interrupted. “And anyway, it wasn’t the only thing that came out of my trip to Las Pegasus.”

“The Flim Flam Brothers are running a bogus friendship school?”

“Right. Any any minute now, old Twilight’s going to find out and flip her shit.”

I paused. Nothing happened.

“Well, she’s in a frozen wasteland, so that can hardly be a good place to get news. Moving on, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

We left the room, Twilight giving a concerned parting glance over her shoulder at Foxy. Over in the galley, I introduced her to Chuck, the diamond dog baker that I had brought aboard. He was currently putting out a fresh batch of donuts.

“Okay, this I can live with,” said Twilight.

I winked and pointed a hoof. “Thanks, Chuck. I’ll always come to you when I need to get people to forget about problems.”

“I haven’t forgotten!”

“Yeah, well, I’m not going to try again,” I said.

I left her there and headed down to the R&D labs. The merchandise for Das Booty was just about done. I picked up a plushie of me to inspect it. I understood that ponies don’t have fingers, but the big hole in the back didn’t seem like a very good way to make a puppet.

At least the toilet paper was on track, and I was probably set to release it in a couple of weeks. I couldn’t wait to debut the new ad campaign.

As I was about to leave the room, a scroll popped in, right in front of my face. Based on the dragon fire, I figured it was from Twilight and opened it.

It has come to my attention that the Flim Flam Brothers are running a scam friendship school. This cannot be allowed.

-Twilight Sparkle

This wasn’t quite the reaction that I had intended. I still needed to do something to convince her to actually come back.

I didn’t know where she was, and didn’t figure I could mail her in a timely manner, so instead I went to my quarters and booted up the God Voice From Space, aiming it at the general area of Silent Hill.

Got your letter, Twilight. You stop them, you’re the one that cares. In fact, I’m excited that we finally have another school to compete with in sports and stuff.

In a few minutes, another letter arrived. Valiant, you hate sports.

I’m doing it for the kids.

Another letter. You hate kids. So why are you okay with this other school? What’s your scheme, Valiant?

Is it so hard for you to believe that I’m actually doing a good job at running a friendship school? I’ve even nearly defeated the EEA.

What?! You’re not supposed to be fighting Equestria’s top school administrators!

In retrospect, maybe that wasn’t the best thing I could have said.

It was your idea for a school the EEA didn’t like. They’re all racist, and I’ve been running a mixed-species school against their wishes. Like you told me to. I even had to take to the low seas in a submarine to escape from them. They burned down the first school.

Twilight didn’t reply for several minutes. Finally, a last note popped in. Valiant, I’m not happy with the way things turned out, but I admire you for perservering. Thank you.

Shit.

I sat back and sighed, grabbing a nearby bottle of tequila and taking a swig. I was going to have to come up with some other plan to get Twilight back.

There was a knock on the door and Rarity came in. “Valiant, we’re going to have to cancel the next show.”

I tried to remember when the next time Das Booty was scheduled to play but drew a blank. “What show?”

“The next one. I’m going to be busy.”

“When?”

“During the next show,” she huffed. “Darling, aren’t you listening?”

“Okay, fine, during the next show. What will you be doing instead?”

But Rarity had already shut the door.

I frowned. Rarity, generous, was usually forthcoming with information. Her evasiveness was a little strange. In fact, it had seemed a little strange for a while now.

But who could I ask about Rarity’s secrets?

Rainbow Dash would have been a really weird answer in any other circumstance, but since she’d become a hairdresser in this universe, I figured she was the best answer as to someone Rarity would have spent a lot of time with. Also, Rarity seemed like the type to gossip to hairdressers.

But when I asked her, Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t know. I did notice that she gets really evasive when I ask what she’s been up to lately.”

“Want to pry into her personal life?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Sure, okay.”

But before we could, an alarm suddenly sounded. Hull breach, forward sector.

I tapped my earpiece. “Emergency surface!”

“Um, do I just…” said Inky Rose’s voice.

“What the hell are you doing in the command center?”

“Like you care.”

Goth duty officers were the worst. “Just hit the big red button labeled ‘emergency surface.’”

A second alarm went off. Uninvited visitors, forward sector.

“Prepare to repel boarders!”

I pulled my Desert Eagle. Yes, yes, some things down here don’t react well to bullets, but I would try to avoid them. It was a big handgun, but not so big that it would punch a hole in the pressure hull, which we apparently already had.

I could feel the submarine changing angle, so we could at least surface. I headed forward to find out what was going on and who had invaded.

I could hear water somewhere up ahead, but then I felt the sub start to gently roll side to side, so apparently we’d made it to the surface. I hurried forward. An inch-high tidal wave rolled down the passageway. Apparently the flooding wasn’t too bad. I had to find the hole and figure out how patch it. Also, there was the matter of who had created it, and killing them.

Somewhere down below, I heard the pumps start up. Good, that would hold off the flooding. But almost as soon as they started, they stopped again. Also, the lights flickered.

I hit my earpiece again. “Somebody bring a portable pump forward. We might need it for backup if the installed pumps are damaged.”

“Where are the-” Inky started to say, but then comms cut off.

I tapped at the earpiece a couple of times. “Hello?”

No response, not even static.

Then, the lights died.

I pulled out a flashlight and continued forward, but after a few steps that flickered out, too. “What the hell?”

I stood there in the dark for a second before figuring out a solution. I’d learned how to throw fireballs, so I conjured one up but didn’t throw it. I figured it also doubled as a backup weapon if my gun, another piece of technology, failed.

I turned a corner, discovering the hole where the water had been coming it. It was in the ceiling, which opened to the outer hull. Now that we were surfaced, it was open to the sky and a shaft of sunlight lit up the passage. In the darkness beyond, I saw a shadow occasionally illuminated by sparks.

“All right, I don’t know who the hell you are, but we don’t take kindly to trespassers around here.”

“Oh really?” said a female voice. In the flickering light, I saw her turn towards me.

“So, state your business and/or GTFO before I make you.”

“Don’t you know who I am?” She took a few steps forward. I still couldn’t make out her features, but she seemed to be purple.

“No.”

She came closer again, stepping into the sunlight to reveal herself to be a unicorn, wearing a catlike smile. Also, there seemed to be wires trailing out of her mane.

“Nope, still nothing.”

“You weren’t expecting me?”

“No, hence the state your business and/or GTFO. Before I make you.”

“I’m the final and ultimate superintendent.”

“Ah, okay, that explains it. Neighsay claimed it was him. I think we both know he’s a little bitch who puts the agenda over the truth. Anyway, let’s get this over with.” I raised my gun.

The lights suddenly came back on, brighter than before. I couldn’t help but squint, but I saw exactly what I was dealing with. The wires I had noticed earlier were everywhere, penetrating cabling and wrapped up into sockets. What the hell?

“I am Captain Antennille,” she said. The ventilation suddenly turned on again, giving her mane a dramatic flair. “The seventh, and most powerful of the Seven School Superintendents. I am the professor of electrical engineering.”

“You think you’re a better engineer than me? Then tell me, what’s a volt multiplied by an amp?”

“A watt.”

“‘A what?’ Ha! You don’t even know what a volt and an amp are!”

She glared at me. “I know what-”

I cut her off. “Look, I don’t get elitist very often, but if you’re going to challenge me like this then you’re going to lose.”

She glared at me, and then opened her mouth wider than should have been possible. Modem noises came out.

“Argh!” I dropped to my knees, covering my ears.

I heard a faint whistling noise and starting kicking my legs, scrambling backwards across the floor. It wasn’t so very long ago that I’d heard a similar sound and knew what was coming.

The bomb that dropped through the hole in the hull sure didn’t help the damage, but it also blew Antennille to pieces and the horrible noise stopped. Well, it also may have been because I was still close enough that the explosion practically deafened me. It also knocked me ass over cranium back against the wall.

Shaking my head to get my bearings, I slowly got up and stumbled back towards the wreckage. The metal floor of the passageway was bent and blackened, but fortunately it didn’t look like the damage had spread to other decks.

I looked up through the hull to see Libby go by. She blinked her lights in what I recognized as Morse code.

Hey, you were out of contact and it seemed like there was some sort of electrical interference so Tin Mare sent me to get up close because she thinks I’m too stupid to be hacked. Well, she didn’t exactly say that, but I know that’s what she believes and it’s kind of hurting my self esteem right now.

To be fair, Libby was made with vacuum tubes, so there might have been something to that.

I turned and walked back towards the control center. I still couldn’t hear anything when I got there, but there was a handy portable chalkboard lying around for when Sugar Belle couldn’t find her head and I exchanged messages with everyone to figure out what was going on.

With Antennille dead, the pumps and been restarted and everything was getting put back together. We were going to have to fix the hull - no one wants a convertible submarine - and that might require a port call. I checked the map to see where we were near and settled on Saddle Arabia.

Well, aside from the damage, we seemed to be doing pretty well. I’d just taken out the final superintendent. Now I just had to find Neighsay.

I considered summoning him with his magic portal deal, but dismissed it, at least for now. I’d have to set up something really special first.

Which reminded me, I still needed something special to get Twilight to come back and take the school back from me.

I slipped on my autodarkening sunglasses and went topside to think about it. Deaf as I was, I didn’t notice the radar warnings start going off.

Road to Friendship

There wasn’t any open pier in Saddle Arabia big enough for the good school/submarine In Need of Beaning to pull in. I sent Applejack ashore to negotiate clearing a few piers to make room for us. Despite the damage caused by the seventh of the Seven School Superintendents, we had to anchor out in the bay for now.

Naturally, the largest submarine in the world attracted some attention as it loomed ominously on the horizon.

I’m guessing it loomed ominously. I’m not Saddle Arabian. It must have, though, because a bunch of ponies came to check us out.

My first indication of that was when I felt the hull began to vibrate under my hooves. Deafened though I was from fighting said school superintendent, I couldn’t actually hear the guns firing, but they were big enough that I could feel them.

I poked my head up through the hole in the hull to see Libby had landed on the submarine’s deck, using the curve of the hull to angle her nose skywards. The podded .50 cal installed in one of her weapons bays was deployed and firing at half a dozen pegasi who had come to see what the ship was going on.

Okay, it was a submarine, but that’s a harder pun.

Unsure if we were under attack or if Libby was just being an idiot, I shouted, or thought I did because I couldn’t hear, “Who are they?”

Libby didn’t hear me because machine gun.

I crawled out of the hole, stomped across the deck, and grabbed her wingtip. “Hey, what the heck?”

Mindful that I was currently deaf, she flashed her lights in Morse. They’re Saddle Arabians and they’re approaching, so I’m defending the school.

Because it was Libby, I had to ask, “Have they shown any hostile intent or were they just curious that the world’s largest submarine just surfaced near their coast?”

They’re Saddle Arabians.

I sighed. “You can’t be racist, Libby! This isn’t the ‘70s anymore. I don’t care if they remind you of Iranians or whoever from Earth.”

Well, I haven’t killed a lot of them.

“On your scale, by your usual standards, that doesn’t mean what most people would consider a small number.” I turned to walk away, but stopped and turned around. “And stop shooting!”

She’d been firing during the whole conversation. That really hadn’t helped my hearing loss.

I shook my head and headed back inside.

“What was that about?” Cordoba asked. At least I thought she did. I gestured to my ears and she pulled out a pencil and a sheet of plywood, writing her message down.

“Good ol’ vacuum-tubes-for-brains decided to preemptively attack this world’s version of Middle Easterners. Yes, I’m well aware of the irony, but it’s inconvenient. Moreover, Libby needs a runway, and probably won’t be able to take off again, so Tin Mare will have to lift her. Not only that, but I’m going to have to smooth over with Saddle Arabia whatever damage she did if they’re going to let us pull into port.

Why do we need permission to pull into port? Cordoba wrote.

“I mean, yeah, we’ve got a vessel with tons of weapons and a shitload of annoying kids. I’m sure we could get them to leave us alone if we just pulled in. I’m trying to actually get a field trip out of this or something, and that would be a lot easier with a compliant public.”

I cocked my head. “Different subject, why do you have a pencil and a sheet of plywood? And a tool belt, and...flannel…”

I stared at her. “Have you been...home improving?”

She threw up her Tim Allen hands, which made it really hard to write her response. Look, do you want a deck or not?

“Okay,” I said.

Tin Mare arrived overhead and took Libby away in a sling load. I would have to help Libby either back into Tin Mare’s cargo compartment or find/build her a suitable runway to operate from.

With her gone, when we navigate our way into the Saddle Arabian harbor the thing that had been doing the shooting was no longer visible, and the public hubbub was overwhelmed by the holy shit, is that a nuclear submarine/school? sentiment. That was pretty good feat for our PR department to pull off, considering nobody in Saddle Arabia had ever seen a submarine, a nuclear submarine, or a submarine school before.

Our PR department, by the way, was the repurposed school newspaper with persuasive editing by Rarity.

Speaking of her, she was getting hard to find lately. I kept discovering weird notes with random numbers in her quarters. She kept getting more creative with the locks on the door, not that anything like that ever stopped me.

After the sub was tied to the pier, I went to take a look around the city. Other than dusty streets and open markets, there wasn’t much. We probably wouldn’t be able to get the materials necessary to fix the sub here.

I mean, really, it would just take steel plates, some pipes, and wires. That looked a little bit beyond the capabilities of the local markets, though.

Whatever. I would just have them sent from my stocks in Ponyville. Though, if Tin Mare was currently occupied, I would have to find another way.

There weren’t any nearby train lines that I could see. The portal in Guinness’s onboard bar wasn’t really big enough to transport everything I would need through. Steel would be too heavy for even a team of pegasi to carry.

The supplies would have to come overland, then. I would have to figure out who would be willing to bring them.

After a couple of hours, my hearing had begun to return. I learned that the town was crowded with tourists coming to see the glowpaz festival.

I spotted Trixie talking to some tall unicorn. I’d noticed that most Saddle Arabians were pretty similar to Equestrian ponies. However, a portion of them - mostly royalty - were quite a bit taller, slimmer, and generally more horselike.

I was on my way over to see what Trixie was talking about when Sunburst appeared. He opened his mouth, and I preemptively stuck my hoof in it.

“Mhewrog?” he said.

“I don’t really care, but I’d deafen myself again to not hear you speak.”

He took a step backwards and his lips came off my hoof with a pop. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. I was set up with my telescope on the shore making calibrations for studying the heavens through the clear desert air when it gets dark tonight when I heard shooting and saw Libby attacking those tourists.”

“I don’t really care, but I’d deafen myself again to not hear you speak.”

“You said that already.”

“Habit. You never seem to hear me. Don’t sex the airplane.”

“I told you, I’m only interested in studying her!”

“I thought you were only interested because you thought she was actually Starlight Glimmer.”

“She isn’t, is she?”

“No.”

His face fell, but he continued. “But then, who is she?”

“The Lightweight Interceptor for Badass Bombing.”

“I meant, what was she called before you named her that and made her an aircraft?”

“If you keep asking questions but keep adding complexities in an attempt to get me to slip up, it’s not going to work.”

The flicker of a conniving plan went across his face, and he challenged, “Do you think you’re smart enough to stay ahead of my questions?”

“No, I think I’m just going to start punching you instead of replying.”

Starburst hesitated, but then said, “Look, I’ll do anything for you.”

I paused. “Anything?”

“I will do any favor for you, in return for you giving a direct answer to a question of mine.”

I pondered it. “Okay. Suck my dick.”

“Mhewrog?” he said. There wasn’t even anything in his mouth this time. But he was clearly concerned that there was about to be.

“Yeah.” I crossed my hooves. “Come on, you said anything.”

He looked like he had a stroke. His eye twitched. But he shut his eyes tight for a few seconds, opened them again, and took a deep breath. “Okay.”

I laughed. “I’m just messing with you. Go disarm Foxy.”

I turned to leave. “Wait, what?” he said. “Who’s Foxy? What do you mean disarm?”

I waved as I walked away. “Thanks!”

I wandered the streets for awhile. Nobody recognized me. Not that I was a celebrity or anything, but I had a little bit of a reputation. I guess maybe it was because we weren’t in Equestria, but still, something seemed off.

Had I been away at sea so long that I had been forgotten? Lord knows ponies had short memories.

But just then an angry mob turned the corner and shouted, “There he is!”

Ah, it’s better to be talked about than not talked about.

I stood my ground and offered, “Bring forth your champion so that we may do battle in honorable combat to settle this score. Whatever this score actually is.”

They actually did stop to confer among themselves for a moment before pushing forward a guy in a robe and turban.

“This is the guy?” I said.

Amongst the crowd, he hadn’t looked too out of the ordinary, but now that he was in front of me, the scimitar under his robe was obvious. He also seemed much more confident than the rest.

“So are we going to do this here in the street, or you want to go someplace?” I said.

He pulled his sword.

“Okay, works for me.” I hopped in place for a second, loosening up. “Just let me know when-”

I heard a sudden sound behind me and spun in place, ducking as the corner of my eye caught a flash of sun on steel. I just barely limbo’d under the blade of a pegasus stallion who had just landed, though the edge hacked off a piece of my forelock and my autodarkening sunglasses went flying.

I pulled my Desert Eagle and put two slugs in his gut from point-blank range. “You take a swing at me, boy, you’d best not miss.”

Without stopping to contemplate the irony of using a Desert Eagle in the actual desert, I turned to face the other guy, who’d used my distraction to charge forward.

I caught the blade of his sword across my trigger guard, blocking his attack, and then hit him with my laser eyes.

I’d been working on that ability for a while, but was still struggling with the focus and instead of burning a hole in him, it just set his entire body on fire.

That done, and angry mob scattered, I put my sunglasses back on and ambled away.

I came upon Trixie, still talking to that guy from earlier. As I walked up, she introduced us. “This is Hoo’far. He’s...well, I guess kind of a groupie.”

Hoo’far smiled. “I have followed Trixie’s show all over the world.”

“I was thinking about a performance while we’re in Saddle Arabia,” Trixie said.

“Cool. Let me know when and save me a ticket.”

I turned to walk back to the submarine. Nothing against Trixie and her magic shows, but I still had no idea why magic was so amazing to a species that could do it. But - it was magic. Nobody had to explain shit.

Back on the sub, I headed down to the kitchen to get a donut. Charlie was there, and to my surprise, so was Foxy, completely bomb-free.

Oh shit, Sunburst had done it. Fortunately, I didn’t see him anywhere around, so I sat down to eat.

Foxy slid over. “Do you want to have sex?”

“Aren’t you kind of stretched out right now? Frankly, I’m surprised you can even walk.”

“But do you want to have sex?”

Guinness walked in just then. Apparently he, too, had heard of Charlie’s donuts. Speaking of, the dog himself came over with a fresh batch.

“Ooh, he’s cute,” said Foxy. She touched my shoulder. “Introduce me, why don’t you?”

Charlie frowned, apparently realizing she was talking about him.

I sighed. “This is able baker Charlie dog, easy Fox.”

“Do you want to have sex?” she asked him.

“No.”

Foxy shrugged and turned to Guinness. “Do you want to have sex?”

“I’m married.”

“But do you want to have sex?”

“Does anyone ever actually take you up on it?”

“Sometimes. Mostly I just make it easy.”

I decided to take my donut to go.

Going topside, I was surprised by Cordoba’s work. “Holy shit, this thing is huge.”

She looked up from building the deck and wiped some sweat. “Did you want a smaller one?”

“No, this is fine. Shit, we should have a cookout.”

I paged Guinness, knowing he would want in on this. When he arrived, he said, “Wow, this is a really large deck. Not even for a submarine, just a large deck in general.”

He got the grill going and began pouring beers. I noticed evening twilight was beginning to paint the sky. Speaking of, Twilight showed up, lugging a telescope as the sky got darker.

She paused at the cookout, but didn’t let it distract her from setting up her telescope. It was a pretty large one, and I commented on it.

“Yeah, I’m looking for outer planets,” she said. “I’m not sure if it will let me see all the way to Neptune, but maybe Uranus or Saturn.”

I took a sip of beer. “Okay. You just sit here on my big deck and look at Uranus.”

Author's Note

what in submarine deck relaxation

The Washouts

The large deck Cordoba had built was kind of a weird thing on the sub. Yeah, I did appreciate having it, but it was kind of juxtaposed against the steel. Not to mention, I was concerned the wood would rot after being so long at sea. So, it needed to be sealed, and I figured we might as well paint it the same color as the sub just to keep everything uniform.

“You really, really are getting too much enjoyment out of your big, black deck,” said Twilight.

“Admit it. Everyone loves cookouts.”

“Fine. But I think the Saddle Arabians are not thrilled with it. They have certain dietary restrictions, you know.”

“I didn’t. Also, I don’t care.”

She consulted some notes. “While we’re here, we should at least try some cultural appreciation. It’s not every day we’re in such a different society.”

“Way ahead of you on the cultural appropriation.” I put a turban on my head.

“That’s not what I said.”

“I know.”

Despite her exasperation, she apparently went ahead and put a lesson plan together and I found it waiting for me when I woke up from my hangover the next morning.

“The quest of Al-Jebar,” I read aloud, flipping through the pages. Some sort of math disguised as a treasure hunt. Sounded boring.

I sat back in my command chair and put my hooves up, skimming through the lesson. However, just then, I noticed something on the live monitor I’d set up to watch the area around where the sub was docked.

Tin Mare and Libby had been taking turns being the camera platform. I couldn’t remember which of them was up at the moment. I checked the camera. Steady. Tin Mare, then.

More to the point, what I saw through the camera was the load of steel I had ordered to fix the submarine’s hull.

I stopped to grab a beret and some tiny sunglasses, also throwing on a striped blue and white shirt. Disguised, I walked down the gangplank to meet Merry May.

She already appeared to have misgivings as she stood there looking at the submarine while hitched to a reinforced wagon full of steel.

“Ah, mademoiselle, I take it you are ze delivery pony,” I said.

She looked at me. “I didn’t know what I was delivering for. What is this thing?”

“Why, only ze latest in tube-shaped offshore housing. It is ze latest thing.”

“I can only think of maybe one pony who could have designed this.”

“Very good. We are trying to keep ze name a secret, yes?” I grinned and nudged her side. “Very mysterious, no?”

She frowned. “Your breath smells like alcohol.”

“Ah, oui, I had too much wine. I am French, you know.” Seeing that she was asking too many questions, I hurried to get the steel unloaded. I almost called Tin Mare down to lift it, but Merry would know instantly who I really was. Instead, I blew the recess whistle.

A boiling herd of children came streaming down the gangplank, happily yelling and screaming. I braced myself against Merry as the tide flowed over us, shaking the wagon and lifting the steel as if paper borne by the wind.

I blew the whistle again. “Laughing time is over!”

“Aw!” a hundred collective voices complained. They flowed back towards the sub, taking the steel with them like a crowd of ants with food too big to carry alone.

“Your voice got weird there for a second,” said Merry.

“Oui, ja, I am also half Austrian.” I headed back for the sub, waving. “Thank you, I paid in advance, goodbye!”

Back on the sub, I had to deal with the fallout of disappointed kids. I quickly tossed out the treasure hunt as an idea.

Of course, then I had to go through the trouble of making sure everyone had a field trip buddy. Not to mention, the sub still wasn’t getting fixed if I was leaving.

I gave Cordoba the job of staying behind to weld things back together. I delegated actual teaching on the field trip to Twilight. She’d made the lesson plan, so it served her right. I had Applejack handle the logistics of packing lunch for everyone. The other girls I just designated as general chaperones.

Not sure if I would need another disguise while I was out and about, I went hunting for one to pack. Digging through various things in a luggage room, I came across Tixie’s all purpose magical trunk. It wasn’t magical itself, she just used it a lot for tricks. Being a unicorn, she could make it look like just about anything was happening.

I’ll say it again: I respected Trixie, and if ponies were willing to pay her to entertain them, fine, but I still couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of magic shows in a world where magic was real.

Anyway, opening the trunk to see what was inside, I discovered Rusty Nail, the guy who owned the hardware store in Ponyville. “What the hell?”

“Light!” he gasped. “I’ve been locked in there so long! Where am I? Did Trixie finally bring me back?”

Oh shit. She must have done a disappearing act on him as an audience volunteer in one of her shows - in Ponyville - and somehow forgotten about him. I thought back to when that must have been. Yeah, we’d been doing a lot of shit then, it was a busy time, I guess forgetting him was understandable.

But now I had to figure out how to get him back to Ponyville. I gestured. “Come with me.”

He was a little stiff from being packed in the trunk, but followed me. I walked back to where everyone was lining up to go on the field trip. “Okay, has everyone been through a portal before?”

Twilight started to ask a question, but I talked over her. “Okay, I’m not seeing too many hooves go up. That’s fine, I’ll teach you.”

We all headed for the bar where the portal was. I glanced at the location controls we had installed. The magic selector knob was currently pointing to “trash.” I didn’t know where it went. Instead, I turned it for “Ponyville.”

“All right, everyone follow me.” I hopped through.

We emerged in the Ponyville Library. Twilight was one of the first to come through and took me aside. “How are we going to work in the legend of Al-Jebar while we’re not anywhere near Saddle Arabia?”

“Sounds like your problem, titch.” I grinned. “Did you like what I did there? It’s a portmanteau of ‘teacher’ and ‘bitch.’ Don’t feel too special about that, though. I invented it for someone else.”

“Why are you such a disagreeable person lately?” she said, glaring at me.

I stopped. “Huh, I don’t really remember making a conscious decision to. I guess it’s not on purpose, then.” I walked away, pulling Rusty Nail with me.

I got him back to the hardware store. He didn’t really thank me, but at least we now had a functioning hardware store again. That could be important.

Since I was now alone, I headed over to The Half Pint for a drink. Since Guinness was on the submarine, he had left it in the care of his business partner, a griffon named Squibles.

When I walked in, the place was freezing. “What the hell is going on here?”

Squibles was shivering. “T-trying out a new w-way to keep beer colder.”

I shrugged. Couldn’t complain about that. “Okay.” I sat down and gestured for a glass.

The door opened and Scootaloo came in. I saw the cold hit her so hard she nearly took a step back, but she poofed her feathers and came in anyway. She sat down on a barstool next to me. “Hey Valiant, I saw that this stunt troupe is in town and I really wanted to go see them because they’re the coolest thing ever and I was hoping that we could work out some kind of deal for credit instead of going on this math field trip.”

Squibles came over, still shivering, and tried to pour my beer. He sloshed a lot of it out of the glass. “S-sorry about the sp-spills.”

“Do you have any pretzels?”

He nodded and went to get them.

I turned back to talk to Scootaloo, but Squibles was back quickly, setting the bowl down next to me and spilling most of it.

I again turned to speak to Scoots, but she interrupted. “Can I have a glass of milk?”

I looked at Squibles. “Hey, spill me some milk over here.”

He went to get it and I turned back to Scoots. “How do you plan to justify going to a show instead of studying?”

“Well, it’s stunt flying. They should have some force vectors or something I could do.”

A while learning math under Twilight - any Twilight - had been good for her. “Okay. I might be interested in going myself.”

We finished our drinks and left before we started to shiver too. Scoots knew where to find this group, called The Washouts, and I followed her there.

Their setup immediately reminded me of the X-Games. Lots of green and black. Lots of edgy graphics. “What is this, the State of Massachusetts?”

“What?” said Scootaloo.

“Nevermind.”

I saw three ponies in matching black and green jumpsuits and full face helmets. They looked like they were getting ready to warm up, and so Scoots and I stood by to watch. I’m sure they saw us, but carried on with the practice anyway.

First up was a giant catapult. They launched this guy into a trampoline and he bounced back.

“Uh, but pegasi can fly and direct themselves to the target?” I said.

One of them flew through some swinging saws.

“Uh, but there’s no obvious means of propelling the saw blades, so they’re probably just coasting and this isn’t actually that dangerous?”

Next up was some high-speed flying through electrified hoops. “Uh, but pegasi are lightning proof?” I said.

“We are?” said Scootaloo. “Where’d you get that idea?”

I realized that I hadn’t, I just assumed. And Scootaloo couldn’t fly, so she wouldn’t know. At least I knew I was fairly lightning proof, so I figured that also applied.

My heckling had apparently gotten their attention, though, and a short guy with a red coat came over, removing his helmet. Completely without preamble, he screamed, “If you say one more word, you’ll be in a full body wing and hoof cast drinking through a straw!”

“You stole that from Spitfire. I’ve heard her say that before,” I pointed out.

Another pegasus, this one tall, blue, female, and for some reason Australian, landed nearby and walked over. “So what? Just because she couldn’t handle us doing barrel rolls through nine hundred million volts of electricity in a raging thunderstorm.”

“Uh, only nine hundred million volts of electricity in a raging thunderstorm?”

The two of them traded glances. The short one demanded, “Who is this guy?”

“Plymouth Valiant,” said a voice. The third member of The Washouts walked over and removed her helmet, revealing a golden mane and teal coat. I realized I’d seen her before, but it took a moment to come up with the name.

“Well, nice to get some recognition around here,” I said. “You’re Lightning Dust, right?”

“Nice to get some recognition around here.” She smirked.

“So you seem to be doing well for yourself after-” I paused, trying to remember which timeline we were on and what had happened to her recently.

“You don’t have to sugarcoat it,” she said. “I left the Wonderbolts.” She gestured to the other two. “So did they. That’s why we call ourselves The Washouts.”

“I mean, okay, if you’re into the whole self-shaming thing,” I said.

Just then, I heard a lot of hooves and the entire school showed up.

“Wow, this smash party?” said Yona, looking around at all the equipment.

“They’ve got a Crushinator!” said Apple Bloom, pointing.

“Well, we were just practicing, but maybe we should do a full-on show,” said Lightning, grinning at the crowd.

“But aren’t you supposed to practice first?” Scootaloo said.

“Practice is for losers.”

I looked at Lighting. “Jinx.”

“You can’t do that,” she sputtered. “I wasn’t ready!”

“Maybe you should have...practiced.”

She poked me in the chest. “You want to go? Right here and now? I’ve got a multistage liquid-fueled rocket with your name on it.”

“Well shit, if that’s all. Why don’t we make this interesting? Why not pick something that you’re good at?”

Behind me, I heard the crowd of schoolchildren begin to cheer.

I smirked. “Just what do you think you could beat me in?”

She hesitated, but then said, “Stunts.”

“Oh sure, against the earth pony.” I turned my head. “Rainbow, are you still the fastest pegasus in Equestria?”

“Well, I’ve been out of the game for a while with my hairdressing gig, but I do prac-uh, train regularly.” She walked forward, tossing her carefully styled mane back.

Scootaloo hadn’t said a word during this exchange, but as Rainbow lined up against Lighting, I could see her vibrating with excitement.

“All right,” said Lightning. We’ll do one lap around the course in front of us. Both speed and style count.”

Rainbow grinned and took a stance. “Somepony start us off.”

I pulled out my Desert Eagle.

Bang.

Lightning’s head exploded. It actually wasn’t me. I whipped off my autodarkening sunglasses and looked around.

I saw Libby high overhead. Sighing, I tapped my earpiece. “Libby, why did you just kill Lightning Dust?”

“Well, I saw a potential source of conflict due to the unsafe building codes of all this stunt equipment. I knew it wouldn’t take much to set off a chain reaction of collapse, and some of the pyrotechnics were also unstable. With the observing schoolchildren not in bleachers but scattered arbitrarily around near the about-to-begin race, I calculated that significant risk would come to them and took action by sacrificing a nonessential life who was also kind of an asshole.”

“Well, that’s thinking exterior to the cube,” I muttered. “But when did you get to be an expert on legal codes?”

“You were the one that built me to government standards.”

“Okay, but what are you doing here?” I said.

“I could ask you the same question. We all live on a big black deck submarine.”

“That’s not what I asked. Last I checked, you were getting skyhooked off the hull.”

“Tin Mare told me to go play by myself and not get into trouble.”

“This is probably not what she meant.”

“Oops.”

I shook my head. Vacuum tubes for brains.

I started to turn away, but got another call on my earpiece. “Hey dad, I was considering a couple of other renovations while I’m at it.”

“Like what, Cordoba?”

“Well, first off, I was thinking about some landscaping, maybe a mulch bed.”

“It would wash off when we submerged.”

“What about some new hardwood floors?”

“Tempting, but what if we get depth charged? We wouldn’t want the pieces to float and give away our position.”

“We’ll use a wood that doesn’t float.”

“You know how I feel about teak.”

“What about some track lighting?”

“We have plenty of lights already.”

“Okay, but have you considered...a bigger, blacker deck?”

“...No, I had not.”

A Rockhoof and a Hard Place

Most of the students, though they had been aboard In Need of Beaning for months, were happy to be back in Ponyville. Many had grown up in the area. Whatever, I guess we’ll call it spring break and have a vacation.

Since we had a couple days in Ponyville, Trixie went back to performing her schtick of tricky tricks at the Tricky Dick.

I checked the schedule and saw there was also an upcoming performance by Das Booty. Huh. Okay, that must have been the show Rarity had canceled unexpectedly the other day. It was part of the Dick Tricks Schtick tour.

We really were getting our money’s worth out of the Richard Nixon Multipurpose Community Auditorium.

I spent most of my time in Ponyville between the The Half Pint and the library. Naturally, Twilight was always at the library. Yona and Owlowiscious were also there, helping her do research for something. Considering they had to keep ducking errant spells, it was probably related to Owlowiscious being bad at magic.

“He’s good for an owl!” Twilight protested. “That’s why he’s on our superhero team.”

“Speaking of superhero,” said Yona, nose in some dusty book, “You know about pillars of Equestria?”

“What’s that?” Twilight asked, walking over to read over her shoulder.

I took a sip of my day-drink and turned away. Since we had some time, I had finally decided to go ahead and start the merchandising for Das Booty.

First up was going to be the toilet paper. After that, maybe I would consider selling the plushies with a strange hole in them.

Now, I just had to figure out which stores would sell the goods, in order to create the perfect balance between scarcity that drive demand, but also moving enough volume to actually be worthwhile.

I should probably consult Rarity about things involving selling and popularity. Speaking of, where was she?

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, find Rarity.”

“Processing.”

After several minutes, she finally came back. “I have traced her to a small garbage dump in the far northeast of Equestria.”

“Well, that’s definitely out of character.”

“Hella,” Tin Mare agreed. “Shall I go pick her up?”

“Yes.”

Twilight came over, holding the book from earlier. “Valiant, have you heard of these Pillars of Equestria?”

“No.”

She looked at the book again. “It sounds like they were a sort of proto-Elements of Harmony.”

“I’m kind of surprised old Twilight never knew about them.”

“Well...considering the book was in her library, I’m going to guess that she did.”

“Kind of weird that she never mentioned them, then.” I shrugged. “Whatever. She probably thought that they were ‘just an old pony tale.’ Because apparently everything that you don’t have proof of around here - despite the existence of magic - is bullshit.”

“Well, I don’t have any proof of it,” said Twilight. “I just think it’s an interesting story.”

“Me like Rockhoof!” said Yona.

“Who?” I asked.

“He big, and smash a lot.”

“Okay, fair enough.”

“Maybe I learn his technique,” she said.

“You do that,” I said, sitting back down on the couch. With nothing better to do, I dropped my autodarkening sunglasses over my eyes and went to sleep.

When I awoke, I found myself flying through the air. Not just because I was drunk, either.

Well, okay, instead of actual flying it was more like a ballistic trajectory. I couldn't see any means of flight. I was still on the couch. It was currently doing, oh, maybe a hundred miles an hour based on the wind, but seemed to be slowing down.

I did some quick mental calculations. If it was slowing down, but apparently still gaining altitude, that meant I was getting near the top of whatever arced path the couch was currently following. And that meant there was nowhere to go but down.

I peeped over the side and wished I hadn’t. It was a long way down, and if I didn’t do something fast this was going to be the Plymouth Valiant Memorial Couch in more ways than one.

“Tin Mare!”

“I am returning from a small garbage dump in the far northeast of Equestria, though I am nowhere close.”

“At least tell me how this happened!”

“Running the satellite pictures back: you exited the library roof at a high rate of speed. Checking internal cameras: It appears that Yona, trying a new move based on the teachings of Rockhoof, ‘smashed.’ This maneuver appears to have imparted a significant amount of energy to the floorboards, collapsing the first floor into the basement. This force, combined with the kinetic energy of falling bookshelves, accelerated your couch to a speed sufficient to propel you through the second floor, attic, roof, and to a height of nearly three thousand feet. Which has currently passed and is now declining.”

She was right. I could feel the wind change direction and suddenly I felt light. “Options?”

“How flexible are you?”

“Tin Mare, this is not the time for ‘kiss my ass goodbye’ jokes!”

“I was about to suggest that you do a hella cool flip. If Rainbow Dash is in the area, she cannot help but notice aerial maneuvers and possibly she will realize your situation.”

I started flipping.

It was hard to keep my body tight as the g-forces built up. I managed to reach up to my earpiece. “What’s my backup plan?”

Tin Mare paused.

“Yeah,” I said, “I know, this is me we’re talking about. Still, what’s the backup plan?”

“Working on it.”

I glanced down in the instant I had as my head went past my hooves again. The ground was getting a lot closer.

I tried doing some quick mental math. Terminal velocity for a person was about a hundred fifty miles per hour. That’s a little more than two miles a minute. Three thousand feet was a little more than half a mile. I had roughly...fifteen seconds. Maybe. I guess. I wasn’t currently in a human body and I’ve never been good at math. I usually got by with engineering with trial and error.

Either way, the ground was getting a lot closer.

Hoo boy. This was going to hurt.

I tried to remember how to land when you’re falling from a high place. Spread out the impact. Try not to let your body turn into an accordian. Step three was, um…

I pulled out of my spinning and assumed the best position I could, though it wasn’t easy because I’d made myself dizzy. I looked down.

There was a crack of displaced air. A second or two passed, and then when I was a second or two from becoming hamburger, a flash of teal light spread out below.

I hit the magic field pretty hard, but bounced.

Momentum spent, but breath knocked out of me, I reached the top of my new, much lower altitude and started back down.

And landed in Sunset’s outstretched hooves.

I blinked, my scrambled brains making it hard to focus my eyes, but it was pretty clearly her.

“Tin Mare called,” she said. “She said it was an emergency.”

“Yeah, I guess it was.”

“Do you want me to put you down?” she asked.

“I...well, between coming off the adrenalin rush, being dizzy, and lingering drunkenness, I’m not sure I wouldn’t just fall over immediately.”

“Wouldn’t it be more embarrassing to be seen carried like a newlywed bride by a mare?”

“Given what most people know - or rather don’t - about our relationship...let’s just keep them guessing while I recover.”

Sunset walked me back towards the library. She used a little magic to ease the process along. She was a certified badass, but an earth pony stallion is kind of a load for any unicorn mare walking on two legs.

“Oh yeah,” I said as we went. “Welcome back. I hope this didn’t interrupt anything too important that you were doing over in the other world.”

“That remains to be seen,” she said, shrugging.

Sunset carried me over the library threshold. The place was pretty wrecked. Effectively, the walls of the building still stood, but everything inside it had collapsed into the basement.

That was where we found Twilight, Yona, and Owlowiscious. They were picking through the ruins.

Because the Element Bearers were off on the submarine, I figured the B-team was probably out of the basement and filling in for them when it happened.

Still, unless Yona learned to get this new move under control, I could envision a lot more of this happening. This was even worse than Owlowiscious screwing up a spell.

Seeing Sunset and me come in, the three of them made their way up out of the hole.

“It’s Sunset Shimmer, right?” said Twilight.

“And you must be new Twilight.”

“Who this?” Yona said.

“She’s Valiant’s…” Twilight trailed off, either uncertain of who Sunset was or unsure how Sunset and I would react to what she was going to say.

“Right, I’m his,” said Sunset.

There was a moment of silence as the conversation stalled. Just then, I heard Tin Mare landing outside. Preempting my thoughts, Sunset turned around and went to meet her.

Tin Mare was just opening her tailgate when we arrived. A bedraggled Rarity stumbled out. Seeing me, she stomped over and shouted, “Do you know what you’ve just done!?”

“Generally, though considering your tone, I’m guessing you interpret it differently.”

“I was-” she began, but I interrupted.

“I had Tin Mare bring you back because I needed you to offer your thoughts on merchandising for the band,” I said. “I’ve already got a plan for the toilet paper, I just wanted to hear your thoughts.”

“I was trying to save the world!” she shouted.

“Okay, we can do that too. I just need-”

This time, she cut me off. “You don’t understand! This was eldritch!”

“So? We’ve killed eldritch before.”

She paused, and then sighed. “Okay, I suppose I should have seen that coming.”

She blinked. “Oh. Sunset. I didn’t expect to see you back so suddenly.”

Sunset shrugged. “Spur of the moment.”

I gestured to Rarity to return to the previous conversation. “So related to your eldritch deal, are you going to tell me about this SCP thing or…”

Rarity gasped. “How did you know about that?”

Sunset lifted her head. “Does Valiant have the best surveillance on the planet or what?”

Hell yeah, said my magnified voice from the sky.

I lifted my hoof to give Sunset an appreciative bump. Both of her forelegs were still occupied with carrying me, so she leaned down and gently touched my hoof with the tip of her nose.

“Well, if it’s not going to be a problem, then,” said Rarity in a huff. “I think the Foundation and I will leave it to you.”

She started to turn away, but I called her back. “I’m still going to need your help on merchandising for the band.”

“Honestly, Valiant, I know you’re always careless when it comes to saving the world, but could you focus for a moment? I rather think this is more important than making a few bits.”

I mean, she wasn’t wrong, but I suddenly realized what a huge advertising ploy we could turn this into. Not to mention, having Sunset with me would only make a bigger splash. Her sudden appearance from the other dimension had not only saved my figurative bacon, but could help make this marketing stunt the biggest Equestria had ever seen.

I was rolling out the big guns on this. Sunset coming back was going to make this huge To sci-fi an old chestnut: Transmit softly but warp in the biggest stick.

“Dealing with the so-called eldrich problem is going to make an excellent opportunity for promotion,” I said. “Das Booty is going to perform at the event to launch the Plymouth Valiant brand of toilet paper.”

Rarity gave me a flat stare. “I fail to see how defeating monsters goes with toilet paper. Why did you even put your name to toilet paper in the first place?”

“It doesn’t take shit off anyone.”

What Lies Beneath

I was all set to go kick some eldritch ass, but got distracted by the library.

Since Yona had smashed it and basically gutted the building, I’d noticed that it seemed to open up some passages beneath the building that I hadn’t seen before.

“What do you think this is?” Twilight said as I poked around what little of the tunnels I could see with a small flashlight.

I wasn’t about to go any deeper into an unknown place without preparing first. This was Equestria, that would be stupid. There could be tentacle monsters.

“Not sure,” I said, answering her question. “I’m going to get to the bottom of it, though.”

I was actually kind of embarrassed that I didn’t know about these tunnels, particularly since they seemed to be running directly under the library. I had concentrated so much on land, air, sea, and undersea that I’d never really thought about underground.

I heard the sound of a suplex and glanced up into what used to be the library’s front room. Sunset had Sunburst in a chokehold.

“What’s he doing here?” I asked.

Sunburst made a gasping noise. I’ve gotten pretty good at communicating with people while they’re being choked, so I knew he was saying “Science.”

“Why? What science?”

More gasps that translated to “Spelunking unknown and possibly historically significant caverns.”

Excellent. Someone to send in first so I didn’t actually have to prepare myself. I gestured for Sunset to let him up.

He dusted himself off and worked a kink out of his neck before picking his way down into the basement over the rubble of the upper floors.

I made a sweeping gesture, inviting him forward and towards the caves. “Be my guest.”

He paused, though. “While you’re here, you owe me a favor.”

“What?”

“I disarmed Foxy. You owe me a favor.”

Shit, he was right. I had said that. I ground my teeth. “What do you want?”

He paused, as if he didn’t think he would get this far and didn’t have anything in mind. Then, he said, “I want to know the deal with Libby.”

“Are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather know what I did with Starlight Glimmer?”

Sunburst hesitated, torn in decision.

Suddenly, though, a tentacle reached out of one of the caves, grabbed him, and pulled him in.

“Huh,” I said. “Well, I guess I’m not going in there.” Also, I’d like to thank tentacles for the work they do, which is a phrase that I bet has not been said very often.

“We have to rescue him!” Twilight protested.

“I wasn’t prepared to go in before, and now that we know it’s got monsters in it, I think I’m going to need a little more prep time.”

She shot me a look and then grabbed her costume. “Yona! Owlowiscious! Come on!”

Costumed up, Mystic, Super Cow, and their bad-at-magic owl headed for the tunnels.

I dusted my hooves off. “I love it when a plan comes together that doesn’t involve any effort on my part.” Still, though, instead of an impromptu rescue, I had been hoping Twilight and I could do some magical DEVGRU stuff today as prep for the intended eldritch ass kicking.

At least until a tentacle reached out of a tunnel and grabbed me.

Not for long - it’s me, after all. I had a sword ready to go. The problem was, as is often the case with tentacles, there were more.

As I was alternately slicing and being grabbed, Sunset was doing her part by blasting the rest. Shortly, whatever intelligence the tentacles possessed decided that I wasn’t worth the effort and retreated.

“They’re not going to get away that easily!” I charged down the tunnel.

Chasing the tentacles back to where they came from, I stopped short as I found myself in a crystal cavern. Strange place to find one, under Ponyville. Sunset stopped beside me.

There was a sparkle in the air and Twilight appeared. Well, no, it wasn’t really. Whoever this was looked a lot like Twilight but was transparent and floating midair. Also she had wings, though she wasn’t using them despite the floating.

I pointed. “What the hell is this? I thought we stopped this.”

“I am the Tree of Harmony,” she said.

“No you’re not.”

“Yes I am.”

“Then why do you look similar to Twilight Sparkle?”

“Because trees aren’t really the kind to come speak to you in person,” she said. She? It? Whatever.

“But why take the form of Twilight? We’ve already got at least two of those.”

“I am the Tree of Harmony. Is she not the pony most in tune with harmony?”

I shook my head. “That makes her special? And what’s with the wings?”

“If Twilight were to realize her true potential, she could become the Princess of-”

“I know, I’ve stopped that once, but why do you have wings? Twilight doesn’t.”

“In an ideal world, one built by friendship and-”

“Yeah, I’m going to stop you right there. I know where ‘ideal world’ monologues usually go.”

I turned to Sunset. “Sunset, choke that bitch.”

Sunset did.

You may wonder how Sunset was able to get her hooves around the astral projection of a tree. So did I, but I value results over methods.

I headed on down the tunnel, though I wasn’t sure if Treelight had been the source of the tentacles or not. They did look like they could have been plant-based, so maybe.

I came upon Mystic, Super Cow, and Owlowiscious engaged in some sort of orgy.

I frowned. Okay, maybe not, there wasn’t any penetration.

Not that there would be any considering who was involved.

I cleared my throat. “Uh, what’s going on?”

“Preemptive body heat sharing to ward off a sudden chill,” Twilight replied. “The Storm King is coming!”

“Who’s the Storm King?”

“Uh…” Twilight looked at Yona. “You said you saw him.”

“Storm King threaten hippogriff land and Yona thought saw his shadow,” said Yona. “Storm King bad. He threaten land forever.”

“Forever?”

“For-ev-er.”

I looked around. There weren’t any obvious Storm King-shaped shadows. No Wendy Peffercorn, either.

The Storm King must have been one of those things that I missed when the universe took a jump. “Okay, well, it doesn’t feel too chilly right now. You can stop snuggling.”

“I mean, I wasn’t into it at first, but this is kind of nice, I guess,” said Twilight. She got up, though.

“What happened to the tentacles?” I said.

“We were more concerned about Sunburst.”

I shrugged.

“Well, presumably if we find one, we find the other,” Twilight went on. She gestured. “Further down the tunnel, probably.”

“Do you know how far?” I asked.

“No. Who knows how far these tunnels might extend?”

“I might have an idea.” I tapped my earpiece. While it wasn’t going to reach directly through the ground above, maybe I could get a signal to Sunset’s communicator, which could then pass it through the base station I’d installed in on the roof of the library, and then to Tin Mare.

Apparently the systems were still up and I explained to Tin Mare what I was thinking.

“May I suggest the best way to map the tunnels would be a concussive blast?” she said. “I can use my internal diagnostic vibration units as improvised seismic sensors.”

Tin Mare with her new operating system was amazing. “Sounds good.”

Tin Mare presumably landed somewhere above. I pulled out some C4 and rigged it to the most solid-looking rock I could find. That done, we pulled back.

We met up with Sunset and she dragged the Treelight apparition up to the surface with us.

I set off the explosives and it generated enough directional vibration through the tunnels to give Tin Mare a reading.

“One of the longest tunnels comes out near a place called the Peaks of Peril,” she reported after a moment to process.

“Maybe that’s where it took Sunburst,” said Twilight.

Twilight the superhero nerd one, not the tree one. I’d already temporarily gotten rid of the original one to Silent Hill, but we were getting back up to too many again.

“I’m a little torn,” I said. “One, I’m angry at the tentacles and want to burn them. Two, but if I do, Sunburst might think we were rescuing him.”

“But then the favor you owe him would be negated,” Sunset pointed out.

“Huh, that is true. Okay, I guess we’re going.”

We started packing for the trip. I figured the Elements might as well go along. They’d seen a lot of shit. Also, I thought that if Rarity was into eldritch things, then she probably had a handle on tentacles.

Oh right, we still had to deal with the eldritch things. Eh, it’s not like it was that big a deal.

Maud was with Rarity when she showed up. She, along with Trixie, Daring, the six Element Bearers, and Sunset all assembled for the mission.

I looked at them all. “Jeeze, talk about a taco fest.”

Sensing that the statement would only send Pinkie on a tangent (was it Tuesday?) I quickly went on. “All right people, we’re going to putter to the Peaks of Peril to pull to pieces a particular plant, permanently.”

“I don’t putter,” said Tin Mare.

“Sorry.”

“What’s this about a plant?” said Applejack.

“Some tentacle vines have taken up residence in some tunnels under Equestria,” I said. “Some of them run for quite a distance, but we managed to map them.”

“You could have just asked me,” said Maud.

Shit, that made sense. “Well, we’ll let you take the lead on the geology consulting when we get there.”

“I have a question too,” said Trixie. “First of all, hi mom.”

“Hello,” said Sunset. It was the first time Trixie had seen her since she’d gotten back.

“Who’s that you’re choking?” Trixie asked.

Sunset glanced down. “The spirit of the Tree of Harmony, apparently.”

Before that could invite any questions, I clapped my hooves. “Okay, it sounds like we’re ready to go.”

“Wait,” said Rarity. “What about-”

She was interrupted by a mare who was colored two shades of green walking by just then. I’d never seen this pony before.

Sunset apparently knew her. Her hooves were already full, though. “Valiant, choke that bitch.”

I did.

Sounds of Silence

It’s a curious feeling, not knowing who you’re strangling. Usually it’s pretty obvious. The two-toned green mare gagging in front of me, though, was a stranger. Well, Sunset probably had a good reason for telling me to choke her.

“Who’s this?” I asked as the group started to load aboard Tin Mare for the ride to the Peaks of Peril so we could terminate the tentacle tunnels.

“I think her name’s Wallflower Blush or something,” said Sunset, strangling someone of her own. “She’s pretty forgettable.”

“I guess so.” It was a little strange how easy it was to carry on a conversation while choking Wallflower. Convenient. Nice of her.

I still wasn’t sure how Sunset was choking the spirit of the Tree of Harmony who looked exactly like a sparkly alicorn Twilight Sparkle, but that was neither here nor there.

“Well, what are we going to do with them?” Sunset said. I glanced over at her. My eyes also fell on the others, who were mostly loaded aboard Tin Mare for the trip to the Peaks of Peril.

“I could probably find someone to take over here,” Sunset said.

“Or we could just kill them,” I said. I glanced down. “I don’t even know who this is. “Wa...w...something with a W?”

“She really is forgettable,” said Sunset. “Yeah, okay.”

Sunset and I kicked our choke-ees forward. Both of us put on our sunglasses and pulled out matching Desert Eagles like that one scene in Space Jam that parodied Pulp Fiction.

Walking aboard Tin Mare three seconds later, Twilight said, “What were those gunshots?”

“Nobody I know,” I said. Tin Mare closed the tailgate and my autodarkening sunglasses turned clear. She lifted off.

I briefly pondered the long term effects of killing the spirit of the Tree of Harmony who looked exactly like a sparkly alicorn Twilight Sparkle. Eh.

“Does anypony know why they call them the Peaks of Peril?” Applejack asked as we flew.

“It’s probably just a name,” said Rainbow.

“Like how Cloudsdale is made of clouds and the Crystal Empire is made of crystal?” said Fluttershy.

“Well, peaks can’t be made of peril, so we’re good from a material standpoint,” I said. “But also, nobody said we couldn’t be the ones bringing the peril.”

“Hella,” said Tin Mare.

“But seriously,” I said, “Do we know anything about the Peaks of Peril? I’ve never heard of this place before.” Maybe it was created in the universe swap or something.

“The book I was reading about the Pillars of Equestria had something on it,” said Twilight. “There was an ancient shield with a mural painted on it. It said a group called the kirin, known for their kindness and truth-speaking, used to live at the Peaks. Unfortunately, other creatures also lived there. The nirik, fearsome beasts of pure fire. I thought it was kind of interesting that the words ‘kirin’ and ‘nirik’ are the reverse of each other.”

We discussed it for a little longer, but didn't come up with any solid facts.

Tin Mare eventually announced, “We are now arriving at the Peaks of Peril.”

She went into a shallow turn. The screen mounted at the front of the cargo compartment turned on, showing the feed from her camera pod. There were peaks, certainly, but I didn’t see many signs of life. Or peril.

“Is there someone around we can ask?” said Twilight.

“The end of the line train station is nearby.” Tin Mare came in for a landing.

A seventeen ton VTOL landing at a train station wasn’t exactly normal. The station pony wasn’t normal either, so it was okay.

Well, not really. He screamed. Not really because of anything I could see, he was just that kind of guy, I guess.

“I'm not used to seeing anypony coming to the end of the line. The final destination. The last stop!” He cackled.

“What’s out there?” I said, pointing to the peaks.

“Nothing but uncharted terrain and wild beasts out that way.” Again, maniacal laughter.

“Not the kirin? Have you ever heard of them?”

“Well now, that’s a name I haven’t heard in many years. Of course, if you have the time, I could tell you.” I was beginning to think he used creepy giggles instead of periods.

“No, we don’t. Just tell us.”

“They live up in them there peaks.”

“I thought you just said there was nothing but uncharted terrain and wild beasts.”

“And that don’t change nothing.” Longest and creepiest laugh yet.

I shot him in the face.

The others didn’t take it well.

“What? He was clearly suffering from dementia/mad cow disease/annoying. I was doing him, and the world, a service.”

“But-but…!” Twilight protested, eyes wide.

Fizzy’s head popped up among the crowd. “He was actually just lonely and had been here by himself so long that he’d forgotten how to talk sociably which made him really awkward and nervous around guests, and that makes it even better.”

Ignoring him, I went on. “And, he did confirm the kirin are here. Not that it matters because we came after the tentacle vines, but whatever.” I gestured as I headed back to Tin Mare. “Let’s go.”

Reluctantly, they did. Probably because they wanted to be left here with a dead body even less.

Sunset gave me a look as once again we were last to board. “You’re in unusual spirits today.”

“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about making some...adjustments around here. Bullshit like kirin and whatever else keeps coming up that I’ve never heard of before so I think I’m going to do another reset and get the universe back to how it was. Well, not how it was, how it was before Gabby.”

“Let me know if I can help.”

I nodded. “Sure. In the meantime, everything is going to get wiped away, so do what you feel.” I shook the gun for emphasis.

Tin Mare came in for a hover over a small clearing in the peaks. “Heat signatures indicate a possible village here.”

“Cool. Put out the fast ropes.”

The tailgate opened. The girls, at least those without wings, slid down. Not only would anyone have learned this after hanging out with me long enough, but they probably preferred it to being close to me.

I was last to drop in. Alighting from the rope, I dusted myself off and looked around.

There were a bunch of almost-ponies. They kind of looked like unicorns, except their manes sort of wrapped around their necks like lions, their horns split in two at the tip, and they had scales on their noses and backs. Cloven hooves, too. Weird.

“So, how did we not know that an entirely new species was living inside Equestria?” I said. “What’s next, reindeer?”

“Does anypony notice something...strange?” said Applejack.

I looked around at the circle of kirin around us. They all wore the same dull expression. None of them had said anything. They didn’t even react to Tin Mare hovering overhead.

“Yes,” I replied, “but you’ll have to be more specific.”

“They’re so quiet,” said Pinkie. She went and screamed in face of one of the kirin. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie and I like to party!”

Silence was the only response. Pinkie deflated.

“Do they not understand?” said Rarity. She raised her voice to the group. “Do you speak Ponish?”

“I didn’t know you spoke foreign languages,” I said.

“What are you talking about?” said Rarity. “Ponish isn’t foreign, it’s what we’re speaking right now.”

“Pretty sure we’re not. I didn’t grow up speaking Ponish in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.”

“Well, it isn’t like we’re speaking whatever language you know,” said Rainbow.

“As metaphysically fascinating as it would be to discuss this, and as mindblowing as it is that this hasn’t come up before, we have bigger problems.” I gestured to the silent kirin. “Parlez-vous Français?”

No responses. “Well, I’m out of ideas. Twilight, what do you speak?”

“Math.”

“Not what I was expecting you to say, but also kind of what I was expecting you to say.”

I sighed. “Are there any of you that talk at all?”

Finally, a reaction. All the kirin pointed towards a faint trail leading away from the village.

Well, all right. The group of us headed that way. Tin Mare flew after us.

After just a few minutes, we came upon a lone kirin who was white, green, and auburn. She talked. A lot.

“Hi, I’m Autumn Blaze. So nice to see all of you! You’ve just arrived, and perhaps you’re tired or hungry or reflective and want to sleep and eat and journal? Which you should do, of course! But first— Oh! Oh, what joy to talk with another creature! It’s been so long! You must tell me everything about you! There’s so much to say, so much to do! Oh, look at me. I’m going on, and you haven’t seen— I mean, have you seen—? W-What am I saying? Of course you haven’t. So just— I— yeah— I will j— Follow me!”

I kind of wished she wouldn’t talk so much. But I couldn’t tell her that, because she took off through the forest.

“She’s approaching a cliff,” Tin Mare reported.

We followed her to a clearing where a ramshackle house was built at the edge of a tall precipice. It looked out over a valley that I could see at a distance was currently covered in tentacle vines.

“Oh, well, I guess it isn’t what it used to be, but what is life but change?” said Autumn Blaze. “The way the light used to shimmer off everything, like, like it all suddenly woke up the moment you saw it. And you realized maybe the water and the mountains and the forest and the... yes, the rainbow and the stars and the sky are all looking back at you thinking the same thing? That we are a part of the everything. That maybe there’s just one thing and we are all it.”

“I bet you don’t have many friends,” I said.

“I-well…ever since the vow of silence-” she stuttered.

“Okay, that explains it,” I said. “But we didn’t need to explain it because you got us off track. We’re here to exterminate those tentacle vines and we would have been able to do it a lot faster if you weren’t such a blabbermouth.”

Autumn blinked. “I, uh, well, I kind of have to be because I don’t know how else to express myself and I have to do it alone now that the other kirin asked me to leave.”

“Why did they do that?” Twilight asked.

“We don’t have time for this,” I said.

“Well, if you’re so good at killing things, surely it won’t be difficult to take care of those vines,” said Autumn.

My eyes narrowed. It’s not often that my reputation precedes me but my recon hadn’t given me an idea of who I was talking to. “How did you know?”

“Well, just look at this cutie mark,” she said, putting her hooves around my posterior. “Flanks don’t lie. That looks just like a coffin and some kind of stakelike weapon. “Oh! Are you a vampire hunter?”

Sunset’s gun clunked into the back of Autumn’s head. “Let go of his butt.”

“Okay, alright,” Autumn stepped back, waving a hoof. She grinned. “No guarantees on my shadow, though. Have you named your shadow? Mine’s called Silhouette Gloom of the Sundown Lands.”

Her shadow, falling across me, continued to caress my ass.

“Sunset, choke that bitch.”

Sunset did. I’m glad she understood that I meant the shadow. I wanted Autumn’s throat clear to answer a few questions.

Autumn looked a little shaken at having her shadow torn away from her to be throttled. I quickly gave her something else to think about, though. She opened her mouth as I approached, but I quickly cut in. “Don’t talk, just listen. I don’t give a single shit about you, the village you were kicked out of, or your race that I just met for the first time. I have the means and will to erase all of you from existence on a whim. Wouldn’t be the first time. I’m here to do a specific mission and your own survival depends on what you do next. I just have one question for you, and I want a short, straight answer. What do you know about those tentacle vines?”

“They just appeared out of some tunnels,” she said. “They smelled bad, so I didn’t go near. They didn’t seem very friendly anyway.”

“What did they smell like?”

“F-fecal material.”

“Oh dear,” Rarity muttered.

I glanced at her. “That’s hardly the worst thing you’ve heard in the last five minutes.”

“No, it’s just...I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Does a tentacle monster smelling like shit suddenly make it more dire?”

Autumn started to say something, but Tin Mare talked over her. “She may be referring to the eldritch monster that occupied a garbage dump.”

“Yes, that,” said Rarity.

Autumn again tried to cut in, but I interrupted her.

“So the tentacles vines run through the underground tunnels and may somehow be connected to your shitty garbage dump?” I said. I considered that. “So if we start the fire here, it’ll burn all the way up Cthulhu's ass?”

Autumn opened her mouth, but Twilight beat her to next to talk. “Is starting a fire that could go anywhere underground a good idea?”

“Fair point. But it could eventually just evolve into a thing the local population just gets used to. In the future, they’ll ask, ‘who started this fire?’ and no one will know. They certainly won’t accuse us, but if they do, we'll be like 'we didn't start the fire.'”

“I’m not sure I believe that.”

I shrugged. “Maud, do these tunnels go anywhere near underground coal veins?”

“No.”

“Good.”

Autumn started to speak again, but by this point I was already moving towards burning everything down, so I started giving directions. “Tin Mare, get the napalm. Everyone else, at least make an attempt to ensure nothing else catches on fire.”

“Like, uh, Autumn Blaze?” said Applejack.

I turned. Autumn Blaze had caught on fire.

“Good effort, Applejack. That’s exactly the kind of thing that gives us plausible deniability.”

“She turned into a nirik!” said Twilight.

The fire had kind of strange black, red, and blue tones, but what was even stranger was Autumn was apparently unaffected except being angry. Her voice was all distorted and weird. “I kept trying to to speak to you, my new friends, but if this is how you treat others, the cruel irony of letting my keep my words but dismissing and ignoring everything I say, then you will pay for actually managing to increase my social isolation!”

She threw a fireball. I ducked, and then threw one right back. It hit her square in the face and she stumbled backwards, screaming, and fell over the edge of the cliff.

At least we killed two birds with one stone there and the whole valley went up in flames, including our actual intended target of the tentacle vines.

As an afterthought, Sunset kicked Silhouette Gloom of the Sundown Lands over the edge, too. As it turns out, shadows are pretty flammable.

I dusted off my hooves. “Okay, let’s go kick some eldritch ass.”

“You keep saying that, but we haven’t done it yet,” Twilight pointed out.

“Well, I must admit some reluctance due to boredom at something I’ve done before, but that only increased when I found out it was shitty.”

“Partially why I didn’t take care of it myself,” Rarity grumbled. “Despite the Foundation's insistence.”

I sighed. “Well, let’s get started.”

On the way there, I got into my set of power armor with the good environmental seals. I figured if it could protect me on the seafloor, it would probably be okay in a garbage dump with shit everywhere.

Fortunately, when we arrived, the fire had already got there and shit was burning. Not the shit burning part, that smelled terrible, but at least we didn’t have to get our hands dirty in a literal sense.

As we sat there at the edge of the garbage dump watching eldritch things burn and everyone but me coughing at the shit smoke in the air, I heard someone gasping louder than the others, and Sunburst crawled over the edge of the pit.

He was covered in shit. Honestly, I guess I would have been surprised if he hadn’t been. I was kind of surprised he was alive at all.

Oh right, we forgot to rescue him so I wouldn’t owe him a favor anymore.

Shit.

He looked up at me. “You owe me a favor. I want you to tell me what you did with Starlight Glimmer.”

I turned my head away, my autodarkening sunglasses that I was wearing beneath the power armor helmet reacting to the sun that filtered through the smokey air. I searched for a distraction, but couldn’t find one.

And then, by pure coincidence, a portal opened next to us.

Twilight Sparkle stepped through. She immediately fell to the ground, gagging on shitty air. Perfect.

Author's Note

Someone also deserves credit for the coffin cutie mark explanation, but regrettably I wasn't able to find the comment again to screenshot it.

School Raze - part 1

I was down at The Half Pint getting plastered.

Twilight and Sunburst hadn’t taken the news about Starlight Glimmer very well. I mean, yeah, using one whole ghost to power a single pair of autodarkening sunglasses was kind of wasteful, but now that we knew that the process could improve with some refinement. They should be thanking me for using Starlight for a worthwhile cause. They really didn't like the pun about ”a Glimmer in my eyes.”

Instead, they were talking about sins against harmony and perversions of nature. They were the ones who had wanted to know. Hell, Twilight was the one that originally summoned Starlight.

At the same time, the bandage was ripped off and it wasn’t my problem anymore. And on a more positive note, I had some new drinking buddies.

The B-Team, with the library destroyed, had started hanging out at the pub. Since the A-Team, Twilight included, was back in town, they weren’t needed, so they just drank with me.

“You know, I never really told you guys how much I appreciate you,” I said.

“Don’t mention it, honey,” said Appletack.

“Well, he can mention it a little,” said Celebrity.

“I mean it,” I said. “This place would fall apart without our local magic cops. I can’t figure out what Equestria did before Celestia randomly picked six mares to solve every problem in the kingdom.”

“I read about it in a history book once,” said Reading Rainbow.

“I was actually writing a history book.”

“I know. I read your draft.”

“What was it about?” asked Shovelshy.

We were interrupted by Morning Matte coughing. “Sorry. I think I have a mild reaction to wheat. I probably should have picked one of the hypoallergenic beers.”

“Sounds rough,” said Bakey Pie. “Glad I don’t have that problem.”

“Anyway,” I said. “Thanks again, you guys. I have no idea where you came from, but I guess it’s better than not having you around.”

I paused. “‘Around?’ Yeah, hey Guinness, can I get a round for the whole place?”

The rest thanked me. I’m glad we’d had this moment.

Several more rounds later, I stumbled back to the library later as it was getting dark to collapse on the couch, but as I got to the door I remembered that Sunset was back and she was probably expecting me to be home.

Well, in so much as a home was a place that we hung out together a lot. Disregard my previous use of it, it wasn’t so much a home as a pad, home is just a convenient word.

I walked in. Sunset said, “You’re back early.”

“Early? It’s dark,”

“You’re wearing your Starlight sunglasses.”

I lifted them. “Oh.” I put them down on the table.

“How drunk are you?”

“Not very. Other than the sunglasses, I can still see.”

I fell asleep just then. Yes, standing up.

I was a little sore and stiff when I woke up, and still hungover. Terrible nap.

I fumbled for my sunglasses, but couldn’t find them.

Maybe one whole soul was a little much. Everyone knows ghosts are afraid of sunlight, so it stood to reason that they could be used to power the darkening mechanism. Maybe I’d used too much ghost, though.

Sunset walked into the room. “I wanted to talk to you. It’s about earlier.”

I must not have been very drunk at all because I immediately knew what she was talking about. Or thought I did.

Sunset went on. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about.”

“Okay.”

“I know you may not share my opinions, but I don’t want either of us to be left wondering. We need to have a frank and open discussion.”

“What the hell did they do to you in the other world?”

“Nothing, I just-” Sunset looked away for a moment. “While I was gone, missing you, I had a chance to codify my thoughts.”

“Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about?”

“I’m talking about sex.”

“Oh. I...I was going to guess the Big Wang Theory.”

Sunset laughed. “Well, it can be the same thing.”

“Well, it’s not really. I’m not writing a history textbook about recreation procreation.”

“Valiant, you don’t need to dodge the issue. I’m just telling you what I think. So you know.”

I swallowed. This was not a time to go silent, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of a thing to say.

I couldn’t believe it when Tin Mare sounded an alarm. I was honestly trying to come up with a response for Sunset, because she deserved it, but Tin Mare wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important.

I tapped my earpiece. “What is it?”

“We have a situation on the submarine,” Tin Mare said. “Simultaneously, unicorns everywhere are discovering that their magic stopped working.”

Sunset was listening in and immediately tried to do magic. She got about one spark off her horn, but that was it.

“What’s the situation on the submarine?” I asked.

“Chancellor Neighsay has moved aboard, under a combination of salvage law and EEA school control authority.”

“Isn’t he a unicorn?”

“He has some sort of magical amulet.”

“Well, we know where magical amulets get you.” Dead by my hand, usually. “Well, open a comms channel to In Need of Beaning. I want him on the phone.”

Tin Mare arranged the network handshake. I turned to Sunset. “Your magic is gone?”

“I mean, I just spent a couple of months on the other side of the mirror, and I know how much you hate assholes like Neighsay taking your things, so we can look into the magic issue as we get time.” She smiled.

Damn, I really lov-

The screen on the desk turned on. It was the one in my office on the submarine. Neighsay seemed surprised, but quickly saw me on the screen on his end and turned haughty. “Well, well, if it isn’t the absentee principal. I’ll have you know the Equestrian Education Association has taken possession of this school, its facilities, and its weapons. It will be managed effectively and used to usher in the next generation of pony-led society.”

“Yeah, so you just ushered in the apocalypse,” I said, lying on the fly. “You know how I’m a bad person, right? Well, I had a failsafe put in place that if anyone took over the submarine from me, it would take all unicorn magic away. You probably noticed that yours stopped working.”

His face went pale, which was a pretty good trick because he was already white. He fought through it. “You think I can’t handle one of your little science projects? With this school under my command, we have all the research and development we need to completely reform society no matter what you’ve done.”

Huh, he wasn’t behind it, then. Well, we’d figure it out. I went on. “Anyway, you’re not in command. I left Admiral Falcon as captain in my absence.”

“Oh, you mean him?” Neighsay reached off frame and came back with Admiral Falcon. He was wearing a little falcon hood, so he thought it was night and stayed still. Curses! A bird of prey’s one weakness!

Neighsay smirked. “I’m the captain now.”

The corners of my mouth turned up. “You just said the magic words, asshole.” I ended the call and pressed the button for another comms circuit. “DEVGRU, assemble!”

Admittedly, that was no great feat. New Twilight, Yona, Owlowiscious, and I were the only members.

But just as they arrived, the girls also burst in, old Twilight in the lead. “Valiant, we need a ride to Canterlot! Unicorn magic has just disappeared and Princess Celestia is summoning us!”

“Kind of busy here,” I said. “Chancellor Neighsay took over the school submarine so we’re going to go kill him.”

“You can’t do that!”

I looked at her. “What are you going to do? You tell me no a lot, but what are you going to do?”

“I’m not going to let you kill the head of Equestria’s schools!”

“He’s a racist, a speciest, an arsonist, and now apparently a pirate. He sent hit squads after me. And yes, before you ask, I can show you video evidence of all those crimes. I’ve even given him several chances to back off that he ignored - which you know is several more than I usually give.”

“But the magic!”

“Yeah, yeah, we’ll get to it. Come on, we’ll go to Canterlot afterwards.”

I still couldn’t find my sunglasses. I wondered if it was because Starlight had been a unicorn. Well, no matter. I pulled out a couple pairs of tech that I’d been working on as a replacement and after putting one on, handed the others to Super Cow, Mystic, and Owlowiscious. During the short conversation with old Twilight, they’d suited up. I’d suited up, too, though not in spandex: Camo body armor and cargo pants.

“These are special items I’ve come up with for DEVGRU,” I said. “They record video, can share it between them, and act as comms.” Camera feeds were projected in the corners of my lenses.

“Neat,” said Yona.

“And for you Twilight - new Twilight - I’ve got something very special.” I handed her a SEAL-spec SCAR assault rifle, identical to the one I was now slinging over my shoulder.

“What am I supposed to do with this?” she said.

“You’re human. You know how to walk on two legs and shoot people.”

“I’m a high school girl who studies magic! I don’t know how to use a gun!”

I let out a deep sigh. “Fine, whatever. Do whatever you want now that the unicorn magic is gone.” I handed the gun to Sunset.

We all loaded on Tin Mare. Twilight - old Twilight - was still complaining about how we weren’t doing enough to solve the magic crisis.

“Twilight, come on, we’ll just zip out to the submarine, kill Neighsay, and be to Canterlot faster than you could have walked there. It’s not a big deal.”

“Magic disappearing is a very big deal!”

“Twilight, what are you planning to do without a gun?”

“What are you-”

“New Twilight,” I clarified.

“I’m not sure,” new Twilight said. “But between us, we’ll figure it out.”

Owlowiscious appeared deep in thought. Sparks began to fly from his feathers.

“He still has magic!” said Twilight. New Twilight.

“He has magic?” said Twi-old Twilight.

This was really getting confusing to keep track of the two of them. I shook my head. “Twilight - new Twilight - I’m going to need you to shift callsigns to Snakeyes. Leave the moustache/nose glasses on, though.”

“Really?” said Snakeyes. “You could just call me Mystic, since I’m in my superhero uniform right now.”

“Maybe, but I’ll probably forget.” I saw the sub coming closer. Tin Mare pulled into a hover right over the deck and we stepped out.

I noticed the deck - the big black one - was partially painted. In fact, there was an open can of paint and a brush nearby, but nobody was around. Had Cordoba been in the middle of it but been called away? Had she tried to stop Neighsay while in her Tim Allen body?

We headed for the access hatch. I turned my head. “Alright, here we go. Don’t get hurt again, Mystic. I know how fragile you seem to be, especially all the times Owlowiscious has accidentally hit you with a spell.”

We went inside and my specialized glasses adjusted. I put up my SCAR and started clearing rooms, stepping lightly.

“I have activated all onboard camera feeds,” said Tin Mare. “He’s on the bridge, and appears to be holding Cordoba hostage.”

I swore under my breath.

We made our way there. I figured Tin Mare would warn us if Neighsay had any help, so for the moment I rested easy.

Snakeyes walked up beside me. I glanced around, seeing that we were roughly out of earshot from the others, who were still clearing rooms.

“After this, after you...murder this pony, and then we fix whatever is wrong with the magic, what are you going to do?” she asked.

“It’s not murder, he’s got a hostage,” I said. “Also, I appreciate your confidence in me that we can fix it despite not knowing anything about what’s broken. To answer your question, though…”

I glanced around and leaned closer. “I’ll tell you a secret, since with Twilight back you probably aren’t going to be here much longer. This universe since I did a reset has just been too weird so I’m going to roll it back a bit. Back to what I knew before. Back before I had to be a principal. Back to when Libby was just a nuclear weapon.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“That’s also why I’m telling you.”

We got to the bridge. I stopped just outside the door. I gestured for the others to stay outside. I turned on my camera feed, rigged to the rest of the team’s glasses, and stepped into the bridge.

Neighsay was there, holding a nail gun to Cordoba’s head. I heard Snakeyes gasp as she saw the situation. I heard Sunset growl with a noise like an impending thunderstorm.

“Stay back,” said Neighsay, cowering behind Cordoba. “I’m in charge here.”

“Nuh uh.”

He blinked. “You can’t just say ‘nuh uh’ to the Equestrian Education Association!”

“Yes I can. I can also shoot you in the face.”

I raised my SCAR. “Cordoba, do you trust me?”

“Dad, no!” Cordoba said. “Remember, Tim Allen rules!”

She had a point. If I missed, not only would I kill Cordoba, but I’d be Tim Allen. This was really a bad time to be hungover. I shouldn’t have bought ten rounds for the B-Team.

“Options?” I said quietly into my earpiece.

“Ordinarily, I’d go for precision magic,” said Snakeyes. “But unicorn magic is gone right now. We could...maybe get Owlowiscious to do it.”

“Not with his track record.”

“He’s good for an owl.”

“We’re in a hostage situation. That’s not good enough.”

“He can charge me up, and I can do the spell.”

“What are you whispering to yourself about?” Neighsay called.

“Do it,” I said to Snakeyes. “But you’re going to have to come in as fast and hard as you can. He’s got a nail gun to Cordoba’s head.

I moved my eye to the corner of my glasses, watching them work. Yona got ready, lifting Snakeyes and apparently getting ready to throw her into the room for maximum speed. Owlowiscious flapped his wings and charged a spell. “Hooooooooo…!”

He cast the spell and everything immediately went to shit. The beam was too wide and it hit both Yona and Snakeyes. In horror, I watched Super Cow and fragile Mystic hexed by Owlowiscious, the magic blast knocking them both down the hallway.

As if in slow motion, my eyes went back to Neighsay, who was flinching from the blast. His hoof hit the trigger. TAC!

As the blood spilled out of Cordoba’s head, Neighsay threw her to the side, rushing to get clear of my aim. Cordoba hit the floor, spasmed, and then stopped moving.

Then, her body changed into a silver and blue pegasus filly.

Cordoba opened her eyes as I rushed forward and wrapped my hooves around her, pulling her to me. “Oh my God.”

She blinked. “Dios mio. But how? Maybe because I am a robot, and once dead as Tim Allen, reverted to my natural form that can’t really die. ”

“I don’t give a shit why you turned back, I just care that you’re, well, back.”

I heard a scream and looked over to where Neighsay was looking at his new Tim Allen fingers in horror. I yanked my sidearm and raised it, but Cordoba put a hoof on my foreleg. “You know the rules.”

I let a breath out through clenched teeth. “Shit.”

Author's Note

This might be the first time I've shown anyone my ideas for A Dream document where I keep 23 pages of mostly sentence fragment memory-joggers for stuff I want to do with the story and things to remember about what I've already done. It also helps me remember how long I've been building up to jokes. In this case, eight months. As you remember from the comment cap on the last chapter, that's pretty much the only reason why I did a superhero subplot.

The Beginning of the End - part 1

The sunlight was trying to get through my eyelids. Wait, what? I thought the blinds in my bedroom were closed. Still not a bad way to wake up.

Actually, once I opened my eyes and sat up, I could see that I wasn't home. Trees? An orchard? Jesus Christ, I must have really tied one on last night.

Now that I thought about it, I could still be dreaming. The distinct lack of a hangover was a clue. But when was the last time I dreamed something so peaceful and simple? Hell, this reminded me of when I'd first arrived in Equestria.

I stood up and reached for my flask but missed. Turning, I looked to where my hoof was grasping air near my hindquarters. That was always where I'd kept my stash. Some people might call it hammerspace, a place to store things just below the surface of reality.

Apparently I'd misplaced it, too. Strange.

I looked around at the apple trees. Off in the distance I heard a faint thwack. Having no other direction to go, I headed for the noise.

Up ahead, I caught sight of Applejack. As I walked closer, she kicked a tree with her back legs. A shower of apples rained down into conveniently placed baskets.

I'd had a strange inkling of déjà vu since awakening, but it only got stronger now.

Applejack spotted me and came over, wearing a friendly smile. “Well howdy,” she said, grabbing my hoof and shaking.

She had an accent.

Oh shit.

“What brings you to the Apple Family farm?” she said.

“Uh...not sure,” I replied honestly. “I think I need to go.”

Applejack frowned after me as I hurried away towards town, wondering what I'd wrought on the universe this time. Was it too much to ask just to turn back the clock a little to before things got weird and Twilight conned me into running an elementary school? What had happened this time?

I probably should have paid more attention when studying the butterfly effect. Fluttershy might make a more responsible time traveler. I shook my head as I trotted. Speculation would have to wait; I had to see what this version of the universe was like.

I touched my ear but didn't find any earpiece there. I looked skyward hopefully and called, “Tin Mare?”

There was no reply.

“Thank God?”

No automatic you're welcome from my own recorded voice from the sky.

I hurried on into town.

The friendship school looked different as I passed it. The town looked a little different, too. I headed for the library but couldn’t seem to find it.

I’d actually walked past the sparkling crystal castle where the library used to be a couple of times before actually seeing it. It was so ridiculous that my eyes just simply didn’t believe it at first.

The mailbox said Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Oh shit.

I walked up to the front door and went in. The place was huge, much larger than the library and with no signs for navigation.

“Twiiiiliiight!” I shouted.

“Hey, what’s with the yelling?” said Spike, coming into the room. “Can I help you?”

I stared at him. “Why the hell do you have wings?”

“Huh?” Spike glanced at his back. “Dragons get wings when they go through puberty.”

“I actually didn’t know that, though in retrospect that makes a lot of sense.”

Twilight came into the room. I stared at her. “And why the hell do you have wings?”

“Language!” she said. “And it’s because I unlocked the magic of friendship and became an alicorn.”

I rolled my eyes. “This bullshit again.”

“Language, again. Also, who are you?”

“You seriously don’t remember me?”

She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure I would.”

A slow realization dawned on me. I had a decision to make then and there. It wasn’t often you get a chance for an entirely fresh start, where no one remembers you or what you’ve done.

I opened my mouth to introduce myself as Equestria’s first presidential candidate, but just then Spike spit up a letter. Twilight grabbed it and opened the scroll. She said to Spike, “It’s from Princess Celestia. She says she needs to speak to all of the Elements urgently!”

“Goddamnit,” I muttered. I gestured with a hoof. “Just give it to me. I’ll go kill whoever needs to be killed and then we’ll get down to business.”

“Kill!? You can’t do that! And what business?”

“Why don’t we go catch a train to Canterlot and I’ll explain on the way?”

“You can’t come with me, this is official Element business.”

I grinned. “So you’re okay with letting me out of your sight?”

She hesitated, but then said, “No funny business, or I’ll see to it that Princess Celestia has you locked in the dungeon.”

She really didn’t like it how I laughed at that.

At the train station, I realized I didn’t have any money. Twilight paid, giving me a dark look, but I really found it more troubling that I had absolutely nothing on me - money or equipment or otherwise. And if nobody seemed to remember me, I was suddenly having concerned thoughts about the state of my assets.

When we were seated on the train, Twilight said, “What’s your name?”

I could have gone with a lot of things. Perfect opportunity for a fresh start, after all. But I might as well keep it simple. “Call me Valiant.”

“Why do you seem to know me?”

“As near as I can figure, I came from another universe. Wel, okay, I did, but after that, I was in a different version of Equestria. Then I came here. Somehow.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“I’m actually concerned about it myself,” I said. “I know you. I know your friends. I’ve been in Equestria for a while. Just not this one.”

“So you’re from a different universe.”

“Yeah, and not that weird one through the mirror in the castle where we dragged Sunset Shimmer back to Equestria.”

“How did you know about that!?”

“Because...that’s what we did? I told you, I just came from a different Equestria. Speaking of, where is Sunset? Maybe she can help.”

“She’s in Pedestria, with her friends.”

“Pfft. Sunset doesn’t have friends. Or at least not friends you would consider friends.”

“She does too!”

I shook my head. “Whatever. How about Trixie? Where is she?”

“She might be hanging out with Starlight.”

“Who’s Starlight?”

“Starlight Glimmer.”

My entire face twitched, clenching so hard it felt like it was trying to wrench loose from my skull. That was nothing compared to the clench my asshole did.

“STARLIGHT GLIMMER!? WHY ISN’T SHE DEAD!?”

“Calm down!” Twilight said, raising her hooves as everyone on the whole train turned to look in our direction. “Why would she-”

“Starlight Glimmer. Is supposed. To be dead. Because she’s a goddamned magic communist.”

“Is...is she dead in your world?” Twilight asked weakly.

“My daughter killed her after she killed me.”

“Killed-?”

“I got better.”

I took several deep breaths. “Why is Trixie with Starlight? Why isn’t she with Daring?”

“Daring Do?”

“Yes.”

“Er,” Twilight's eyes darted around, “you know Daring Do is fictional, right?”

“You know that Daring Do is perfectly real and uses the penname A.K. Yearling to write quote-unquote novels about her adventures.”

“So you know the truth about that too,” Twilight said weakly.

I sighed and sat back, putting my hooves to my face. “I really, really need to get back to my own universe. I mean, okay, not my universe, just the one I was in last. Well, no, the one before the timeskip.” I frowned. “Or was it…?”

No, I hadn’t twisted the multiverse beyond my own recognition, don’t be silly.

At any rate, I was still trying to sort it out when we arrived at Canterlot. The other Elements were there and we headed for the castle, for some reason at a run. I guess this really was an urgent summons.

“Who’s this?” said Rainbow, glancing at me.

“Long story,” Twilight panted.

We burst into the castle throne room.

“Girls, thank you so much for coming,” said Celestia.

“What’s wrong? What can we do?” said Twilight.

“Nothing’s wrong! Everything’s perfect!” Luna replied.

I cracked up laughing. All of them turned to look at me.

I got my laughter under control, finishing up with a few claps. “Excellent. Masterful trolling, ladies. The classic, ‘you have to come to Canterlot urgently’ and then bait and switch.”

Twilight seemed annoyed, but also in mild agreement. She looked back at the Princesses.

“Who is this?” said Celestia.

“Long story,” said Twilight. “But really, why are we here?”

Luna said, “Because of your efforts at keeping the peace in Equestria, there has been less and less for us to do.”

Celestia went on. “So, after much consideration, my sister and I have decided it is time for us...to retire!”

Discord burst into the room, holding a notepad. “Breaking news! The royal princesses retiring! I have so many questions! Who’ll take over? Who’ll run Equestria? Will it be someone tall, dark and handsome? Or will it be the Lord of Chaos?”

“YOU’RE ALIVE!?” I shouted. “WHY ARE YOU ALIVE!?”

“Here we go again,” said Twilight under her breath.

“You’re supposed to be dead! I killed you because you’re such an asshole!”

“Uh…” said Discord.

I walked over and grabbed him by the collar, which was at least one nice thing about the guy because who else in a nudist colony like Equestria could summon gag clothing at the drop of a hat? “Here’s the deal. Either you send me back to the universe where I want to go, or I’m going to kill you all over again.”

“Guards!” called Celestia. Half a dozen stallions in armor ran into the room.

Leveraging earth pony strength, I threw Discord at them. He actually seemed to go along with it. His snakelike body took out four of the guards. The other two charged at me. I punched them both in the face and they instantly dropped. I mean, if you’re going to wear a suit of armor, that’s probably a place where you want the armor to be.

Two more guards ran in. I kicked a spear one of the previously defeated guards had dropped up into my hoof and used the blunt end to trip the first new guard. I threw a fireball at the second one and set the tufty thing on his helmet aflame. He panicked and ran around in a circle until he got it off.

Another dozen guards appeared. I raised the spear. “Twilight, now would be a good time to use some of your stupidly overpowered magic.”

“Oh, um, right,” she said.

She stunned me.

I woke up a while later sitting in the dungeon.

Shaking my head to clear it, I let out a huge sigh. “Amatures.” I went to work on the cell door. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d gotten out of this exact cell before.

I suddenly heard galloping hooves and Twilight slid to a stop outside the door. “I hope you’re happy!” she said. “Even locked in there, you may have doomed Equestria!”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“I was so caught up with accepting the transfer of power from the Princesses and taking care of Discord who you hurt that by the time I got word that King Sombra had sacked the Crystal Empire it was too late!”

“Wait wait wait...King Sombra’s alive too?”

“This time, I’m as surprised as you are,” she said. “We defeated him once before.”

“Yeah, I remember. I fell out of the sky and punchsploded him.”

“What!? No! You weren’t even there!”

“Not the point. Different universes.” I waved my hoof. “But more importantly, why the hell don’t people stay dead in Equestria?”

“I think this might be an isolated incident,” said Twilight.

“Click,” I said.

“What?”

“That was me taking a mental snapshot. I’m going to use it to humiliate you when you’re wrong. Anyway. So you want me to go kill him?”

“No, I came to see what you know about him. I don’t know how, Valiant, but you do seem to know things you shouldn’t.”

“It would be easier if you just let me handle it.” I opened the door and strode past her as Twilight began to sputter in consternation.

She teleported in front of me. “Get back in that cell!”

I held out my hoof, full of iron filings and rust from the ancient bars, and blew it in her face. She coughed, but more importantly the powdered metal in the air grounded out her magic and whatever spell she was going to throw at me.

I was almost to the Royal Guard motor pool, or whatever ponies called the place they kept their vehicles, when Twilight caught up with me again.

“Stop!”

I looked at her over my shoulder, but kept moving. “Or what? You can throw me back in that cell - which I’ll get out of again - while King Sombra keeps oppressing the Crystal Empire, or we can go defeat him.”

Twilight ground her teeth. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“You should call your friends. That would make it easier.”

“Oh yeah? And what are you going to do when they’re here?”

“Probably have the six of you magically back me up as I go and kill Sombra. By the way, that means you’ll need the Elements.”

By this point, we’d made it out to a couple of small airships painted in Guard colors. I hopped aboard one and burned the mooring line away with a fireball.

“How can you do that?” said Twilight, flapping her wings to land aboard the airship.

“It’s earth pony magic.”

“Earth ponies can’t do that!”

“You think Pinkie Pie couldn’t throw a fireball if she tried?”

That shut her up.

We swung by Ponyville to pick up the other girls and then went to get the Elements which were apparently being kept by some weird geometric tree in a cave. After that, we headed north.

I stayed at my position as captain of the airship. The others talked among themselves and kept throwing dirty and/or worried looks in my direction. The weren’t talking to me, so that was fine with me.

I distracted myself on the way by thinking about how nice a sextuple shot of tequila sounded. I would get myself one just as soon as all of this was over. Heck, maybe a couple.

Something about that nagged at the back of my mind, but I was currently in the zone on a mission to right the wrongs of the universe and decided not to explore a gaping hole in my logic.

As we got within sight of the Crystal Empire, I noticed how intact it seemed to be. Huh. Maybe it hadn’t turned into a deserted wasteland in this universe. That didn’t mean there weren’t still visible problems. Black crystals had sprouted everywhere.

“Okay everybody,” I said. “This is where you get off.”

“How are we supposed to get off?” said Rarity, looking over the side of the airship.

“Twilight will do some magic or something.”

“You seem to assume an awful lot about me,” Twilight huffed.

“So can you teleport all of your friends or not?”

She glared at me, but said, “And what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go kill King Sombra, like I’ve been telling you.”

Twilight lit her horn. The next thing I knew, all of us were standing at the foot of the castle.

“Uh, Twilight?” I said. “I specifically implied that I would stay on the airship.”

“I’m not letting you out of my sight,” she said.

I shrugged. “Okay, whatever. Good thing I set the autopilot.”

Just then, the airship crashed into the upper floors of the castle.

“We have to get up there!” Twilight shouted. I followed them up the stairs.

In the throne room, Sombra was just picking himself up from where the bow of the airship had crushed his seat. He wavered unsteadily as we came in, but stood up to face us.

Just then, due to wider-reaching structural damage in the upper tower of the Crystal Castle, an announcement bell previously in the belfry broke loose and came crashing down. It landed atop Sombra, and set him vibrating like a guitar string.

Mixed musical metaphors there, but it’s all good vibrations to me.

“Yeah bitch, you got donged!” I shouted, spreading my hooves and leaning into his face. His eyes were still going around in circles and his normally ethereal mane had sort of taken on the shape of the inside of the bell.

While he was down, the Elements fired up their magic and wiped him away in a burst of rainbow magic, leaving a little grease spot on the floor and not much else.

“You saved us,” said Cadance. She, Shining Armor, and Flurry Heart were released from a prison of crystals to the side of the throne room. I kept my distance. There was no telling what version of Flurry we were dealing with here.

Twilight was still pissed at me, but it was impossible to say that I hadn’t helped. Okay, the phrase she’d used was “suicidally reckless,” but whatever. Honestly, I thought I was more homicidally reckless.

The airship was busted up, but Rarity sewed up a few patches and we managed to limp it to Ponyville. Yes, it was supposed to go back to Canterlot, but with the guards I’d injured down for the count, it wouldn’t have been utilized anyway. Plus, Twilight was a Princess, so she could do whatever she wanted with royal property.

Stepping down in front of Twilight’s castle, I said, “Good work, team. Now, I’m off to get smashed.”

“Get what?” said Rainbow.

“Drunk.”

“Do you mean ‘get a drink?’” said Rarity, frowning.

“Yeah. I’m going to have so much tequila. Mmm.”

“What’s tequila?” said Twilight.

I froze. There it was. The thing I had purposely put out of my mind. That I’d been lying to myself about. That did not exist in this universe.

I turned to Twilight. “Let’s go to your lab. I’m going to need all the ethanol you have.”

“Why?”

“Do you want me to tell you, or do you want to find out?”

“Does it matter? At any rate, I don’t think I have any.”

I considered that. “Pardon me a moment.”

I took a few steps away and then dropped into a fetal position. “Oh God oh God oh God…”

The Beginning of the End - part 2

Making tequila is a complicated and nuanced process. Doing it wrong will still probably get you drunk, but if we’re being honest here, life is too short to drink shitty booze. Accidentally retconning myself right out of this universe’s history was apparently giving me existential thoughts like that.

I was busy trying to synthesize the proper esters and ethers when Twilight ran into the laboratory. “King Sombra is back and he’s destroyed the tree of harmony!”

Without looking at her, I put my tape recorder down on the table and and pressed play.

“I think this might be an isolated incident,” said Twilight’s voice.

“You are insufferable!”

“I’m also right.”

She ground her teeth. “Then please can we get some help defeating him?”

“I’m kind of busy here.”

“Doing what?”

“Trying to discover a new way of making tequila in a lab because I don’t have the kind of time required for agave plants to grow to maturity.”

“I think this is a little more important!”

“I don’t.”

“King Sombra has brainwashed everypony in town! He’s made them all storm Canterlot! He destroyed the Elements, and the tree that kept the Everfree Forest from growing out of control!

“Wait, what? The forest is growing out of control?”

“Is that what-”

I ignored her and ran out.

I found the other girls fighting the forest with whatever tools they could. They did not seem to appreciate how I ran into the midst of the growing forest to plant blue agave.

The blue agave is named for the distinctive color of its spiky leaves. It resembles a yucca, which in turn resembles a sea urchin. The species is notable for its high sugar content in his heart. The plant normally takes six to ten years to reach proper maturity, at which point the heart could weigh more than a hundred pounds. Fortunately, with the magic evil forest going nuts, all that happened on the order of six to ten minutes.

“Give me that hoe,” I ordered.

“You don’t need to resort to name calling,” huffed Rarity.

“I didn’t mean you! I meant Pinkie.”

Pinkie stepped forward and handed over her hoe.

I dug the plant out and then using a kitchen knife I’d taken from the castle to chop the leaves off until I had just the agave heart and then carried it back to the lab. It was difficult finding an oven large enough to cook it, so I just roasted it over an open fire and kept pouring water on it for a steam effect. That’s what it takes to convert the complex carbohydrates into simpler sugars. It also helps soften the heart up for the next step.

Twilight would probably be angry about me building an open fire on the floor of the lab. Whatever, the building was made of solid crystal.

After the roasting came the crushing, to extract the juice. Working with the knife I had borrowed and my own hooves, I got everything mashed as well as I could and made sure to drain it off.

The dried mash could probably be used for animal feed or something. I could maybe sell it as gourmet to people who cared. But money came later. I figured I could keep mooching on Twilight for a while. Hell, she wasn’t even in the castle at the moment. Probably fighting bad guys like it mattered.

After collecting the sugar-rich juice, next it had to be fermented. While I was out earlier, I’d remembered to also expose a sample of yeast to the Everfree Forrest’s overgrowth. It wasn’t the kind I really wanted, just some stuff I’d scrounged from the kitchen, but it would do. And with it going nuts just like the forest, it reduced the fermenting process from two weeks down to just a couple of minutes.

I’d heard that some yeast naturally grew on the agave leaves, but had never tried that process. At any rate, we weren’t exactly doing it organically anyway.

I wondered for a moment if any pony agriculture could be described as organic. Did magic count? Also, putting manure on the fields for fertilizer raised a whole host of other, extremely uncomfortable questions. I imagined it might be even worse for the cows.

With the fermentation done, I lit one of the lab’s bunsen burners and began to heat the mixture that came out of fermenting. I set up the weird corkscrew glass tubes and began the distillation. Without it, the fermented agave juice was basically just a weak Mexican grape-free wine.

After distilling the batch once, I distilled it again. Now we were talking. I could have gone further. I could have done a lot of things. But this was fine. It was all fine.

I glanced at the burning table where I’d knocked over the bunsen burner. It was fine.

It took about a dozen pounds of agave heart to produce one quart of tequila, so this batch was more than a gallon. Examining the distilled mixture, it looked like that would be enough.

I poured some of the distilled mixture into a temperature-safe beaker and then poured liquid nitrogen over it. It bubbled for a few minutes before evaporating.

It resulted in a perfectly chilled glass of tequila and it had only taken me an afternoon.

I slugged it.

A warm feeling of contentment spread up and down my body despite the cold liquid and I closed my eyes and let out a sigh that lasted perhaps ten seconds.

Everything was gonna be okay.

I was vaguely aware that I was lying to myself, but I was on my way to being drunk, so why should I trust myself anyway?

Now finally and properly fortified, I walked to the window and looked outside. The forest was being held back by some weird flashes of magic at the edge of town.

Where had Twilight said Sombra was? Canterlot?

I went outside with some tequila for the road. The airship we’d borrowed was carelessly parked on the front lawn. The lifting bag was slightly deflated from the shenanigans we’d already pulled, but it might hold for one more trip. The Guard airship, while not being really up to my standards, was well built and better than nothing.

I started encountering brainwashed ponies the closer I got to Canterlot. They didn’t really start paying me any mind until I got close to the castle.

A couple of unicorns started shooting their horns at me. They mostly just hit the wooden hull. The average unicorn wasn’t really a threat.

It was the armed pegasi that were more concerning. They flew up to the airship with spears.

“Hey, get away from there!” I shouted. I started throwing whatever I could reach: ropes, tools, whatever wasn’t bolted down. The ship’s bell was too firmly fastened.

They all started poking. Fortunately, not me, but unfortunately it was the airship. I heard a hiss of escaping gas and it started to go down.

I pulled the attitude controls for all they were worth, but it still landed near-vertical on its bow in the castle courtyard. The hull held together, but I was thrown from the wheel and landed in a heap on the cobblestone.

It was a good thing I was drunk and didn’t feel a thing. Picking myself up, I walked into the castle.

For some reason, the throne room was right there, no physical security except two wooden doors between it and the courtyard. Of course, that was par for the course around here. This was the same place Celestia and Luna had pulled off that masterful trolling of Twilight, telling her that Equestria was about to be her problem to run.

Sombra was there, shooting random black crystals everywhere. He noticed when I walked in. “You! How did you get through my defenses?”

“Brainwashing civilians is kind of a shitty defense.” I looked around. He could make huge crystals, and yet he chose to pull the Soviet strategy of bodies as armor. Not body armor, bodies as armor.

I sniffed the air. “What’s that? Some kind of…liquorice?”

“Well, it was only natural that I subjugate the Elements especially hard. In Pinkie Pie’s case, I had her employers, the Cakes, bake a black liquorice fruitcake that says ‘Congratulations to Our Favorite Supreme Emperor King Sombra’ in green frosting.” He laughed, evilly. “I don’t even like cake!”

“Wow, for as petty as you are, you still probably conquered Equestria about as efficiently as anybody ever has.” I shook my head. “Which honestly says more about the state of Equestria’s security than anything.” I paused to tap my chin. “You know, if it’s that easy, maybe I could claim sovereignty once I kill you.”

He laughed. “How foolish!”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Maybe later. I’ve got too much else on my mind right now to consider running a country.”

“I meant thinking you could defeat me,” he snarled. “I will show you the error of your ways.”

I raised the kitchen knife I’d taken from the castle. Wait, why didn’t I stop to pick up a sword or something along the way?

Sombra fired some of his purple magic at me. Given no other option, I slashed at it with the flat of the knife and actually managed to deflect the blast. That probably would have hurt if it hit me.

I looked down at the knife, which had been turned to black crystal. “Hey, is this obsidian? Like, down to a molecular level edge?”

Sombra growled and fired at me again. I swatted the blast down again, honestly a little easier this time since the knife was already made out of the same crystal he was shooting everywhere.

An idea came to me. What if I could get him to crystalize other things, too?

I turned tail for the door. “Can’t catch me, bitchass!”

To my delight, he followed me out the door. The airship, gas bag deflating, had come to rest on its side in the courtyard. Sombra chased me around it for a couple of laps, though I was having trouble getting him to line up his horn where I wanted it. Maybe I could close in and do something about that.

On my next lap around the airship, I tried to get the bell off again. To my surprise, the knife went right through the wood cradle as if it was paper. I knew obsidian blades were sharp, but damn. Maybe it was also magically molecular.

Sombra rounded the corner of the airship and I slammed the bell down on his head. “Knock knock! Or is that ding dong?”

“Who’s there?” said Pinkie. I looked up. The six Elements had assembled, along with Discord.

“Hey guys,” I said. “I was just trying to see if I could put Sombra in a headlock or something and then point his horn where I wanted it, so we could crystalize things that we wanted to.” I showed them the knife.

Lifting the bell off his head, I saw to my amusement that his mane had taken on the shape of the inside. Unfortunately, I’d broken his horn, so that kind of called off my experiment.

I put my knife to his throat, but paused. Oh yeah. First impressions and all that. I probably shouldn’t murder a wounded prisoner in front of everybody.

I mean, I knew if we threw him in the dungeon he would just escape to threaten Equestria again later, but hell, maybe I could try the crystal experiment with his horn again at that time.

Well, whatever. I dropped him and wandered away to find that cake.

I was eating a big slice of it that I’d cut with the knife when Twilight came to find me.

“We took Sombra prisoner,” she said. “Everypony’s been freed and things are starting to go back to how they used to be.”

She paused. “I want to thank you for your help. We need to discuss a few things if you’re going to stay here, and I really want to know more about you, but for now, you may have just saved Equestria.”

“Well, as I’ve said, I’m trying to go to a different universe so I’m not planning to spend too much time here. I might get some time to sit down and tell you about a few of my favorite things, though.” I smiled.

“I’d like that.”

“I know you will.”

Celestia and Luna came in just then. Twilight looked at the wreckage around the throne room and cringed. “I know what you’re going to say. I should have called on you as soon as I knew how dangerous it was. A good leader knows when to ask for help, and I didn’t. And because of me, the Tree of Harmony was destroyed. Equestria deserves somepony much better than me as its leader.”

“A good leader knows when to ask for help, but a great leader has the courage to admit when they’ve made a mistake and the strength to make it right,” said Celestia. “Today, you’ve proven to me beyond any doubt that you will be a great leader.”

Something in her tone made Twilight say, “Will be?”

Celestia nodded. “Luna and I have decided it may have been a bit unfair to thrust this upon you without giving you the time you need to prepare.”

I laughed. “Called it. Once again, masterful trolling, ladies. You got Twilight Twilighting so hard.”

“Why is everypony suddenly saying ‘Twilighting’ like it’s a thing?” Twilight demanded.

“Because it is.” I cut another piece of cake and headed back outside.

The airship wasn’t too bad off and I could probably fix it and keep using it. Maybe I should just go ahead and chisel the Guard logos off and call it my own. What should I name it?

Dirty Hooker Took My Money...II

I shook my head. Come on, I wasn’t so drunk that I couldn’t come up with something better than that.

I set to work fixing it as Guards, castle personnel, and civilians began to wake up from the spell and wander back into the castle.

A thought nagged the back of my mind in wondering that if Sombra reawoke to attack Equestria again, who else might be next?

Goddamnit, how many more assholes was I going to have to fight before I got out of here? Was it too much to ask to just be instantly transported back to the universe I had created for myself and reign supreme?

Uprooted

Apparently Twilight was hoping I was a fever dream or something and was kind of freaked out when she found me sleeping on her couch the next morning.

To be fair, I didn’t even anticipate being surrounded by that many empty bottles.

“What did you say this was again?” she said, gingerly inspecting one of them.

“Tequila. Fermented agave juice.”

“Fermented, like-”

“Ethanol.”

Her head jerked up, looking again at the quantity. “How are you not dead?”

“I’m a professional.” I sat up. “At any rate, I may drink to excess, but not in express.”

“Two dozen bottles in eight hours is not-!”

I cut her off. “I remember when you freaked out about Pinkie Pie and not being able to figure out her secrets. Just trust me on this. I have alcohol tolerance you can only dream about.”

Twilight jumped from one topic to the next. “So that thing with Pinkie happened in your universe, too?”

“Yep.” I had a sudden idea. “Would you like to hear about other universes?”

She grabbed her notebook. At least I could always count on Twilight being a nerd.

A couple hours later, I was still talking. Twilight paused enough in her notetaking to ask, “So after spreading democracy to another alternate universe, you went to yet another? How many are there? How does a new universe even get created?”

“Well, it all starts with a big wa-”

Spike came in just then. “Hey Twilight, they’re out of everything but orange highlighters at the school.”

She immediately started to hyperventilate. “How will everycreature color-code their notes?!”

“I know how to make a hemoglobin-based red dye,” I said. “Real cheap, too.”

Twilight glanced at her notes. “This wouldn’t happen to be the ‘blood of your enemies’ would it?”

“The same.”

“Valiant, you can’t just kill people!”

“You know, you say that in every universe and you’re wrong each time.”

“Valiant, promise me you aren’t going to kill anyone else, not even villains like Sombra.”

“Twilight, if I do that, I guarantee it’s going to come back to bite you.”

“Because you’ll kill someone? That’s why I want you to promise me.”

I smirked. “Okay. I promise I won’t kill anyone.” I made a mental note to mark the time on my tape recorder.

Just then, a group of Twilight’s students burst in.

“Well, this is a surprise,” said Twilight. “Why are you all here so early? Did I send out the wrong back-to-school date?!”

“We’re back because the Tree of Harmony called us here,” said Sandbar.

“Don’t feel bad it didn't reach out to you. We kinda have a special connection with it after last year,” said Gallus.

“What happened last year?” I said. I glanced at Twilight. “In my universe, I was the principal and the school was taught aboard a submarine.”

Twilight fought to internalize that, failed, and instead ignored me and carried on the conversation with the kids. “But the Tree couldn't have called you. It’s gone! Sombra destroyed it!”

“Can we see the Tree ourselves? Or what's left of it?” Silverstream asked.

“As long as you promise to stick together,” Twilight said.

“I was just about to leave,” I said, standing up. “I can give you all a ride.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Twilight said.

“Hey kids, do you want to ride in an airship?”

Of course they did, their cheers drowning out anything Twilight had to say. We went outside.

The - well, at this point I can’t honestly say borrowed anymore - Guard airship was ready to go. Its placeholder name was Actually a Trenchcoat Hiding Smaller Ships.

Sandbar looked at it. “ATHSS?”

“You know Mike Tyson?” I said.

“Who?”

“Nevermind.”

We headed out to the Harmony cave to see the Harmony tree, or what was left of it, anyway. The kids all started to argue what to do about it, so I left them there. That was a short trip.

I headed back to the castle. The Friendship castle, that is. It was so weird there being more than one now. I figured Twilight’s library, whether it was a tree or a castle, was probably going to be my best bet for figuring out how the hell I was going to get back to my preferred universe. To go along with my preferred beverage, preferred language, and my Citi Preferred Rewards Card.

What's your preferred pronoun, Valiant?

Badass.

When I walked into the library, Twilight was busy finishing her notes from the talk we’d had. She looked up as I approached. “I wanted to get some clarification for a couple of these points.”

“Go ahead.”

“What exactly do you mean by ‘weird rock’ when you discuss how this all got started?”

“Just what I said. I’m not really as up on geology as I should be. It was an ugly chunk of basalt, that’s all I know.” I paused. “Maybe I should go see Maud about this.”

Twilight nodded. “I think she should be around to hang out with Starlight soon.”

I twitched. Twilight noticed.

“I also wanted to clarify your relationship with Sunset. Were you…” She blushed. “...lovers?”

“Maybe.”

“How do you not know?”

“It’s not like you know anything about love,” I said. “You once wrote a terrible romance novel called Moby Schlick.”

“I did not!” she shouted, and quickly changed the subject. “And at any rate, we really should be focusing on the difference in universes.”

She went over to a chalkboard where she’d drawn all kinds of gibberish. “From your description, I think I might be able to slightly modify the magic of the friendship table to ‘zoom out’ as it were and possibly show us the connections to other universes instead of just a map of Equestria.”

“What’s a friendship table?”

“Did your universe not have one?” She gestured. I followed her into another room.

I got serious Doctor Strangelove vibes upon entering. There was a huge round table, surrounded by chairs. Twilight touched the flat, stone surface of the table and it lit up with a hologram of Equestria. “If there’s ever a friendship problem, this shows us where it is and who is best suited to solve it.”

“Huh,” I said. “I take it this was part of the castle. To answer your question, no, we still had the library in my last universe, so no table.”

“How did you solve friendship problems?”

“Probably just like you did before the library was destroyed and replaced by a magic castle.”

Twilight turned away and started working on the spell she had designed. I went to find an unopened bottle of tequila and came back. She was almost finished when I returned.

“Okay, if I did this right, we’ll be able to change the scale of the map. I don’t think the alternate universes you described are exactly adjacent to each other, not like galaxies in space, but if I’ve got all my calculations figured, we should still see a pictorial representation of how they all fit together.”

Twilight concentrated and the map began to zoom out. Considering the scale from showing just one country to multiple universes, it had to go pretty far. I took a couple more sips in the meantime.

Finally, she seemed to finish up. The map now showed a three dimensional field of glowing dots, almost like a star map. Twilight’s eyes widened in glee and she started scribbling notes. I stepped forward to her side and we studied it together.

There might have been dozens, or hundreds of them. Maybe even more than that, if the view wasn’t all the way zoomed out. The different points of light seemed to be shaped, sized, and colored differently. I couldn’t tell which ones were which. It might have been way easier if we could zoom in and see what they contained. I was just about to ask Twilight to do so when she got distracted.

“Huh,” said Twilight, noticing something. She leaned forward, poking a hoof through the holographic display to indicate a curious, empty gap. “What’s this? Everything else is evenly distributed. It looks like there was supposed to be a universe here, but there isn’t. It’s as if it somehow got deleted.”

I suddenly finished the rest of the bottle in one go. Pausing for breath at the end, I muttered, “I don’t know what a petard is, but I think I just ran mine up the flagpole.”

She glanced at me, looked at the map, and looked back. “Are you saying you did this?”

“No, of course not, that would be ridiculous. How could a universe even get deleted?”

Before she could ask any more questions, the students came back. They seemed like they were in the middle of an argument or something, but stopped short upon seeing the map.

“Whoa,” said Ocellus. “What is this?”

“We’re studying how to get Valiant home,” said Twilight. “He claims to be from another universe.”

There was a general chorus of amazement from the kids. Twilight went on. “While we were looking at this display of universes, though, something troubling came up.” She indicated the empty spot again. “There might have been a universe here, but it’s gone now.”

“How does that happen?” said Sandbar. “You’d think a universe would be...kind of hard to get rid of.”

Yona shrugged. “Yaks know things not forever. That’s why smash and rebuild.”

“I appreciate the sentiment,” I said, “But that doesn’t get me home, to the place I belong.”

Have you ever had a moment, when you can feel someone reach beyond the grave and shove their ghostly fingers in your ears?

Screw you, John Denver.

Sparkle's Seven

It was take-your-weird-roommate-to-work day.

I don’t think it actually was. Twilight probably just wanted to keep an eye on me.

We went to the school and I hung out in her office while she did some paperwork.

“I’m bored, and this doesn’t help me get home.”

Twilight finished signing another paper. “I could give you some of these documents to process.”

“At least give me a bigger desk.” For some reason, she had me sitting in a student-sized desk with the built in writing surface. It was cramped, to say the least.

Twilight was about to reply, when the door opened and Starlight Glimmer came in with a stack of papers.

Despite my contorted seating position, I was on my hooves in an instant. Lacking anything else nearby, I threw the entire desk at her.

Starlight, as I’ve probably made clear in the past, was a very powerful unicorn. Still, she froze up like a deer in the headlights and it was Twilight that saved her from getting her head caved in.

As I saw the desk turn into a teacup, I charged at Starlight. Twilight yanked me off my hooves with magic and I ran in place midair for several seconds before realizing.

“What are you doing!?” Twilight demanded.

“Twilight, I told you what happened with Starlight in the other world,” I said. “And yet it was your idea to bring me to the school.”

“Uh...what?” said Starlight.

“And you didn’t even tell her to steer clear of me because I might want to kill her?” I said. “You’re really distracted today, Twilight.”

“Who is this?” said Starlight.

Spike came in just then with a letter. He ignored the ruined desk and me hovering midair inside a field of Twilight’s magic. Spike always had been one to just chill out and get over things. “Hey, look what just arrived.”

He showed Twilight the letter and she promptly dropped me. The letter was from Shining Armor. He wanted Twilight to meet him in Canterlot to see who would win the crown of Sibling Supreme. The letter included a picture. It looked like one of those cardboard ones from a fast food place, only covered in tin foil.

“Uh, I don’t get what’s so exciting about a toy crown?” said Starlight, echoing my own thoughts.

Twilight briefly explained. “When Shining Armor and I were small, we competed over everything. To keep it friendly, our parents gave us gold stars every time we did something special. Sharing, getting good grades, even telling a really funny joke. At the end of each week, we’d add up the stars. The sibling with the most would win the Crown of the Sibling Supreme - and bragging rights - until next time.”

“That explains a lot,” said Starlight. That was twice now that she’d said what I was going to say.

“I can't wait to get going,” said Twilight, heading for the door.

“Guess I’ll watch the school?” said Starlight.

“No you don’t, bitch.”

Twilight turned at my voice and I pointed to myself. “In the other universe, you put me in charge of the school for an entire year. I admit, I have some flaws, but you’ve already shown you trust me a lot more than some goddamn communist.” I pointed at Starlight.

“Well, I’m not me from the other universe,” said Twilight. “And at the moment, I’m not really sure I want you out of my sight. Plus, I want to get to Canterlot as quickly as possible, and that would probably be in your airship.”

If she was willing to acknowledge it as mine, then maybe I should go along with it before she changed her mind - or rather, realized her mistake. I shot a look at Starlight - I’m watching you - and followed Twilight.

As often as she had to go to Canterlot, I wondered why she didn’t have her own airship. I mean, you’d think it wouldn’t be too difficult for a Princess to get one.

We got to the castle and went inside. Everyone was kind of on edge. Just about every guard stared at me. To be fair, they had a good reason and I respected that - because that meant they respected me. We met up with Shining Armor and the Princesses - which would be a good name for a band, by the way.

They explained the terms of the deal, and how Twilight would go about winning the crown in a battle of the siblings. Battle of the siblings?

I put my hoof up to my mouth. “In the red corner, we have Shining Armor, chief muffin of the Crystal Empire.”

“‘Muffin?’” he said.

“It’s like studmuffin but not.”

I turned. “And in the blue corner, weighing in at too much because she doesn’t exercise, Twilight Sparkle!”

“Hey!”

Celestia looked amused, but broke in. “With the return of Sombra, Luna and I felt it was time to reinforce the castle’s defenses. I asked our old Captain of the Guard to handle the job.”

“The last time Shining was in charge of security, changelings invaded,” I pointed out. I glanced at Twilight and said in a lower voice, “Do I have that right? Did that happen in this universe, too?”

“He does have a point,” Twilight said.

“Oh, ouch,” said Shining. “But I’ve taken the security here to a whole new level. The only thing I need now is somepony to test it.”

Twilight gasped. “You want me to break into the castle?”

Shining nodded. “If you can get past my defenses, steal the crown, and get out, you'll be Sibling Supreme forever.”

“For-ev-er…” Twilight whispered.

“But! If you fail, I keep the crown,” said Shining. “And you will, because there aren’t any holes in the security. I’ve designed a multi-tiered, impenetrable, triple-backed-up line of defense.

“The castle is surrounded by shards of Queen Chrysalis’ throne. Thanks to Star Swirl, its anti-magic powers are now tuned to stop anycreature from using a spell to get inside. You can't fly in, either. Giant fans keep anycreature from flying too close to the castle. Plus, the entrances to the tunnels below the castle have been sealed, so there's no underground access.

“Wait, so there are underground tunnels?” I said. “Oh yeah, that was where Cheerilee-”

I promptly shut my mouth. I hadn’t seen her since the last universe. Was she still a vampire? Did she still want me dead?

Shining ignored me and went on. “And even if you could get in - which you can’t - I've doubled the ranks of security. Ponies protect every hallway and door, which can only be opened with royal guard medals.”

I had noticed there seemed to be more guards around. Mares, too. Huh. I wasn’t sure when the Royal Guard had integrated. Mares would take up less space in tactical transport vehicles for quick deployment.

Shining kept going. “Even if you brought an army, the throne room is the safest spot in Equestria. I rigged a floor trap to activate at the slightest touch. But say you avoid the floor - still no luck, because I’ve employed nature's alarm system, in the form of honking, biting geese.”

“So why did you tell us all this if you want it to be a challenge?” I said.

“It’s that good.”

I laughed. Shining looked irritated. “It’s not like you’ve ever set up defenses for an entire castle.”

“Oh, go screw yourself.”

“Screw me yourself, coward.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ve never had sex with a stallion before, but I’ll do it to make a point, especially if it’s Twilight’s brother and she’s standing right here. Get your wife in here, so she can watch too.”

“Uh…” he said, suddenly backpedalling as I knew he would. And thank God he did.

I believe in getting the last word in, so that seemed like a pretty good time to take my leave. I took Twilight and Spike back to Ponyville so she could plan. Though it did seem a little like a waste of time to go to Canterlot for a five minute meeting.

Everyone ended up sitting around the command center in Twilight's castle discussing plans with the other Elements.

“So that’s what we're up against,” Twilight said, after finishing telling them everything.

“Whew. That’s a barrel and a half of obstacles. Plus a bushel and a peck of impenetrability,” said Applejack.

“And all of this to win some fillyhood competition with your brother?” added Rarity.

“It's more than that!” Twilight protested. “Well, okay, it’s exactly that. And also to protect the castle!”

“If it means that much to you, Twilight, we’re in,” said Fluttershy.

“I was already in!” said Pinkie. “Come on, who doesn’t want to hang out with geese?!”

“Here’s the plan,” said Twilight. “We play to our strengths and defeat all of the security measures. That way, if one of us fails, the others will still have a shot at getting the crown. Pinkie, you’ll distract the guards with a surprise party. Applejack, you’ll buck your way into the sealed tunnels. Rainbow Dash, if anypony can outfly those wind turbines, it’s you. Rarity, you’ll sew us guard costumes so we can sneak past security. Then Fluttershy will disable the throne room alarm by charming the geese.”

I was wondering where I fit into the plan. I looked around. There were eight of us. Throw in a helper of my choice, say Sunset or Trixie, it would make an even nine. Spike had spines. The Spine Nine. Eh, maybe not.

Spike suddenly spit up a letter. “It’s from Shining Armor.” He muttered through it. “Tunnels...Pinkie party...Rarity costumes...he guessed your whole plan!”

I laughed. I laughed so long that even Pinkie was starting to get uncomfortable.

“Something you want to say?” Twilight grumped.

“Yeah. I’ll do it.”

“No!” said Twilight.

“I don’t know, I think Valiant might be very well capable of coming up with an unexpected plan,” said Rarity.

Twilight grumbled, but then said, “What’s your plan, Valiant?”

“Well, I can’t just tell you. I’m not going to make the same mistakes Shining Armor already did. But trust me, this is going to work.”

“That’s not good enough. Who else has a plan?”

Ouch.

In the end, she decided to let Rarity handle it. Unfortunately, Rarity’s plan was “let everyone else do their own plan.”

She and Rainbow were going to do noir shit and find the tunnels under the castle. Pinkie was apparently going to go into space to keep an eye on things. Applejack wanted to distract the guard ponies with a farewell performance by her alter ego, famous country-western superstar Apple Chord. Fluttershy and Spike were going to be some sort of super spy team.

I wasn’t even sure where to start with this. Rarity and noir, yes. Maybe even Rainbow too. I never figured Applejack as the alter-ego having type, but as a country artist who was friends with Coloratura? Plausible. Fluttershy and Spike as spies was such a stupid idea that it came back around to being so unexpected that it might not actually be that bad.

But one thing I had to address:

“Pinkie, I think space-based spy systems might be a little more effective than putting you in orbit to have a look at things with your own eyes. Okay, launching a dedicated satellite cluster is a little more expensive than I pictured for breaking into just one building, but Twilight knows I would do it.”

“Was your plan going to involve space travel?” Twilight asked.

“No, your brother ain’t shit. I was just going to walk in.”

“You can’t do that,” she said. “The guards have been doubled and there are so many other security measures in place.”

“And? Do you feel safer now? Do you think any of those things would have stopped Sombra?”

Twilight suddenly looked uncomfortable.

I went on. “Not to mention, they’re only designed to deter people from getting to the throne room. Nobody thought about, oh, the Princesses’ bedrooms, the royal vault, the dangerous magical item storage dungeon…”

Twilight continued to look uncomfortable. “I’ll bring it up to Shining.” Her look hardened. “After I win.”

“So you want to win?”

She stared at me. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to get the crown for you.”

“Why do you want to help me?”

“Because I love pentesting security to the point that I do it for free, constantly. And because as much as you and I have our disagreements, at least you’re powerful enough to actually make a difference in the world, even if you rarely do, so I do have a tiny shred of respect for you there.”

“That wandered back and forth from compliment to insult so much that I don’t know where it ended up,” said Twilight.

“I know.” I changed the subject. “Anyway, for this job I’m going to need Sunset and Trixie.”

“What for?” Twilight asked.

“Sunset to choke people and I know Trixie has smoke bombs and is good at climbing vertical surfaces.” I frowned. “Wait, is Trixie an eight-legged radioactive mutant in this universe?”

Twilight stared at me, mouth hanging open. She shook her head to clear it and started to reply, but I used her momentary pause to leave. I walked out humming the Mission Impossible theme. I was going to go break into the castle.

I reluctantly decided that it was going to be a lot of effort to recruit Sunset and Trixie if they didn’t remember me. That was going to take a lot of explanation, and frankly I just wanted to get on with it.

So I decided to forgo their help and just kidnap Shining Armor. I figured he was going to be a little bitch about it, so I waited until night to swing into his bedroom in the castle in the Crystal Empire.

He and Cadance were lying there together under the covers. I raised the obsidianized kitchen knife I’d gotten from the fight with Sombra.

Cadance’s eyes opened. I put a hoof to my lips. “I’m just here for Shining.”

By some miracle, possibly due to pony herding instincts, she matched my quiet tone, if not my mood. “What are you doing here!?”

“Shining said his security was impenetrable, so I’m going to show him it’s not. It’s a stupid game from his childhood years with Twilight.”

“The Sibling Supreme crown?” said Cadance. “It’s very important to him. Perhaps if you took me instead, he could also get the added gratification of rescuing his damsel in distress.”

I scoffed. “I came here to kidnap your husband.”

Cadane sat up in bed, still keeping her voice down to keep from waking him. “Shining couldn’t stand being the one needing to be rescued. As I said, it’s his thing.”

Reading between the lines, I thought I understood. “But what do you want? What about your thing? Why not try it the other way around?”

Cadance stared at me for several seconds. “I’m going to pretend I never saw you.” She lay down and closed her eyes.

I kidnapped Shining Armor.

He woke up tied to a chair in the hold of my airship on the way to Canterlot. I could have disguised myself, but honestly I figured there was no need.

“What are you doing!?” Shining demanded.

I stopped ringing the ship’s bell in his face. “I’m breaking into the castle. Nopony’s going to touch me if I’ve got you as a hostage.”

“I...I didn’t consider that,” he said.

“Also, you're easy to kidnap.”

I kept him hobbled and a magic inhibitor on his horn. I landed the airship directly in the castle courtyard as I had before and waltzed into the throne room.

As predicted, all the guards backed away when they saw my knife to Shining’s throat. Maybe they were wondering about his hairdo, which was shaped like the inside of a bell. They also stayed out of the way of our footwork. I didn’t even know Shining could waltz. He kept trying to take the lead, though.

In the throne room, I grabbed the crown and put it on my head. Then I let Shining go. “Your security sucks.”

“You are literally the only pony stupid enough to kidnap the head of the Guard in order to test his security system.”

“It’s not stupid if it works.” I started walking back towards the throne room entrance. I belatedly realized now that I didn’t have a hostage I was going to be fair game for the guards outside. Fortunately, Twilight and the girls arrived just then.

“You did it,” Twilight gasped. “How?”

“Shining knows,” I said. I winked at him, figuring he wasn’t going to sacrifice his pride, and dropped the crown on Spike’s head as I went by.

“He threatened my life and held me against my will,” said Shining.

Twilight grabbed me with magic for the second time that day. “You did what?”

I sighed. “What Shining meant to say was that I kidnapped him.”

“That just makes it worse!”

I gestured to the crown, still being worn by Spike. “I helped you win and revealed flaws in the castle security. I didn’t even dong your brother that hard.”

Shining quickly fixed his bell-shaped hair.

“Face it, Twilight, you need me.”

That was maybe the wrong thing to say.

The Point of No Return

“The trial will now come to order. Plymouth A. Valiant, you stand accused of kingdom kidnap, having coerced and held Prince Shining Armor against his will. How do you plead?”

I looked around the courtroom. I had to admit, this was a little more intense than I had been expecting. Usually my wacky shenanigans only resulted in a deep sigh and feeble protests from Twilight.

I had a couple options here. I could point out that I’d been acting on Twilight’s orders to win the crown. I could point out that I was acting on Cadance’s permission to change the dynamic of the relationship with her husband.

Cadance was staring at me from the front row. I could throw her under the bus, but she’d told me that in confidence, and...well, I guess I had to honor that.

There was no way Twilight was going to let me throw her under the bus. She was the judge. I guess Princesses had the authority to do that. One more reason I’d made sure the Twilight from the other universe wasn’t an alicorn.

Also, she looked ridiculous in that powdered wig.

So, after some time to debate, I said, “Not guilty by way of unenforceable punishment.”

Low murmurs went around the room.

Twilight stared at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What’s my maximum sentence?”

“Incarceration.”

“If my crime was to kidnap a prince from one castle and break into another castle with the best security in the country, just where do you think you’re going to hold me?”

More murmurs around the room. Twilight cut her eyes at them, apparently realizing that doing this trial publically to make an example of me wasn’t working out like she planned.

“There’s also the matter of certain other factors pertaining to this case.” I met her eyes, and smirked. Try me, bitch. If I go down, I’m going to land on you.

Twilight’s lips curled, but she banged her gavel and said, “You’re guilty. I sentence you to time served.”

I’d been in custody for less than twelve hours, so that worked out pretty well.

The courtroom started to empty. Twilight and I remained seated.

“So, um, do you still need me?” asked Derpy, my defense attorney.

“No, it turned out to be more open-and-shut than I expected.”

“Good, because I’ll tell you again: I’m not qualified.” She got up and put her delivery hat on. “Hey Princess Twilight, I have a package for you.”

Twilight seemed surprised, but came down from her desk and walked over. Derpy said goodbye and left.

Twilight glanced at the large package, but turned to me before opening it. “Valiant, I don’t know what you were thinking.”

“You asked me to do it.”

“I didn’t think you were stupid enough to do that!”

“I didn’t even hurt anyone. I still got into the castle and invalidated the security. What are you going to do if some villain tries it?”

“You practically are a villian, even if all you want to do is get drunk on my couch.”

“I’m still helping Equestria. Just as I said: the security sucks. Do you honestly think any of the security Shining Armor put in place would have stopped Sombra? I mean, come on, anti-pegasus fans, doubled guards, pit traps, and geese?”

There was a little fire in her eyes. “You’re on thin ice, Valiant. If you ever do something like this again-”

What? Would she do a spell on me? Send me to magic kindergarten? Force me to be friends?

“-you will regret it.”

Well, I guess could live with that.

Twilight gave me a last look and turned away. I called after her. “What about your big package?”

“I don’t have-” She came up short, glared at me, and walked back to the box Derpy had delivered.

Spike came over just then with a scroll. “This just came. Princess Celestia says she delivered a bunch of stuff from your old room. I don’t know why she didn't just send the scroll with the package.”

Twilight opened the box and started to go through it. She suddenly gasped and pulled out a book. “Oh no! Oh no!”

“What’s wrong?” said Spike. “It just looks like an old library book.”

Exactly! It belongs to the Canterlot Library! That means it’s…” Twilight gasped “-overdue!”

“Is it such a big deal?” said Spike.

“You don’t understand! I have a perfect library book return record!”

“Had a perfect record.” Spike and I looked at each other, having spoken at the same time. Twilight shot me a glare.

She went on. “I’ve never turned in a book even a minute late! And this one has been overdue since I left for Ponyville!”

“So like two or three years?” I said.

“Oh, this is bad,” Twilight continued to freak. “What if somepony sees me in there? I’m the Princess of Friendship.”

“Princess Twilight in a library?” said Spike, laughing. “Stop the presses!”

“A late book is a big deal, Spike. What if they revoke my library card? Or ban me from ever entering the building again?!”

“Don’t you already have most of those books in your collection at home?” Spike said.

“Yes, but the ones in there have a special Canterlot Library-y smell!”

“You sniff books?” Spike and I glanced at each other again, having spoken simultaneously again.

Twilight glared at me, but then an idea suddenly came to her. “Valiant, you return this book. And don’t tell anypony who checked it out.”

“That seems kind of counter to friendship, considering you’re lying and not admitting to your mistake, but sure, I was going to Canterlot anyway.”

Twilight looked like she suddenly wanted to reverse her opinion. Spike said, “Why were you going to Canterlot?”

“I want to talk to Sunset. I have to go through the mirror portal.”

“You can’t just use the mirror,” Twilight protested. “It’s in a high security area of the castle.”

“Well, we’ve already established that there’s no one who can stop me, sooo…”

I grabbed the book and was out the door before she could say anything else.

Taking the ATHSS to Canterlot, I stopped by the library and put the book in the book drop. Twilight probably would have gone in and made a big deal out of it.

After that, I went to the castle.

The guards were not pleased to see me, but none of them had the balls to try anything. Quick learners.

I said hello to Celestia as I walked by her throne. She gave me an exasperated look, but she too didn’t try anything.

I headed through the mirror and shortly found myself in the other world. The high school world. I still didn’t get what the deal was with this place, but the important thing was that Sunset was here.

Or I thought she was. Walking into the school, I didn’t see her anywhere.

As a side note, this school had really bad security, and I don’t even mean by my standards.

“Uh, what are you doing here?” said a janitor I met in the hallway. “It’s summer break.”

“Oh. Um.” I frowned. “I did not consider that.” As bad as the school security was, I figured I could try another tactic. “You wouldn’t happen to have the home addresses of a couple of students, would you?”

He shook his head. “I just work here.”

Well shit. I headed back through the mirror.

Walking into the castle back in Ponyville, I surprised Twilight in the middle of a meeting with Discord. Ignoring them, though, I headed for my couch and my tequila.

Whatever they were doing in the other room was probably weird, but I had a better kind of weird waiting for me: Weird Al-cohol.

I really wished that wasn’t just a pun. That was exactly who I could have used just then, someone from another dimension.

I was about halfway into a bottle when I asked myself, well, what’s stopping me? I’ve done it before.

I wandered back into the other room. Discord had left and Twilight was giving me a wide berth. I got the feeling that she’d asked him to use his chaos magic to keep me under control and he’d told her that he wasn’t going anywhere near that. At any rate, that would have made me happy if that was what had happened. I was probably just drunk.

Not too drunk to do some questionably ethical things to a potentially-sapient table, though. However the magic worked, it had to have some kind of logic to send ponies where they needed to go to solve friendship problems throughout this universe. Twilight had already demonstrated that it could show other universes Therefore, if I could figure out how to modify it, I could get it to at least send signals to other universes. Maybe I could even figure out matter transference.

Twilight came in, looking concerned about the electronics that were slowly sprouting everywhere. “What are you doing?”

“Trying desperately to get off this planet.” I said it that way to maybe head off any shit she was going to give me.

“I’ve been thinking about this,” she said. “Are you just acting out because of this mixup in universes? I understand how that might be traumatic.”

I glanced at her. “What makes you think that?”

“Because the alternative is that there’s something very wrong with you.”

“Well, if this works, we never have to talk about it again.” I quickly grabbed a keypad wired into the apparatus and dialed, sending a signal out into the ether, far across the mists of the multiverse to southern Californa.

The phone actually rang, kind of surprising me. However, an automated system picked it up, playing a message with a machine voice. It seems like you're trying to reach Lauren Faust. However, inter-universe calls are blocked. You know who you are; go die in a fire.

It hung up.

I put the receiver down and let out a deep sigh.

Twilight sat down next to me. “I can tell this must be hard for you.”

In response, I slammed the rest of the bottle.

She put her hoof on my shoulder. “Valiant, you’ve done damage here, but helping ponies is what I do. Tell me what you’re going through.”

“Please, please don’t make me talk about my feelings.”

Common Ground

“I’m going to make you talk about your feelings.”

“Goddamnit, Twilight.” I got up. “No.”

Her horn lit up. “It’s not good for you to keep things bottled up. And, in your case, I get the feeling it’s not good for anypony else, either.”

She tugged at me, holding me in place with magic.

“Let me go. Or else.”

“Or else what?”

I stared at her. “I know that the you from this universe hasn’t known me for very long, so you don’t have the depth of experience about what I’m capable of. But from what you’ve seen so far - I threatened Discord of all people with death, I beat King Sombra into submission, I almost had sex with your brother - use your imagination.”

Twilight let me go.

I left.

I wasn’t sure where I was going. Dramatic exits are better when you have a destination in mind.

Rarity would know something about that. I ran into her as I made my way down the street.

“Valiant, there you are. You speak French, right?”

I struggled to remember how she knew that. I was probably drunk at the time. “Yes.”

“Could you translate this for me? I’ve just picked up this lovely cloth from the Bretons of Brittany.”

I had no idea who they were, but it was probably the usual horse pun on something from my own world. I glanced at the tag. “It says it’s from the Bretons of Brittany.”

“Oh, yes, that does make sense.” She sighed. “Though I do wonder why they would need to be so obvious about it. A bit full of themselves, and that’s coming from me.”

I shrugged. “It’s Brittany, bitch.”

I headed off down the street again, but pulled up short as I caught sight of Starlight.

She gave me an odd look. “Why are you vibrating?”

“Twitching too much.”

“You want to kill me, right?”

“It crossed my mind.”

She looked uncomfortable. “Maybe I should have asked Trixie to meet me somewhere else.”

“Wait, Trixie’s going to be here? I need to talk to her.”

Starlight was suddenly on the defensive. “Are you going to threaten her too?”

“No. She’s my daughter.”

Now it was Starlight’s turn to twitch.

She was still trying to wrap her head around that when Trixie appeared. She wore her usual hat and cape. I thought maybe I should have gotten her flowers or something. I’ve never really been good at this.

She glanced at me as she walked up. She apparently noticed my intent look, because she said, “Does Trixie know you?”

Knife to the heart.

“I, uh…” I put a hoof to the back of my head. “In a different universe, you’re my adopted daughter.”

She stared at me for several seconds. “But not this universe?”

“Well, no, but-” I fumbled “-as well as I know you, I just wanted to let you know. It’s awkward, I understand, but...here I am.”

Trixie looked at Starlight.

“He, uh...is from a different universe, I guess. Twilight believes it. I don’t know about the veracity of anything else he says.”

Trixie looked back at me. She shifted her hooves. “Well mister…”

“Valiant.”

“This is quite a story that we should discuss at a later date, which, if we’re being perfectly honest here, will probably be never because I have enough daddy issues without having another one from a different dimension.”

She grabbed Starlight and skedaddled.

I sighed. I mean, Trixie was right. It was weird. I’d even had the parent-showing-up-out-of-nowhere thing pulled on me too so I could see where she was coming from.

Though, the more I thought about it, the more the creeping sense that she was better off seemed to take hold. My Trixie had been a radioactive mutant. Tracing the causality of that...it probably wouldn’t have been that way had I never come to that world and built the nuclear stuff in the first place.

Shit.

I looked after the departing Starlight and Trixie. If that was true, then...maybe Trixie was better off without me.

That was good, and I was happy for her, because I sure as hell wasn’t better off without her.

“HeyValiantweneedaridetoAppleoosabecausetheBuckballHallofFameisopeningandwe’rethefirstponiestobeacceptedsoitwouldbesupercoolifyoucouldflyustherelikerightaway!”

I blinked, taking entire seconds to be pulled out of my introspection. “What?”

Pinkie opened her mouth again, but Fluttershy cut in. “Our buckball team was invited to Appleoosa.”

“And it would be totally cool if we arrived in style,” said Pinkie, speaking slower this time. “So how about it, could we get a ride in your airship? We’ll get you free tickets to the exhibition game.”

“Um.” I shook my head to clear it. Boy did I need that. “Yes. I could use the distraction.”

Pinkie, Fluttershy, and Snails loaded up aboard ATHSS and we went to Appleoosa. Also, Rainbow was there, for some reason. To be fair, I had no idea what the others were doing either.

Appleoosa looked a lot different than I remembered. It wasn’t tromped flat by buffalo, for one. Also, there was a huge stadium at the edge of town.

Fluttershy voiced what I was thinking. “I can’t believe the ponies of Appleloosa built this place.”

Pinkie said, “Yeah, especially after their team lost to us. They must really love buckball.”

“I’m so proud they decided to honor us,” said Fluttershy. “I never thought I’d get to be in anything like a Hall of Fame.”

“Me neither!” Pinkie agreed. “Unless you count a Royal Order of Party Planners Memorial Library, which I don’t, because every party planner gets one of those eventually.”

“That’s cool, I guess. I’ve only got the Plymouth Valiant memorial couch.”

Pinkie looked at me. “How did you even move in without Twilight noticing?”

“You just have to believe in yourself and ignore everything she says.”

“I hope Snails finishes signing autographs soon; we can't play without him,” said Fluttershy, glancing around for Snails. “And if we lose or forfeit one game, we’ll be out of the tournament.”

“Well, he better get his flank over here then!” said Rainbow. “You have to win the first few games without me cheering you on. Applejack was too busy to come, so she made me promise to go to all the museum exhibits and tell her about them. I’m gonna try to get in first and beat the crowd so I can get back to the tournament faster.”

I took a leap of logic. “Doesn’t her cousin Braeburn live in Appleoosa?”

Rainbow blinked. “Hey, yeah he does. She should have gotten him to do it.”

“In this universe, is Braeburn...normal?”

“I guess?” Rainbow gave me a strange look.

I couldn’t figure out how I might have been responsible for buffalo trampling Appleoosa, but apparently without me around it hadn’t happened. With Braeburn not being a cripple, there was no need for me to fix him up with cyborg parts, either.

“You’d better hurry for the museum,” Pinkie said to Rainbow. “Looks like there’s already a line.”

“What?!” said Rainbow, spotting a tent beside the museum’s front door. “The doors aren’t even open yet! What kind of sports fan camps out for a museum?”

A familiar face came out of the tent. It belonged to a guy named Quibble Pants. He smirked. “The real question is: what kind of sports fan doesn’t?”

Pinkie noticed the look on my face. “One of those difference in universe things?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He was an asshole so I long-term gaslighted him until I’d manipulated him to the point that my robot daughter killed him in quote-unquote self defense.”

In other words, I wasn’t really worried about him. Starlight had had an agenda and was powerful enough to back it up. Quibble Pants was just an asshole.

Case in point, he kept talking to Rainbow. “Of course I’m into sports. You can’t keep me away from that buckball rink. I’m the biggest fan there is.”

Rainbow said, “Buckball field. And you are?”

“Oh sure. What with all the bucking and the balling, uh, on the buckball field, which is where they play buckball. I wanted to be first inside the museum to experience the grand history of the sport.”

The guy was hopeless. Or at least I thought he was, until the next sentence out of his mouth was introducing Rainbow to his girlfriend. And to my complete surprise, she was reasonably attractive, normal, and had a kid.

Well shit. That was better than I was doing.

Strangely enough, he’d gone about it in roughly the same way. Quibble, an earth pony, had gotten with a unicorn mare who had a pegasus filly.

I thought of Cordoba. I tried not to.

Clear Sky - which was a weird name for a unicorn - and her daughter Wind Sprint had varying levels of enthusiasm for Quibble. I guess I could understand that - Quibble was clearly not the kid’s real father.

“Quibble is clearly not the kid’s real father,” Pinkie observed.

“I wonder what might have happened to him,” said Fluttershy.

“Well, don’t look at me.” I paused. “Probably.”

Quibble had bought a buckball almanac with lots of stats about the sport, but instead Rainbow went off on some quest to make him more sporty because he was concerned that his sporty new daughter wouldn’t like him. I mean, I didn’t think that was the core issue, but I could see he had room to grow his sportiness. I also had to reluctantly admit maybe Rainbow was just the person to teach that. I overheard her claiming that everypony had a sporty side.

Shit, apparently even Fluttershy has a sporty side, so I was willing to believe it.

Speaking of that, I went to watch the tournament because there was nothing else to do. Spoiler alert: Team Ponyville won again.

I was sitting there in the stands when I noticed a familiar face. It was Timmy Times from the Canterlot Canter newspaper. He noticed me, too.

“You’re Valiant, right?” he said. Apparently he only knew me by reputation in this universe. “I was hoping I could ask you a few questions about your battle with King Sombra. Just how did you defeat him with a bell of all things?”

“Heck, I even shouted ‘you got donged’ as I did it.”

We talked for a few minutes. He didn’t seem to have changed much, which I appreciated. I promised to look for the article when it came out.

Late in the tournament, Quibble came back in the stadium and sat with Clear Sky and Wind Sprint. I noticed that they’d started to bond over the book he’d bought.

So basically Rainbow didn’t do anything at all and Quibble was right all along. What a strange, messed up place this universe was.

To be fair, the way I understood the friendship table, it only called a couple of the Elements when there was a friendship problem. Apparently there hadn’t been one here. Or maybe didn’t think family relationships were in its lane because they weren’t the same as platonic friendship.

I guess. Or maybe I’d just broken the table so it wasn’t calling anyone for anything.

Speaking of breaking stuff, Appleoosa clearly hadn’t learned anything about security. I remembered security screening checkpoints for the Equestria games, but there was nothing like that here. Granted, not that a metal detector would have detected my obsidian knife.

And let me tell you, when you had a knife that could cut through anything, building a sheath was pretty difficult.

The tournament was not really my thing, but the lack of security also meant that I could BYOB. Well, bring my own tequila. Good thing there was nothing to hit in the air as I flew the airship back to Ponyville with the team and their newest trophy.

Back at the library, though, Twilight caught me again and I had nowhere to go. “We’re going to talk about your feelings!”

I put my hooves to my face. “Not the feely feels that make me feel feely!”

I was hoping that would throw her off - and it did - but not enough. She made me lay on the couch and got her notebook. “Now...how do you feel?”

She's All Yak

I guess I’d never really looked at the castle ceiling. You’d think, considering how much time I spent on the couch, but I usually wasn’t awake. Unfortunately, looking at a ceiling was all I had to distract me from the shrink session Twilight was trying to put me through.

“So tell me how this all began,” she said.

“You’re going to have to be more specific. I already told you about my world, my actual world, and also the one I originally came from.”

“What do you think is the root of your current situation?”

“Again, that’s pretty broad.”

“You have to start talking somewhere.”

I thought about it.

“I mean, externally? I’m going to blame Karl Marx. Nothing personal against him, but that’s kind of the root of that category of problem.”

“Just that category?”

“Sure. My communism problem.”

“What about other categories?”

I thought on it. What the hell, I was already here, I might as well open up a little. “In terms of other problems...I guess I have a people problem.”

“I can agree with that.”

I shot her a look. “You should, because it’s you.”

Twilight made an annoyed noise, and looked like she wanted to be angry if she wasn’t currently my therapist. “And why do you feel that way? I let you stay here rent free.” She frowned as if she only just realized that was what she was doing. “What is it about me that you dislike? Am I annoying?”

“No, Pinkie is annoying.”

“Do I smell or something?”

“Applejack does, but it’s because she works hard, so I let it slide.”

“Do I insult your intelligence?”

“No, but I insult Rainbow’s intelligence.”

“Then what is it? Why do you have a problem with me?”

Huh. “You know...I’ve never really questioned it, I just go with my gut. I’ve always kind of felt mildly antagonistic to you. Maybe it’s because you inherently seek to understand things, and those that you don’t, you try to control. You’re always, ‘Valiant, don’t do things.’”

“And with your track record, you shouldn’t!”

“See, there you go.”

Hearing the barb in my words, Twilight forced herself to calm down. “Anypony would disagree with your methods.”

“I don’t live with just anypony.”

She considered that for a moment, tenting her hooves in front of her mouth. “What if you got a job so you could pay for your own place?”

“I prefer entrepreneurship, and the market hasn’t come to me yet. But why should I bother if my goal is to leave this universe as soon as possible?”

“What I used part of my royal stipend to get you your own place?”

“I’d probably spend the money on something irresponsible. Besides, in the other universe, I did have my own place, but you were still like ‘Valiant, don’t do things.’”

Twilight shook her head and turned to her notes. “So we’ve gone through two categories of your problems. Were there any others?”

“Um, yeah, actually. I can think of one more.”

She gestured with her quill to continue.

“So...a long time ago I had this one ex girlfriend.”

“You mentioned that you had, er, many.”

That was one way of putting it. “Anyway, you may remember that I’m from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. For a while there, I decided to try my luck north of the border. You, uh, also have some notes on a few of those.”

Twilight flipped some pages in her notebook. “There were some voice act-”

“Moving on,” I said. “There was a Canadian ski instructor. We were actually together for quite a while. One of my top three longest, in fact. For a while we lived like happy nomads. I followed her, and she followed the snow.”

“One winter, we were in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I was getting the feeling that maybe we were coming to a crossroads. I’d seen it happen a lot before and knew the warning signs.”

“A bad breakup?” Twilight said.

“What? No, I’m talking about an actual crossroads. She was a horrible driver.”

Twilight had been taking notes all this time. She paused to roll her eyes and gestured for me to go on.

“Anyway, at about this time, and for this same reason, I’d gotten really into traffic circles. Now, on Earth, we didn’t have magic, but in a place like Equestria where ‘a demon of the crossroads’ could be literal, I bet it could be a great thing. It would not only eliminate the crossroad and create a circle to trap magical creatures, but it would also do its intended purpose of keeping vehicle traffic flowing. It’d be win-win.”

“How do your plans for modifying Equestria’s road infrastructure relate to the story you were telling?”

“Oh right. Anyway, my ex was bad at driving and so I was really enthusiastic about traffic circles. I was in a bar at Lake Tahoe one night talking to this guy about them. He gave me his business card and said I should talk to him about my proposal when he got back from his vacation. Then he died, so there went that plan.”

“Is that part of the story?”

“It is, actually.”

“What happened to him?”

“My ex got confused at an intersection on the trail while teaching him to ski and he crashed into a tree.”

“Do you feel guilty about it? Is that why you are the way you are?”

“Why should I? I didn’t have anything to do with it.” I shook my head. “No, the problem came a little later. I attempted to install a traffic circle in the cemetery where they buried him. It was partly in his honor, it was partly to ensure that the world would be just a little bit safer, and I admit, I was kind of hoping I could use the circle to summon him back to life. Of course, it didn’t work. No magic on Earth.”

“Is that what you feel guilty about?”

“Why do you keep asking me if I’m guilty about something? I’m trying to describe a problem I have with my life.”

“Just assuming.”

“Anyway, as you may expect, people don’t take kindly to heavy construction in the middle of a cemetery and this guy had known a lot of powerful people. Worse, it was the same cemetery were Frank Sinatra was buried, so I had the Rat Pack after me, too.”

“I don’t know who that is, but I’m guessing some kind of celebrity?”

“Yeah. It was really complicated. Fortunately, because I’m the kind of guy who could get into a celebrity cemetery with a bulldozer, I’m also the kind of guy who could get out. Unfortunately, there were a line of cars of people paying respects outside and I crushed a couple with the bulldozer.”

Twilight opened her mouth to ask a question, but I kept going to preempt her. “There was a nice limo down at the end of the street. Not seeing anyone around, I jumped off the bulldozer and hid behind it. I was planning to just act like I’d dropped some loose change or something and walk away like I was a casual bystander.”

“Anyway, the limo’s door opens and hits me. This woman gets out and says, ‘Watch it.’ I look up at her from where I had fallen on the sidewalk and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, are you Cher?’”

There was a moment of silence. “Anyway, that’s what happened,” I said.

Twilight blinked. “Wait, what? Who was it?”

“It was Cher.”

“So...you recognized this person?”

“Yeah, and she’s been after me ever since then.”

“For recognizing her?”

“No, for praying to a God other than her. Cher’s kind of territorial about that.”

“Valiant, you could have cut that story by ninety percent!” she shook her notebook at me.

“Well, we already established that I have a problem with annoying you.” I turned my head and saw Twilight grinding her teeth. I smiled to myself. And the beat goes on.

“Still...I’ve never told anyone this before. So, thank you, Twilight. It does feel good to get it off my chest.”

I stood up from the couch and pulled out my obsidian knife. “That’s why I have to kill you now.”

With reflexes I wouldn’t have thought a book nerd like Twilight possessed, she fired a panic shot of magic. I saw purple, and then I saw nothing.

What seemed like a modest time passed. It was probably a couple seconds. Sounds and colors started to come back. A scene came into focus, and I could hear music.

I was surrounded by children. I was wearing an ill-fitting suit. It looked like we were in a darkened gym.

How the hell had I ended up at prom?

Thank God it wasn’t mine, at least, though I was kind of disappointed that I was still in Equestria.

I glanced around as the kids danced, recognizing most of them. There were posters on the wall for something called a Fetlock Fete. There was an added note that in the spirit of multi-species inclusiveness, this event was instead being called the Amity Ball.

Ugh, still. School dances. The worst.

I saw Spike sitting behind a DJ booth wearing a giant papier-mâché version of his own head. I don’t know why they didn’t just get Vinyl Scratch to do the music, but maybe she was getting to be too expensive for a school dance.

I walked over to him and said, “What the hell?” over the volume of the music. It helped that Spike was sitting behind the speakers.

He glanced at me. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“This is the first time I’ve ever woken up someplace without drinking the night before.”

“Oh. You know, I don’t remember you being here earlier.” Spike shrugged.

“Hmm.”

Talking with Spike a little more, I learned that it was the same date, just a few hours later. What might have transpired since Twilight blasted me in the library, I had no idea. Maybe she’d tried to cast her time travel spell to get away from me, but on the spur of the moment accidentally sent me to the future. That didn’t explain where the suit had come from, though.

As I checked myself over, I also noticed a small jingly bell in my pocket with a note attached to it. Strange.

“Am I supposed to be a chaperone or something?” I said.

Spike shrugged. “I think we have plenty of teachers here. We even invited the Ponyville school. A lot of the students from there started coming here anyway.”

Now that he said that, I spotted Cheerilee across the room.

“Um, Spike, is Cheerilee a vampire in this universe?”

“Cheerilee was a vampire in your universe!? That’s so awesome!”

“I’ll take that as a no. Also, not as much as you’d think.”

I stood there for a couple of seconds, and then shrugged. It had been a quite a while since I’d been able to have to normal conversation with Cheerilee and I wondered how different this version of her would be. Though, to be fair, she didn’t really like me even before she became a vampire. Eh. Maybe if in this universe she’d had more time just being a teacher she was more up on academics and could help figure out what Twilight’s spell had done. I walked over.

Then I got trampled by Yona who was trying to do a pony dance and failing hard at it.

Frenemies

Grogar, while powerful and ambitious, was not powerful and ambitious enough. He’d resurrected Sombra, broken Tirek and Cozy Glow out of Tartarus, and found me in the forest, but for all that, his plan proceeded remarkably slowly.

“I don’t want to tattle on my good friend Tirek,” said Cozy, “but you might like to know he left food out. Again.”

“I’ll deal with it when I'm done,” said Grogar dismissively, crouching over his goat eye-shaped crystal ball.

“Don’t trust anything that nosy little pegasus says!” Tirek protested.

“I don’t trust anything any of you say,” Grogar replied. That might have been the smartest thought he’d ever had in his colossally long life.

For my part, I couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to needle him about his glacial pace. “Are you planning on attacking anypony anytime soon? If not, I don’t know why I’m wasting my time here. I am a queen, you know?”

“And yet here you are my servant, Chrysalis,” Grogar said. He glared around the room at the three of us. “I can’t handle this arguing. I don’t care how, but you must learn to work together! You saw what happened to Sombra! Only then can we accomplish what you so greatly desire – the defeat of Twilight Sparkle and her friends!”

He walked away.

Grogar wasn’t powerful and ambitious enough, but still had one over on me, the one and only Queen Chrysalis. And that, no pun intended, was royally insulting.

I went back to my room. It felt annoyingly like living in a parent’s house. At least, every time I’d impersonated a foal.

This room, though, was bare. I had a flat piece of floor to sleep. That was about it.

My palace.

Aside from that, there was a stack of business cards that had come from somewhere. The front said You just got donged! in a font that suggested “radical” as the kids called it these days. I had to keep up with such things to maintain accuracy in my impersonations. The back of the cards listed an address in Las Pegasus.

I made sure to keep my tape recorder out of sight. I’d glamoured it to resemble a sex aid. Cozy and Grogar wouldn’t know what it was, and Tirek would pretend he didn’t. However, I was forced to make it a crude one, resembling a log, because such things were what we had in Grogar’s primitive lair.

I hung about my room and sulked. It had been weeks since Grogar had advanced anything. He’d just kept the rest of us sitting around. I’d started sleeping more. Sometimes it felt like I would miss days at a time. Not that days had any meaning in an evil hideout with a couple of immortal beings.

That was one cheer-up. Cozy Glow would be dead in eighty years or so.

Speaking of, she opened my door and walked in as if it weren’t my private space. “And how are you doing on this fine-”

“How do you think I’m doing?” I snapped, bumping my nose into hers.

“Oh gee,” said Cozy, not minding in the slightest that I glared daggers at her. “Being cooped up with nothing to do is the worst! You know what you need? A team meeting!”

“I don’t do meetings.” If anything I led them. I was a queen!

A queen without a castle, without a people.

My acid introspection was almost enough to make me miss what Cozy said next. “Well, Grogar left me in charge-”

“No he didn’t,” I responded automatically. “And even if he did, I obey no one. I’m not coming to your meeting.”

“There’ll be cupcakes,” Cozy sang.

Oh Bug God that sounded good.

The cupcakes were nothing special, but a lot more special than dirt. Cozy had called the meeting and wasted no time in pitching her latest scheme. “Grogar wants us to work together to defeat our enemies. Which means we need to trust each other.”

I paused from chewing. “If we are to trust one another, perhaps inform Lord Tirek to stop trying to absorb my essence!”

“I wasn’t doing anything of the sort!” he said, playing at innocent. “How dare you!”

“How dare I!? Do you know to whom you are speaking?”

Honestly, if Grogar wanted a higher class of villains, he could have done better. Tirek, for all his age, power, and wisdom, couldn’t even own up to it. Well, and the fact that I could literally see him attempting to pull magic out of me and put on top his cupcake. Though, maybe I could just see through it because I’m a natural actor.

“How could I not know who you are? You tell your, uh…” he gestured to the disguised tape recorder “log every five minutes.”

“This is why Grogar left me in charge,” said Cozy.

“No he didn’t!”

And so on.

It got so bad that Grogar actually sent us away on a quest together. He monologued for a few moments about a magic bell that Gusty the Great had stolen from him and hidden away atop Mount Everhoof and then sent us to retrieve it.

Not that I’m innocent of a good monologue, but after being on the receiving end of one, maybe I can understand how I was defeated. Notes for the future. Must stay hungry.

Grogar didn’t say we had to do the quest together. Perhaps he didn’t care. We were going to do it as a team if Cozy had anything to say about it - and she certainly did. Tirek and I abandoned her along the way.

I also abandoned him. He really should have seen it coming, though maybe he thought he was abandoning me. It served him right for always trying to suck my magic. I was the chief sucker around here. No, wait, that was the wrong pun.

Solitude left one a lot of time for her feelings. I’d decided that I didn’t much care for my own feelings. Things used to be so much better, with my hive around me and doing my will.

There were a lot of names on my mental revenge list. Starlight Glimmer. Twilight Sparkle. Hmm, okay, maybe it wasn’t that long. More revenge to go around, then.

I kept climbing the mountain. I’m not sure why I bothered. Because Grogar told me to? It still smarted that he could probably beat me in a fight and that was the only reason I did his bidding. Being controlled by one more powerful was demeaning. It was insulting to see it from the other side. I vowed then that I would do everything in my power to get out from under his hoof. I was never going to be controlled again. I was the controller.

Still, there was a mountain to climb.

I flew as long as I could, though the high winds, as forecast, eventually forced me to keep going on the ground. I could have transformed into a form better able to handle the weather, but waited to conserve magic. I didn’t even have to transform to deal with a horde of nasties waiting in the forest. Whatever terrible situation I had fallen into, I still at least had my powers of intimidation. There were advantages to being an insectoid monster.

Wait, when had I ever thought of myself as a monster? Was my self esteem really that low after being forced into servitude? Was my self esteem really so low that I was actually worried about my self esteem? Was being worried about my self esteem actually driving my self esteem lower because I was the kind of pathetic loser that worried about self esteem?

It was an even bigger blow when I tried and failed to reach the top of the mountain.

I practically surfed back down the slope lubricated by my bleeding pride.

I encountered Tirek and Cozy at the bottom of the mountain. Tirek had set up an easy chair and a campfire. He must not have tried to climb the mountain at all and I was jealous I hadn’t had that idea. It wasn’t like I could think any less of myself.

Just then, there was a rustle in the bushes and an ophiotaurus slid out. I use the word slid, because its body was mostly snake, but it was also partly bull, so there was room enough for doubt.

Thinking quickly, I transformed into a female version of the same. While relative attractiveness is highly dependant on species, I wouldn’t be the changeling queen if I didn’t know how to seduce bull/snakes and everything else for that matter. As soon as I had his attention, I sucked all his lust. No, not love, but still better than anything I’d had in ages.

“So gross,” retched Cozy, watching me eat. Served her right.

“Just to be clear, I didn’t save you because I like you,” I said.

“Is it because you neeeed us?” said Cozy.

I was about to correct her that no, I was just looking for a meal and grossing her out was a bonus, but Tirek interrupted and after the day I’d had, I wasn’t assertive enough to correct the issue.

We ended up around the campfire talking about what had happened and what we had learned. I took a moment to cocoon the ophiotaurus, a snack for later. Also, it grossed out Cozy again.

“So when you pony-napped Twilight and the others, you cocooned them,” she said.

“Those ponies do have weaknesses,” said Tirek. “I used that turncoat Discord. Tricked him into helping me capture his so-called friends.”

“Discord was really something until friendship ruined him,” I contributed. We hadn’t been friends, of course not, but I did appreciate anyone who also routinely attacked ponies.

“I heard a most interesting story the other day,” said Tirek. “A strange stallion has appeared in Equestria. He threatened Discord with bodily harm before fighting a dozen royal guards inside the castle.”

My ears perked up. “Oh? Who is he?”

“His name is Valiant. I don’t know much about him, but he apparently lives with Twilight Sparkle and is known to cause trouble.”

Some kind of cohabitation, possibly a lover? That would be a perfect pony for me to impersonate. I’d get to have her love, be close enough to spy on her, and as him, have a perfect excuse to be bad.

“I wonder why he lives with her if he’s a troublemaker,” said Cozy. “Maybe she’s trying to reform him?”

The moment was too perfect. I transformed into a copy of Twilight. “I’m a pathetic pony princess! I made a detailed list of all the ways I’m a failure!”

Cozy and Tirek both laughed. Perfect, that made them easier to manipulate. Also, making fun of Twilight made me feel better about myself.

The three of us eventually reached an agreement to scale the mountain again, but together. Also, I got the opportunity to bodily throw Cozy across a chasm. If I missed, she would die. Win-win.

To my mild surprise, we did eventually reach the summit of the mountain as a group, and found a cave there. It could only be the same one where the bell Grogar wanted was hidden. However, it was surrounded by a forcefield of magic. I was the first to hit it.

To my mild surprise, no one made a joke about a bug zapper.

Cozy said to Tirek, “Can you absorb this magic and make it go away?”

“I can only absorb magic from living beings.”

“Like her?” Cozy said.

“Betrayal!” Well, here we go. I took a stance. I’d been debating for a while whether I could take on Tirek in a fight. After eating from that ophiotaurus, I was almost willing to try my luck. As a bonus, Cozy would probably die in the crossfire.

“No, no, not betrayal, teamwork,” Cozy quickly attempted to clarify, waving her hooves. “If Tirek absorbs your energy, he might be strong enough to break through.”

I paused. Tirek had never been able to take my magic without my will. At least I had that over the ponies. “So what happens after you get through the barrier?”

“Then he gives it back,” said Cozy.

“I do?” said Tirek.

“How do I know you won’t try to take my magic and leave?”

“Would we do that to you?” Cozy paused. “Okay, normally, yes, we would. But just trust us. We’ve gotten this far on friendship.”

I hate you, Cozy Glow.

Still, it was worth a shot. I let Tirek have some of my power, but acted as if I was completely drained. That extra energy wasn’t enough for him to tear down the magic barrier, just open a hole big enough for Cozy to get through. Tirek strained under the burden. “Hurry!”

Cozy was back in seconds. “The bell isn’t there!”

“What do you mean? Did we come all this way for no reason?” Tirek grabbed her angrily.

“Maybe she’s hiding it,” I suggested.

Cozy, grasped in Tirek’s hands, gestured at herself. “Where!?”

“Wel, what are we going to tell Grogar?” said Tirek, setting her down. I waved a hoof at him. He played dumb for a moment, but reluctantly gave my magic back.

“Grogar is too powerful,” I replied. “Something must be done about that. Let Grogar think we’re his loyal servants. In the meantime, we’ll hatch our own plan.”

“Ooh, I love a good backstabbing!” said Cozy.

I immediately regretted saying my plan out loud. Cozy would probably tattle on me. But that meant I could plan on Grogar trying to break up my plan, so I could plan around his plan to stop my plan. And in the meantime, maybe I could get Tirek and Cozy to work with me a little.

For me. I had to stay positive.

We headed back down the mountain and told Grogar the truth. The bell wasn’t there. I tried to subtly hint that Cozy was the only one who’d actually been inside the cave, so we were all going by her word alone.

Grogar was understandably angry. I was able to shelve my pride for just a little longer by telling myself that I was just acting when I said, “I’m sorry, Grogar, we just aren’t as powerful as you.”

“Obviously! At least you finally did as you were told and worked together.”

Did we? I glanced at Tirek and Cozy. I felt like I came out ahead on this quest. The two of them might trust me a little more and recognize that they couldn’t have done it without me.

I did wonder what had actually happened to the bell, but wasn’t concerned. Strangely unconcerned, even. I did wonder what was so strange about it, but then found myself strangely unconcerned about that, too.

“I’m going to my room, for some private time,” I said. I held up my disguised tape recorder. Tirek hastily looked away.

Back in my room, there was another You just got donged! business card lying on the floor where I normally slept. I didn’t know how it had gotten there.

Sweet and Smoky

“You guys like barbecue?” I said.

Twilight’s eyes came at me over the top of the book she was reading. “Barbecue sauce?”

“Actual barbecue. I mean, come on, did you ever wonder why the sauce was called that? Clearly there must have been barbecue before someone started bottling a sauce and selling it in the store like a knockoff of the real thing. It’s like saying ‘imitation pancake syrup’ - clearly there must have been real, and far superior, pancakes before.”

“This isn’t just another plot to kill me, is it?” said Twilight.

“Look, I’m sorry, okay? That’s not something I say a lot, but in the heat of the moment I got a little worked up and I made a spur-of-the-moment decision.”

I decided to hold back in telling her how I’d tried to kill her in other universes and sometimes succeeded, too. The last time she’d felt in danger for her life, she’d done a spell that I was still trying to figure out. I’d ended up a few hours in the future with no memory, at a school dance, wearing a suit, and with a jingle bell in my pocket.

I got the feeling I wasn’t going to figure it out, either. At the dance, I’d talked with Cheerilee but not even she remembered me arriving. I still had the bell, for all the good that did me. My Santa Claus days were over, though, not that it really resembled a traditional jingle bell. It was kind of a weird looking thing, maybe an antique.

“You may be right about the barbecue,” said Twilight.

“What?”

“Your comment about barbecue. Now that you mention it, it has to stem from somewhere. I take it you had barbecue in your other world and you like it?”

“Right.”

“Do you know how to make it?”

“I’m from Wisconsin, so...no. Whenever I tried, people would laugh and call me a Yankee and it hurt my feelings.”

I reached for my knife, again intending to kill Twilight because she knew too much, but stopped myself. She didn’t know what half those words meant. It would be more fun to hold that lack of knowledge over a nerd like her.

Speaking of that, I should go do some science and generate more knowledge to frustrate her.

I went into the table room where the giant interactive map was. We’d hacked it a little to place phone calls to other universes. I decided that I was getting desperate enough to casually see if anyone was willing to offer me help. Not quite desperate enough to ask, just yet.

Who ya gonna call? It was an ancient and time-honored question. I sat there with the dialpad in front of me. I still hadn’t decided after a couple of minutes and got up again.

Fluttershy walked in. “There you are, Valiant. I hope I could ask you for a favor: transporting Spike, Smolder, and I to the Dragon Lands.”

“Okay,” I said. We headed for the airship.

I did vaguely wonder why Smolder was out of school. That made me wonder if Spike was even in school. Wasn’t he younger than her? Granted, it was a friendship school and Spike was already better at it than Twilight, who was the headmaster. Headmistress. Whatever.

Apparently Smolder’s brother was sensitive and she needed to go comfort him. I know, I’m as surprised as you. Aside from pony-raised Spike, I didn’t think sensitive dragons were even a thing.

When we landed, Fluttershy immediately went to find eggs. Misunderstanding her intentions, I did give some thought to how we were going to cook them. I guess there were plenty of hot rocks around.

However, it turned out they were dragon eggs. Sapient beings aside, I didn’t think that sounded very tasty.

This being Equestria, the eggs were all brightly colored. Despite still being in the shell, Fluttershy immediately went into babytalk mode.

Dragon Lord Ember walked over and helpfully pointed out, “They can’t answer you. They’re eggs.”

The two of them exchanged greetings, though that was tempered somewhat by the usual dragon social skills, or lack thereof. “Which one are you again? The party one? Apple Dash? Or was that the country one?”

“Fluttershy, the one who loves creatures,” Fluttershy replied. She gestured to the eggs. “Are all these yours?”

“What? No!” Ember protested. “None of them are. Watching over eggs is just part of the glamorous life of a Dragon Lord.” She added, “Maybe you can help.”

“I’d love to!” Fluttershy gushed. “Just tell me what to do!”

“I don’t know,” Ember admitted. “It’s my first time being in charge. Dad wasn’t big on sharing Dragon Lord details. It’s kind of a burn or be burned job.”

“Well, I’m sure you’re doing great,” Fluttershy put in.

“Not really. The eggs should’ve hatched by now, but none of them have even cracked.”

That was about where she had lost my attention and I wandered off.

I really should have been more focused on the climate when I came to the Dragon Lands. It was very difficult to get my tequila cold.

After scheming for a little bit, I came up with a way. Temperature is a linear function of pressure. By lowering pressure, I could cool things.

I had a knife that could cut through anything. I started slicing rocks apart and holding the bottle close to where the sudden vacuum formed each time I rapidly pulled a chunk away. It didn’t work great, but I didn’t exactly have the material available to build a refrigeration unit.

A while later, I was at least functionally drunk. Some teenage dragons found me. I was mildly surprised it had taken so long, but was looking forward to being an instructive part of their education. Their street education.

“Well look at this pony,” said Garble. Excellent, he would make a fine example.

Smolder, Spike, and Fluttershy appeared just then. Fluttershy saw my knife coming out and acted quickly, probably saving his life. “There’s nothing wrong with being a pony.”

“For a pony without a horn, she has a point,” I conceded.

The rest of them quickly forgot about me, embroiled in another problem. Apparently the dragon eggs weren’t hatching because they weren’t hot enough because Garble and his friends redirected the underground flow of lava to go surfing on it. You know, regular teenage shenanigans.

And then Garble started performing beat poetry and I knew I should have killed him when I had the chance. At the very least, the other dragons laughing at him warmed the eggs enough to hatch. Fluttershy went into full-on squee mode. I just drank more to compensate.

I was vaguely aware that some character growth had happened, but wasn’t sure exactly how. It wasn't mine, at least. I drank more on the way back.

It was evening when I stumbled back into the library. Pinkie was there for some reason, probably to annoy Twilight while I was gone, and I rounded her up as I went into the map room.

“What are we doing tonight?” she asked, bouncing alongside me.

“The same thing we do every night, Pinkie: try to take over the world.”

I shook my head. “Uh, sorry, force of habit.”

Cautious about the implications of giving Pinkie access to a universal telephone, but in my drunken state, curious what she might do with it, I showed her how it worked.

“So, I can’t visit other universes, but I can at least call,” I said. “I’m trying to get back to my own dimension and maybe this can help.”

Pinkie eyed a nearby bonfire I had lit. “What’s that for?”

“My backup plan is smoke signals.” Being Twilight’s crystal castle, you could just light fires anywhere. I never knew I needed to do that before being in a fireproof building, but it was proving to be pretty convenient.

“Isn’t that a fire hazard?”

“No, it’s just a fire.”

I turned back to the dialpad. I would only resort to other methods if this didn’t work, but it paid to be prepared.

I wondered what number I should dial. With an inward, childish giggle, I began with 1-800-ASSHOLE.

ring ring

“Hello?”

“What the - Valiantina?”

“Valiant!? What the hell?”

I actually hadn’t been expecting this, but found it incredibly hilarious.

“Where are you?” she said. “You missed this month’s meeting.”

“My universe got deleted and I’m taking refuge in one that doesn’t have a me.”

“How did your universe get deleted?”

“Not important.”

“Actually, I think that is the important part of this conversation.”

“Nuh uh.”

She sighed. “We’ll get back to it later. Where are you?”

“Not sure, as I said, this place doesn’t have another of me. No-Valiant World. The first one. No-Valiant mark 1. nVMk1.”

“So what do you want me to do about it?”

As before, I couldn’t just ask for help. “I’ve been working on getting back. That’s been a pain in the ass since I my other world got deleted.”

“So...what do you want me to do about it?” Her voice changed, as if she was smirking. “Are you trying to ask me for help but your ego is preventing you from doing so directly?”

Goddamnit. She was me, after all.

“No.”

“Okay, well, good luck with that.” She still sounded amused. I made a split second decision and opened my mouth, but she had hung up.

Calling her back would have been worse, and so I just put the phone down.

A couple of seconds passed as I brooded. “So…” said Pinkie, breaking the silence. She gestured at the phone. “Are you hungry? Want to order a pizza?”

Going to Seed

I may drink to excess, but never in express.

Okay, that’s a goddamned lie, but the point is I will do anything for a pun at Twilight’s expense.

So when she walked in on me after an all-night pizza and drinking party with Pinkie, she should have known what was about to happen.

“If you were going to have a pizza party in my castle you could have at least asked me first, if not invited me,” she grumped.

“There’s still some left, if you’re looking for breakfast,” I said.

Twilight glanced at one of the boxes. “Where did you get this?”

I looked at Pinkie. “Where did we get this?”

“It was your multiverse phone.”

“Yeah, but you ordered it.”

Pinkie shrugged. “I’m just going to plead the Twilight on this and say magic did it; I don’t have to explain anything.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Twilight demanded.

I laughed. “Like you’ve never pulled some cheaty magic out of your ass. That’s practically the only reason we keep you around.”

“I keep you around,” she grumped. “You’re literally freeloading in my castle.”

“Have some mystic pizza,” I said.

Twilight glared at me, but opened a box and pulled out a slice. I went on. “You know, Mystic Pizza was the title of a movie from my original world.”

She was still angry at me, but swallowed the bite she was chewing and asked, “What was it about?”

“It was a coming-of-age film set in a pizzeria in a town called Mystic.”

“That’s maybe the most boring possible explanation for that movie title,” Pinkie commented.

“Maybe. It had a lot of big-name actors in it. It was Matt Damon’s first movie. It was one of Julia Roberts’ and Vincent D'Onofrio’s first.”

“I don’t know who any of them are,” Twilight pointed out.

“Matt Damon and Julia Roberts are now some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Vincent D'Onofrio is less known, but still pretty famous. His first movie was only a year before Mystic Pizza. It was called Full Metal Jacket and he played a young military recruit who murdered his instructor and then himself.”

“Oh my gosh,” Twilight muttered.

“Suffice to say, that’s how you get the attention of a human movie-going crowd. Slightly related, a few years after Mystic Pizza, Julia Roberts and Vincent D'Onofrio would reunite with small roles in a movie called The Player about a movie producer that kills a guy.”

“Are you an expert on movies, or is this common human knowledge?” Twilight asked.

“Well...you remember the story about how I met Cher that one time. She had a cameo in The Player. She also was in Stuck on You with Matt Damon.”

“I’m sensing a trend here,” Twilight said doubtfully.

“You don’t know the half of it. As I was leaving the scene of the incident where I tried to build a traffic circle in Sonny Bono’s cemetery, I ran into this woman. She was a little older than me, but good looking and we hit it off. I still don’t know how, because she was trying to speak Spanish while I was trying to speak French.

“Anyway, she was an astronomer and had been part of the team at La Silla observatory in Chile. They found an asteroid and had named it 8299 Téaleoni. Actress Téa Leoni, interestingly enough, dressed in drag to play Sonny Bono in the movie Fun with Dick and Jane. Starring opposite her in that movie was Jim Carrey, who likewise dressed in drag to play Cher. But the connection goes deeper. Cher starred in Mask. Jim Carrey starred in The Mask.”

“I’m going to go now because I think we’re getting a little off track here and I also think you have a little bit of an unhealthy obsession with Cher.” Twilight got up. “Do you mind if I take Spike some pizza?”

“No problem,” I said. “Share and...Cher alike.”

She quit talking to me after that, so plan successful.

“Wow,” Pinkie observed after Twilight had stormed out. “I can’t believe you had me set up and rehearse the Mystic Pizza line of conversation with you just so you could throw it away on a one-liner like that.”

“You should be grateful for these Sonny and Cher puns. I’m doing them pro bono.”

She quit talking to me after that, so plan successful.

Not satisfied with the carbs in my tequila or the pizza we’d been eating all night, I headed for Sweet Apple Acres. If I was having a cheat day, I might as well go big.

I walked into their kitchen in the middle of breakfast and had a seat at the table. I told everyone Granny had invited me. Granny was so hard of hearing, she thought she had. Yes, it’s possible to actually have hearing so bad that it goes negative and twists words. It’s like auditory opposite day.

I dug in, but paused. “Applejack, why is your dog eating pancakes?”

“Same reason you’re eating pancakes,” Applejack said. “Because I made them.”

I really couldn’t argue with that answer, even though it wasn’t exactly what I had asked. Whatever. Free pancakes.

Big Mac was nodding in front of his breakfast, almost sleeping. I wondered about the blueberry syrup he was unconsciously pouring across the table. I would’ve thought the Apples would have had, well, you know.

They were busy with something and mostly ignoring me. I’d noticed that happening more often lately. Ponies seemed to prefer to just bypass anything that gave them a mild inconvenience. Since I was mostly on good terms with the Apple family, I wasn’t going to do anything that majorly inconvenienced them.

Applejack was talking to the rest about something called the Confluence, a big harvest that only happened once every hundred moons. I have no idea how long a moon was. A month?

Just then, the door opened to reveal cats. I was a little surprised, but still had pancakes in front of me, so I stood my ground. Well, sat at the table. The wall of pussy resolved itself into an older pony who just happened to have a ton of cats with her.

“Goldie Delicious!” Apple Bloom exclaimed.

“Granny told me y’all could use a helpin’ hoof with this here Confluence, so I came a-runnin’,” Goldie said. “It’s too bad y’all ain’t ever caught the Great Seedling. He’d have granted you a perpetual harvest, Confluence or no.”

“The Great Seedlin’?” said Applejack. “Well now, I haven’t thought about that old mare’s tale for years.”

“The Great Seedlin’ ain’t no mare’s tale!” Goldie protested. “He’s a magical earth spirit all the colors of the harvest that travels from farm to farm daring ponies to catch him. And those that have the ingenuity are rewarded with crops that are always in bloom.”

“Wait, what?” I said. Visions of an eternal agave harvest danced in my head.

“You want to catch him?” said Apple Bloom. “With the two of us workin’ together, we shouldn’t have any trouble!”

I looked at Applejack. She wore a skeptical look. See, Applejack was very black and white. She was honest as the day was long, didn’t buy into rumor, and naturally expected the world to be the same. Of course, the world wasn’t, so when magical creatures did exist she was caught flatfooted. Applejack probably wouldn’t even believe in magic if she didn’t have unicorn friends.

So me going after the Great Seedling basically came down to betting Applejack was wrong about the supernatural and that an old Equestrian legend was real. This was a bet I would take all day long.

First I had to extricate myself from the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what Winona was going to think about all these cats. Plus, Mac was sleeping again. I wasn’t sure if he was a werewolf in this universe, but it seemed impolite to ask in front of his family.

Applejack seemed to want Apple Bloom to actually do some work around the farm, considering the extra large harvest. I wasn’t sure if Equestria had child labor laws, and at what age they kicked in. Did it count if Apple Bloom had her cutie mark? Could a family employ their own child? What if said child didn’t have a cutie mark related to the type of work?

I realized I was getting distracted and got back on track. Right. Hunting down a possibly-fictional creature. I was all set to call in air cover and surveillance, but remembered I had yet to invent those in this world. Hmm. What was the fastest way to get them?

I had no idea if Sunset’s version of a human world that could be reached through the mirror portal had the kind of high-end satellite equipment I needed. They had cars and earbuds, so who knows, maybe they invented ballistic rocketry.

I remembered that I’d tried to go see her last time and the high school on the other side of the portal had been closed for summer break. I didn’t really know how time passed over there, so it might or might not still be break. Either way, getting Sunset’s help would really make this easier.

Well, except that she might not remember me. While the world across the portal was technically another universe, it was inexplicably tied to this universe. Well, not this one, but every pony-Equestria. They seemed to come in chained pairs.

So I didn’t know if Sunset’s world had military spy gear. Well, okay, it wasn’t technically Sunset’s world, but I didn’t know what else to call it. Also technically, Sunset herself might not know about the hardware if she didn’t know me and know that I would want to know.

And if Sunset didn’t know me, I wasn’t sure how I was going to get her to know me to help me out. I’d already tried Trixie and that hadn’t worked out. This wasn't even going into how I was going to fit a heavy-lift space launch vehicle through the mirror portal.

“Um, Valiant?” said Apple Bloom.

I shook my head. “Huh?”

“You’ve been starin’ into space for like five minutes.”

“I was just thinking about complicated things and...it was not really going well.”

“There’s somepony I can always count on to help me when my thoughts are too big for my head,” she said. “I can take you to them.”

What did I have to lose? Better still if it was Twilight. She deserved it.

“Okay,” I said. “Let’s go.”

This proved to be a mistake.

Student Counsel

“Why are we going to the school?” I asked.

Apple bloom had said she knew what to do when my thoughts were too big for my head: get a bigger head. Twilight had not appreciated that when I arrived at her doorstep.

“I told you I knew someone who could help you think things out,” Twilight replied as we walked. Apparently she was pawning me off on someone else.

“At the school?”

“Well, we want to help our students any way we can, so we make sure we have somepony on staff who can help them talk through their thoughts. It helps them to express themselves and amplify their own ideas.”

“Thinking for themselves? Are we still talking about an elementary school here?”

“Technically it’s a middle school,” she shot back.

We walked in and headed upstairs. There were a line of ponies standing in the hall and Twilight said, “Here we are.”

I glanced forward. “I can’t even see what we’re standing in line for.”

“Trust me, it’s worth the wait. Now if you’ll excuse me, the girls and I are on our way to Canterlot to celebrate the spring solstice.”

“How long will that take?”

“We’ll be gone for a couple of days.”

I was immediately on the defensive. “Is this another ploy to get me to run the school while you’re gone?”

“First of all, I would never trust you to run this school.”

“You did in the other world and I made great strides in reducing the Equestrian Education bureaucracy.”

She ignored that and went on. “Second of all, it’s spring break so the school will be closed.”

I gestured. “It’s open right now.”

“Our guidance counselor is very dedicated.”

I sighed. “Can I drink in line?”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I don’t hear a no.”

Twilight sighed and teleported away.

For my part, I did stand in line. Time flies when you’re having rum. With tequila, you just don’t remember it passing.

Eventually, I got to the front of the line to find that the door was closed. I looked around to find that I was the only one still standing there. Was I supposed to knock or something?

I did. Suddenly, Starlight Glimmer teleported in. My first reaction was to break my bottle over her head and she dropped like a sack of potatoes. No, actually that would have been if I’d broken a vodka bottle.

I stared at her for a moment, but she didn’t move. Well shit, why couldn’t she have been so easy to defeat in the other world?

Strangely, even after my knock and the commotion of the extremely brief fight, the school guidance counselor didn’t open their door.

I wondered where I could get another bottle of tequila. Considering that I hadn’t been in this world for very long, I didn’t think there were any hidden around the school in the places where I'd hidden some in the other world.

That may have had something to do with why it was so easy for Chancellor Neighsay to burn it while I was principal.

“Starlight?” I heard a voice call.

I turned to see Trixie approaching from down the hallway. “Oh hey Trixie. It’s okay, I took care of her.”

Trixie stopped, looked at Starlight on the floor, and the broken glass around her. “What!?”

“I know, right? Who would have thought you could just hit her?”

“You-but-!” Trixie shook her head. “Why? What did do? Why did you hit a school guidance counselor?”

“School guidance counselor?”

Trixie gestured at the door. “I thought Twilight told you that!”

She might have, now that I thought about it.

“But why would Starlight suddenly appear right where I was?”

“Because it’s her office! She even has a pager!” Trixie tapped the door. A bracelet around Starlight’s hoof blinked.

I examined the scene, seeing how this looked. Twilight wanted me to see the guidance counselor. Starlight was apparently said counselor. She had appeared suddenly because I knocked.

I turned to Trixie. “So?”

“You attacked a beloved member of the community!”

“Well first of all, this is Twilight’s fault. She sent me here and she knew what would happen when I met Starlight.”

Speaking of, Starlight groaned just then and started to move. I wished again I had another bottle. Well, maybe two: one to smash and one to drink because I had a feeling I was going to need both.

“Why did you hit me?” she muttered.

Attempting to preempt anything Trixie might say, I immediately said the first thing I could think of. “You startled me.”

“Nopony’s ever been that startled when I teleport,” she said, getting up, still a little wobbly. She frowned as her eyes came into focus on my face. “Wait, I remember you. Twilight said you were unstable.”

“And let that be a lesson to you.”

“You should apologize,” said Trixie, stepping between us.

“She should apologize for teaming up with Heaven and Hell to kill me.”

“Hell...underworld…” Starlight’s eyes opened wide. “The party in Maud’s cavern! We’re going to be late!”

“You take that back,” I said, pointing my hoof. “Maud is the sweetest pony I know.”

“Now you should also apologize for snapping at Starlight,” Trixie demanded.

“Wait, you guys are on your way to a party at Maud’s place?” I said. How could I get in on that? “Can I...say I’m sorry by giving you a ride there?”

The two of them glanced at each other. “Well, okay,” said Starlight, but she still didn't look like she was really okay with it.

I flew the two of them there in the ATHSS. I was mildly surprised to see that Maud lived in a literal cavern, but honestly I guess I should have seen that coming.

What I wish I hadn’t seen at all was Mudbriar, the stick pony, who was apparently Maud’s boyfriend in this reality. The dude had to be trying in order to be as obtuse as he was. I know some people can’t help it, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to strangle him.

I really missed having Sunset around.

I hadn’t been invited to the party, but Maud is easy to get along with so it was cool. Almost immediately, however, the party was interrupted by some hippogriff coming in looking for Silverstream. This was apparently Terramar, her brother.

“I was supposed to meet her at the Mount Aris train station, but she never showed up!” he explained, panicking slightly.

“It’s a long way between Ponyville and Mount Aris,” Starlight noted. “She could be anywhere.”

“I know she had a big project due for Twilight. Do you think she might’ve stayed to finish it?” said Terramar.

Starlight agreed and teleported out with him.

“Cool,” I said, “More cake to go around.”

“We should help them,” said Sunburst, who I hadn’t realized was there until just then. “You brought an airship, right?”

“I never said I wasn’t going to help look for a missing kid,” I pointed out. “It’s a big airship; you can bring the cake too.”

We flew off to the school. Fortunately, I’m good at driving with only zero hooves on the wheel. The cake was...difficult to chew. It seemed like somebody had put a little too much cement in the frosting. I wasn’t sure why. Wasn’t half bad otherwise.

Back at the school, we circled up with Starlight and Terramar, who apparently had found enough evidence to speculate that Silverstream had gone into the Everfree to find a cockatrice.

Sunburst gasped. “What!? The gaze of the cockatrice is known to petrify any who dare to cross its path! And the reptilian birds are elusive and solitary!”

“What book are you quoting?” I asked.

“How did you know I was quoting a book?”

“It’s not like you think for yourself.”

He fumbled for a couple of seconds, but had apparently never read a book about comebacks.

I turned to the others. “Well shit, going after a cockatrice? I get that Silverstream isn’t used to not being under da sea, but if a teenage student thinks going into the Everfree alone after a monster is a good idea, you all are failing as faculty.”

“Hey!” Trixie got in my face again, but Starlight waved her away.

“No, he’s right.” Starlight looked away. “This never would have happened if I had only helped her instead of telling her to figure out her project herself.”

This was a side of Starlight I had never seen before. Though to be fair, I hadn’t seen very many sides of her after she killed me. Damn, was she really so different now?

We all piled back into the airship and flew for the forest. Night was setting in now, but with the unicorns of the group providing spotlights, we cruised through looking for Silverstream.

Terramar said, “According to Silverstream's research, the cockatrice prefers rocky terrain and ample shade.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Rocks and shade. Hmm. I can’t imagine where we’ll find that in a forest.”

Just for a moment, I was transported back in time to when I knew her as a daughter and she knew me as a father. I knew that tone. I knew that attitude. I closed my eyes for a moment. I really needed to get home.

Maud said, “Actually, rocks aren’t the most hospitable environment for shade trees.”

Mudbriar added, “Technically, pine trees like Pinus Cembra or Pinus Sylvestris can grow from narrow crevasses or cracks in a rocky rhizosphere.”

Starlight pointed. “There's some pine trees over there!”

I set the airship down on a low hill and we headed forward. I wasn’t exactly sure why we had landed - Silverstream could fly - but was just following the crowd. Being in the back seemed like the safest bet, considering we might be facing a creature with a gaze that could turn things to stone.

Make that creatures. As we reached the edge of the hill, there were dozens of them down below.

“I thought you said they were solitary!” Starlight hissed.

“They are!” Sunburst whispered back. “This must be some kind of migration.”

“At least there’s no sign of Silverstream,” said Terramar.

“Let’s hope she found a good place to hide,” said Sunburst. “There could be hundreds more cockatrices on the way. If this really is a migration, it’ll take a full lunar cycle to complete.”

We got back in the airship and took off again, leaving the flock of cock behind. Cockatrices, that is.

Starlight was rapidly losing enthusiasm. “This is all my fault. I’m never taking time off from my counseling duties again. If I hadn't galloped off to a holiday celebration, Silverstream would be safe with her family, and you’d all be enjoying Maud’s party! Instead, my student is missing and we’re surrounded by a flock of petrifying chicken-snakes.”

Petrifying chicken-snakes might be a good name for a band. I said, “I have a couple of spare ships’ bells here. We could drop them on the cockatrices and shout ‘you just got donged!’ if that would cheer you up.”

She looked at me. “Why would it?”

“It would cheer me up.” I left my position to do just that, but then spotted something on the horizon. “Is that the old castle?”

“That’s right!” Starlight exclaimed. “I bet Silverstream has gone to the clubhouse!”

“The what?”

She explained. The group of kids had built a clubhouse. I mean, as straightforward as the explanation was, she shouldn’t have just assumed I knew. I’m from a different universe, lady. Give me a break and/or a handicap parking sticker.

We did actually find Silverstream in the clubhouse - along with a cockatrice. To my great surprise, Starlight’s first response wasn’t overwhelming magic. That was generally her response to everything in my limited experience with her, so I was kind of surprised. I even had time to pull out my knife and sunglasses. I wasn’t sure if the sunglasses would stop a cockatrice from turning me to stone. Maybe if it choked on them.

However, Silverstream quickly waved us off. “This is Edith. She’s nice. Cockatrices are really friendly if you know how to interact with them.”

She gave the cockatrice a few pets. Sunburst said, “I can’t believe you figured out how to trigger her nesting response.”

“She volunteered to help me with my project. I decided to get it done before I left. The school was closed, so I came here.”

“Alone, to an abandoned castle in the Everfree Forest,” I said. “If there’s one thing I know about Equestria, this is how bad shit usually starts.”

“Why didn't you tell anyone?” said Terramar. “Mom and Dad are worried sick!”

“Oh, no! I’m so sorry! I guess I lost track of time with the school closed. I’m still getting used to clocks.”

Starlight looked guilty. She had before, too, but she especially did now. Silverstream didn’t seem to notice and went on. “They are really fascinating creatures. Did you know that they migrate to the Everfree Forest once a year? Can you imagine what would happen if you stumble on a whole flock of these?”

“Probably the same thing that happened to Mudbriar,” I said.

Everyone turned to look at me.

“What? I thought Maud would like it. Plus, I didn’t want to say anything at the time because we were kind of in a hurry and it wasn’t like he could get any more turned to stone.”

So after collecting Silverstream we went on a rescue mission for Mudbriar. He was right where we’d left him and Edith the friendly cockatrice turned him back.

Well, as back as he could have been. Starlight stared in horror. “His p...pe…”

Mudbriar was missing a very particular stick.

“Well, it’s not like he was ever going to have sex with Maud anyway,” I said hours later as I walked with Starlight towards her office. “If anything, the world has been done a favor because I no longer have to imagine what that would be like.”

We’d got Mudbriar to the hospital. The wound was kind of raw. Maud’s party was completely ruined, so there was no point in going back and everyone else had just decided to go home. I wasn’t sure why Starlight was going back to her office.

I also wasn’t sure what I was going to do with the stone item I’d removed from Mudbriar, but that was a problem for another day.

“None of this would have happened if I’d just done my job,” mumbled Starlight. We reached her office and she opened the door. She took a few steps into the room and then flopped facefirst onto the guest couch. She rolled over and covered her eyes. “I’m never leaving my office again.”

I looked around. It was so weird to see her like this. More weird, this was so obviously not who’d killed me. Twilight must have done one hell of a mental job on her.

It was slightly amazing that Twilight’s mindrapeage - which had apparently worked on Discord, Starlight, and even Sunset - had never come calling for me. But if she ever tried it, it would probably be better to know how it worked. The best way to do that might be to take this learning opportunity from Starlight.

I wasn’t sure if she was in any condition to talk. She still looked pretty broken up, lying there on the couch.

I paused for a moment, and then brought over a chair and grabbed a notebook from her desk. I sat down in the chair and crossed my legs. Starlight lifted her hooves enough to glance at me.

“Tell me how you feel.”

The Last Crusade

“Valiant, you gotta help us!”

I looked up from my place on Twilight’s couch as I read the latest Daring Do novel. Considering I wasn’t from this universe, I didn’t already know her adventures.

Okay, technically, I wasn’t from the other universe either, but it really takes one heck of an accidental universe mixup to make a place feel like home.

“Valiant, you gotta help us!” said Apple Bloom again.

“Huh? Oh.” I was distracted there for a moment. I closed the book.

Hearing the commotion, Twilight came into the room. “What’s going on?”

“We heard Valiant was good at solving problems, so we came to see him,” Sweetie Belle explained.

I pointed my hoof at the three Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Those that would lay down their liberty for safety deserve neither.”

“We, uh, were trying to figure out a way to stop me from moving out of town,” said Scootaloo.

“Oh. Well, in that case...” I turned to Twilight. “Remember what I just said for when you need my help to save Equestria.”

“I’m not going to-!”

Ignoring her, I turned back around to the kids. “Tell me what’s going on.”

They filled me in on the way to Scootaloo’s house. By the time we arrived, I knew everything.

“So your aunt is Ellen Degeneres?”

“I don’t know why you keep calling her that.”

“Because she’s a lesbian married to an Australian and Ellen Degeneres is really the only common denominator I know about lesbians or Australians.”

“What’s Australia?” asked Sweetie Belle.

“It’s a place where they talk like Scootaloo’s aunt. The Australian one, I mean.”

Scootaloo put her hoof on the door, but I stopped her. “Before we go in, there’s something I want to know. How did you guys know I’m good at solving problems?”

“There’s this new radio station,” said Apple Bloom. “They said you were good at solving problems.”

“A radio station? What’s it called?”

“They go by WMKE,” said Sweetie. “It’s kind of a weird station. They don’t do music or anything. A lot of numbers, honestly.”

“So why do you listen?”

“It’s still better than hearing about numbers in school,” said Scootaloo.

She opened the door and let us in, introducing us to her aunts: Holiday (Australian) and Lofty (Ellen).

“Oh, is this Valiant?” Holiday said.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“They provided your exact physical description on the radio.”

“The same station where we heard that Scootaloo’s parents want to make her move to Shire Lanka,” Lofty added. “Though we haven't yet heard that from them directly.”

“Just how does this radio station get their information?” I asked.

Just then, the doorbell rang. It was Derpy with the mail. Scootaloo opened the door and accepted a postcard from her. It was a note from Scoots' parents and they were coming home.

Holiday and Lofty said goodbye and headed out. They'd apparently watched Scootaloo for a little while since her parents were gone. Since they were coming back, there was no need for the aunts to house/babysit.

Given the circumstances, and with no adult supervision besides me, the CMC had already decided to skip school so I could help them come up with a way to keep Scootaloo’s parents from moving her away. Personally, it seemed a little presumptuous of her to think that was going to happen without hearing it from their mouths, regardless of the radio. Still, they’d asked for my help.

“Well, you have your cutie mark now, so being a legal adult you can just get a job and get your own place.”

“That’s...not how it works in Equestria,” said Sweetie.

“Plus, I sure don’t feel like an adult,” added Scoots.

“Wait, then what’s a cutie mark even for? Isn’t it a coming of age symbol?”

“We’re getting off track,” Apple Bloom pointed out.

“Okay, then if you aren’t a legal adult, sue for emancipation.”

“Do what now?” Scootaloo asked.

The time it took to explain that got us off track again. By then, Scootaloo’s parents had arrived. My first indication was when a cragodile burst into the house and tried to eat us.

A pair of ponies ran in after it, tacking the ugly thing. “Heh, sorry to make such an entrance,” said her father in an Australian accent after he had finished recapturing it. “Just brought back a few mates from our last adventure.”

“We couldn't wait another moment to see Scootaloo!” added her mother. “I hope we didn’t interrupt anything.”

“These are my parents, Snap Shutter and Mane Allgood,” Scootaloo introduced. “Their jobs are really important. They travel to the farthest, most dangerous places in Equestria to study unknown plants and fierce creatures. What they learn helps pony science and medicine. I’d go with them, but it’s too dangerous. Once, my mom had to wing-wrestle a wyvern, and my dad got trapped in a chimera’s cave for three moons! He still has the scars to prove it.”

“How long is a moon, again?” I said. Nobody answered as Scootaloo's parents wrapped her up in hugs and kisses, possibly to prevent her from telling any more potentially embarrassing stories. As I looked at them, I realized I was missing a much bigger point. Of all the vague celebrity parodies I had encountered in Equestria, I couldn’t believe I had never met the Irwins.

“Holy shit,” I muttered under my breath.

Snap pulled back from the hug. “Crikey! You’re nearly as tall as me now, Scoot!”

“It’s so good to see you,” said Mane.

“I say we celebrate with ice cream sundaes,” said Snap. They don’t have those in the jungle, that’s for sure.”

“Why don’t you all come? Our treat,” said Mane.

I shook my head in wonder. Why the hell didn’t Scootaloo want to live with these people?

At the ice cream shop, Snap explained why they’d been gone. “We never planned to be away for so long in the first place. We just kept discovering things that could help Equestria.”

Mane continued. “But with all that’s happened lately – Sombra’s return, the destruction of the Tree of Harmony – we decided our family should be together. In Shire Lanka.”

Okay, I could see that. I’d never heard of the place, so it must have only a fraction the disasters that Ponyville had.

“But all my friends are in Ponyville,” Scootaloo pointed out.

“You can come back and visit ‘em,” said Snap. “Or they can take the train to us. There’s one every month.”

A practical sort. Plus, I could listen to his voice for days. God, I missed Steve Irwin. Granted, this wasn’t actually him, but I mean, shit, any replacement for Steve Irwin - no matter how equine - was better than no Steve Irwin at all.

Scootaloo didn’t share my enthusiasm. She turned to me. “Help me out, Valiant.”

“Do you...want me to make more trains to Shire Lanka or something? Do you want me to kill your parents? I guess then I could kill Sweetie Belle’s parents too so the three of you would match.”

“What’s this about killing parents?” said Snap.

“And who were you again?” added Mane.

I glanced up. “You said we were getting ice cream. I thought that implied me too, since I was standing there.”

It did not, as it turned out. At least I got ice cream.

With nothing else to do, I decided to see if I could find that radio station. Strangely, I couldn’t find a radio in the castle. I mean, there used to be one before I stripped it for parts to build the interdimensional telephone.

I vaguely recalled that the Crusaders had one. By the time I made it out to their clubhouse at the edge of town, they were already there.

It seemed that in my absence they’d been trying all kinds of ideas to keep the three of them together. Apple Bloom had even come up with a potion.

She was reading the label as I came in. “On this potion, please depend. Any separation, mend. Friends together ‘til the end.”

“So it’s a suicide pact potion?” I said.

“Uh…” Apple Bloom looked the label again and then quietly put the potion away.

“Well, we have to figure out something!” Scootaloo complained. “It’s not fair! I can’t move away. They’re making me pick between my family and my friends!”

That was a surprisingly well-worded argument. However, it still didn’t reveal which she should pick, nor did it involve a compromise that would make the choice unnecessary.

“Forget this,” said Scootaloo. “I’m going to go hide out at my aunts’. You heard my parents: there isn’t another train to Shire Lanka for a month. If I’m not on it, they’ll have to go without me.”

“Then we’re comin’ with ya!” said Apple Bloom.

“Are you sure?” said Scootaloo. “I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

Sweetie waved a hoof. “Rarity won’t be mad.”

“Applejack neither,” said Apple Bloom.

“Knowing Rarity and Applejack as I do, I seriously doubt that,” I said. I pointed my hoof at them. “I strongly advise the three of you not to run away from home.”

I turned. “Now if you want to run away from home, I can give you a ride to your aunts’ place.”

“Wait, I thought you just said we shouldn’t?” said Scoots.

“Yeah, and that’s what I’ll tell Twilight when she inevitably asks. ‘I did tell them not to.’”

The three of them loaded up with me into the ATHSS. Scoots gave me directions to her aunts’ place and I dropped them off there.

I had remembered to pick up the radio from the CMC clubhouse and started to tune it in as I headed back for Ponyville. My search plan to find the station would be formed from some crudely-wired direction-finding equipment and a visual search from the air for the broadcast tower.

I had a sudden thought. Scootaloo’s father and aunt were Australian. I finally realized why all her life Scootaloo had never been able to fly - she wasn't a chicken, she was an emu.

In thinking about it, I nearly missed the radio station I had been searching for. I checked the time, seeing that it was the top of the hour. Just then, I heard the station identification, the callsign spoken across the airwaves.

My hoof stopped twiddling the dial and I paused to listen. I knew that voice.

The Last Laugh

I lay awake trying to figure out where Twilight had heard me say “oh shit” before. I mean, yeah, I was pretty sure she probably had, but I didn’t remember the specific instance. Maybe it was during the time skip, after she’d blasted me out of the library and I’d woken up at the school prom. I was still trying to figure out what had happened during those missing hours.

What actually troubled me more was that it wasn’t the only time I realized I had missing time. Usually, I hadn’t even been that drunk. Surely my tolerance hadn’t dropped that much.

Maybe. Whatever. I rolled over and tried to go to sleep.

That was going to be difficult because it was morning and the sun was shining directly into my window.

“I hate this job!” I shouted.

The sun got even closer, actually starting to physically press through the window.

“Do it!” I shouted. “You burn me alive, you put my out of my misery, Celestia!”

The door opened. “Sir-”

I threw my pillow towards the door, and the maid-uniformed mare who had opened it. “Get out!”

She came in, hoof raised against the glare of flaming corona. The sun seemed to retreat now that she was here.

Her name was Feather Duster and she was usually the maid tasked to deal with my shit. I use that phrase intentionally. I’m that self-aware and yet somehow still an asshole.

I didn’t usually consider my own virtues, or lack thereof in so certain of terms. Holy shit, this is why I was almost always at least buzzed, but working at the castle had really messed up my usual BAC.

“Sir, regarding your behavior, Princess Celestia has threatened to ban agave if-”

“I don’t give a shit! She couldn’t anyway, I’m the castle Chief of Staff! Nothing gets done without me, just like she made it!”

“This is...not really within my purvey of cleaning your room, but I do need you up and out so I can get to it,” she said.

“It does need cleaning,” I said. “I don’t know how it got to be this much of a pigsty.”

I really didn’t - sober, remember? - and I wasn’t speaking figuratively, either.

“Well, if your room wasn’t an actual pigsty…” she said.

Maybe this was why the last Chief of Staff had left.

In that case, I guess my gripe was with Celestia, not Feather Duster. It was never a good idea to piss off your maid, anyway, even if this one was a pegasus and not a latina.

As I got up and walked past her, stepping over a pig, she said, “And please stop calling me Lemon Pledge.”

“Never.”

I grabbed some breakfast from the kitchen and headed to my office. It was fairly large, garishly decorated, and while it wasn’t particularly high up or close to the princesses, I did at least have a window.

I’d inherited it from some guy named Kibitz. I wasn’t exactly sure where he was now, only that I’d replaced him as the Chief of Staff.

The job of Chief of Staff meant that I kept things running around the castle. While I wasn’t third in command of Equestria, I was third in command at the castle itself, behind the princesses. That meant they delegated almost everything to me. I pretty much made the day-to-day decisions, but had to stay within their approval and the budget they had given me. I could control what made it to the princesses for review, but couldn’t get new laws passed by myself. It was frustratingly checked and balanced.

There was a pile of paperwork in my inbox. I put it in my outbox.

Some might say that meant I wasn’t actually doing anything. On the contrary, the Eisenhower Method was at work.

Imagine a matrix with two columns and two rows, equaling four boxes. You have urgent and not urgent tasks, you have important and not important tasks. If something was not important and not urgent, there was no need to think about it. If something was urgent but not important, get someone else to do it for you. If something was important but not urgent, it could be scheduled for later. Finally, if something was both urgent and important, you had better do it.

Since nothing was literally on fire, I didn’t think I was facing anything that fit in the final category.

The door opened and Raven Inkwell came in. She was an earth pony with glasses and dressed professionally. I guess she was a secretary, but I’d never figured out whose, exactly. Mine? I didn’t think so.

She glanced at my full outbox and appeared to withhold a sigh. She picked up everything, put a cupcake in my inbox, and turned for the door.

“Raven?”

“Yes Mr. Valiant?”

“What’s this?”

“It’s an invitation to the grand opening of the Cheese Sandwich Amusement Factory.”

“It’s not a cupcake?”

“Not a real one.”

“Why was I invited?”

“The Crown was.”

I was Chief of Staff, so I decided who would respond to official invitations. Wait a second, go back. Cheese Sandwich?

“What do you know about this guy?” I asked.

“He’s a party pony partner of Pinkie Pie,” Raven replied. “I thought you had read the friendship journal.”

Once again, this universe had thrown me a curve ball. On the other hand, maybe, just maybe, this was the salvation I had been looking for.

I considered it for a long moment and then said, “Get me Prince Blueblood and a VIP train.”

“We’re going to a joke shop?”

That was one thing that hadn’t changed about this universe - Blueblood was an asshole.

“We’re going to a joke factory,” I said. “It’s official Crown business, so we’ll need to make a short speech on the importance of laughter and how honored we are to be a part of Equestria’s newest industry, which will surely drive our great country forward to ever higher standing.”

“Do not think to lecture me on speeches,” he said, looking down his nose at me, which required him to tilt his head back because be were sitting beside each other. “I am actually royalty, not a peasant with elocution lessons.”

“I’m sure you’re happy for yourself.”

He continued looking down his nose at me, once again because we were sitting together in the same seat on the train. “I see you also have no concept of personal space.”

“You said you wanted a window seat. I wanted an aisle seat, so I don’t see how I could sit anywhere else.”

He gestured around the royal railcar, which was incredibly plush and furnished compared to other train cars. “You could sit anywhere else.”

“Shh, shh,” I patted his forehead. “You’re actually royalty, not someone who knows how to think. That’s why I’m Chief of Staff.”

Blueblood was still in a mood when we arrived at the joke factory. To my non-surprise, Pinkie Pie was also there. It was a grand opening for a joke factory, after all.

“Hey Valiant, how’s the new job?” she said as we walked into the factory. I saw Blueblood eyeing her with disgust. I wasn’t sure if that meant he knew her or not.

“I hate my life,” I replied. “But I can’t leave, because I’m addicted to the power.”

“Wow, with insight like that, you sound sober.”

“I am.” I sighed.

A bald stallion named Sans Smirk met us. I’m not sure why he was wearing a Cheese Sandwich mask. I guess this was Cheese’s business manager or something.

“Wow! A whole factory dedicated to gags!” said Pinkie as we walked in. “I bet this is the funnest place ever!”

It was not. You would think that an Equestrian factory run by a joke pony would have Willy Wonka shit for days, but no. OSHA would shit a brick if there was fun going on.

Oh yeah, as castle Chief of Staff, I’d had the Occupational Safety and Health Administration established. There were far too many workplace accidents in Equestria.

“Maybe the fun is behind all this boring-looking factory stuff,” said Pinkie.

“The fun is the factory stuff,” Sans replied. “We take a fairly serious approach to comedy here. Observe.” He squirted himself in the face with a gag flower.

“The squirting flower’s a classic,” said Pinkie, “but what if the flower was part of a shirt, but the flower didn’t squirt – the shirt did?!”

“That is literally the funniest thing I’ve ever heard,” said Sans. There was enough inflection in his voice and expression that I thought he meant it, but I could also definitely see why he was named Sans Smirk.

“Valiant’s got joke for days, too,” Pinkie offered.

Surprised to be put on the spot, I said, “Uh...what are the symptoms of a disease that causes loss of iron in your hemoglobin and loss of personality in your brain?”

“What?” asked Sans.

“Blue blood.”

Pinkie cracked up as if she hadn’t heard me tell that joke before. Blueblood glared at me as if he’d heard it several times, which he had.

Having now heard from everyone but Blueblood, Sans showed us up to Cheese’s office. It was...dark.

Cheese turned his chair around, face barely visible in the gloom. “Pinkie, I’m glad you came. I knew I could count on you to help me. I...I completely lost my laugh.”

“Well that’s good,” I said.

Everyone looked at me. I waved a hoof. “No, I mean, not like good for you. I just think it’s good that you’re the real Cheese Sandwich and not some Weird Al doppleganger that I’m going to have to send back to Hell. Again.” I paused and put a hoof to my chin. “On the other hand, if you were that kind of guy, maybe I could get Weird Al here to help me put you away, and then I could hitch a ride with him back to the real world.”

I started looking for chalk to do summoning runes. I didn’t see any, and I wondered if I could use Blueblood’s white horn instead.

Meanwhile, Pinkie kept trying to get Cheese to laugh. She mostly used Sans as the butt of her various jokes, and kept escalating things.

I watched with some interest. Seeing Pinkie unto others was a lot better than having it done to you. Blueblood, meanwhile, sulked. “These problems of lost laughter do not concern me in the slightest.”

I shrugged. “Well, I’m not holding you against your will or anything.” I was hoping he would catch the implication in my voice, that I could if I wanted to.

“As if I would walk by myself to the train station,” he said. I wasn’t sure where the carriage that had carried us from the station was now, but I could call it.

“Well, get a taxi. You have money, right?”

“As if I would travel aboard a common hackney! As if I would carry my own wallet!”

“Hey Pinkie, I have an idea!” I called.

She turned away from her Cheese efforts. “By all means, my ears are open. I just can’t get Cheese to laugh!”

“Alright, I’ll take a crack at it.” I glanced around, sizing up the building. “Give me just a sec.”

I found a staircase that climbed up. Everyone watched as I climbed. I made it up near the ceiling of the main assembly area and then stepped out onto a catwalk that led to the shift-change bell. After sizing it up for a moment, I turned, and bucked it loose.

The bell fell straight down and landed on Blueblood’s head.

“Yeah, bitch, you just got donged!” I shouted down at him.

Since I’d created OSHA, you might think such a thing was unsafe. However, I’d been wearing a hard hat, so it was all good.

It didn’t kill Blueblood, but everyone enjoyed seeing him physically injured. Pinkie, who was the type to laugh at anything, which unfortunately included other people getting hurt, cracked up. “Maybe instead of Blueblood, we should call him Prince Belvedere!”

“It’s...it’s, um, funny you mention that,” said Cheese. His voice gained confidence. “I used to know a Prince Belvedere, and Blueblood is a dead ringer for him.”

Pinkie literally ROFL’d.

Watching her, Cheese cracked a smile, and then laughed.

“I figured it out!” Pinkie exclaimed, jumping up with a gasp. “It’s not about other ponies getting you to laugh, you need to make other ponies laugh! You aren’t getting that stuck here in this factory! That’s what’s been wrong with you.”

“It does make a certain sense, sir,” Sans said to Cheese. “Spreading laughter has always brought you joy.”

“But spreading laughter is what this factory does,” Cheese pointed out.

“Except you don’t see it,” said Pinkie.

“I have a solution for this, too,” I said. “I’ve been developing small cameras with remote broadcast capability. By packaging them with your jokes and sending them all over Equestria, you can spy on everyone. Of course, I would also be a recipient of the video feed.”

But Cheese was already gone. He’d thrown on his old traveling outfit and headed out to wander the land as a drifting jokester.

I turned to Sans, who I guess was now the default factory guy, but just then Blueblood groaned from his position on the floor and pulled the bell off his head.

His mane had been formed into a perfect replica of the inside of the bell.

Sans sniggered, but then caught himself and returned to his professional demeanor. “I can already see a market for bell-hair wigs. It will be excellent for Nightmare Night.”

Donging assholes and making money off it? Very interesting.

I put that idea on the back burner. I grabbed the limp Blueblood by the horn and dragged him back to the train station.

Back at the castle, I sighed and shook my head as I walked in the door. Since I’d gone to the factory, there was probably a ton more paperwork I was going to have to have Raven do. This day wasn’t over yet.

Sure enough, when I walked into my office, my inbox was full again. I wondered what would happen if I just set it on fire.

I hesitated too long, though, and Celestia walked in. “There you are, Valiant. I want to start a scholastic buckball league.”

“A school sports competition?”

“Right.” She clopped her hooves. “Get to it.”

She smiled and walked out. At no point did she ask what I was doing with Blueblood.

I sighed and picked up a pen. I wrote start a scholastic buckball league on a post-it, put it on top the stack of paperwork, and moved the entire stack into my outbox.

That done, I decided I’d worked enough today and left the office.

Down a couple floors, I walked into my room to discover that it was still a pigsty. I mean, it was neat as a pin, but still a literal pigsty.

“Damnit, Lemon Pledge!”

“It’s clean, what else do you want me to do!? Also, not my name!”

I really needed to go find a drink.

I turned to leave again. Lemon Pledge said, “Are you just going to leave the Prince here?”

Here being facedown and surrounded by pigs.

“Yeah, he needs a nap.”

“If he doesn’t show some signs of life, I’m concerned the pigs will try to eat him. I’ve heard that they’re omnivorous, and now that the room is clean, they can’t exactly root for slops or whatever it is that pigs do.”

I shrugged and turned for the door. “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a ham.”

Author's Note

"Because I'm actually royalty, not a peasant with elocution lessons” is something GaPJaxie said.

So, Lemon Pledge. I accidentally made her more endearing than I expected and I think she might become a recurring character. What would you like me to do with her?

2, 4, 6, Greaaat

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

I looked in surprise at Lemon Pledge. Clearly, she’d been hanging around me too often.

I looked back at Celestia. “Yeah, me too.”

We were gathered in the throne room, where Celestia had summoned us. She said, “While you’re certainly an effective Chief of Staff, Valiant, your methods leave something to be desired. Somepony has to practically follow you around and clean up your messes. So I thought, ‘who has experience cleaning up your messes?’ and Ms. Lemon Pledge was the natural choice.”

“That isn’t even my name! Er, respectfully, Princess.” She shot me a glare before turning back to Celestia. “And I deal with literal messes. I’m hardly qualified for secretarial or assistant work.”

“And it’s not like I need a secretary or an assistant,” I said. The last thing I needed was somebody else around me being a drag.

Celestia leaned forward. For a microsecond, I saw a flash of that smile I knew all too well. She hid it well, however, and as her face drew close to mine, she said, “Too bad.”

The worst part about arguing with Celestia was, well, you couldn’t.

I grumbled all the way back to my office. I walked in, picked up the papers in the inbox, and put them in the outbox. There was a copy of the daily newspaper on the desk and I glanced at it. The front page featured a picture of Prince Blueblood with his mane in a ridiculous style left over from getting a bell dropped on his head. Pictures had, ah, leaked.

I turned around and nearly ran into Lemon Pledge. “Aren’t you going to do that paperwork?” she said, gesturing to my now-empty inbox.

“I just did, didn’t you see me?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what Princess Celestia was talking about! I may not know anything about the job, but it doesn’t seem right to me.”

“That leaves me more time for a little project I’ve been planning. The throne room floor needs, like, fifteen coats of wax.”

“Now this is a job I do know something about, and no it doesn’t.”

“I want to make it ultra smooth. That’s the best way to do it.”

“Why?”

“Friction experiments.”

She looked at me distrustfully. I said, “I was going to do it myself, but I’ve never waxed a floor before, so I’ll probably end up making a mess.”

Lemon was about to reply, but Raven Inkwell walked in just then. She looked with annoyance at the full outbox, but picked it up. Turning for the door, she said over her shoulder, “The buckball match is today.”

Oh yeah. We’d made a sports league or something. “Why did we make a sports league or something?”

“Rainbow Dash needs to learn a lesson, so Princesses Twilight and Celestia developed a scholastic buckball league leveraging their two schools in order to provide plausible deniability to create a cheerleading squad for Rainbow Dash to manage.”

I laughed. “Oh my God, I love it! This totally makes up for my disappointment at the floor not being waxed.”

“It is waxed,” Lemon said. “And I should think I’m good enough at it that fifteen coats were not required.”

“Could always use a little more.” I went to my desk and plugged in the small space heater. It was a room in a stone castle, after all. I opened the can of wax I had been going to use myself, and instead just coated my hooves with it. Then, I dried them on the heater, leaving my hooves shiny and polished.

Lemon watched me dubiously, but apparently had decided she didn’t want to know.

That was roughly the same expression Celestia wore when she saw me Kramer-slide into the throne room.

“So I hear we’re messing with Rainbow Dash.”

“I didn’t want to trouble you, as this is a rather personal project for me,” said Celestia. “But yes, Twilight requested assistance and I couldn’t resist.”

“Neither can I. I’ll get started right away. I’m going to need about five hundred pounds of black powder.”

I don’t know why I was telling her. I’d already placed the order myself. I gave her a casual salute and moonwalked backwards out of the throne room. Let me tell you, it’s way easier to do on four legs.

Having a low-friction floor also probably saved my life when Derpy dropped off my order a few seconds later. She literally dropped it.

The castle front doors blew off their hinges and had I not waxed my hooves, I probably would have absorbed their kinetic energy with my face. As it was, I found myself carried along with them at a high rate of speed...and rapidly running out of castle hallway.

This was not strictly within the definition of a mess, but Lemon was there to clean it. She managed to grab me before I spent all my kinetic energy against a stone wall and bring me to a halt, wings beating furiously. She said something, but her voice sounded distant and small.

“Whaaat!?” I could barely hear myself over my ears ringing.

“I said, this is going to be a disaster to clean up!” she yelled in my ear.

“Well, Princess Celestia did tell you to follow me around and clean up my messes, and since my explosives are apparently not here anymore, I’m going to go to Ponyville right now. Are you coming?”

Lemon looked conflicted, but agreed.

Legally, we should have taken a VIP train. It was admittedly more comfortable than the airship and didn’t come with uncomfortable questions about using personal vehicles on official business. Damnit, I hated this job. But we took the airship because I hated this job. If you do something badly enough, they won’t keep asking you to do it.

Upon arrival in Ponyville, I first went to Twilight to figure out how we could coordinate to make Rainbow miserable. She seemed a little miffed that I had arrived with that express purpose in mind. She was also curious why there was a Canterlot Castle maid following me around. “Who is this?”

“Lemon Pledge,” I said. I was maybe a little too loud due to my deafness, though Lemon was probably glaring at me because I’d talked over her.

Having to speak up to get me to understand her was nothing new for Twilight, so at least she didn’t have a problem there. “Well, come along. I was just about to meet the others.”

The Ponyville Buckball team - Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Snails - had agreed to train the Friendship School team. Still, we all agreed that there wasn’t much time to put together a team from scratch.

“Maybe they could play a few other schools first. Like the Mane and Tail Styling College or the Scroll-Making Institute?” Pinkie suggested.

“Well, I guess squirrels have to come from somewhere,” I said. “Why not an institute?”

They all looked at me. “Uh, the Squirrel-Making Institute?” I said.

“Scroll,” Twilight corrected, loudly enough for me to understand. “Why did you think squirrel made sense in this context?”

“It was Pinkie, I didn’t even question it. But anyway, the buckball team isn’t why I’m here.”

Just then, Rainbow arrived. “Sorry I’m late, but when Twilight said she needed my help with the buckball team, I figured I’d better grab every piece of coaching equipment I could find! So what should I focus on? Offense? Defense? Trick plays?”

She emptied an enormous pile of gear out of a bag. Oh good, she’d brought enough idiot balls for herself.

Twilight smiled. “I was thinking of something even more important.”

“Awesome!” said Rainbow. “Lay it on me. Whatever it is, I’ll give it a hundred and twenty percent!”

“I knew I could count on your enthusiasm!” Twilight delivered the final blow. “That’s why I want you to coach the cheer squad!”

I took several pictures, both to capture Rainbow’s face as it dawned on her and also because I couldn’t hear the camera shutter click and wanted to be sure I got it. Beautiful.

Twilight had already discussed that she thought I was taking humiliating Rainbow too seriously, but she was the one who had laid out an elaborate plan to teach one of her friends a lesson, so who was the real asshole here?

I didn’t much care about the cheerleading itself or the sports tournament, so I left and headed into town. I still kind of wanted that black powder and thought I might be able to get it from my usual suppliers.

“You know about industrial chemicals, right?” I said to Lemon as we walked.

She looked suspicious, but said, “It’s part of my job.”

“Excellent. If we can’t find what I’m looking for, we’re going to need make our own with charcoal, sulpher, and saltpeter. Hopefully we’re not going to encounter any tentacle difficulties along the way.”

“What?”

“What?” I replied.

“Don’t you mean ‘technical difficulties?’”

“What did I say?”

“Tentacle difficulties.”

“That’s what I meant. I thought you said tentacle difficulties when you corrected me. Did you think I meant technical difficulties but said tentacle difficulties because I can still barely hear myself talk?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because I can barely hear myself talk.”

I started to walk away again. She caught up. “But why would we have tentacle difficulties?”

“We won’t, but we do run the risk of tentacle difficulties.”

Fortunately, we didn’t. Also, waxed hooves turned out to be a boon when I stepped in a mud puddle on the way and they stayed perfectly clean. I can’t say the same for Lemon, who was splashed. You’d think the professional castle staff of a country with superpowered magic could figure out Scotchguarded uniforms or something.

I met Rainbow at Black Powder and Nail Files. Surprised, I said, “Aren’t you supposed to be coaching cheerleaders or something?”

“I am. Pinkie let me borrow her party cannon for the show, so I had to get the stuff for it.”

“Is she loading it with improvised shrapnel now?”

“What? No, the blasting charge!”

I knew that, but rarely missed an opportunity to make this version of Rainbow answer stupid questions. “Do you need any help?” I asked innocently.

She almost snapped, “No,” but then I saw the wheels in her head turning, probably wondering if she could Tom Sawyer me into coaching the cheerleading team for her. Just as planned, so I could do nothing and make her look bad.

“Sure, come with me back to the school,” she said.

I stopped by the ATHSS on the way to drop off the black powder I had bought and then headed for the school. Rainbow introduced me to the squad. It was Yona, Ocellus, Smolder, and two mares I’d never seen before, Shimmy Shake and Lighthoof.

“Why do you two look like Scootaloo’s aunts?” I said.

Rainbow paused, looked at them, and then a curious look went over her face. Then she remembered she was trying to sneak out and leave me with a job, and she stealthily left the room.

“Scootaloo’s aunts?” Shimmy Shake asked. She sounded more like a valley girl than an Australian, but the coloring and appearance between her and Lighthoof, and Scootaloo’s aunts, was striking.

Thinking about Scootaloo’s aunts reminded me of the weird radio station we’d discovered near Ponyville that was apparently a rebroadcast station from the moon. That was part of why I had begrudgingly taken the Chief of Staff job, in an attempt to get to the moon because in this universe I hadn’t yet amassed the wealth or equipment to do it myself.

“Mr. Valiant.”

“Huh?” I jerked in surprise, and looked around. I was standing in a small room. Distantly, I thought I could hear a crowd. Lemon was with me, and other than that, we were alone.

“What the hell? How did we get here? Where is here?”

“What are you talking about?” she said.

“I mean, I blinked and suddenly we were here. A second ago, we were talking about those two cheerleaders who looked like Scootaloo’s aunts.”

“That was hours ago,” she said, frowning.

I’d time-skipped again. This was getting concerning. “What happened?”

“Well, you told me to clean up after the cheerleaders and then you left. A few minutes ago, and you told me I needed to meet you here.”

If that was true, then there was no way to tell what I’d done in those few hours. “Did I say why?”

Lemon was about to reply, when there was a knock on the door. Lemon was closest, and opened it. On the other side was an angry Rainbow Dash. “There you are, Valiant!”

“Tell her I’m not here.”

Lemon stared at me for a long moment, and then turned back to Rainbow. “No, Mr. Valiant isn’t here.”

“He’s standing right behind you!”

“No, no, he’s not here.” Lemon closed the door. She looked back at me. “What kind of mess did you make this time?”

I raised my hooves. “I’m at a loss. I honestly have no memory of the past couple of hours.”

With all the weird stuff happening recently, it took me until then to realize she wasn’t wearing her uniform. “Also, why are you naked?”

“The mud, or do you not remember that, either?”

I decided not to reply to that and changed the subject. “So where are we?”

“A dressing room under the buckball stadium. The game is about to start.”

“Oh good, I want to see this utter failure of cheerleading.”

“They aren’t bad, actually,” said Lemon as I opened the door. “I cleaned up their act.”

“Oh,” I said. I guess I didn’t really want the kids to suffer for Rainbow Dash’s idiocy.

Though as we walked up to the main part of the stadium, I wondered if I should be concerned about the kids. I had thought this was a buckball league for schools. None of the players looked like children. Despite the contrived nature of the game, maybe Twilight and Celestia were both calling in ringers.

I did think it was kind of amusing that due to Celestia’s school being for gifted unicorns, they had to put a horn inhibitor on one to act as the team earth pony and another had to use the butterfly wing spell to act as the pegasus.

And despite those relative handicaps, and being on Ponyville’s home turf, and the Ponyville team being trained by the Pinkie-Fluttershy-Snails champions of Equestria, and Ponyville actually not having half-bad cheerleaders, Canterlot still won.

Well, that was mildly disappointing, but no skin off my nose. Plus, I did get to enjoy a little bit of Rainbow getting an earful from Twilight.

I was distracted, however, by a shadow passing over the stadium. I glanced up. The ATHSS was drifting freely, slowly coming overhead and gaining altitude. “I could have sworn I tied that down.”

I turned to Lemon and gestured skyward. “Are you going to clean up this mess?”

“I don’t know how to drive an airship!”

I sighed and called to Twilight. “Hey, can you help me out?”

She looked at me, away from Rainbow, who took the opportunity to dash off. “Why?”

I gestured at the airship. “I need to get up there.”

I expected her to teleport me, but instead she buttered me up.

I glanced at the glittery magical wings on my back, sighed, swore under my breath, and then flittered up to the drifting airship. Lemon had come with me, and looked like she was suppressing amusement.

I checked over the topside and nothing seemed out of place. The mooring lines were gone, not torn. Either I’d tied the knots wrong, or someone had purposely set it loose. And if there’s one thing I can do drunk or sober, it’s tie goddamned knots.

“That’s weird,” I said. “Why would someone just set it loose? When a significant fraction of the Equestrian population is capable of intercepting an airship, what purpose does it serve?”

I hadn’t checked the lower decks yet, and upon poking my head below deck, immediately got my answer. There was smoke. Not fire yet, but if that fuse leading to the black powder burned for much longer, there would be a reaction quite a bit more energetic than mere flame.

“Abandon ship!” I ran for the railing, grabbing Lemon as I went. That was really more to slow my fall than anything, as I forgot in the heat of the moment that I also had wings.

We were halfway to the ground when the ATHSS exploded. The shockwave sent me tumbling midair and it was only landing on Yona that probably saved my life.

She looked at me curiously as I rolled off her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I guess.” The butterfly wings were tattered, but I wasn’t planning to leave the ground for a little while.

Lemon was shaken, but had managed to land herself. Debris was falling all around. The stadium crowd seemed to think it was a really lame fireworks show, or a huge piñata that was filled with fragments of wood and scraps of cloth.

“What was that!?” Twilight demanded.

I couldn’t clearly say that it had been an attempt on my life, because whoever had set the fuse couldn’t have counted on me getting aboard so soon. At the same time, someone had done it, so nefarious circumstances were definitely afoot.

I opened my mouth to reply, but then a piece of paper fluttering down from above stuck to my face. I pulled it off and glanced at it.

It was a marriage certificate for Plymouth Valiant and Lemon Pledge.

“Oh shit.”

I glanced at Lemon in surprise. “Where the hell did you learn that phrase!?”

I frowned. “Oh wait…”

Author's Note

Thanks to MitchH, Shrink Laureate, and Lithl for some dialogue

A Trivial Pursuit

Celestia stared at me. “I signed this marriage license, therefore it’s binding.”

“But it isn’t! We didn’t get married!” I gestured to Lemon, who was standing beside me.

“And that isn’t my name!” she added.

“Regardless of the reason you used to go by Feather Duster, it says Lemon Pledge right here,” Luna pointed out, reading the marriage license.

“Neither of us applied for this,” I argued.

“But you must have, because only ponies getting married can apply for marriage licenses.”

“That’s what I’m trying to say! Somebody must have faked this with our names!”

“Who?”

I didn’t have a clue.

A tiny part of the back of my mind reminded me that I’d recently been losing hours at a time, unable to remember what I had been doing. I told it to shut up or I’d lobotomize it.

“I don’t know! Why would anyone want us to get married?”

“Could it have to do with the fact her family is one of the wealthiest in Equestria?” Celestia said.

“Huh?” I looked at Lemon, who didn’t meet my eyes.

“Oh yes,” said Celestia. “I daresay her sizeable castle staff salary pales in comparison to the daily allowance her parents gave her as a foal. So does yours.”

Shit, really? Now, I ain’t sayin’ I’m a gold digger, but when I’m in need...

“But wait,” I said to Lemon. “If that’s true, then why are you working at all?”

Lemon glanced away. “I...got bored.”

“Unfortunately, I can’t help you there,” said Celestia. “Also, I should remind you of castle policy not to employ spouses. One of you has to go. I’ll give you until the end of the day to decide who.”

“This job was never worth it,” I said, turning for the door. “I’m out.”

“Don’t you want to go to the moon?” Luna said.

I stopped.

“For that, you’ll need funding and access, will you not?”

“I’ve been a self-made man before, I can do it again.”

“Interesting that you didn’t also mention your wife’s large inheritance. Didn’t you just receive an especially generous early payment, Lemon?”

I needed to get to the moon and figure out where the mysterious radio transmission was coming from. I could keep working for Celstia and Luna and hope they weren’t just stringing me along. I could do the best acting of my life and transform myself into the perfect trophy husband for Lem-er, Feather Duster. I could get out there and put my back into making my own way and rebuilding everything I used to have from scratch.

Man, those options sucked. God damn I would sell my soul to be back in my previous world and not have to go through this bullshit. I would literally do that. Hell, I would literally sell my soul just to be able to contact Sir Win in this universe so that I could sell my soul to go back to my previous one. I wasn’t sure how many people I would have to kill and eat to add up to a second soul, but maybe I wasn’t really thinking this through logically, which you would think I should be capable of considering how crushingly sober I was right now.

Just then, Prince Blueblood stumbled in. His mane was still in the bell-shaped style in which I’d left it days ago. Luna snorted. Celestia said, “There he is, the talk of Canterlot himself.”

Blueblood drew himself up. “I’ll have you know that I’ve made the front page of the newspaper three days in a row.”

“Wait, you’re getting a celebrity out of this?” I said. “Not just ridicule?”

“Indeed I am,” he said. “I have paparazzi following me.”

“You look ridiculous,” Luna said.

“But I am talked about,” Blueblood retorted.

“Oh my God,” I whispered to myself. “It’s a Kardashian gambit.”

“What was that?” Celestia said.

I turned to her. “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. The public sees and demands more. They think it’s ridiculous, they know it’s bullshit - but they want it. And I’m going to give it to them.”

I pointed my hoof at her face. “Screw you, I’m out, there’s a hair salon calling my name.”

“Why are you on my couch again!?”

I glanced at Twilight and turned back to my work. “I quit my job so I can build a new airship after the last one was destroyed. Well, first I have to design it, and get money to build it, and start a business that provides a service for which people will pay me. In the meantime, here I am.”

I’d also spent some time trying to figure out what I had been doing during my little blackouts. I’d hoped I could have followed wax tracks from my hooves the other day, but since then the pegasi had scheduled a heat wave and they’d all melted away.

“You quit at the castle?” Twilight sounded honestly surprised. “I would have thought your megalomania would have kept you as close to the seat of power as possible.”

“Your government is bullshit. I’ve already handily demonstrated that I’m pretty much above the law, so being in a nominal low-effort position close to the Princesses was so tedious I decided it wasn’t even worth the money. Also, I think the B1R I’m building is more important.”

I still didn’t have the technology base built up to produce heavier-than-air aircraft, so I would just have to do a more advanced airship. Since it was a clean sheet design, I could do pretty much whatever I wanted with it, and first priority was weapons. Considering it was an airship, attacks would be primarily air-to-ground, so I might as well call it a bomber. It was my first design, so number one. I added the R because that makes things go faster.

“What’s a B1R?” said Twilight.

“Snerk. Of course you’ve never seen one before.”

“Did you just say ‘snerk?’ And what is it?”

“Like I’d show you my B1R before I present it to the public. It’s going to be huge.”

She shook her head and started to leave the room. “Whatever you say, Valiant.”

“Laugh at my B1R, will you? I’ll show you many B1R’s I can make!”

Well, if there was that much public interest, anyway. Just like an erection, sometimes airships are things you can only make for yourself.

Something was still missing, though. If the airship I was designing was as high-performance as I hoped, I might have trouble staying aboard during high-g maneuvers.

“Also, Twilight, since you’re not using them, can I borrow your magic alicorn seatbelts?”

Her wings involuntarily popped up and she took a step back. “How did you know about that!?”

“...because I’ve seen them? Is that a big deal?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have time to discuss this right now. I’m going to Trivia Trot.”

“I consider myself pretty good at trivial things.”

“I’m the two-time, soon to be first-to-threepeat Trivia Trot champion!”

“I said I was pretty good, not that I was Twilighting levels of nerdiness.”

Twilight looked like she wanted to be angry, but then she shook her head. “No, I can’t let you distract me. Any more than you already have. I was in the zone before you stopped by, and now I have to get back into it.” She turned and walked out.

Still, she had me curious. Trivia about what?

I wandered down to the Trivia Barn after Twilight. Huh, so that was what it was for. I had always wondered, though I guess in a town where they had a store to buy Quills and Sofas, they could also have a specific building just to hold trivia night. It was no Richard Nixon Multipurpose Community Auditorium, but it wasn’t bad.

Upon realizing that I was following her, however, Twilight started to hyperventilate. “No! You can’t come in!”

“Why not?”

She whipped out a huge graph with a bunch of data and ponies’ names. “Based on the regular attendees of trivia night, I’ve charted every potential teammate’s strengths and weaknesses, plus my percentage of winning with each one, and you attending would throw it completely out of whack!”

“You think I don’t know trivia?”

“That isn’t what I said, and I’m not asking you to prove it, either! I mean that I can’t predict what would happen-”

“I don’t care.” I walked past her into the building.

Applejack was maybe the last person I expected to see at a trivia event, but there she was. She glanced over my shoulder out the door. “Somethin’ wrong with Twi? She must be Twilighting over the pressure. Tonight she could become first pony to win three Trivia Trots in a row.”

“That would explain it.”

I saw Rainbow. She was maybe the second to last person I would expect. Then again, she probably heard there was winning and losing to be done. Then Sunburst walked in. Finally, a nerd.

And then Fluttershy walked in. “I hope there’s a question category on fur maintenance for adorable creatures, because I’ve been brushing up.”

If she hadn’t giggled at her own joke, I probably wouldn’t have even caught it. Fluttershy, joking?

“Technically, that was a category last week,” said a flat voice in response to Fluttershy.

“Oh goddamnit,” I said.

It was Mudbriar. He turned to look at me.

“How’s your dick?” I asked.

“...absent.”

“Good.”

“We’ve been going on adventures to find it,” said Maud. “Though so far success has eluded us.”

I didn’t actually know where the thing had gone after Mudbriar had been temporarily petrified and had it broken off, but that was okay, because it wasn’t the kind of thing I would have wanted to keep around anyway.

“How does this affect your relationship?” I asked cautiously.

“We decided not to have kids anyway,” said Maud. “My rocktorate took a while to earn, and we both are so caught up in our work that it would be professionally difficult to organically start a family.”

“I’m not sure if that was a rocks-are-inorganic joke or if it was just a lead-in to adoption plans.”

‘“Sure sounded like a joke to me!” Pinkie shouted as she came in.

“Pinkie Pie!?” Twilight also shouted, pausing in her scribbling notes on her chart. Apparently now she had to deal with two ponies she’d never seen at trivia before.

Maud seemed to notice, too. “Does this happen a lot?” I asked.

“Twilighting? Yes.”

We watched Spike try to console Twilight. “Do I have to do that thing where I list all your successes as Princess of Friendship to put things into perspective and remind you this is just a game?”

“Spike! This has nothing to do with being the Princess of Friendship! And this is not just a game! This! Is! Trivia Trot!.”

I facehoofed and sighed. “As often as I see her do this, I still can’t believe it. Not that I would promote drug use for the already unstable, but I really can’t think of a better way to get Twilight to calm down than getting her stoned.”

“I think you’re speaking figuratively, and not about actual stones,” Maud said. “But you should try it anyway. Trust me, I’m a rocktor.”

Before I could figure out where to procure marijuana, Granny Smith, who was apparently the game master, started calling out the random-draw teams. Rainbow was paired with Mathilda the mule. Sunburst was with Cranky. Fluttershy was with Bulk Biceps. Twilight was with Pinkie, much to her consternation. Maud and Mudbriar were together.

Applejack was paired with Doctor Whooves. The doctor had, in the past, seemed to know more than he was letting on. I wondered if it was the same for this universe, and made a mental note to ask him.

I realized that I was the last one standing around without a partner. Granny dug my name out of the drawing jar and looked around. “Who wants to be this feller’s partner?”

Mrs. Cake stepped up. I shrugged. She probably knew stuff. I figured our complete opposite life experiences would probably complement each other.

All the trivia groups sat down at individual tables with our dinger bells, and the game began.

Granny read the first question. “Who is the pony that despises the holiday season in the old classic A Hearth's Warmin' Tale?”

As a former avatar of Christmas, I kind of had to know the Equestrian version of things. I dinged the bell on the table in front of me. “Snowfall Frost.”

One point for us. Mrs. Cake smiled at me.

The next question. “Which topographical locale used to be a cavern, but after thousands of years of erosion, is now a gorge?”

There was only one gorge in Equestria that I knew about. Ding. “Ghastly Gorge.”

Twilight stared at me from across the room, surprise tinged with horror.

Fluttershy got the next one. Which variety of apple only blooms for five days? Zap apples.

The game continued. We took a snack break. Pinkie was totally torpedoing Twilight’s attempt at a three-peat. Mrs. Cake and I actually held our own pretty well. She even showed off some Olde Ponish she had apparently picked up from reading archaic recipes.

Mrs. Cake may also have known “What flavor cupcakes did Princess Celestia order for Princess Luna's surprise birthday party last year?” but since I had just recently worked in the castle, I knew it, too. “Double midnight chocolate fudge with chili pepper frosting.”

Also, yuck. I guess when you get to be a couple thousand years old, you’ll eat anything just to feel something. That really said a lot about Celestia, honestly.

I correctly answered a question about how flint can be used to start fires - I’d done it.

Desperately falling behind, Twilight engineered a plan to get Pinkie and Cranky disqualified so Sunburst could be her new partner. It didn’t help much. I was on a roll and answered questions about Tirek and Daring Do’s hat. You might say I had personal experience with them both.

Sunburst almost got Twilight disqualified, but then she realized she was a terrible person and got Pinkie and Cranky back in the game. I wondered how long until she forgot everything she had ever learned about friendship again.

Mrs. Cake correctly answered a question about Ponyville Day Spa's most popular candle, and with that we wrapped up an easy win. I mean, if everyone else could just chill the hell out and play a goddamned game, they might have done better.

“So what so we win?” I asked.

Nothing, as it turned out. I mean, my consolation prize was that Twilight hated me now, but she hated me before, too.

Shit, if we were only in it for bragging rights, I guess I got them, but I couldn’t even really stick it to Twilight because of how sad she’d been at being petty over a game.

The event over, people started drifting out of the trivia place. I’d mostly finished up my airship design, so I figured I should probably get around to setting up my hair salon.

Snippy Snip the salonist was sweeping up when I violated his closed sign and stepped into his store. Startled, he said, “Son, how did you sneak in here?”

I gestured over my shoulder. “I’m good with doors.”

I turned and picked up the closed sign, turning it over, and wrote Prince Blueblood bell-shaped haircuts - patent pending - ten bits.

Putting the sign back in the window, I said, “I have a proposal for you. How would you like to sell out to consumerism?”

The Summer Sun Setback

This was maybe the stupidest thing I had ever done, and believe me, that’s saying a lot.

The B1R airship was going to be powered by a two-stroke supercharged diesel of around sixty liters. I’d borrowed it from one of the Equestrian Railroad’s prototype next-generation locomotives.

It was good to be hammered again.

Since quitting at the castle, I’d started un-quitting my drinking habits. It led to things like putting a fifteen thousand pound engine in a lighter-than-air aircraft. I’d make the weight difference up somewhere else.

I was in the middle of drinking and thinking when Lemon stomped in. “The railyard is a mess! They needed that locomotive!”

“Why were you at the railyard?”

“I did as the maid does and tidied up! I would appreciate it if you didn’t deliberately leave messes!”

I frowned. While Lemon might occasionally deserve trolling, I wasn’t usually one to mess with blue-collar folks. Well, unless they happened to have a diesel engine I needed. “I’m not the Chief of Staff anymore. Why are you still following me?”

“Oh no, you’re still the chief of staff, even if you’re not at the castle. The Princesses never removed you from the books. However, due to employment rules about spousal employment, they kicked me out. I can’t work there anymore.”

“But if I’m not in the castle, then we’re back to violating the ‘married employees can’t work together’ rule.”

“This was my first attempt at getting you fired so I can get my job at the castle back, and apparently it still hasn’t worked.”

It was news to me that I was still employed, so I didn’t really mind her trying to cost me my job. “Well, what do you want me to do? Submit a formal resignation?”

Lemon whipped out a sheaf of papers. “Sign it.”

“Are there divorce papers in there, too?”

“We were never married, but wouldn’t getting divorced be admitting to it since you have to be married first before you can be divorced?”

Fair enough. I signed the resignation without looking at it. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to work. Feeding a cultural demand is hard work.”

I headed down to the salon. I’d already opened a franchise in Canterlot. Blueblood was a customer. He hated me. He hated that he had to pay me. But he wanted to be famous. So I donged him.

This was one of the most satisfying jobs I’d ever had. All I had to do was put a bell on a pony’s head. If I didn’t like them, I’d bang on it with a hammer.

The business was really taking off. We’d already adjusted our prices to meet the demand, but I was already on track to be stupid rich by the end of the week. Ponies are dumb. Well, people are dumb.

I wasn’t really sure what I was going to call this business. The sign outside said “bell-shaped haircuts” and I had to trademark something. I wasn’t sure what the inevitable knockoff business would be called. I was also going to trademark everything I could related to dongs.

It was a lot of thinking - and a lot of donging - and the work was tiring. In the middle of all this, as I was pausing to yawn, my eyes closed briefly and when I opened them again, I felt someone run into me from behind and I fell flat on my face.

“What the-” I sat up, realizing I was wearing sunglasses and was sprawled in one of the castle hallways. Lemon was also getting up, apparently having run into me.

“Don’t just stop like that,” she spat.

I had time-skipped again. The difference was, this time, I had a witness.

“This is going to sound weird,” I said.

“Weirder than anything else you’ve been saying?” she said.

“You tell me. Recite precisely everything that happened since I left the salon.”

“Which time?”

“What do you mean?”

“You left in the afternoon and said you were going to get a pack of smokes, whatever that means. It sounded temporary, so I stayed to continue sweeping up hair. Instead, you were gone for like six hours. Then we came here for the Summer Sun Celebration.”

Oh, right, that was today. Well, tonight as ponies partied into the morning sunrise. “But if it’s night, why am I wearing sunglasses? Why are you wearing sunglasses?”

“Because neither of us wants to be seen or can be seen in the castle and you said it would be a good disguise.”

That sounded like me. That sounded suspiciously like me. Yet I didn’t remember doing it.

We kept walking. I started trying doors at random, just to look like I was doing something so Lemon wouldn’t suspect that I was actually losing my memory. She’d already threatened me about excessive messes.

In one room, I found Twilight surrounded by charts. She looked up as we came in. “Who are you?”

“Maid staff,” I said. “Don’t mind us.”

“They’re hiring stallions now? She frowned, but shrugged, and went back to her notes.

Lemon and I walked into the next room, which was the bathroom, and mostly closed the door.

“I cannot believe that worked,” she muttered. “How could it have? Princess Twilight is the most detail-oriented pony in Equestria and you just fooled her with a pair of sunglasses.”

“You might say that I have a way with her.”

Lemon shook her head.

Our conversation over, we were about to exit the restroom again, when Celestia and Luna came into the room. I saw them through the slightly-open door.

Celestia said, “Sorry to interrupt. We know you’re busy planning the Summer Sun Celebration as we requested.”

Luna looked around. “Things seem, uh, calmer than we would’ve expected.”

“With the exception of the odd trivia night, I’ve made a lot of progress since the Royal Swanifying Ceremony,” said Twilight.

I snorted. The three of them glanced at the bathroom, but disregarded the noise and kept talking.

“This may be the last Summer Sun Celebration you’ll need to plan,” said Luna.

“Now that we’re leaving, we don’t see a need for the holiday any longer,” said Celestia. “My sister and I have decided. The time for us to retire is upon us. You and your friends have proven you are ready to lead Equestria. So let this be the last Summer Sun Celebration as Equestria leaves behind the old to embrace the new!”

“Over my dead body!” I shouted, dramatically throwing the door open. “Ain’t nopony taking away my federal holidays!”

I stomped out of the room, Lemon hurrying behind me. I heard Twilight mutter, “What’s a ‘federal?’”

In the hallway, I said, “Classic, she’ll be thinking about that one for weeks.”

Lemon shook her head.

We stopped by my office, where the inbox was overflowing. Apparently they really did still think I worked there. I wasn’t sure I could move the pile without spilling it, so I just swapped the tags on the inbox and the outbox.

That done, I was surprised by the sudden appearance of clouds outside the window and a lightning strike. “What the hell?”

I had thought Canterlot weather was good as a rule. If I remembered correctly, there was a literal law. Not only that, but the Summer Sun Celebration was just about to kick off.

Back downstairs, we encountered the Elements minus Twilight, Spike, and Discord. They seemed concerned about the unfolding disaster.

Just then, Braeburn stumbled in, glassy-eyed and sluggish. “Earth ponies sick... Food missin'... can't... bake... anythin'...” He flopped on the floor.

It had taken me a second to recognize him. He wasn’t a cyborg in this universe. Shame.

Next, a Royal Guard burst into the room, gesticulating wildly out the windows. “Something is wrong with the weather! Storms, hurricanes, fog – you name it! It’s a disaster out there!”

And finally, a group of sequin-clad unicorns came in. The one in the lead announced, “Inform her highness that we will not be performing! A simple fireworks show is beneath us! We’re better than that!

Talk about getting hit with a triple-whammy. “Everything was fine a minute ago!” Applejack exclaimed.

“It’s total chaos out there now!” Rainbow added, her face pressed to the window.

“Don’t look at me,” said Discord, who nonetheless looked amused.

“What are we going to do?” Fluttershy hyperventilated.

“Do about what?” asked Twilight, arriving just then.

Applejack opened her mouth, but Rainbow jumped in front of her. “Nothing! We were just saying that we don’t have anything to do now that everything’s ready!”

“Well if that’s all,” said Twilight, laughing. “Thanks for setting everything up like I asked you to. This is going to be the best Summer Sun Celebration ever.”

She walked away, completely ignoring Braeburn, the guard, the fireworks ponies, and the raging storm outside.

Lemon glanced at me. “Now I think I can understand how you get away with just sunglasses.”

Meanwhile, everyone else was trying to figure out what to do since they had just lied to Twilight. Well, almost everyone.

“Explain to me why we didn’t just tell her the truth,” Applejack demanded.

“Twilight is finally learning not to let her stress get the better of her,” Rarity pointed out. “If she finds out everything went wrong, it could be devastating!”

“Let's just fix it all before she notices,” suggested Pinkie.

“We’d need a miracle,” Spike moaned.

I stepped forward and whipped off my sunglasses. “I believe I can be of service.”

Reactions were mixed. My favorite was Discord, all set up to be a saviour messiah at Spike’s comment, getting forgotten by everyone else.

“Well...what should we do?” Rarity said.

“First of all, Applejack’s in charge, like she should have been from the beginning.”

Applejack gulped, but then put on a brave face. “Alright. We need to figure out what the problem is and fix it.”

“I know where to start,” I said. “Look at Braeburn. He’s obviously had his magic drained. It looks exactly like what Tirek did to ponies.”

“That’s impossible, Tirek is locked in Tartarus!” said Rainbow.

“When was the last time you checked?”

There was an uncomfortable silence.

Applejack said, “We’ll figure it out when we have time. What next?”

I directed, “Discord, use your cheaty magic to unsuck Braeburn’s soul.”

Discord shrugged and snapped his fingers.

Braeburn was up on his hooves in a flash. He took a huge, deep breath, staring into the distance while his eyes seemed to be projecting a light show. In a tiny voice he said, “I can see the air.”

“Cool, back to the kitchen with you.” I turned to the frazzled guard. “You said something was wrong with the weather?”

He nodded. I pointed at Rainbow. “Go fix it.”

“Is that it?” she complained.

“You’re fast, you work with weather, and you don’t like micromanagement.”

Rainbow still wanted to be angry, but she couldn’t find anything to argue about in my words, so she went.

Finally, I turned to the troupe of fireworks ponies. “And what’s your problem?”

The mare I took to be the leader said, “It’s demeaning as unicorns to waste our talents on something so inconsequential as a fireworks display! The most powerful ponies in the land are not meant to be mere performers!”

“Oh, a race riot.” I shook my head. “Okay, let me break this down for you. You were paid by the crown to perform, right?”

“Yes, but-”

“So to do otherwise would be a breach of contract.” I leaned forward and lowered my voice. “Do you remember the fine print?”

“Uh...no.”

Of course not, which was good, because I was pulling this out of my ass. “Then I’m sure you’ll understand when I remind you that breach of our contract carries penalty of death. No pony has dared break a deal with the castle for entertainment services in nearly five hundred years, when a juggler was executed for canceling a show due to catching a cold.”

I turned away. “Also, you’re racist, so when you get finished with the show, come see me for some individual counseling.”

The group of them hurried away.

“Alright,” I said to everyone else, “I guess we’ll have to kill Tirek.”

“Er, we have to find him first,” said Rarity, looking distraught, but grateful for an excuse to object.

“Speaking of villains, when was the last time anyone checked on Sombra in the dungeon?”

There was another uncomfortable silence.

“Get it done, Applejack.” I started to walk away.

Lemon glared at me. I paused. “What?”

“You just casually spread mayhem as if you don’t even care about the work it creates for me.”

I gestured. “None of this was my fault, so if your assigned job is following me around to clean up my messes, then you don’t have to do anything.”

She blinked. “Oh.”

“Now follow me, because I’m going to go mess with Twilight.”

I found her upstairs talking with Celestia and Luna. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to put my sunglasses back on and was spotted.

“There you are, Valiant.” Celestia held up a piece of paper. “Somepony tried to submit a fake resignation letter for you.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “It’s real. That’s my signature.”

“Signatures can be forged,” said Luna. “On top of that, the letter was obviously not written by you.”

Well, that was true, but, “No, really, I want to resign.”

“In the end, you are merely the Chief of Staff and your word can be overruled by us,” said Luna.

“So you still have the job,” Celestia finished. “You’re still married, too. You and Lemon Pledge make a cute couple.”

“Screw you! You can’t make me do anything!”

Luna spoke. “When one is immortal...let’s say we can be very patient.”

I tried a different tactic. “Speaking of patient, how about how you’re just rushing Twilight into power? What’s the deal with that? Are you trying to get out of a job you hate?”

“She’s qualified,” Celestia said, ignoring my ironic point.

“Bullshit. Just the other day she damn near lost her marbles over a game of trivia.” I pointed to the small sky-changing device Twilight was carrying. “She still can’t actually do your job of raising and lowering the sun without help. On top of that, her friends lie to her because they’re too afraid of what she might do if she found out that all her carefully laid plans for the Summer Sun Celebration went awry.”

“What!?” Twilight shouted.

“I hate my government job, but even I can see this transfer of power isn’t going to work!” I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. “I have half a mind to bitchslap the shit out of you for not doing your job right.”

“Jeeze mister, I just work here,” said a mare wearing lingerie.

I blinked. Why the hell was I in a strip club?

“Valiant, why are we in a strip club?” said Lemon, sitting beside me.

Oh shit, it happened again. Timeskips seemed to be happening more and more often. I gathered my wits as quickly as I could and said, “I know why I’m here. Why are you in a strip club?”

“I followed you, because I’m still cleaning up your messes.” She glared at me.

“Fair enough.”

I blinked. “When did you get so jacked?” I hadn’t expected this at all. Tinkerbell she was not. Tankerbell, maybe. I wouldn’t have even noticed if she had been wearing her usual maid outfit. “Also, why aren’t you wearing your uniform?”

She glared at me, veins popping out in her forelegs. “One, cleaning up your increasingly large messes. Two, I didn’t want to get confused with one of the performers.”

“You don’t have to say it like that,” said the stripper defensively.

“What’s your name?” I asked. I always made a point to ask strippers their names because the answer was usually interesting.

“Plot Twist,” she replied.

For a stripper in Equestria, it was honestly hard to tell if that was her stage name or her given name.

“I’m surprised you don’t remember me,” she said.

Lemon turned to me. “Do you come here that much?”

“I was talking to you,” Plot Twist said.

Lemon’s head jerked towards her so fast I heard the bones in her neck pop, only supported by the massive cords of muscle. “Excuse me!?”

“Your father used to come here,” said Plot Twist. “He stopped bringing you when he thought you might start remembering.”

A look slid across Lemon’s face. It was the repressed-memories-long-buried-have-now-surfaced-and-oh-shit-I-was-too-young-to-know-what-was-happening-then-but-in-hindsight-oh-my-God face.

Plot Twist said to me, “But I recognize you too.”

it was my first time coming to the strip club in this universe, and in the other universe it was usually because Pinkie dragged me along. So unless this stripper could see through time and space, it meant she knew me from somewhere else. Or that I had come here previously during one of my blackout moments.

“If I give you a hundred bits, will you enumerate for me the exact details of every time you’ve encountered me?” I said.

“Weird fetish, but okay.”

“I’m afraid you won’t be telling him anything,” said a voice. Another mare approached. She wore a jacket. Despite being in the dim strip club, she also wore sunglasses. There was something about her, but I couldn't quite figure out what.

She handed me a small key. I looked at it in confusion. “What’s this?”

“You’ll need it.”

“I will?” I looked at where the newcomer was currently strangling the stripper. “Why are you choking that bitch?”

The sunglasses-wearing mare smirked. “Don’t worry about it.” She dragged Plot Twist away.

“Well that was weird,” I said. “I wonder who she was?”

She Talks to Angel

Strange how I couldn’t find ponies when I really needed them. This was at least partially why I had built such a sophisticated surveillance system in the other universe.

I’d been trying to find and talk to Doctor Whooves since I’d seen him at Trivia Night, but most ponies seemed to think his name was Time Turner and still couldn’t find him. Maybe they would sometimes see him in the background, but nobody I’d consulted had even ever heard him speak.

I’d tried searching from the air. The B1R wasn’t really great for that, though. In an attempt to justify the locomotive engine, I’d put on a fitting propeller that wound up being about a hundred feet across. Roll stability was a problem.

In the middle of this - “this” being severe longitudinal axis rotation - Twilight teleported in. I had her seatbelts, though, so I stayed perfectly in place while she went flying off.

She teleported back in, this time hovering inside a bubble of magic, gyro-stabilized. “Valiant, we have a problem!”

“You’re telling me! I have to balance running a hair-cutting business, perfecting an errant airship, running from my job at the castle, trying to un-marry Lemon Pledge without admitting we were married in the first place, getting to the moon to figure out the source of a mysterious radio signal, and on top of all that I have no idea what this little key is for.” I showed her the small key the mysterious mare had given me in the strip club. It had seemed important, so I’d hung it on a string around my neck.

“Fluttershy and Angel swapped bodies!”

I have to admit, I was surprised, but it was still a bullshit little problem compared to my own. “So?”

“What do you mean ‘so!?’ How is that not important!?”

“What do you want me to do about it? See, Twilight, that’s your problem. You always bring me your bullshit and then expect me to just figure it out. Granted, I usually do, but you could at least offer a suggestion so I can immediately shoot it down and get on to doing whatever I’m going to actually do. It’s like that time Sombra attacked and you said I shouldn’t kill him, so I didn’t and then you put him in prison and then he escaped. I should have just not listened to you and ended him.”

Twilight winced. “It’s not like we knew-”

“You knew damn well the castle prison wasn’t secure! When I was in there, I broke out by literally opening the door in your face! I literally told you that I was saving up an ‘I told you so’ for when he escaped! I told you so! I told you that, too!”

“At least we haven’t seen any evidence that he’s collaborating with the other villains.”

“Oh, the other villians that escaped. Yes, from the other prison.”

“Tartarus was even more secure. It’s not like we knew-”

“And you only found out because Applejack went and looked after I told her to! ‘Hey guys, you remember that place you take all your dangerous creatures and bad guys? Have you recently confirmed that they’re still there?’ Cozy Glow escaped, and a filly matching her description was described as being one of the causes of commotion during the Summer Sun Celebration.”

I paused, and then added, “Also, really? Locking up a teenager on her first offense in your nation’s most severe prison for a life sentence? My solution in the other universe of blowing her brains out almost sounds more humane.”

Swinging back to the topic, I went on. “Tirek also escaped, and we saw his magic-stealing at work at the Summer Sun Celebration. So he and Cozy are working together. Even if we haven't seen evidence that Sombra is with them, villains are apparently capable of working together so it remains a possibility.” I shook my head. “I don’t cannot even often, but I literally cannot.”

“That’s not good grammar.”

“You’re not a good Princess.”

After saying that, I wondered if I had been too harsh. The way Twilight took it, the look on her face, I think I completely shattered whatever small amount of self-confidence that she still had after dealing with me.

Not that I cared, but it would be inconvenient if she was too depressed and people might even think it was my fault. It technically was, but I didn’t want them to think so.

After getting shook so hard, Twilight would either never recover or take it in and use it as a lesson to get better. I begrudgingly decided to give her a push. “Anyway, this Fluttershy thing - I’m going to go ahead and say this is your problem, Twilight.”

“P-please,” she whispered, lowering her head.

Oh shit, it was worse than I thought. I let out a long sigh and stopped the B1R’s engine. The high compression immediately halted the propeller, which immediately halted the airship’s roll.

Twilight in her magic bubble kept going.

It took her another revolution or two before she caught up. She stopped, and de-bubbled, stepping down onto the airship’s deck. She seemed a little unsteady, even despite the magic. She looked at me. “How are you not dizzy?”

“I am, but I have the sine waves of my dizzy gyrations perfectly balanced against the swaying I would be doing drunk, so it cancels out.”

“How could you possibly do that!?”

“I’m always drunk.”

“I...don’t know how you keep managing things like this with no magic at all.”

“I’m that good.” I put my hoof on my nose, closed my eyes, and sighed, reluctantly stepping forward to deal with the next problem. “Okay, so Fluttershy bodyswapped with Angel. Was it a potion or something?”

“Yes, how did you-”

“A potion from Zecora?”

Twilight blinked. “Yes, how did you-”

“As smart and helpful as Zecora is, I’m not sure I know of a time when she made a potion that was...well, good. She’s made some effective ones. She’s been at no fault when they accidentally got swapped in place of other potions. But whenever she makes potions, they’re either bad with the good, used incorrectly, or just messed up. And don’t forget, she taught potions to the Cutie Mark Crusaders.”

Twilight made a face. “I hate to say it, but you’re right.”

“And all this would be solved if Zecora just labeled the bottles. That’s all it would take.”

Twilight shook her head. “I still can’t understand how you can be so insightful while shunning royal responsibility, being a generally unpleasant pony, and apparently intoxicated.”

“But are you listening?”

“I...can’t condone a lot of the things you do. I will never accept your willingness to end a life. But…” Twilight looked away for a long moment, swallowed, and raised her head. “Yes, Valiant, I will listen to you.”

Jesus Christ, did I neg her so hard that it actually worked and she...well, not liked me but was willing to tolerate me?

“Okay, do you understand what you need to do?”

Twilight straightened. “I need to go have Fluttershy and Angel learn whatever friendship lesson they need, and if that doesn’t work and this wasn’t a friendship problem, go get a counterpotion from Zecora.”

“Right. See, this isn’t so hard.”

She started to turn away, but stopped, and said, “Thank you.”

I was still standing there considering that for a few minutes after she was gone. I couldn’t remember the last time Twilight had thanked me for anything, if she ever had.

Oh shit. I’d accidentally proved that negging worked on females and I’d done it to Twilight of all people.

I immediately started the engine again to go to Fluttershy’s place and try to mitigate the impending disaster.

When I arrived, it was a mess. Apparently the chaos caused by the bodyswap hadn’t been localized.

I’d never really figured out how animals worked in Equestria. Fluttershy had gotten predators to not eat prey somehow. Despite animals being apparently sapient, they were held to the double standard of not being actual people yet not being allowed to let nature take its course. Then you had Angel, who's apparently gained the ability to speak when in Fluttershy’s body.

Somehow, giraffes and pigs were considered animals, despite being ungelates like “citizens” such as ponies and cows, to say nothing of elephants. Was it just an ability to speak? Did that mean mute ponies were animals and not people? Did that make Angel effectively a handicapped pony? If Fluttershy could literally talk to animals, that meant they did have some ability to communicate, further calling the people/not people issue into question.

And what about fish? Fluttershy fed fish to some animals, and I’d seen ponies with fishing poles, so were fish not even considered sapient animals? How sapient did you have to be to vote? Wait, nevermind, voting was never an issue in Equestria.

Damn, I got distracted there. Thank God for democracy to get me back on track.

Wait a second-

I blinked. How did I get in deepest, darkest Manehattan?

I sighed. Goddamn it, at least usually when I lost time my unconscious body had the courtesy to leave me back roughly where I started. How did I get here?

I started to leave the alley, but a thug roughly the size of a Volkswagen Beetle emerged from behind a dumpster. “Huh, I could have sworn I saw somepony else walk in here.”

Could this be a clue? “Like who?”

“Don’t matter,” he said. “You’ll do.” He grinned and pulled out a knife. “I’ll be having whatever money you’ve got on you.”

“Oh?” I took a step forward. “What are you going to do, make me?”

He took a step forward. “Yeah, I think I might.”

I took a step forward. The blade was right in my face now. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

I slowly ran my tongue over the tip of the knife. Leaning forward and taking the blade into my mouth, I gently lowered my head until my lips touched the hilt. At that point, I rolled my eyes upward to look at him and began to work the blade in and out, bobbing my head and occasionally pausing for a long lick the length of the blade.

I knew carrying a switchblade in my mouth for so long would come in handy when I had to fellatiate a knife in some alley.

At any rate, it had the intended effect of creeping him out so much that he dropped it, at which point I stabbed him repeatedly until he died.

I thought about using my own knife, the obsidian one that was holstered on my hip that hadn’t seen much action lately and the thug had apparently completely overlooked, but precision cuts would be too good for him, and anyway, plausible deniability.

That turned out to be an incredible boon, when, moments later, Twilight landed beside me in the alley, folding her wings and looking horrified at the bloodshed.

“I can explain,” I said. “You see, I was just walking by and I found-”

“I was so worried!” she cried. “I thought something horrible must have happened to you and I’ve been searching ever since you disappeared.”

That wasn’t the reaction I had expected, but I rolled with it. “Well, if you’ll just let me tell you my version of events-”

She barely spared a glance at the bloody body on the ground and turned, teary-eyed to me, burying her face in my chest and hugging me tightly.

My eyes went wide. Oh no. Oh no.

Dragon Dropped

“I mean, why does Spike even need to go to the post office? He sends mail by breathing!”

“Rarity, I’m only going to say this once: if you ever use my couch for fainting again, I’m going to kick your ass.”

She looked at me from under the foreleg she’d dramatically thrown over her face. “I thought it was Twilight’s couch. It’s her castle, after all.”

“The less said about Twilight right now, the better. I need you to get up.”

She did, but said, “I want to stay here until Spike comes back. And what’s this about Twilight?”

I’d finally managed to unintentionally neg Twilight so hard that she actually came back around to liking me. I didn’t even know that was possible, but with Sparkles the Wonder Horse, too much magic was never enough.

I said, “It’s complicated. Leave.”

I had a lot to do today and it would only be more difficult if Rarity found out that Twilight was physically affectionate with me.

But it was too late. Apparently hearing our conversation, Twilight came into the front room. “Hello Rarity.”

Twilight stopped beside me, just barely brushing my side. I took half a step away from her. She leaned in, until her head touched my own, and then moved just enough for me to feel her rubbing her cheek on mine.

Rarity looked back and forth between us, at Twilight’s content expression and my annoyed one. “...Complicated. I see.”

“What’s complicated?” Twilight asked.

Her touching me was causing a weird feeling deep inside me. I wasn’t sure what it was. Hate? Embarrassment? Something else?

“Nothing,” I said. “Rarity was just leaving.”

“Oh good. I was looking forward to more time with you to myself.”

Rarity had finally had enough. “Twilight! He is a married pony!”

“No I’m not,” I protested, though even as I said it I realized that maybe it could be leverage against Twilight.

It didn’t matter. “He obviously is a victim of a paperwork error,” said Twilight. “He’s made it quite clear in the past.”

Shit, she’d actually listened to me where Celestia hadn’t?

“As a Princess, I can pull a few strings and get it fixed,” Twilight went on.

My gratitude at getting the wacky wedding wiped away was balanced by the fact that she was clearly doing it because she wanted me for herself and I really was not prepared for that tradeoff.

Maybe it was because of my pleading look that Rarity said, “I actually did need Valiant for something today.”

“Yes,” I said immediately. “And we musn’t delay.” I quickly walked out from under Twilight’s smothering cuddles and hustled out the door with Rarity.

“I can’t figure out what’s gotten into her,” I said as soon as we were out of earshot.

“It is rather strange,” Rarity agreed. “Now about what I had planned-”

Damnit, she actually did want me for something. I let out a groan, but had to admit I hadn’t even heard what she wanted yet and I would still rather do it than be stuck with Twilight right now.

I followed her to the post office. As she told me on the way, apparently Spike had stopped paying attention to her.

“But why are we going to the post office? He sends mail by breathing.”

“That is the question, isn’t it?”

Upon arriving, I stopped dead in my tracks. It was Gabby Griffon.

“Oh, I didn't realize griffons worked at the Ponyville Post Office,” said Rarity, not noticing the expression on my face.

Gabby laughed. “No, I don’t work here exactly. I’m the official mail carrier of Griffonstone. Nice to meet ya!” She shook Rarity’s hoof.

I was still standing there staring as they talked. It would have been culturally inappropriate to scream Why are you not dead!? and doing so would have made a scene. Still, seeing Gabby again was really trying my self control. Though, if I’d internalized Discord and Starlight, I could handle Gabby.

Still, it was all I could do not to meet her face with my hoof when she noticed me and dashed over to say hello.

I disentangled myself from her greeting as quickly as possible. Rarity fortunately rejoined the conversation. “We were looking for Spike.”

“Oh!” said Gabby. “Spike was just here. He went to go get us-”

Spike returned just then with two ice cream cones and Rarity lit him up. “Is something wrong? You always go to the gem cave with me. Is the post office really so important that you could not make time for me?”

“Sorry Rarity, but I had other plans.”

“With me!” Gabby jumped in.

Rarity blinked. “I don’t understand. You two know each other?”

“Gabby and I are sort of pen pals,” Spike explained.

“Yeah!” Gabby agreed. “There was this whole thing where I pretended to get a cutie mark because griffons don’t get cutie marks, so Princess Twilight had Spike send a bunch of letters off to Griffonstone about the first griffon ever to get a cutie mark! Which I didn't really have.”

Spike nodded. “Gabby wrote back explaining things, and after that we just started writing back and forth.”

“Turns out we have a lot in common! We both come from cultures that don’t have the friendliest of reputations.”

“And we’re both in the message-sending business!”

Spike handed Gabby one of the ice cream cones and they each chomped them down.

“Well, I better get going,” said Gabby.

“I’ll fly with you,” Spike offered.

“Well, all right,” said Rarity. “I’m sure Spike and I can do something some other-”

They were already gone.

Rarity hrmf’d. “I need to find some way of regaining Spike’s attention.”

“Rarity, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you got friendzoned.”

Her jaw dropped open. “N-no, that’s impossible! Nopony friendzones me!”

I put my hoof on her shoulder. “Take a breath. Just think about it. That’s basically all you were doing to him. His little barely-pubescent dragon dick doesn’t know what it wants and he’s learning that you aren’t the only game in town. Somehow, he’s actually starting to learn to start thinking with his big head.”

“Well, you do have a way with words,” Rarity muttered. “But that still doesn’t mean I’m happy.”

I wasn’t sure if my words had actually changed her calculus, but I didn’t really care. She would probably do some stupid shit and then learn a lesson that she really should have learned a while ago.

I turned towards the castle again, only then remembering that I would be going back to Twilight. I paused to consider my options. Lemon and I were separated - which should go without saying because we were never together in the first place - but also by distance. I didn’t feel like I owed her anything, but maybe she should at least have the heads up that Twilight was moving in on me. Maybe she could use that information to help our annulment proceedings. I reversed course back into the post office to write her a letter.

I opened the door, but as I walked through, I found that it wasn’t the post office at all but the front door of a convention center. Looking around, the place was full of nerds in costume. There was a sign in front of me that said it was the Power Pony Palooza. I stared. According the date on the sign, I had just timeskipped an entire day.

“I cannot believe you wanted me to come to this,” said Lemon’s voice. I jerked in surprise. She was standing beside me. She wore a costume of La Domestique Francaise, a character from the Power Pony series. While the name wasn’t really good French, and the outfit was basically just her regular maid uniform from the castle, I could already see some nerds looking sideways at her.

I was dressed as Mr. Guy, who due to some magic comic book shenanigans, I’d played in the past. I had my sunglasses, dark suit, and red tie.

“Oh shit, it happened again,” I said.

“What happened again?”

I had nothing to lose by telling her, and maybe it would actually help get this marriage called off by reasons of mental instability or something.

So we found a reasonably quiet alcove in the convention center and I told her how I had been losing time, yet apparently still functioning otherwise. I didn’t tell her a couple of details about certain things I might have done while out of my mind, but just enough to explain why I sometimes asked her to remind me of what had just happened.

“You being off your rocker explains a lot,” she said flatly. “But for this latest period - an entire day, you said? - I only know the part I personally observed. You sent me a letter explaining how Princess Twilight was making moves on you and then invited me to this convention.”

Huh. Aside from the convention, that sounded exactly like what I had been planning to do. Still, if it was only what Lemon had observed, that left a lot of time unobserved.

“Something out of character for you about it, though,” she said. “In the letter, you called me Feather Duster.”

Shit, maybe this was more serious than I thought. I composed myself and prepared to ask for a favor from someone I knew would be unwilling. “I know you’ve been shirking your duties lately at following me around and cleaning up my messes. This is the first time I’ve seen you in days. Can’t blame you for that - despite our personal disagreements, we do both think that arrangement set up by Celestia was bullshit. But I need to ask you something. You’re the only one who knows what’s been happening to me. I have no idea what could happen when I’m like this. In the interest of preventing messes before they begin - and trying to figure out what I do when I’m out of my mind - could you keep an eye on me? This also would have the effect of keeping you between me and Twilight, which I would consider a personal favor.”

Lemon let out a long sigh. “No. I don’t owe you anything and I was trying to get fired from the castle anyway.”

I swallowed and mentally prepared myself for the goveling. “Please?”

“No, Valiant, you can’t have everything you want.”

She turned away. I was just about to go after her, when the entire roof of the convention center blew off in a flash of green light.

Amid screams of convention-goers and nerdy merchandise being thrown everywhere, I saw Sombra appear, towering over the building atop a spike of black crystal. He did his villain laugh. “Plymouth Valiant, where are you? You dare challenge me!?”

“Did I do that?” I mean, it sounded like something I would do, though it must have happened during one of my blackouts.

I yelled up at him. “Hey! What are you talking about?”

He spotted me and jumped down onto the convention hall floor. “You sent me a crude letter, did you not?”

Again, totally sounded like something I would do. I frowned. But wait. How had I known where to send the letter? Was blackout-me keeping secrets from lucid-me? Why? Didn’t we both want to kill Sombra?

“Well?” Sombra prompted.

“Sorry, I was thinking about something else,” I said.

He blinked. “You called me here, to this crowded city full of collateral property to damage and ponies ripe for my brainwashing powers, and you can’t even be bothered to pay attention?”

“Could I see the letter?” I said.

He shook his head. “No! You are going to respect me as the existential threat that I am!”

“Man, when did you start buying into your own bullshit?” I said, pulling out my obsidian knife. “That’s always been the problem with you guys. Ego.”

You might say I had learned this lesson on several, very personal, occasions.

Sombra growled and showed his fangs. He took a stance.

I threw a Daring Do dakimakura at him.

He fired a beam of his crystalizing magic at it, but while he was distracted, I closed the distance and wrapped his horn up in a tangle of cheap necklaces that had been on sale at the booth next to the one that had sold the pillows. It was pot metal, but it worked well enough to Faraday-cage his horn. Now disarmed, he put up less of a fight and I wrestled him to the ground, blade to his throat.

His magic may have been grounded, but hate still burned in his eyes. “Do it!” he snarled. I’ll never surrender to mercy and friendship!”

“You know, I don’t even know why I paused. Maybe I don’t want to get blood on my suit. Maybe I’m trying to think of how this looks in public. Maybe I’m trying to be nice to my not-wife and not leave a mess so she’ll do a favor for me.”

I paused. “But then if I spare your life, Twilight will like me more than she already does, and I really don’t need that. It’s weird. I can’t handle mares coming onto me. I’m totally unprepared and I don’t really know how to handle it.”

“The only thing worse than a monologue prior to battle is one after a battle,” Sombra snapped.

“Oh shit, you’re right.” I thought about it. “But does it count if I’m trying to get some life advice? Like, come on, man, we may not be friends here but bro to bro, what am I going to do?”

“Kill me.”

“It’s all about you today, isn’t it?” I tilted my head. “Though, cutting your throat would help get Twilight off me.”

I leaned forward and suddenly Sombra said, “Wait, I changed my gurgurbrgrubrh-” or whatever sound someone makes when you cut their trachea midsentence.

That done, I got up and wiped the knife off on his cape before reholstering it. I’d done my best to minimize the mess, but throat wounds did still bleed a lot. “Sorry Lemon, I tried to-”

Looking around, I didn’t see her. “Lemon?”

Walking over to where I’d seen her last, I came upon a pile of debris from the destroyed roof. A hoof reached up.

There was a piece of angle iron sticking out of her torso and she’d already lost at least as much blood as Sombra, spread in a pool all around her body.

I went to my knees on the ground beside her. Her head turned towards me, but I couldn’t tell if her eyes managed to focus.

“No messes,” she whispered.

“Okay,” I said.

As far as last words go...kind of a downer.

I walked into the library. “Sweet, a second couch.”

“Do you like it?” said Rarity. “I had it brought over especially for swooning.”

She did, right then.

“What’s your deal this time?”

Twilight came into the room. “I helped her understand that our friends have friends of their own, too. It was selfish of Rarity to try and monopolize Spike, but at the same time, Spike and Gabby have to recognize Rarity’s feelings.”

“Why is it that all of you seem to be really bad at your Element? I mean, except for Applejack.”

Twilight’s face tweaked, but she said nothing.

“At least we managed to figure this out before the Power Pony Palooza, which I had planned to take Spike to,” said Rarity.

“I heard what happened,” said Twilight to me, her tone changing.

“Yeah.” I sat on my couch, let out a long sigh, and rested my chin on my hooves.

Twilight sat down gently on the couch beside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her hoof move towards my shoulder.

“If you touch me, I’ll break your fetlock and then start working my way up the rest of your leg.”

She drew back. “Well excuse me for thinking you have a normal reaction to trauma!”

“Twilight, I don’t think you can even imagine how I react to trauma - or how I define what I consider trauma.”

“Surely you can’t have too much of an abnormal reaction to the death of your wife.”

I sat up straight. “Wait a tick - that means I’m single again!”

A Horse Shoe-In

I don’t know who the hell thought it would be a good idea to schedule rain for a funeral.

I stood there with water from my soaked mane running down my face. Knowing ponies, someone would probably see it and think I was crying.

I didn’t cry over Lemon. Yes, I knew what her name was, but I also didn’t care.

Jeeze, for being emotionally unaffected by this, I sure was thinking a lot about what people thought about me thinking about it.

They did their funeral deal while I stood in the rain and considered it. Lemon’s death felt weird. Sure, I’d seen a lot of ponies die Most of them had been under my hooves, so I definitely got an up close look. I wasn’t sure why this seemed different. It certainly couldn’t be because of the sham marriage. We’d both wanted out of it and she’d protested even more loudly than me.

Thinking back on it, I’d also noticed something strange about how I’d reacted to Twilight getting cozy with me. It felt weird. I couldn’t really chalk it up to an emotion I knew, or thought I knew.

Love?

Screw you, I thought to myself. I should know what love feels like, I’ve had like three dozen girlfriends. Plus, I also felt something from Lemon’s death, obviously love wasn’t it.

Though, I realized maybe the flaw in my logic. I wasn’t used to feeling...well, feeling in general.

Feels. Oh Jesus. Of all the things to catch. Was I going to have to kill more people to make up for this? Where the hell was I supposed to find that many who deserved it?

I’d said it before, but God I needed to get out of this universe.

I spent the rest of the funeral considering ways to false-flag people into being acceptable targets to kill. No, murder in general was not acceptable by pony standards, but I had to justify it to myself somehow.

I almost missed the event wrapping up. A stallion in a suit came up to me, holding an umbrella. “Mr. Valiant?”

“What?”

“My name is Elegant Assurance, and I need to talk to you about the matter of your wife’s affairs.”

“She’s not - she wasn’t - my wife.”

He nodded, but didn’t show any other indication of having heard me. “There are several items of paperwork that will need to be completed.”

I was prepared to kill him right then and there, but odds were that if we were going to do paperwork, we would be going somewhere dry. Plus, even though I wasn’t going to do the paperwork, I would at least like to know what I was up against so I could figure out how to get out of it.

We went to a hotel room in Ponyville. “I am down from Canterlot for the day,” he said. “It was important that I speak to you.”

He opened a briefcase and laid a sheet of paper in front of me. “This is your benefit from your wife’s life insurance policy.”

I looked at the number on the page and swore quietly under my breath.

“Am I really the beneficiary of...all this?”

“There was not one listed, so it has defaulted to her next of kin: you.”

Why the hell have a life insurance policy without a designated beneficiary? Lemon wasn’t dumb, so surely she couldn’t have thought that life insurance was a payment you got when you died.

“When was this policy taken out?”

“Two days ago.”

“By who?”

He frowned. “You did.”

It must have been when I was blacked out before the Power Pony convention. At the same time, I’d sent the letter to Sombra to let him know where I was and invited Lemon to be there too.

Blackout-me had apparently committed insurance fraud.

Well, also maybe set up Lemon getting killed and making it look like an accident in order to pull off said fraud.

Shit.

I stared at the paper. Accepting the money would mean accepting that I was actually married to Lemon. Not accepting it would leave me still too poor to do anything to get me out of this universe, and also interrupt whatever plan I had been concocting while blacked out.

So the question was, how much did I want that money? Actually, two questions: did I trust myself to be sneaking around behind my own back, or was something else at work here?

“How long do I have?” I asked.

“Well, if you refuse to sign the acceptance, then the rights of next of kin would pass over you.”

“I’m not refusing, I just really need to think about this.”

“My train back to Canterlot is tomorrow,” he said. “I can give you until then.”

That was how long I had to figure out what the hell I was going to do.

I wandered back to the castle, intent on the couch. It was where I did my best thinking, after all. I met Twilight coming out the door. “Hello Valiant.”

I was instantly on guard, but it still kind of shocked me when she wrapped her hooves around my neck and wasn’t trying to strangle me.

“Um.”

“There there. I’m here for you, whatever you need.” She pulled back from the hug. “I know, why don’t you come with me to the school? Something to take your mind off things. Would you like to see Starlight in an uncomfortable position?”

Well yes, but...what the hell?

I nodded dumbly and followed her to the school while trying to figure out what was going on. Was this some weird way of her trying to make me feel better? Was this some weird way of trying to get with me now that the pony the law said was my wife was dead?

We walked into Starlight’s office. Twilight said, “Starlight, I have something very important to discuss with you.”

A look of panic immediately went across Starlight’s face. “If this is about leaving early yesterday, I didn’t have any students on my schedule, and Trixie was having a magical emergency, which actually turned out to be nothing-”

I actually did enjoy that. However, Twilight couldn’t maintain her serious expression any longer and laughed. “It’s not anything like that. I want you to be the new headmare of the school when I move to Canterlot to take over the throne.”

And just like that, good mood ruined. Despite my repeated demonstrations that Twilight wasn’t ready, apparently the Princesses were still moving forward with the whole thing. She still couldn’t even control the sun and moon without the little magic gadget the Princesses had given her, much less actually control the country.

“Do you think I’m really up for it?” said Starlight. “Of course you do, I’ve covered for you every time you’ve had to run off and save Equestria.”

“You did?” I said.

“What’s he doing here?” Starlight asked, suddenly nervous. Good.

“Oh.” I could see Twilight’s mind working to try to come up with an explanation. She blurted, “I was trying to help Valiant take his mind off things and thought he might be interested in employment within your new administration.”

“I was considering hiring a vice-headmare,” said Starlight.

“Oh hell no! I am not going to be railroaded into running this damn school again!”

“You have experience with schools?” said Starlight. I’d told the story to Twilight, but not to her. “Would you mind helping me make an impartial selection?”

My displeasure was balanced by the fact that I could pick who I wanted and seed my own influence in the school while simultaneously not having anything to do with it. And yes, Twilight, this would help me take my mind off things.

Twilight trotted out, passing Trixie.

Trixie walked in and asked, “What was that about?”

“Princess Twilight just offered me the position of headmare,” Starlight said.

“You know I’m nothing but proud of you,” said Trixie, “but I can’t help wondering if it's going to cut into our social schedule.”

Memories of my Trixie picked just then to surface and I cut in. “Starlight, I will absolutely get you an assistant.”

Trixie opened her mouth.

“Not you,” I said.

She huffed. “I hadn’t ever considered it, but hearing you say it out loud made me realize what a great and powerful vice headmare I’ll be! Plus, I’d get to work and socialize with Starlight at the same time!”

“That’s exactly why not you,” I said. “The leader is the figurehead and the decision-maker. The deputy offers advice and gets shit done. Doesn’t sound much like a job for you. Also, hiring friends solely on the basis of friendship is just bad business. I don’t even have friends and I could tell you that.”

“You don’t have friends?” said Starlight. “Then maybe you should be my-”

“No.”

I made that very and repeatedly clear.

Unable to convince me, Starlight went and solicited for the job, receiving applications from several candidates. I was kind of surprised to see who had applied: Time Turner, Octavia Melody, Big Macintosh, and Spoiled Milk. And Trixie, who I thought we’d already disqualified, but figured the aptitude tests would weed her out.

I was at least partially right on that. Starlight promptly cut Spoiled Milk for teaching her test class how to be a gold digger. That also inadvertently reminded me that I had to deal with the life insurance paperwork.

But first, I pulled Time Turner out of the lineup to talk to him. Or Doctor Whooves, or whatever his name was. The doctor had, in the past, seemed to know more than he was letting on. I wondered if it was the same for this universe.

“I was hoping you could help me with something,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t want to discuss it here. Could we go to your box?”

“My what?”

“That blue box thing that you’re always traveling in. I kind of need some help in hopping universes.”

“Well, I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that, though if you’re interested, I have recently been working on a temporal transportation device.”

Now that had my attention. “Yes, I am absolutely interested.”

He pulled out a gold pocket watch. “One...two...three... four... five...congratulations! You are now five seconds into the future!”

About five minutes later, I walked into Starlight’s office. “You’ll have to remove Time Turner from consideration, too.”

“Why?”

“I...discovered that his face was recently broken.”

“I would have thought I would have noticed. How recently?”

“Extremely.”

“That sounds serious.”

“Good thing he wasn’t employed yet so you don’t have to pay worker’s comp or anything. Anyway, who’s left?”

“Octavia, Big Macintosh, and Trixie.”

“Both good choices.”

“I said-”

“I heard you.”

She sighed. “I know, I really want Trixie to be successful, but I’ve already given her too many chances. I just really wish there was some way to have this work out.”

“We all have to do shit we don’t want to do, believe me. I’m in this universe against my will, and on top of that I’m currently trying to decide whether to accept Lemon’s life insurance payout and I’m as surprised as anyone that it’s a hard decision.”

I waved a hoof and turned to walk away. “Anyway, do what you’re going to do.”

I went to the school library to get drunk, sulk, and maybe hopefully come to a decision. It wasn’t as nice as the old tree library, but it was better than nothing.

There was the matter of annoying kids, but I could mostly tune them out.

Unfortunately, all I did was procrastinate and put off the decision about the life insurance by speculating what my blackouts could mean. My theories got progressively more creative the drunker I got.

Skipping through time. Hmm. The most hopeful explanation was that someone in another universe, possibly Sunset and Trixie, was throwing around a ton of magic and trying to get me back. They were still fine-tuning the spell, so they’d only been partially successful so far. Maybe. Maybe they’d been unsuccessful to the point that they’d had to repeatedly wipe my memory of horrors I’d witnessed. Maybe not.

The whole theory about someone from another universe doing this to me was worth exploring. I knew plenty of people out there. Hopefully it wasn’t another Valiant doing this. Probably that bitch Valiantina. I should point out that I use the term gender-neutrally. Anyone can be a bitch. Dudes can be bitches. Especially if she had the whole Council of Valiants helping out.

Unless the Council had imploded and it was every Valiant for himself. Oh shit, what if this was a Highlander scenario? I’d been afraid of that ever since learning about the Council. I’d been preparing for such a situation, keeping in mind all of them probably would be, too, but since I’d lost my last universe, all my preparation had also gone out the window. If they came for me, I’d be a sitting duck.

And if they were doing some shit in an attempt to swap universes or bodies or whatever, then of course I sounded like myself during the blackouts, because I kind of was.

I took a step back from that terrifying theory, but my next one wasn’t much better. Going back to my idea about the mindwipes, what if I was becoming an NPC? At least I could discount that one pretty easily, because I’d apparently continued doing things that sounded like things I would do even while blacked out. Still, the idea that the universe might be trying to get me to conform and act like someone who belonged there reminded me that my series of world-creating exes were still out there. If that instance were true, then I’d highlighted myself by trying to call one with my hacked-together multiverse phone. Come to think of it, I’d told Valiantina where I was, too.

So there I had it. A couple of leading theories: someone was trying to rescue me, or someone was trying to kill me.

I reached the end of my bottle and stood up, swaying, thinking of going to get more. I stumbled over a grate in the floor. It kind of reminded me of the one that led down into the caverns where Cozy Glow had set up her lair.

The grate featured a small keyhole. Apparently, Twilight or somebody had learned from the incident and had it locked up. I stared at it. Wait a second…

I knelt and took the small key the strange pony in the strip club had given me from around my neck. It fit the lock perfectly.

Opening the grate, I found a tangle of wires and blinking lights.

Twilight walked in just then, talking with Starlight. “I’m sorry Big Mac gets his words twisted when he tries to speak too many of them and Octavia was too busy to take the job, but I don’t think-”

“Hey, you might want to evacuate,” I called.

“Huh? Why?” said Twilight. She and Starlight came over and looked down at what I had found.

“I’m diffusing this bomb.”

“Do you mean defusing because diffusing means something spreading over a wide area.”

I glanced at the bomb and then looked back up at her. “Depends on if I cut the right wire.”

Twilight backed away, her voice pitching up in barely-contained panic as she held it together for the kids. “Hey everypony, let’s all get out of the library for a while, huh? No reason, just do it quickly and orderly.”

When the room was completely empty, I said, “Whew, good thing this wasn’t a real bomb that I really had to defuse. I’m drunk as hell.”

Unsure why I had said it aloud, I pulled the wires aside to discover that there was still a passage down into the caverns. I slid down, being so drunk as to be practically a wet noodle.

Landing on the floor, I stumbled up and blinked in the dim light of magic crystals along the wall. I focused on what was in front of me, and then looked left and right, deep into the darkness. “What…”

Titanium dioxide paint, tanks for liquid oxygen and kerosene, heat shielding, USA painted in red letters.

Saturn V

“Oh my sweet baby Jesus.”

I fell to my knees in awe. I had done it. Again.

I didn’t remember doing it, but who the hell else would have? Who could have?

I glanced down the length of the cave. The main entrance was hidden behind a waterfall beneath the school. I now had exactly what I needed to get to the moon and figure out what was going on with the mysterious signal. Now I just needed to prepare.

I did my best to climb back up to the grate into the library. After that, I pulled the wires out and shut it, locking it again. No way was I letting this secret get out.

I headed towards the front door. I found Twilight nervously standing in the hall. “Did you take care of it?”

“Take care of what? Oh right. Yeah, it’s fine.”

“My first day on the job and something like this happens,” said Sunburst, standing there as if he was about to wet himself.

My eyes went to Starlight. “You hired him? Do you seriously think this guy is leadership material? Do you think he can actually get children to respect him? They’ll eat him alive! And furthermore, what will the ethics committee think? You apparently didn’t give him the same tests as the other candidates. Not to mention, he’s got the same conflicts of interest by being your personal friend that Trixie had.”

“We don’t have a school hiring ethics committee,” said Twilight.

“Oh, well nevermind then.”

I left.

Outside, on my way back to my couch in the castle, I was stopped by a mare in a long cloak, her face hidden.

“You actually pulled it off,” she said.

“What?”

She lifted her head.

“Lemon! What-how…?”

A fleeting half-smile went across her face. “You said you wouldn’t remember. Okay, so, the other day you came to me with a deal to fake my death so I could get away from the castle and my family, and you could get rich quick off the life insurance.”

Oh shit, the whole thing had been my plan all along. Thanks, me. I made a mental note to accept the payment.

“Well, I guess I couldn’t have done it without you,” I said.

Her expression darkened and she pulled back her cloak a little to reveal extensive bandaging. “You could have at least not gotten me impaled.”

“Wait, if that was real, then how are you alive?”

“I’m incredibly wealthy.”

“I guess I can understand that.”

“Anyway, you got what you wanted,” she said. “I got, well, most of what I wanted.” She turned away. “Goodbye.”

Daring Doubt

Since I’d discovered the Saturn V in the cave, I didn’t really need the life insurance payout to buy materials to build a rocket, but there was no reason not to accept it. Apparently blackout-me had set everything up.

It might not surprise me if that had been the plan all along, getting Lemon into enough shit with me that she would eventually go along with it. That sounded like something I would do.

One thing I couldn’t figure out, though: I could pull off life insurance scams perfectly well on my own, so why do it behind my own back? Why sneak around and wipe my own memory?

Surely it wasn’t so I could pass a lie detector test because I didn’t remember what I was lying about. Twilight had called me a sociopathic pathological liar before, which felt unfair, but also indicated that I could probably fool a polygraph. I felt confident.

So I still didn’t know why I was purposely hiding things from myself. But my best guess? The plan wasn’t finished yet.

Now that I had accepted that, boy was I looking forward to seeing where this went.

In the meantime, I had to get things ready for my moonshot. Part of that was arranging good weather and a no fly zone. For that, I had to begrudgingly go see Rainbow Dash and see what she wanted for the favor.

I arrived outside her house. She probably knew I was there because of the diesel-powered B1R airship. Sure enough, the door opened as I approached.

“Valiant, I need your help!” Rainbow said, brandishing a book.

Well, this was unexpected.

“There’s this book, Daring Do and the Fallen Idol. Some guy named Groom Q. Q. Martingale wrote it and it paints Daring Do in a bad light!”

“Wait, is it one of those licensed books that are like 'A.K. Yearling’s Daring Do as written by so-and-so?'”

“No! It’s not even about Daring Do. Well, it is, but she’s the villain!”

“But it has nothing to do with A.K. Yearling.” I put my hoof to my chin. “So it’s copyright infringement. Unless they can prove parody law.”

“It’s not even funny! It’s written from Dr. Caballeron’s perspective and it only talks about her destroying temples and being mean to him! Not only that, but he claims she’s real! That’s supposed to be a secret!”

“So why did you write it in the friendship journal you published so all of Equestria could see it?”

Her face blanked. “What?”

“Did you forget? You and the girls compiled all your friendship reports and published them.”

“That’s what that was?” Rainbow shook her head. “Nevermind that, we need to stop Martingale!”

“It’s Caballeron.”

“What?”

“Think about it. A.K. Yearling is really Daring Do, and she’s writing books about her adventures. Just who do you think would write a book about smearing Daring Do?”

“See, this is why I wanted your help,” she said. “Could you...do something about him?”

I smiled, “Sure, but you’ll owe me a favor. I need perfect weather and a no-pegasus zone around the friendship school.”

“Deal.”

I went downtown to the Daring Do book signing. On the way, I stopped by the bell-shaped hair-salon (patent pending). The business seemed to be doing quite well. I hadn’t even had to buy out any competitors recently. Though, now that I was flush with insurance scam payout, I might even be able to do it with actual money.

I sidled into the bookstore and found myself standing at the end of a long line of ponies. All of them seemed to be talking at once, and many of them were holding copies of Martingale’s - Caballeron’s - book.

“I’ll pay you all five bits to get out of my way,” I announced.

It worked. Whatever tiny satisfaction they hoped to gain from berating Daring was apparently sated by enough money to buy a couple of cherries.

I swaggered up to the front table, where Daring sat in her A.K Yearling outfit. “I’m here to fix your problem.”

“The...Martingale problem?” she said. One of the reasons I respected Daring was that she was one of the smarter ponies out there and grasped the situation immediately.

“Yep. It’s actually Cabelleron.”

“That...makes a lot of sense, actually,” she said, putting a hoof to her chin. Realization caught up with her and she looked up. “But who are you?”

“Well, your father-in-law, one universe removed.” Daring opened her mouth, and I waved a hoof. “Not important. Come on, maybe you can write me into your next book.”

Caballeron had conveniently set up shop for a book signing right across the street. Boy, that sure made my job easier. We waltzed in, me shoving the crowd aside with a “Official business, please stand back.” Daring followed along in my wake.

“Groom Q. Q. Martingale?” I said as I reached the front table, addressing Caballeron, who wore a fake beard.

“Yes?” he said.

“I’m here to sue your ass off for copyright infringement. Daring Do is a trademarked character.”

“If you’d actually read my book, you’d know that Daring Do is actually real and therefore cannot be trademarked.”

“Then I’m here to sue your ass off for writing an unauthorized biography and misrepresenting it as fiction.”

“Ah, but you can’t sue me because I’m not Groom Q. Q. Martingale.” He whipped his disguise off. “If Daring Do is real, then so am I! I’m actually Doctor Caballeron himself!”

“Then I’m here to sue your ass off for property damage and assault as described in numerous novels happening between you and Daring Do which you have just admitted are real people.”

“I’m afraid that’s all we have time for today,” he called to the room. “But take a free copy of my book on the way out.”

The crowd seemed eager for that and left us alone while Caballeron invited me behind the table. “You don’t understand. My team and I were only ever interested in researching artifacts and taking them to our museum where other ponies could study them. But Daring Do always seemed to get there first with her own plans. I offered to team up with her, but she refused. She had her own ideas of where the treasures belonged.”

“Like where?”

“Have you ever noticed how many artifacts are on her shelves at home?”

“But don’t you sell things to the highest bidder?”

“Only because I had to. Since Daring Do kept taking our artifacts, our museum closed. We were desperate for money to keep it open. Plus, she destroys so many ancient sites. And kicks puppies.”

“One time! On accident!” Daring protested.

He gestured to the room, where ponies were scrambling for free books, despite the fact that most of them had brought a book there that day for him to sign. “It’s already true in the mind of the public.”

A single book by a different author upset the entire public consciousness of a series that Daring had built. Damn, ponies were gullible.

Good thing Caballeron was a pony. I nodded to Daring. She surreptitiously removed her glasses and opened her cloak to show Cabelleron who she really was, but kept her back to the room to avoid blowing her cover to the crowd.

“What!?” Caballeron gasped. “This whole time, it’s actually been-”

“Yeah, and if you don’t pay up here and now she’ll kick your ass here and now in front of all these people.”

Caballeron stammered for a few seconds, and then said, “I have a proposal. Why don’t we mount an expedition to retrieve the Truth Talisman? Then we can use it to prove whose side of the story is real?”

“I was meaning to go after that,” said Daring.

I was all for going to a remote place. If nothing else, it would make Caballeron’s body easier to dump. I grabbed my airship.

The group of us got going, soaring out over the jungle. Daring and Caballeron were keeping their distance, pretty much as far across the airship as they could get.

“So you guys have never once teamed up?” I said. “As often as you’ve come in contact, I would have thought that would have been painfully necessary at least once.”

“Didn’t you say you’d read all my books?” Daring asked.

“Well, the Daring I knew occasionally embellished or omitted things. I threatened her when she started dating my daughter that I wasn’t going to tolerate that shit anymore.”

“What is he talking about?” Caballeron asked quietly.

“No idea,” Daring replied.

“Why am I here?” said Applejack..

“We have to get the Truth Talisman from a high place, so I picked you up because I thought you and your rope would be perfect for the job.”

She nodded.

The temple appeared in the distance. It was pretty tall with a lot of steps. Airship don’t care.

Caballeron had some kind of gem that opened a solar-activated portal and we went into the temple.

Ahuizotl was there, because of course. “Daring Do, my old nemesis!”

I punched him in his creepy little face and we went on.

Applejack snared the Truth Talisman and made it look easy. She gave it to Daring, who suddenly tossed it at Caballeron.

He hastily caught it and Daring demanded, “Isn’t it true you were just smearing my reputation with that book?”

The artifact glowed. Caballeron said, “Well yes, but-”

I pulled out my obsidian knife - kind of appropriate for the temple setting - but stopped. I shook my head. “You know, I don’t know why I even bother. I knew you were a bad guy. You aren’t even good at it.”

I shook my head, sheathed the knife, and kicked him in the nuts.

The Truth Talisman went up in the air as he fell. Ahuizotl came in just then, bloody but apparently mobile, and grabbed it. “You dare to steal the Truth Talisman?! I’m in charge of protecting this jungle. If another artifact goes missing on my watch, I’m going to be in so much trouble with the other guardian creatures.”

He clamped a hand over his mouth, apparently not intending to say so much.

“Wait,” I shook my head and looked at Daring. “If that’s the truth, then that kind of makes you a bad person for stealing things.”

“Um…” she said.

I turned back to Ahuizotl. “But wait, if you’re actually a guardian, then why were you using the Rings of Scorchero to usher in eight hundred years of unrelenting heat?”

“I’m…” Ahuizotl paused and screwed his face up, but apparently couldn’t resist the magic of the talisman. “Trying to end the world because I hate my job.”

I punched him in his creepy little face again, this time knife-first because if we’re being honest I’d really been itching to kill Ahuizotl for a while now.

I turned to Daring. “You’ve got some stuff to work out. Just being the least-worst today doesn’t mean you’re off the hook.”

“But...but…” She fell to her knees, wearing the look of someone who’d just had their notion of reality shattered. Congratulations, all your adventures were for a bad cause, you’ve just realized you might not be a good person, and your chief rival was never threatening and is now even less so with crushed nuts.

“You don’t get used to it,” advised Applejack. She and I turned to walk away.

“Wait!” Daring called, getting up and rushing after me. “Please, I can’t-Daring Do can’t end like this! I get it, I hate to admit, but I get what you’re telling me. I just…” She gestured to the inside of the temple, and said in a small voice, “This is just such an unsatisfying ending. I...I feel a duty to readers.”

You know, she had a point. I thought about it for a moment. “I might have an idea.”

Daring lay on her back. She was strapped down tightly and couldn’t move even if she’d wanted to. Her breathing and bodily functions were regulated through tubes.

“First time?” I said.

“You know very well it’s my first time being in a spaceship!”

“Capsule, technically. This is a Saturn V.”

“I don’t care! I explore temples, not space! I want out of this!”

“Nobody gives a shit what you like, we only want to read your stories. You’re going to the moon with me.”

“I can’t-” she broke down just then. “I want to make amends, like you said. This doesn’t...I can’t see how taking off on another adventure does that. I still have to face everything.”

“Somebody once said you can’t just get on a rocket and fly away from your problems. Screw them. You totally can.”

“Um, are you ready to launch?” said Applejack’s voice on the intercom.

“Oh, right. Yeah, go ahead.”

Far down below, Applejack turned the keys and the Rocketdyne F1 engines ignited.

We were on a little bit of a time crunch. I wanted to get up to the moon and figure out where the mysterious radio signal was coming from as soon as possible. With that in mind, I skipped a lot of steps and before you knew it we were in the lander on the way down.

We came to rest upon the moon’s surface. I opened the door and dragged Daring out, both of us in space suits.

I glanced around the surface, not sure where to begin. It was the moon; there wasn’t much to see. However, far in the distance, I spotted a dark place. Curious, I headed that way.

I didn’t have any trouble carrying Daring against her will. Low-grav, you see.

By the time we got to the place with the strange dark-colored soil, she had quit struggling. I guess once the panic passes, you start to enjoy the view. I let her down and indicated what we were trying to learn.

The dark soil was crusty, as if heated or something. I realized we were on the far side now, out of view of the planet.

Spreading out, I tried to see more of the dark area. The edge seemed like a perfectly straight line. I came to a corner, still following it. There were a few more corners after that. In another few minutes, I realized what I must be looking at. The letter E.

E?

What the hell?

There was another letter nearby and we started tracing it. R. Then another E. Finally, we came to an H.

HERE?

I realized there were other letters beyond and kept walking. S...A...W

Next line. T...N...A…

Suspicion began to rise in my mind, but I kept going, walking faster. I fell to my knees as I reached the last letter, the horrifying implications crashing down on me.

VALIANT WAS HERE

Lasered onto the backside of the moon.

Oh my God.

I had no idea what it meant, but I did now know one thing for certain. Blackout me was an asshole.

I got up delicately and brushed off the moon dust. I could think about it later. Now I had to find the source of the mysterious radio signal.

Daring and I scoured the rest of the surface, but didn’t find anything. Frustrated, I eventually hacked together a direction-finding rig from the rocket’s guidance system.

It pointed me right back towards Equestria. The signal had originated from the surface, but done a moon-bounce, just like it would have from an actual satellite.

Well fine, blackout me, if you think that’s cute, wait until I crash a reentering Saturn V into it.

Author's Note

Growing Up is Hard to Do

I was serious about crashing a Saturn V into it, by the way.

A British Thermal Unit is the quantity of heat required to raise the temperature of one pound of liquid water by one degree Fahrenheit. No, I don’t know why the British were measuring their heat in pounds and Fahrenheit. Still, it’s the thermal unit I know, so I’m going to use that.

The average mammal is around 70% water. The average pony was maybe two hundred pounds. Stage one of a Saturn V contained several million pounds of kerosene. Kerosene is a little bit more than six pounds per gallon, and each gallon can produce 135,000 BTU.

Maybe you can see where I’m going with this. I’m not a fan of math, and mental estimates were pretty much how I did everything. The moon over Equestria was much smaller and closer than Earth’s moon, so even with my heavy throttle, there was still a lot of fuel left as Daring and I were on our way back.

In my anger at myself, apparently, for trolling myself with a message on the moon, I’d decided to aim the reentering rocket straight at the signal broadcast location.

If you were following along with my calculations, you’d know that if there was anybody unfortunate enough to be standing nearby, they were about to get their body temperature raised by about 270 million degrees. Roughly.

Daring had been uncomfortable the whole mission, but she got really squirmy at this part. “And exactly how are we supposed to...not burn?”

“Oh, we’ll be popping off in a small capsule that’s going to fall for a couple of miles through the atmosphere, turning our terminal velocity into heat against the atmosphere. The bottom will probably be glowing hot.”

I decided to turn up the nitrous that I’d plumbed into her oxygen system. I’d originally brought it along to make the rocket go faster, but decided it was better used here.

We made a good reentry. With rockets, that means we lived. Daring was too relaxed to notice.

I kicked the hatch off and left. Hopefully when she woke up, she wouldn’t attribute the calm feeling to being a standard part of reentry. I really didn’t need ponies thinking that space travel was fun and casual.

Ponies like the CMC, who, for some God-forsaken reason, were now adults.

“Shit, was I in space that long?” I looked around. “Also, where are we and why are you here?”

“Appleoosa,” said Sweetie Belle. “We came to the fair.”

“And don’t worry about the adult thing,” said Scootaloo. “We don’t know why it happened, it just did instantly this morning.”

“I’m not sure if I should be concerned.” I shrugged. “Well, have fun.”

“Wait a second,” said Apple Bloom. “You’re an adult. We’re totally not qualified to be adults, too.”

“You...aren’t? I mean, you got your cutie marks. Is that not puberty? Sorry, I really don’t know much about it. All I know is that I trust you to be mech pilots, so really, how much more responsibility do you want?”

The three of them looked at each other. “Thanks,” said Sweetie. “That actually helps.”

I headed off to see what the rocket had landed on. Along the way I made a detour to get some fried dough because it was a fair. I didn’t know what they called it here. Presumably not an elephant ear. Was it still a funnel cake if it wasn’t made with a funnel?

There were some strange colors on the horizon. Maybe the explosion had been so extreme it created a new weather pattern. I’d never seen some of those colors before. That was a nice shade of purple. I decided to name it Hell Raisin.

Maybe we should also start doing dyes at the bell-shaped hair salon. We could apply it during the donging. Well, I didn’t know how popular dying would be in Equestria, where everybody was already some crazy color.

I found the crater. Impressive work if I do say so myself. I didn’t know what had once been here, but that was small potatoes compared to the satisfaction in destroying it. Screw you, me.

Just then, Twilight teleported in with Fluttershy. “Valiant, have you seen the girls?”

“The...Cutie Mark Crusaders?”

“Yes them-”

“Because it seems like literally everyone you or I associate with is female, so most of the time you’re going to have to be more specific.”

She shook her head and held up a glass case with a magical flower in it. I’m not really magic sensitive, but when it looked exactly like the rose from Beauty and the Beast, was glowing, and had one last petal remaining, I just kind of assumed.

“They’ve been messing around with this magic flower and we think they might have wished themselves to the fair.”

“Wished themselves into adults, actually. Still at the fair, though.” I paused. “Wait, go back, what was that about a magic wishing flower?”

Twilighted looked at the flower, and then looked at me. I opened my mouth.

She hit me with a teleport before I could even begin a wish.

I blinked, realizing that I’d been teleported...back to Appleoosa. The sun was lower in the sky now, so apparently time had passed. I wasn’t sure if Twilight had sent me anywhere and I’d time-skipped while coming back, in which case fast-travel, cool, or if she hadn’t sent me that far and I’d been up to something.

Hopefully not revenge on myself for attacking my own plans. Probably not. I’d probably anticipated that I would do that. It was me, after all.

I set off to find the CMC and see if they were still doing the whole Big thing. To my disappointment, they were not.

“Hey Valiant!” said Scootaloo. “Thanks for the coming-of-age switchblades, even if we didn’t really.”

Twilight gave me a dark look. Mostly, I was just confused where I had gotten three switchblades. If I had one, I’d be carrying it.

But back to the CMC, I’d always gotten along with them, and apparently blackout-me did too. They already had families, so it would kind of be inappropriate to adopt them. The fact that the thought had even crossed my mind was kind of strange. Was I really getting that starved for attention and family?

“What’s wrong?” Fluttershy asked quietly. I jerked, realizing that I must have been staring into space for a few minutes while pondering. I realized the others had departed.

“I just...came to the reluctant realization that I actually do desire companionship. And damn, that is messing up my self-image.”

Fluttershy nodded and let me talk.

“I guess I can justify it in that I get so much more done when I have people to help me, to draw me out of my shell. But when it comes down to it, I need a core of individuals to rely on. At the moment, I can’t even rely on myself. I need to put the Dream Team back together.”

I paused, and then shook my head. “Who am I kidding? Those guys are all twenty years retired from basketball.”

I needed my own Dream Team. I needed to get back to the previous universe. God, I hoped they were looking for me.

It was just then that a bunch of cannibals came streaming through town and boy is that a thing to distract you.

“What the hell?” I said. It seemed prudent to pull out my knife.

“We’ve got a lot in common with common-sense parenting,” one of them said. “I think we can all agree not to let our children get spoiled.”

“Yeah, refrigerators are awesome!” A couple of them in the back slapped hooves.

I cut my eyes back and forth. What a strange and random happenstance. I didn’t think shit like this just happened in Equestria.

I’d often wondered how much different the place would be without my influence. At a time like this, though, it was no time to be wondering how much extra protein ponies really needed.

As I was the closest person around, the group started to advance on me. Fluttershy was wisely already gone. I shrugged. Well, I think even Twilight would agree that this was a pretty clear-cut case of self-defense.

If you step on someone’s foot, they often open their mouth like a garbage can. That’s a good way to get an obsidian knife into their brain case.

I whirled through the group, slicing and dicing like a blender. It was kind of fun, really. “I am the terror that flaps in the night! I am the lone stocking in your sock drawer! I am that one uncle whose eyes always linger on you just a little too long!”

When the last one fell, I stopped, breathing deep. That was distracting from my problems. I kind of wondered if blackout-me had set it up as an apology. It felt sort of like a “Hey, the plan will all make sense eventually, just stick with me, okay?” I am kind of an asshole, but would I really do it to myself? I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to send a gift card.

The Big Mac Question

I was in that weird equals-sign village where Starlight had ruled as Equality Mayor. I don’t know why anybody still lived there once they were free to go. Starlight sure didn’t.

Furthermore, I didn’t think the place even had a name. They just called it Our Town. Might as well have called it Stalingrad.

There was really nothing to do in town, and I had only stopped by to take a leak on my way to other parts of Equestria. I was setting up a network of direction-finding receivers just in case any more mysterious broadcasts began. I still wasn’t sure why blackout-me had pissed off waking-me in order to crash a giant rocket into the ground near Appleoosa. It sure made a big crater.

At any rate, I had to buy a muffin from Sugar Belle so I could use her bakery’s restroom. When I came out, completely out of the blue, she said, “Could I hire you to plan a wedding?”

“What.”

“Well, not a wedding, just the most perfect proposal. Maybe take out an option on the wedding later.”

I shook my head. “You came to me? Wait, in this universe, how do you even know who I am? Or are you just asking everyone who comes into your shop?”

“You’re Valiant, right?” She tilted her head. “I’ve heard that you’re...Applejack used the word ‘unstoppable.’ That’s the kind of pony I want handling my perfect proposal plan.”

“What does Applejack have to do with it?”

“She’s Big Macintosh’s sister, Big Macintosh, my beau.”

“And he wants this too?”

She nodded. “I’m sure. We’ve been going steady for a while. We’ve already talked about moving closer.”

Shit, maybe in this universe the two of them could actually be together. From what I’d seen, they kind of deserved it, too.

“Just one question. What about Marble Pie?”

“His cousin? Sure, I was planning to invite her to the wedding.”

Cousin. Well, that explained why Marble and Mac were so much alike.

“One more question. Is you head on securely?”

She frowned. “I...suppose?”

Okay, not a dullahan in this universe. Jeeze, for once things made sense around here.

“Alright,” I said. “I’m in. What did you want to do for this plan?”

“Well, he’s a pony of few words. I love that about him. So, I thought I’d use as many words as possible to propose. I was going to write I-love-you-Big-Mac-would-you-like-to-spend-the-rest-of-our-lives-together-I-hope-you-say-eeyup! on little slips of paper and put each of them in a dessert for him to find.”

I frowned and counted on my hooves. “That’s...

“Twenty one pastries.”

“Who the hell could eat twenty one pastries, with the exception of maybe Pinkie Pie? Who the hell would be willing to make twenty one different pastries, with the exception of maybe Pinkie Pie?”

“I was thinking about Mrs. Cake, in Ponyville,” said Sugar Belle.

“Why not you?” I gestured around. “This is a bakery. You’re a baker.”

She rubbed the back of her head. “Well...the difficulty and time involved with making twenty one distinct pastries. Also, the freshness after transporting them all to Ponyville.”

“So get Pinkie to do it, if you’re so married to the idea.” Ha, pun. “Or, just don’t do it.”

“Well, what should I do?”

“Be romantic. Don’t make him work for it. Seriously, twenty one desserts?”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll let you handle everything. Whatever you think is best.”

I walked out of her shop with no idea what I was going to do. Seriously, planning a proposal? However, just then I ran straight into an angry mob.

That was surprising. I hadn’t gotten torches-and-pitchforks in my face for quite a while. Couldn’t imagine what I had done this time.

“There he is!” someone shouted. “He killed all the babysitters and appliance salesponies!”

“I did what?”

“You took advantage of the Babysitters and Appliance Salesponies Convention in Appleoosa to kill them all!”

“There was a Babysitters and Appliance Salesponies Convention in Appleoosa?” I remembered talk about not letting children get spoiled and how refrigerators were awesome. I just kind of assumed they were related. Curse you, Equestria, with your strange mashups.

“Are you sure you weren’t confusing them with cannibals?” I said.

“Pretty sure.”

“How do you know they weren’t also cannibals?”

The members of the crowd all looked at each other. Someone said, “You know, in retrospect, who else would have access to a lot of children and the means to keep them from becoming rancid?”

“But cannibals are supposed to be members of the Cannibals and Hair-Dressers’ Society,” someone else pointed out.

“See, exactly,” I said. “I own a chain of salons, so you’d think I know a cannibal when I see one.”

They couldn’t argue with that. Bless you, Equestria, with your strange mashups.

I handed out business cards for bell-shaped hairdos and headed back to Ponyville, still trying to figure out what I was going to do for the proposal. I decided to go to the farm and see if that gave me any ideas.

When I arrived, I saw Big Mac and Spike under a tree together. Mac opened a small box with a big ring inside.

Spike gasped. “It’s beautiful!”

Oh shit.

I was just about to do something stupid when Mac snatched the ring back from under Spike’s drooling mouth. “Nope!”

“I’m not gonna eat it!” Spike protested.

Discord appeared just then. “Eat what? What is it? I want to see!” His eyes did weird extendo things like that one episode of the Simpsons about Stretch Man.

“Nope!” Mac said again, this time pulling the ring away from Discord.

“Why not?!”

“Because you have a big mouth,” said Spike.

“Me?!” Discord put a claw/foreleg/hand/forward apendage/whatever to his chest. “I keep tons of secrets! Like Fluttershy’s secret fear of clowns. Or that time I caught Twilight sleep-trotting through town. Oh! And did you know that Octavia went on a date with Bulk Biceps? Talk about an odd couple. I heard that-” He paused, seeing the other two looking at him. “Oh, all right, point taken on the secrets. But we’re pals, right? Comrades. Amigos. Come on!”

Mac reluctantly showed him the ring.

Discord gasped. “BIG MAC IS GOING TO PROPOSE TO SUGAR BELLE!?”

Oh, whew. Hell, if Mac was going to propose to her himself, then I didn’t have to do anything.

“Spill it!” Spike insisted. “Every detail! Don’t leave anything out!”

Mac, being a pony of few words, started to pull out some boards and tools. Spike’s eyes brightened. “You’re making a picnic table that matches the shelf you made Sugar Belle for her shop when you had a crush on her, and you're setting up a romantic meal overlooking Sweet Apple Acres?”

“Eeyup,” Mac confirmed. He pulled out a bushel basket of apples, which had been painted and had little tags attached.

“You sent her a letter to come to town and then painted apples to leave around Ponyville with little riddles tied to the stem that will lead her up here to meet you?” Spike said.

“Uh, how did you figure that out?” Discord asked.

“If you were a hopeless romantic, you’d know that was the only logical choice,” Spike told him. “Come on, Mac needs time to finish the table, I'll pick up whatever food they need, and Discord, you put all the apples in place.”

“Oh hell no!” I couldn’t eavesdrop any longer. I came stomping up to the three of them. “Your plan is shit.”

I glanced at Mac, who looked crestfallen, and quickly backpedaled. “I mean, it has good parts. Building a table sounds great. Food sounds great. I just think maybe we can do a little better in the other department.”

“The apples?” Spike said.

“Yes! Why the hell would you paint them? Don’t you already have several colors of apples around here?” I gestured to the orchard. “Surely you can’t expect Sugar Belle to eat an entire bushel as she finds them around town. And if she did, she wouldn’t want the picnic later. So if she’s not eating the apples, what’s she going to do with them? Just leave them for animals? The paint is going to make one of them sick and then you’ll have Fluttershy on your ass.”

I shook my head. “But the real problem here is that you thought Discord was going to be helpful.”

“Hey now,” Discord said. He snapped his fingers/claws/digits/whatever and all the apples disappeared. “There, I helped.”

“Are you sure put them in the right spots?” Spike said, suddenly dubious.

“Those terrible riddles on the apples were very clear on the location. I’m sure that they were placed properly and that Sugar Belle will find them.”

“What if she doesn’t?” Spike asked.

“Don’t be such a drama dragon. I’ve precipitated liquid cocoa on Equestria and herded long-limbed leporidae. I can certainly make a pony see an apple.”

I let out a long sigh and turned to Big Macintosh. “Look, I’m sorry, I tried. Now your entire proposal’s going to be ruined by some guy who doesn’t even know what a liopleurodon is.”

“Leporidae.”

“Shut up, Discord.”

He polished his whatever-you-call-‘ems on his chest fur. “I was just trying to help. It really is a curse having infinite powers. Everypony is always asking you to move a couch or help with a proposal.”

“Owning a pickup truck makes people ask you to move a couch. A truck is a great power, and with great power comes great responsibility. If you were less of a little bitch, then you might actually have enough power to start learning about responsibility.”

He smiled. “Ah, there you have it, from the mouth of Valiant himself. I don’t have a responsibility to be responsible.”

“Wait, go back,” I said, “what do you mean you were just trying to help? What happened!?”

“What makes you think something happened?”

I gave him a flat look and headed for town.

When I got there, the apples had all sprouted arms and legs and were screaming their clues at people in the street.

Discord popped in just then. “You know, thinking back, I probably could have been clearer which pony to deliver the messages to.”

“Discord, do you have testicles? Or some other means of reproduction that hurt a lot when abused?”

“Why do you ask?”

Discord watched a few ponies running from apples, sighed, and with a snap of his whatevers, all the mutant apples disappeared. “I sent them back to Sweet Apple Acres. Apples are terrible at taking directions. Couldn’t even manage to stay in one location. Now, bananas are much better at listening.” A banana popped into his hand.

“Ring ring,” I said.

He put the banana to his ear. “Hello?”

“You’re an asshole and nobody likes you.”

“But...but what about you?”

“I never said I wasn’t a hypocrite.”

I turned away and spotted the CMC just coming out of Sugarcube Corner.

“Hey Valiant,” said Scootaloo.

“We heard something about a particular plan Big Macintosh had?” said Sweetie Belle.

“But everypony keeps saying we’d blab if we found out,” Apple Bloom lamented.

Yes, maybe. I was just about to reply, when suddenly there was a distant roar and a giant apple megazord rose up out of the orchard, looming taller than the trees. “SUGAR BELLE!” it bellowed.

“What?” said Sugar Belle, who had apparently recently arrived in town. She looked at me. “Was this part of your plan?”

“Hell no,” I said. The CMC had seemed excited, but their faces fell.

“Well, if you didn’t plan it, we should probably do something about it,” said Apple Bloom, gesturing to the latest giant monster to threaten the town.

“You’d think we’d be used to things like this in Ponyville,” said Sweetie.

“I’ll get Twilight,” said Scootaloo, starting to turn away.

“No!” I called her back. “The only thing that could possibly make this shit worse would be to let Twilight goddamn Sparkle try untested transformative magic on it.”

I closed my eyes, put my hoof to my face, and sighed. “Discord, if you don’t fix this, then I will. My way.”

“Oh, um…” he said.

I looked at the CMC. “Make him fix it.” I looked at Sugar Belle. “You, come with me.”

I left Discord there with the girls, looking suddenly like he was regretting a couple of life choices. I took Sugar Belle to the farm.

“What was that all about?” she said.

“Don’t worry about it.” I glanced at the pie she was carrying. “I thought you weren’t going to make anything.”

“Well...I’m a baker. I just did it. I made one pie, completely normal.”

“That actually works out really well.”

“Works out well with what?” she said.

“The proposal. I’m doing what you wanted me to do.”

“Oh, so you do have a plan.” She looked relieved.

“Do you have the ring?”

“Um, no?” she said.

“Then what the hell were you supposed to use to propose to him?”

“He’s an earth pony; he doesn’t have a horn to put a ring on.”

“Then what do earth ponies use instead?”

A look of oh shit went across her face. “I...don’t know?”

Oh great.

We came upon the hill where Mac had built the picnic table. He seemed surprised to see me with Sugar Belle.

I grabbed the pie and tossed it on the table and then turned to the both of them. “Get on your knees.”

Okay, in retrospect, a command like that coming from a guy like me might be taken the wrong way. Still, they did it.

“Propose,” I said, pointing at both of them. “Get it over with, and then you can have some delicious pie at this picnic table.”

They looked at each other. “Will you-” they both started, and then both stopped, because they were talking over each other.

They blushed, collected themselves, and then simultaneously replied, “Eeyup!”

They kissed.

I staggered. Holy shit, what was that? Was that a feeling?

I turned away. My face felt hot. What the hell?

I glanced over my shoulder. Mac was taking the ring out of the box. It was on a chain, and he hung it around Sugar Belle’s neck. She was a unicorn, it was a ring, so what was with the necklace…?

I shook my head. I didn’t get paid enough to make sense out of pony matrimony. Wait, I wasn’t getting paid at all. Why had I agreed to this?

Wandering away, I found myself down at the Apple Family house. Granny Smith was sleeping in a rocking chair on the porch. Something, possibly the sound of me drinking, woke her up.

“Oh, hey there, Valiant.” She yawned and stretched. “I just had the most peculiar dream.”

“Hmm?” I said, bottle still upended in my mouth. glug glug glug

“It was about Grand Pear. Only it wasn’t. We were in outer space on some kinda mission to explore a strange new world.”

Okay, I admit, she had me interested.

“And Mudbriar was there, bein' as logical as ever, but his ears was all pointy-like.”

Okay, pony ears were already pointy, but whatever.

“And then Discord showed up and...well, you know, he was pretty much the same.”

“And Gene Roddenberry called it Star Trek.” I blinked. Why had I just said that? I looked around. Big Macintosh in a tuxedo and Sugar Belle in a white dress were staring at me. We were in a section of the orchard with both pear and apple trees. A lot of other people were around.

Oh shit, I’d just blacked out straight into a wedding, I was the ordaining official, and apparently had just delivered a sermon about science fiction TV shows from my world.

Trying to get my bearings after the time skip, I recognized several members of the Apple Family standing behind Big Mac. Sugar Belle’s side of the party didn’t have anyone who looked like her, just a few of her neighbors from Our Town. I guess that made sense; ponies with good relations with their families probably weren’t the chief targets of Starlight Stalin.

Everyone was staring at me, possibly impatiently.

“Um, so you’re married now,” I said.

The two of them kissed and the crowd cheered. I was still trying to figure out why they’d picked me to do the honors. I mean, I was ordained, not that it really mattered in Equestria.

“Do us next!” said Lyra, running up to me while holding hooves with Bon Bon.

“You want to get married?”

They both smiled and pulled out rings.

“Hnnng.”

“Are you okay?” Bon Bon asked.

I clutched my chest. “Uh...yeah. Give me a second, though.”

I took a breath and straightened up. “But if I’m going to do this for you, I’m going to need something in return.”

The Ending of the End - part 2

I sat in the salon chair and preened for the paparazzi cameras for quite a while. Having a beaten Blueblood lying on the floor before me was just icing on the cake. I literally could not fathom how everyone saw him being in physical pain and at my mercy and still ate that shit up. Whatever, I was making money on it. I loved my job. You nice folks want me to bitchslap him again? I’ll do it, just for you.

However, at a certain point all the reporters were distracted by something outside my control. The top half of Canterlot Castle blew apart in a giant laser beam of magic.

Huh. That was new.

As broken chunks of stone began to rain down outside, Twilight teleported in. She yanked the curtains shut and turned around, breathing hard.

“So...I take it your plan didn’t work,” I said.

“I hadn’t counted on Discord inadvertently making Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis more powerful than usual!” she shouted. “At least I think. That was only Cozy Glow in the castle.”

“Oh.”

“She’s an alicorn now.”

“Oh.”

Twilight waved a hoof. “And I heard that Tirek singlehandedly defeated the Pillars. This is bad!”

“I always wondered about Tirek. At any point, did someone think about deporting his ass back to wherever he came from? I vaguely remember something about him and his brother Scorpan coming to Equestria and then having a difference of opinion.” I shrugged. “But I guess if Tirek committed the crime here, of course we would want to punish him ourselves. How many life sentences is he probably up to now? This is at least the second time he’s escaped Tartarus, right?”

“Right, but at least Tirek is a known quantity. A superpowered Cozy Glow is something else.” She pointed up at the castle, or what was left of it.

“Damn, that looks like it’s going to be expensive.”

“Your security didn’t work.” Twilight glared.

I held up a hoof. “You asked me to make the castle secure, and I did. You didn’t ask me to also make the castle invulnerable.”

“Technically, we didn’t even ask you, you just did it.”

“You really want to split hairs with me now, Twilight?”

She winced and shook her head. “I still can’t believe it. We know Cozy Glow is manipulative but she’s never had this much raw power before! She ca-”

Twilight’s voice broke and she had to stop for a moment. She swallowed hard. “She captured my friends. They held her off long enough for me to escape and find help.”

Her head dropped. She took a breath and then raised her eyes to meet mine. “You’re the worst pony I know. Sometimes I can’t believe how bad you are. But Equestria needs saving.”

I smiled. “Am I a bad enough dude to save Equestria? Not sure, but I’ll give it all she’s got, cap’n.”

“More of your stupid otherworldly references at a time like this?” She shook her head and got back to business. “Tirek isn’t here yet and we haven’t seen Chrysalis. I’m guessing she probably went after Starlight as revenge for the last time they fought. If Discord’s plan worked and the three of them learned to work together...we’re in trouble. The three of them can’t be allowed to link up.”

Twilight’s face twisted as if the next words tasted bad. “I need you to kill an alicorn.”

“One child murder, coming up.”

Twilight had closed her eyes, unable to even face my chipper attitude. “Are you going to rub this in?”

“You know, normally yes. I would absolutely take pleasure in telling you that I told you so. And I still think you kind of deserve it for ever trusting Discord. However, because I really want to stick it to him more than you, I think I can put aside my criticism for a while.”

I stood up from my chair and started limbering up. “On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“When this is all over, I get to deal with Discord.”

“It...it won’t even be sporting. He doesn’t have his power.”

“What, you think it’s going to be sporting what I do to the others?”

Twilight grimaced and looked away. “I just want to put this behind us and I promise you, Valiant, I will put all my effort into becoming a better leader for Equestria.”

“That’s nice.” I picked up the sledgehammer, hit the bell on Blueblood’s head a couple more times, and walked out of the salon.

Twilight hurried after me. The city was strangely calm. The sun was parked overhead, but glancing at a nearby clocktower, I saw it was pretty late. I guess I relied more on the sun for keeping time in the day than I thought. Screw you, Celestia, making me act like a bird.

Aside from the castle being mostly destroyed, there didn’t seem to be a lot going on. Ponies were concerned, sure, but didn’t seem to be freaking out like three major villains were attacking.

Maybe they didn’t know. Sure, there had been sirens, but if I didn’t know what they meant, maybe the general public didn’t either. Wouldn’t surprise me.

I shook my head. Villains whose attack had been just another disaster, nothing flashy enough to be noticed, no sense of style. Twilight was right, this wasn’t going to be sporting at all.

We walked into the castle. The guards, at least, seemed to be well aware that something was happening, though paralyzed what to do about it.

“It’s midnight, why is the sun still up?” I heard one muttering as he glanced skyward.

“Daylight savings,” I replied.

“More like daylight slavings,” a voice called.

I squared my shoulders. He we go.

Walking into the demolished throne room, we found Cozy Glow. Sure enough, she was an alicorn. She saw us come in, and hovered closer.

“Where are my friends!?” Twilight shouted at her, apparently forgetting that she’d already turned over the reins to me.

“Oh, I locked them in the dungeon.” Cozy waved a hoof. I noticed she was wearing a necklace. It looked kind of like a friendship crafting project and I wondered if she’d made it herself. Maybe she, Tirek, and Chrysalis had figured out how to create an artifact that transferred magic. Interesting. I wonder if it was based on the idea of Grogar’s bell.

“Who is this?” Cozy asked, pointing at me.

“I’m a certified badass.”

“Was that the certificate on the wall of the salon that was also signed by you?” Twilight asked out of the corner of her mouth.

“Oh really?” said Cozy to me, smirking.

“Yeah, I’m the guy Twilight brought in to kill you so she maintains plausible deniability of her involvement when the history books are written about how she came to power.”

Twilight looked at me, surprised.

Even Cozy looked a little taken aback. “Kill? Not some friendship lesson?”

I pulled my knife. Twilight knew it was coming, but still I’m not sure which of the two of them gulped harder.

I wasn’t figuring Cozy for a tough fight. Sure, she was manipulative and an alicorn, but she was also a child and had been able to shoot magic beams for less than a day. Not that being an alicorn was that impressive. I’d heard that in this universe, Starlight Glimmer had fought alicorn Twilight - the Element of Magic - to a standstill. Plus, we all know what happened to Celestia when she fought Chrysalis.

The point was, I expected subterfuge from Cozy, and when she just came at me firing magic willy-nilly, I thought it was a trick. Sure, I still deflected the magic beam with my obsidian knife, but I was waiting for something else.

There wasn’t, just Cozy getting frustrated as I swatted away her attacks. They chipped stone away wherever they hit, but it wasn’t like the castle could be any more ruined.

Well shit, if she was just going to be an annoyance, I decided to see if I could hit one of her attacks directly back at her. It took a couple of tries, but I finally got the swing just right. Cozy took the blast straight to the chest and it knocked her end over end into the rubble at the corner of the room.

Since I had a second to breathe, I decided to see if Grogar’s bell worked. I’d been carrying it with me since I’d heard about it on the tape recorder. I still hadn’t figured out how blackout-me had recorded that conversation, but I was glad he had.

Cozy was just lifting her head when I pointed the bell at her. It seemed pretty easy to use. There were literally no controls. Sure enough, it sucked her magic right out. She shrank an inch in height, the horn on her head faded away, and a certain sparkle left her mane. The bell also seemed to suck out whatever magic was in her necklace, too. I assumed that may have been some of Discord’s juice. While she was down, it seemed like a good idea to confiscate that. I cut it off.

“Golly, mister.” Cozy summoned a weak smile. “I guess you won. I learned my lesson.”

“I don’t believe you, but that isn’t the point. Don’t do a crime if you aren’t willing to do the time.” I waved the knife. “Well, or in this case, die.”

Twilight came rushing over. “Valiant, you got her, there’s no need-”

“Relax, Twilight,” I said, bottling the tears Cozy started crying just then. Never know when something like that might come in handy. I corked the bottle and said, “I’m not going to kill her.”

“Oh good, that’s-”

“Yet. Once I catch up with and defeat the others I’ll have a group public execution.”

I grabby Cozy by the throat and dragged her out of the throne room, ignoring Twilight’s protests. I dragged her out of the castle and down the street, back to where I had parked the B1R.

“What are you all looking at?” Cozy squeaked at the townsponies staring at us. “Are you going to just let this earth pony sully my pegasus honor?” She pointed at Twilight. “While that unicorn watches?”

“Oh yeah, I meant to say something. Racism is bad.” I dragged Cozy to the holding cell I’d built in the B1R’s hold and tossed her in, locking the door. “I mean, yeah, I know, ponies are racist as hell, but that’s why it was easy to see what you were doing and enact incentives to not be so racist.”

All I had done was make some death threats, but that was a hell of an incentive.

“Chrysalis is still out there spreading discontent among the unicorns!” Cozy spat.

“I doubt that. But we can tell her she’s racist too, when we find her.”

“She’s not even the same species so therefore technically not racist! She was just spreading racism to tear your stupid society apart!”

It did put me in a little bit of an awkward position, me of all people being the glue holding society together. Then again, if bell hair was all it took, it was a pretty low bar.

Going back topside, Twilight joined me to be away from Cozy Glow. “Alright,” I said. “Let’s go find the other two.”

“What about my friends?” she said. “We need to rescue them.”

“If we do, we’ll have to drag Cozy along to keep an eye on her because I think you’ll agree she needs constant supervision. That sounds annoying. Plus, when we do find your friends, they might protest at me doing what I’m doing. You’ll either have to lie to them about what you asked me to do, or let them fight Tirek and Chrysalis instead of me, and I don’t think they can. They’ll be just more targets.”

I spread my hooves. “So either you go rescue them alone, or come with me and we’ll go round up Tirek and Chrysalis first.”

“You really thought of everything,” she muttered.

“You know, it’s only when I’m killing people and saving your ass that I really get in the zone. Maybe it’s my special talent.”

“I thought you weren’t going to rub it in.”

“Sorry, sometimes I monologue.”

Twilight sighed. “Fine, I’ll go with you.”

I had actually been hoping that she wouldn’t. I don’t like supervision any more than the next guy. Maybe I should have just killed Cozy straight away. Since I hadn’t, maybe Twilight thought what I was going to do wouldn’t be so bad.

So it left the question whether I should continue to be a little theatrical, instead be more pragmatic, or be extra theatrical.

“Since you’re here, Twilight, get me a vector to Tirek. I’m guessing he’ll be in the direction that you sense a major disturbance in the world’s magic.”

Twilight closed her eyes and concentrated. After a few seconds, she said, “South, I think. He’s still coming from the border where the Pillars were.”

I turned the airship that way. With Twilight’s guidance, it seemed like we were headed vaguely towards Appleoosa. I kept my eyes on the horizon.

The attack, when it came, originated as a huge beam of angry red energy. Fortunately, over-the-horizon magic attacks are hard to aim by eyeball, and Tirek missed.

I took evasive action and pulled out my spyglass. If he hadn’t been so big from sucking magic, I probably wouldn’t have seen him. Fortunately, the desert around Appleoosa was pretty flat and Tirek cut a tall silhouette. Shame I didn’t have any artillery to shoot back.

I put the B1R into a dive and leveled out at as low as I could. I was kicking myself now for putting in an engine that had the power to drive such a huge propeller, because the size of the prop limited minimum altitude. I steered towards the buildings and buckball stadium of Appleoosa to use as cover.

Maybe I should have expected that Tirek wouldn’t care and instead just level the town with magic. At any rate, he was still pretty far away and with some guesswork and artful dodging, I managed to keep us from getting pulverized. Can’t say the same about the town, but that’s not really my fault, is it?

Twilight thought it was, but nobody listens to her.

Still, I couldn’t keep this up forever. The town would be leveled, if nothing else. I mean, God seemed to hate Appleoosa - again not my fault - but that would start being a problem when there wasn’t anything left to hide behind.

I remembered the crater outside of town where the remnants of the Saturn V had crashed. That could work. Getting there was going to be a problem, though.

Fortunately, I had a sixty liter diesel in the back and the simple act of dumping in more fuel created a very nice cloud of black smoke.

“Why didn’t you just do that to start with!?” Twilight shouted. Nobody listens to her.

Under cover of rolling coal, we managed to make it outside town in one piece. The crater was pretty big, and I set the airship down into it. It was completely hidden from view, and as the smoke dissipated, Tirek’s attacks seemed to taper off. Good, the ruse had worked. Had blackout-me planned this, too?

I crawled to the edge of the crater with my spyglass, taking care to keep it from glinting in the sun. Tirek was still far enough away that he didn’t spot my movement.

I wasn’t sure how I was going to get close to him. I had pretty much been playing the battle with Cozy by ear, but this guy might actually be dangerous, and out on the flat plains, there was no cover.

I just had to get close enough to kick him in the dick. Or something. That was what I had done last time. I had also taken a giant ship on him. I guess I could afford to be creative.

Remembering the bell, I pulled it out and looked at it. It seemed to have a little glow of energy, probably what it had sucked from Cozy and her necklace. I took another look at Tirek. He wasn’t wearing a similar piece of jewelry, probably because he could naturally suck magic. It had worked on Discord the last time they had fought, which was also the last time I’d kicked Tirek in the dick. He still had a convenient arrow in his crotch fur pointing the way.

I was going to have to approach him, and I doubted he was going to make it easy. I lifted the bell, and stood up.

Tirek saw me, but it took him a couple of seconds to determine who I was and what I was doing. I had galloped a few dozen yards before I saw the ball of red magic above his horns start to glow, and dodged to the side.

He missed, but only barely. I took a leap of faith and raised the bell. His next attack was dead-on, but it went straight inside the bell as if a piece of lint into a vacuum. Hey, this might actually work.

I kept charging at him. He fired a couple more magic blasts, but was quickly realizing that it wasn’t working. As I got close enough, he saw the bell and must have realized what it was, because he suddenly turned and started to run. It was a long shot, but I hurled my knife after him.

It was just a spruced-up kitchen knife, not really great for throwing, but it struck true - right in his asshole.

Not surprisingly, that really hindered Tirek’s ability to run. As I caught up with him, the bell started to pull magic away and he began to wither away back to his ancient, wizened form. That just made his asshole smaller, while the knife didn’t change size at all.

Well shit, I had been going to kill him anyway, but execution-style with his friends. This was just awkward, him bleeding out the ass in the middle of the desert.

I gingerly pulled out the knife, which caused his guts and a lot more blood to spill out. I wiped the knife off on his butt and quickly walked away.

The bell seemed to be glowing more brightly now. I looked at it as I walked back to the crater. I glanced up and saw another airship coming in. It looked like a Guard model, and as it landed, I realized it was all Twilight’s friends, the Princesses, and Discord.

“We managed to escape,” said Celestia. “Cozy Glow, while powerful, has very little experience in shackles and bars.”

Pinkie came bouncing over. “Now that we’re free, what are we going to do, Twilight?”

“The same thing we do every time, Pinkie: try to save the world,” Twilight replied. Her friends brought it in for a group hug.

I chuckled and shook my head.

“What’s his problem?” said Rainbow.

“You say ‘managed to escape’ as if I didn’t leave a how-to-escape-the-castle-dungeon guide scratched on the wall the last time I was there,” I said. “It was like one sentence because your security sucks.”

“I thought you improved it?” said Twilight.

“I made it harder for people to enter. You never asked me to keep people in.”

“Back on subject,” said Celestia. “Where is Tirek?”

“Bleeding out over there.” I gestured. “He might be dead by now. I’m not sure the loss rate of ass blood.”

Celestia cringed, but went on. “And Cozy Glow?”

I started to turn towards where I had left her locked aboard the B1R, but suddenly saw Cozy zoom into the sky.

“Uh, oops,” said Discord, his face appearing over the edge of the crater.

My hoof flicked in the direction of Cozy. Surprising myself again, I got another hit - two for two. As it spun, the obsidian blade lopped off both Cozy’s wings. She screamed as she fell out of the sky, until her face slammed into a small boulder at terminal velocity. Based on the crunch, I wasn’t sure if her skull or her spine had broken. Based on the results, it looked like both.

“Well, two out of four isn’t bad, I guess. Just need to find Chrysalis now.”

“Four?” said Twilight.

I looked at her. “You know what you promised me.”

“I-I what?”

I pulled out my tape recorder and hit play. “I promise you, Valiant.”

“That was out of context! I was promising to be a better leader of Equestria! I was not promising you Discord’s head if you helped me save everypony else!”

“You did what now?” said Discord. “Would you really sell me out like that? To him!?” he gestured at me.

I glanced at him. “You mad?”

Discord looked at Twilight, who didn’t meet his eyes. He turned towards the Princesses and the others, who also did not seem to want to come to his defense. I smirked and walked towards him. “I kept saying you were an asshole. I don’t think I’ll stab you in it like Tirek - not even sure if a draconequus has one to be honest - but I’m still going to enjoy this.”

He dropped to his knees, hands clasped and actual tears in his eyes. “Hey now, that wouldn’t be fair. I’m helpless without my magic right now! Please!”

“Fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Instead, I’m just going to take something away from you. Something that will hurt, and you’ll wish you were dead. Something that will make the world a better place for everyone else.”

I pulled out the bell. Discord’s eyes focused on it, and he immediately knew what it was. “Does that have-”

“You took all the magic from Tirek and Cozy - who took it from Discord?” said Luna.

“Valiant, no, we need to-” Twilight started to say.

I ignored her. I stared Discord down, as an expression that I’d never seen him use before crossed his face: regretting his own actions.

“Please,” he said.

“Fuck you, Discord.”

I crushed the bell under my hoof.

I probably should have expected the magic explosion that followed. It didn’t really do anything or go anywhere, just fizzled away all at once in a blinding flash.

A small cloud of desert dust hung in the air. I blinked the spots out of my eyes. I seemed...taller?

Everyone was looking at me, eyes wide, mouths agape. Did something happen? Was there something on my face?

“What are you all looking at?” I said. Something seemed to be wrong with my voice.

“Chrysalis!?” Twilight shouted.

The Last Problem

“Chrysalis? Where?” I glanced around. I didn’t see anyone except the girls, the Princesses, Discord, and two dead bodies.

I wasn’t expecting to be knocked head over heels just then by a blast of purple magic. When I finally stopped tumbling, I blinked and found Twilight standing over me, wearing an angry snarl. “Your reign of terror ends here, Chrysalis!”

“Chrysalis?” I glanced down at my body, which for some reason was now black and full of holes. “Why am I Chrysalis!?”

That seemed to confuse her. I poked her in the chest. “This isn’t funny, Twilight.”

“But…” she said.

I pushed her off of me and stood up. “I don’t know what just happened, but something is wrong here.”

“I’ll say,” said Applejack. “You turned into Queen Chrysalis.”

Oh no, if Applejack was saying it, then I was in serious trouble.

I suppose. I mean, being upgraded from an earth pony to a pseudoalicorn shapeshifter wasn’t all bad, right?

“But wait,” said Twilight, shaking her head. “How did this even happen? Ancient magic artifacts absorbing magic from various creatures,don’t just turn ponies into changelings when broken.”

“Come to think of it, we hadn’t heard any reports of Queen Chrysalis’ actions during this incident,” said Celestia. “Tirek and Cozy Glow, but not Chrysalis.”

“Well, it’s not like I’ve been Chrysalis this whole time,” I said.

I suddenly remembered the blackout incidents.

I remembered strange tape recordings that could only have been made from inside the villains’ lair.

I was...starting to remember fragments of memories of things that I shouldn’t know.

Oh Bug God, I’d been Chrysalis this whole time.

I looked down at my dark-colored chitin hooves. Blackout-me had been literal.

Fortunately, both Chrysalis and Valiant would have kept their mouth shut about this realization. I put on my best straight face and watched Twilight ponder through, hoping she wouldn’t figure it out.

“Chrysalis is a master of disguise, so she could have been Valiant all this time.” Twilight put a hoof to her chin as she muttered to herself. “But changelings feed on love, and it was quite frankly staggering the number of times I saw him reject even a hug.”

I wasn’t sure which was worse, being Valiant turned into Chrysalis or the other way around. Remembering being myself (him?) while also remembering being...well, her, myself.

With Twilight rambling, I put a hoof to my forehead and squeezed my eyes shut. Sorting out everything was so confusing. Valiant was mildly amused to learn that Chrysalis had also been suffering timeskips. Chrysalis the changeling was experiencing actually being someone else for the first time, exploring memories - especially that one about blowing her (my?) self up with a Panzerfaust.

Faces went past my mind’s eye - Valiant, Chrysalis, totallynotabrony, his, hers, mine, ponies and people I knew, from other worlds, from right here in front of me. I couldn't sort out where one ended and the others began.

“So I think I’ve figured it out,” Twilight said suddenly. My eyes popped open.

She pointed a hoof at me. “After the chaos of these battles, we’re left with one last problem.”

“The last problem begs a final solution,” I said. The Valiant part of my brain giggled for some reason. It took me a second, but his memories told me why. The Holocaust - hilarious.

Twilight ignored me and kept going. “This was a ploy to finally seize power, wasn’t it? Now that you’ve eliminated - or depowered - any creature who could possibly threaten you and took Chrysalis’ magic for yourself, there’s nopony to stop you.” She hastily added, “You think.”

“Uh, Twilight, did you forget the Princesses?” said Rainbow.

Twilight glanced over her shoulder at Celestia and Luna, apparently ignored Cadance, had a moment of regret, and then said, “It’s not like they’ve saved Equestria recently.”

Oh, wow. She was really leaning hard into her role as the new premier of Equestria. “I would actually be proud of you exerting your newfound authority if you hadn’t just accused me of a coup. Ironically, I didn’t even do one this time.”

“Wait, so you actually are Chrysalis?” said Twilight.

“But I’m still kind of Valiant.” Instinct told me that confusion was going to be my friend on this issue. They couldn’t be mad at me for being Valiant if I was actually Chrysalis, and they couldn’t be mad at me for being Chrysalis if I was actually Valiant.

“Prove you’re still Valiant.”

“Well, I have this tape recorder.”

Twilight opened her mouth, but I quickly added, “But I’ve recorded a lot of things only Chrysalis would have access to.”

I hit the play button.

“Chrysalis, stop leaving your dildo everywhere!” said Tirek’s voice.

“What’s a dildo?” asked Cozy.

Twilight’s cheeks were pink. I stopped the tape. “It was a particular rock-hard item that had been removed from Mudbriar.” I had been starting a collection, apparently.

“But Chrysalis wasn’t there for that.”

“But the item in question came into her possession because Valiant put it where she would find it.”

“Wait, so you are Valiant?”

“Not necessarily.”

“So-” she waved a hoof. “Prove you’re Chrysalis.”

I stared at her and gestured at myself.

Twilight took a stance. “Well then, if you’re Chrysalis, we’re going to detain you for the punishment you deserve.”

“But I - Chrysalis - didn’t do any of this,” I pointed out, gesturing to the bodies of Cozy Glow and Tirek. “See, if I was guilty, I would have attacked you or teleported away.”

“If you’re so innocent, then why didn’t you change to a more colorful form like all the reformed changelings?”

“Black is already my color. Besides, why should I need to be reformed? I’m innocent. I didn’t even participate in Tirek and Cozy’s plan to take over Equestria.”

“I was talking about the other times you’ve tried to take over Equestria.”

“But if I’m actually Valiant, then you know you literally couldn’t enforce any punishment.”

“But if you’re Valiant, then why do you look like Chrysalis?”

It was getting harder to come up with plausible counters. “I told you in the other world I was an alicorn for while after a demon sacrifice ritual. What makes you think that I didn’t do this on purpose for some long-running, obtuse plan?”

Twilight ground her teeth. “Why don’t I just throw you in the dungeon? If it works, great. If it doesn’t, then we’ll have this conversation again, more heatedly.”

“But Valiant did nothing wrong.” Could I still use that here? I couldn’t remember if I had ever said it in this universe.

Twilight let it go but shifted from questioning to take control of the situation. “You’re going to come with us back to Canterlot and we’ll decide what to do with you there.”

“Cozy blew up the castle,” I pointed out.

Twilight’s face tweaked and she corrected, “Then we’re going to Ponyville.”

Good, the stash of tequila was there. Actually, I had no idea what that would do to Chrysalis’ body. Valiant would want to find out, though.

“Well, I can take you all,” I said, turning towards the airship I’d arrived in.

“Yeah, I’m not comfortable with that,” said Rainbow. “Especially not now.”

“Is it the name?” I said. “I know, B1R - ‘boner’ - is kind of crude humor.”

“What does a boner have to do with it?” said Rainbow.

“Actually, that foreshadowed her being Chrysalis all along if she named it after that. Changlings like love,” said Pinkie.

“Sex ain’t the same thing as love,” Applejack pointed out.

“I think it was mostly just Valiant’s sense of inside joke humor. Plus, I’m not getting a whole lot of love off of this group,” I said, gesturing to them.

“Well, I’m going to echo Rainbow and say that I don’t think I want to fly with you,” said Twilight.

“Well, we can’t just leave my airship here.”

In response, Twilight used magic to grab all the detritus blown out of the crater when it was formed, balled it all up into a sphere of dirt and rock, and dropped it back into the crater. On top of the hapless B1R.

“What are you doing!?” I fell to my knees, hooves to my temples.

“You’ve got wings and I’m thinking I’m probably going to hold you for a while until we get to the bottom of this, so it’s not like you needed it.”

“You could have seized it through eminent domain, you could have sold it, you have left it here because it’s not like anyone else knows how to fly it. You could have done anything else. You didn’t have to destroy it.” I gestured at the mound of dirt. “This is how supervillains get made, Twilight.”

“And why should I listen to you, a supervillain?”

I glared at her. “You can be really vindictive when you think I’m not going to stab you.”

We got on the airship the Princesses had taken from Canterlot. Everyone sat in a circle staring at me. I guess that was better than them attempting to restrain me or turn me to stone or something, but it was still awkward.

In Ponyville, I was escorted into the castle conference room. Spike had to go get a couple of extra chairs, and then scoot them around to one side of the big circular table so the rest could all face me. On the one hand, it felt kind of hostile. On the other, I was the center of attention.

“We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” said Twilight.

“I’m not sure if you’re prepared for that kind of time commitment.”

I thought she might knock the smug look off my face, so I had a second, smaller smug look underneath ready to go. Whether I ended up being Chrysalis or Valiant, at least we had that going for us.

Speaking of things we had going for us, I guess if I wasn’t legally Valiant, then I wasn’t legally married to Lemon Pledge. Even though I guess that was never her name, either.

Identities were hard. As a shapeshifter, I’d never really had a strong grasp on my own. Trying to sort out fading Valiant memories wasn’t helping. I was becoming more sure that I wasn’t actually him, but from the insight I’d seen of his mind...I kind of wished I was.

Twilight summoned a notebook. “Now about the matter of Grogar’s bell-”

“Wait a second,” said Pinkie. “Didn’t Tirek take the Pillars’ magic, and then the bell sucked everything from Tirek, and then the bell was destroyed along with all the magic inside it?”

Twilight’s eyes got bigger than what should have physically been possible.

“In mine and my brand’s defense, it’s not like the Pillars ever did anything,” I pointed out.

Twilight had moved past shocked and was gaining steam for a full-on freakout. I was trying to tell whether it was going to go towards panic or fury when suddenly the magic table turned on.

I hadn’t done it. As far as I knew, it hadn’t been used since the experiments with cross-dimensional calling. The star map of different universes came up. There was a boop and suddenly a new one appeared. I squinted. Wait, no, that was the old one just decloaking or something. Did that mean-

Suddenly the display started to zoom in on the new universe. There was a flash of light, and as I blinked to clear the spots from my eyes, I saw that we had company.

There were six new arrivals. There was an additional Applejack, except jacked. There was an additional Twilight, except no wings. There was an additional Pinkie, except gay. Wait a second, this was starting to look like…

“Where is he?” the unicorn Twilight demanded.

“W-what?” the alicorn Twilight stammered in reply.

Oh Bug God, they’d finally gone looking for Valiant.

“Why do you have wings?” said unicorn Twilight, eyeing her counterpart.

“She has AIDS. Alicornized Immune Deficiency Syndrome,” I said.

Unicorn Twilight turned her glare on me. “And just where did you hear that phrase? We know Valiant’s been hiding out in this universe. Where is he?”

“If you knew he was here, there must be some kind of signature?” alicorn Twilight speculated. “Can’t you track it now?”

“It faded out just before we teleported across the dimension,” unicorn Twilight replied, annoyed. “Almost like he knew we were after him.”

She glanced at me and then at alicorn Twilight. “What’s Chrysalis doing here? She’s still alive in this universe?”

“She...kind of was Valiant up until a little while ago.”

“That’s impossible.” Unicorn Twilight shook her head. “We were tracking a very specific interdimensional signature. A changeling couldn’t have replicated it.” She frowned. “But...you say Chrysalis was Valiant? She acted like him and everything?”

“Well, assuming we had the same Valiant…” said alicorn Twilight.

“The same-” unicorn Twilight facehoofed. “Oh dear Celestia, he did it again.”

“Did what?” alicorn Twilight asked.

“Another one of his stupidly complicated plans to make us look bad.”

She sighed. “Alright, let me think this through. With the evidence that I have, I assume Valiant invaded this universe and brainwashed Chrysalis into transforming into him and even thinking she was him. But it would be a problem if she weren’t bad enough, so she-as-him got up to all his usual shenanigans. That caused us to think he was here, and we came looking.”

“But...why?” said alicorn Twilight. “I get that you dislike him - and I totally get why you do - but how come he wanted to set up such an elaborate ruse in my universe?”

“Also,” I said, “if I’m not the real Valiant, then where is he?”

That was intended as a rhetorical challenge. If they couldn’t produce him, then there was a chance I still was him. The way it came out, though, sounded like a worry. Why had he gone to all this trouble and wasn’t even here to revel in it? Was the plan still not done?

“Also,” said alicorn Twilight. “Aren’t you kind of leaving your own universe unguarded right now?”

This time it was unicorn Twilight’s turn to have her eyes nearly bug out of her skull. Trust me, I know how that looks. I’m a bug.

She swallowed hard and glanced at her friends. “Um, so, we’re just going to go back to our own dimension now.”

She did a spell that opened a portal. Her friends started to hurry through. Twilight turned to follow, but then stopped.

She glanced back at us. “And if you do see Valiant...don’t call us.”

author note

Author's Note

“Nothing much happens without a dream. For something really great to happen, it takes a really great dream.”
-Robert Greenleaf

“Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous…”
-T.E. Lawrence

November, 2019-
This story has been a part of my life for the last seven and a half years. Thinking about it, it kind of blows my mind that I’ve had eight different addresses in that time. I even wrote the last part of season 2 while living out of the back seat of a Dodge Ram in the Florida panhandle.

As the opening author’s note indicates, Valiant started out as a self-insert. Somewhere in the last half a million words he gained a personality of his own and things just kind of took off from there.

As you’ve probably gathered, a lot of planning went into this story. Many plot points were set up, or at least thought of, in the season before they actually appeared. I kept a couple running Google Docs filled with ideas and reminders of what I had already set up. I’m notorious for just writing without any prep and by the seat of my pants, so this story was good for my personal growth as a writer, because I learned how to plan ahead. I even started writing this author note in October 2018.

That kind of planning, I have to admit, almost became apart of the story itself. I successfully predicted my exact final word count in a blog post wrapping up Season 8, published December 2018.

One of my big regrets, however, could have been solved by even better planning. In the later seasons, there were a couple of soft reboots, usually explained by resetting the universe. Every time Valiant got a little too god-emperor, I had to knock him down again to keep the struggle real and the story interesting. I should probably take a little personal heed, but also find a better plot device. Plus, this is still a pony story, so rearranging the plot let me get back to more canon events, especially because it seems like many readers had eventually stopped watching the show itself.

I selected the above quote by Robert Greenleaf like four years ago, until suddenly stumbling upon the T.E. Lawrence quote in May 2019. I struggled for a while to figure out which one to use and eventually just did both.

Despite the volume of swearing, I generally held off on really good ones, just so I could have that little bit of room to escalate should it be required. “Fuck” was said exactly seven times - three of which were to Discord’s face.

Getting down to the end here, I'm feeling things and I want you - yes you - to know that I appreciate your patronage. Couldn't have done it without you.

-totallynotabrony

THE DREAMS MASTER INDEX

Even with 540,000 words in the main story, there were still dozens of related tales that add up to about another 350,000.

Side Stories

More Dreams (random chapters)
Wet Dreams
Sir Win's Hellish Beverage Brewing and Infernal Event Planning
The Adventures of Trixie if Her Father Was a Badass Alien
The Adventures of Crackhead Limestone Pie
Science, Steam, and Beer (by mines5, Altoid, and totallynotabrony)
The Pointless Adventures of Guinness (cancelled)(by Altoid)

Spinoffs

The Vampire Cheerilee series

The Adventures of Vampire Cheerilee

The Night Shift

Murder on the Mind

Fiends of Manehattan (written by Skrive Flip)

Luck of the Draw

Weakness of the Flesh

The Hunted (cancelled)(written by Thegodhand)

Dark Operations (cancelled)(written by CenturionFox13)

Turn That Frown Upside Down (cowritten by Brony Tom)

Hearts and Hooves Day Hurts (cowritten by zaponator)

Side stories:
Dominator
First Day (mature)

The Cyborg Braeburn series

The Adventures of Cyborg Braeburn

The Silver Stallion Braeburn (by KenSES64)

Cherry and Braeburn and the Gigantic Hermaphrodite That Lives With Them

Cover Art Archive

The original, used from 2nd Mar 2012 until 22nd Nov 2015. Made with General Zoi's pony creator and some photoshopping of the lampshade Spike wore in the first episode.

Briefly used 22st Nov 2015 until 4th Dec 2015. Drawn in five minutes on random tree screencaps.

Current cover art

At one point there was also an Ask Valiant tumblr.

And if you haven't seen it, there's an archive of Dreams-related art at my DeviantArt.

Not Asking For Trouble

Sunset quit her job as Princess Celestia and came back with me to Ponyville after Twilight had become a miniature ballerina and spoken to us from a music box.

Some sentences make more sense than others.

At any rate, Twilight had been right to call me. The serial killer had struck again. The victim was just some rando, though, and I didn’t bother visiting the morgue this time. The morgue pony might miss me, however, so in my effort to be a nice guy, I would have to send him a gift basket or something. What did you put in a gift basket for a morgue pony? I couldn’t even ask around about what he liked because I didn’t know his name.

I probably should have just gone to the morgue. But there were bigger things at work.

Namely, Journey was coming to Equestria for a concert.

Twilight noticed my good mood. “Are you actually a fan of this band?”

“Nope. I hate Journey.”

She frowned. “Then why are you so happy?”

Because the serial killer angle had opened up interesting new possibilities. Could we make it three out of three for dead musical acts? However, I said, “Statistical modeling and extrapolation.”

Being Twilight, however, she understood science doublespeak perfectly. “You can’t just have the killer kill everypony you don’t like!”

“Not everyone. You’re still alive.” I said it jokingly, but with enough feeling to emphasize that I could also not say it jokingly if I wanted to. But I was being a nice guy.

Twilight stared at me for a moment, shook her head, and changed the subject. “Well, we’ll add them to the entertainment for the Yikslurbertfest celebration.”

“The what?”

“Yikslurbertfest. It’s a traditional yak holiday.”

“There aren’t any yaks around here,” I pointed out. “They’re all dead, buried in an avalanche.”

“Well, there are still two,” said Twilight. “They were with Prince Rutherford when he was killed, so they were the only yaks outside of Yakyakistan when the avalanche happened.”

“But they’re both dudes, so yeah, the yaks as a species are all dead.”

“Well, we could-”

I cut her off, and spoke slowly. “Twilight. I know what you’re thinking. I know you’re just itching to use some freaky unethical magic to produce a species out of the last two remaining males. Don’t. Don’t do it. Just let them die out with dignity.”

“Well, dignity is what I was trying to do,” she huffed. “As governor of Silent HIll, I felt that we should maintain the old traditions of Yakyakistan, so we’re holding Yikslurbertfest.”

“This isn’t Silent Hill.”

“That’s because nopony lives there. It’s a snowy wasteland.”

I nodded. Fair enough. “So what do you do for Yikslurbertfest?”

“We’ve decorated the town in traditional yak Yikslurbertfest decor. We’re also going to be using traditional yakspeak for the day.”

“What’s that?”

“Let me demonstrate.” Twilight cleared her throat. “Name Twilight Sparkle. Me governor of Silent Hill and big time Yakyakistan historian.”

“This is stupid.”

“No it isn’t, it’s historical. Also, to us the correct yak dialect, you would say ‘this stupid.’”

I stared at her. “Nerd pony better check self before wreck self.”

“That’s, er, the spirit, if not exactly the message,” said Twilight.

“Thank.” I turned away.

“Wait,” said Twilight. “There’s, uh, something else. One key aspect of Yikslurbertfest is the traditional stomping.”

I turned around. I’m no Applejack, but she knew what my raised eyebrow meant.

“We have designated logs for smashing,” Twilight quickly said. “Only the provided logs. No smashing other things.”

I sighed, but smashing was smashing. “Lemme smash.”

As we broke stuff around town, I had to rescue my snow globes. Apparently a few ponies - cough the CMC - didn’t get the message about only logs.

“But this is boring!” Sweetie protested when I caught them.

“Smashing things is boring?” I asked, incredulous.

“We could at least go to the real yak place,” said Apple Bloom. “There’s got to be something interesting there.”

“It’s just an avalanche covering a mass grave.”

“That’s what she said,” said Scootaloo.

I sighed. “If you phrase that differently, maybe Twilight will take you.”

So they went to Twilight and begged for a field trip. By pretending to be actually interested in yak culture and appealing to Twilight's status as Governor of Silent Hill, they convinced her to lead a group.

“They tried the old, ‘you’re the governor of the place, make it happen’ angle on me,” she said resignedly.

“What do you mean ‘the old,’” I said. “How many times have people actually wanted to go to Silent Hill?”

“Not necessarily related to Silent Hill, but other things that ponies want me to do for them just because I’m a librarian, or smart, or the Element of Magic. I’m looking at you, Valiant.”

“When was the last time I wanted you to do something because of your position?” I said. “If we’re being completely honest here, I usually wanted you to do something because it annoyed you.”

I was maybe trying honesty as part of being a nice guy. Based on the look Twilight gave me, maybe I should be less honest.

“How are we going to get there, though?” said Apple Bloom

“Lots of options,” I said. “That weird farmer’s market train with all the grapes probably goes that way.”

“But what about the snow?” said Sweetie.

“I think it would be a lot easier if you flew us,” said Twilight, turning to me.

“So that’s how it is, huh?” I said. “You only keep me around because you like having your own private helicopter?”

Twilight fumbled. “Well, it’s not like I could send you away if I tried.”

I nodded. “Fair enough.” I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, load up the SNUT.”

In just a few minutes, Tin Mare arrived with a machine slung underneath. It was painted orange, had a nice enclosed cabin and large tracks. It was for tracking across snow. I called it a Snow Utility Track. It’s what it did.

It was a relatively basic vehicle. I’d built it quite a while ago, but had rarely ever needed it. Snow just wasn’t that common or long-lasting in Equestria.

The group of us loaded up and headed for Silent Hill. I was only there because Tin Mare was, and didn’t really care about whatever the CMC wanted.

Once we arrived, I figured the CMC wouldn’t have any problems driving the SNUT, so I grabbed a bottle of tequila and meandered away while Twilight gave the fillies a guided tour of the snow. Well, I’m sure she had quite a bit more to say about it than that, but snow was all that was visible from the former yak civilization.

I’d walked for maybe half a mile, sipping tequila and just kind of thinking to myself. It was kind of nice. Just being in the middle of nowhere with the peace and quiet and hundreds of bodies buried below.

I saw a shadow and looked up. A griffon was circling me. I shook the tequila bottle to show I wasn’t dead. Wait, maybe wrong bird of prey.

The griffon came in for a landing. She was a couple shades of grey and had the feathers on her head slicked back.

“Gabby, it’s been awhile, I said.

She nodded. “It really has. I’ve just been so busy since I left Ponyville.”

I remembered how when Gabby first showed up and tried to get a cutie mark from the CMC, they’d had a hard time figuring out what she was good at because she was hyper-competent at everything. Ultimately, she hadn’t gotten a cutie mark because she was a griffon and that was impossible. She’d subsequently disappeared for weird reasons.

“What brings you to this frozen nowhere?” I asked.

“I just saw you were here and stopped by to say hello.”

I was drunk, and didn’t immediately catch what was strange about that statement. How had she seen me here?

I nodded. “Yeah, we’ve been busy in Ponyville too. In fact, we could use your help. I remember you’re really good at everything, I bet you’d be good at solving criminal cases. We’ve been trying to figure out this serial killer that’s been leaving bodies all over.”

“Oh, I think I can clear that up for you,” she said. “It’s me.”

Well shit. I’m rarely speechless, but...well shit.

I guess Gabby really was good at everything.

I tapped my earpiece, but hid it as a stretch and scratch of my ear. As softly as I was able, I whispered, “Tin Mare, initiate Rods from God on my position. Enact armored cocoon protocol.”

“Hella,” she whispered back.

The OCTOPUS satellite system was going to get its first workout. I was sure glad that the Rods from God referred to prompt kinetic strike, rather than its cover program of Celestia granting manhood to mares, which would likely be useless in this situation.

Come to think of it, I’d never heard back from Canterlot about the legislation I’d introduced to create the cover program under the guise of Merry May not wanting to feel singled out by her uniqueness. Probably because that had been about the same time that Celestia had disappeared.

But enough about complicated turns of puns about extraneous penises. I turned back to Gabby. “So…you’re the serial killer?”

She nodded. “Yep.”

I waved my hooves, trying to think of what to say about her blunt admission. I eventually went with “Why!?”

“Well, I’m still trying to figure out why I failed.”

“Failed? At what?”

“When you asked me to help with security around Countess Coloratura and I didn’t catch the pony responsible for it.”

I thought back. That had been a long time ago and seemed pretty minor to me. “You still did your job of protecting Coloratura and brought us one step closer to catching the perp, who was a literal killbot.”

“That isn’t the same thing as being ridiculously good at security.”

I shook my head. “Because you didn’t do an absolutely perfect job at being security you decided to be a murderer?”

“Well, that’s secondary to recreating the mind and deeds of a psychopath so I can adequately assess and cure the condition. Once I do that, I can then move forward with the broader goal of eliminating both mental disorders and murder, which will help with solving crime in general. It will also be a step towards fixing death.”

“Time to LZ, seventeen seconds,” said Tin Mare in my ear. “Time to impact, twenty seconds.”

“That failure of protecting Coloratura made me realize that while I was good at everything, I needed to be better than anyone at everything,” said Gabby. “Not just the best, I needed to be the ultimate authority, the one and only.”

This was starting to sound familiar. More to the point, though, if she was the best at everything, or even just working towards it, that went a long way towards explaining how my networks had been broken, how my shit had been lifted, and why I’d never managed to catch her at killing.

I could have said a lot of things. Maybe later when I wasn’t simultaneously drunk and in shock, I would. As it was, the only message I could wring out of my brain cells at the moment was, “This isn’t right.”

“Well, when I’m the authority at morals, it will be.” She smiled happily.

Tin Mare suddenly slammed down beside me in the snow. Her side door was open and I hurled myself inside. The door snapped shut behind me and I grabbed whatever I could reach, which turned out to be a cargo net. Her engines screamed and I felt her wheels leave the ground.

The tungsten rod traveling at Mach 10 hit the ground a few feet away. Just the wind from it passing knocked Tin Mare end over end through the air, to say nothing of the massive explosion resulting from the impact.

Frozen soil dug all the way from under the glacier hammered Tin Mare’s airframe. Even snow turned into a deadly projectile with enough speed behind it. Wrapped in the nylon net, I had a little cushioning, but still hung on for dear life on a ride worse than any roller coaster.

Everything had gone quiet. I blinked. No, I had gone deaf. Something trickled down the sides of my head. Oh shit, I really hoped that wasn’t my eardrums. Though it probably was. Shit.

“Tin Mare, report. Text, please,” I said, or thought I did. She apparently must have heard me because the screen on the video equipment lit up.

“Damage to both engines from ingesting foreign material. Damage to all sensors. Damage to control surfaces.”

“Can you make it back to Ponyville?”

Tin Mare did a diagnostic, but after a few seconds only came back with “Maybe.”

Her lack of confidence one way or the other shook me more than anything. But I also knew Tin Mare didn’t bullshit. It was maybe the most harm her airframe had ever suffered. A close range Rod from God would do that.

Then, the more important issue came back to my mind. “What happened to Gabby?”

The screen flashed “Unknown.”

Shit.

Well, there was one way to find out.

We flew back to Ponyville. I was well aware that I was leaving Twilight and the CMC out there, but hopefully they would be more distracted by watching the devastation from my latest weapons test.

Tin Mare barely made it back to my place and set down hard, smoke pouring out of her engines. Sunset and Trixie came running out as I stumbled down Tin Mare’s tailgate.

“Tin Mare, explain it,” I said, when Sunset started asking me questions and I couldn’t hear her.

Tin Mare walked through what had happened in Silent Hill. We now knew who the serial killer was, which simplified things, but I had a bad feeling that ultimately it didn’t change much. We’d already seen how good Gabby was at everything, and we had no hard evidence that the strike from space had killed her. Now, if she was still alive, I somehow had to figure out how to be even better than her at everything in order to beat her.

And it looked like I was going to be without one of my best tools. Tin Mare’s personal diagnostic was bleak. Everything on her needed overhaul, and I had another bad feeling that even when she was back to working condition, that wouldn’t be good enough. She’d pulled my ass out of the fire today, but only barely. With Gabby in our networks and everything else, Tin Mare was going to need some upgrades.

I was planning doomsday scenarios, because I knew Gabby. Other villains had thrown me for a loop before, but none of them had the natural hyper-competence she did.

I took another drink and then went to find out if Gabby was still alive. I wasn’t holding my breath.

The stage in the center of town was set up. A bright banner hung above the curtain announced that Journey would be playing soon.

The All-American Bruce Springsteen had been cut down like the everyman image he portrayed. Jimmy Buffett’s cool island songs had no effect on calming the raging serial killer. And Journey-

The curtain came up. The members of Journey hung there together, ropes wrapped around their broken necks and bodies covered in bloody ritualistic runes.

Well, that answered one question: somehow, Gabby was still alive. I tried not to think about what might happen if she truly was the best at everything ever.

But there wasn’t time for that. I had a show to do.

I leapt up on stage and pushed aside Journey’s bodies. They banged into each other like one of those little desktop ball things.

I slipped my guitar strap over my shoulders and stepped up to the microphone, my ears still ringing but I could probably at least talk. “Hey everyone, it’s Valiant and the Background Band. With me tonight is Trixie on the drums, Guinness on the bass, and introducing Sir Winifred Condemnation Inferno on the theremin. With us tonight for backing vocals is the Manehattan Children’s Choir.”

I took my mouth away from the microphone, pushing away Journey’s bodies again, and glanced at Sir Win. He was smiling and waving to the crowd and looked far less perturbed about the bloody concert than Guinness, who had seen several so far.

The Manehattan Children’s Choir was really perturbed.

Obviously, with my deafness, some adjustments had to be made to tonight’s lineup. I turned back to the microphone. “Anyway, here’s Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.”

Author's Note

Special thanks to StardustSVV, who guessed first.

School Daze, part 2

I sat in the chair, gown draped over me, while Rainbow cut my mane.

“Well, at least I had a job to fall back on when the teaching thing fell through,” she remarked.

“How did you get into hairstyling, anyway?” I asked.

“Well, after being known as the fastest pegasus in Equestria, the windblown look got really popular. That, combined with me being pretty decent at sculpting clouds kind of turned into sculpting manes.” She shrugged. “Being fast is great, but having a job pays the bills.”

“How’s Skyla?” I asked.

“She’s doing great.” I saw Rainbow smiling in the mirror as she worked on my head.

Holy shit. This universe reset had really changed things.

“Did you know about the deal I made with Twilight that ended up with me running the school?” I said.

“You said something about it.”

“Well, I screwed it up and now she’ll know I’m actually her friend and she’ll come back to Ponyville.”

“Well, you have other Twilight.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same. She’s off doing superhero stuff and not learning friendship like Twilight probably would have wanted.”

Rainbow paused. “Superhero stuff?”

“Tough to explain, but take my word for it.”

“No, that’s not it, look!”

I glanced out the window. Sure enough, there was Twilight in a superhero costume running somewhere over the rooftops. And with her was…

I blinked. Yep, I saw it correctly. There was Yona the yak in costume with her. I mean, okay, it was across the street and she was masked, but I knew it was her. A young female yak shows up in town on the same week as a young female yak superhero? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, folks. Even though I am one.

As I was distracted, Rainbow made a few more snips. “There, you’re finished.”

I glanced in the mirror. “Thanks, it actually looks good.”

“What’s with all the backhoofed compliments lately?” she said.

“Um, sorry, the last Rainbow Dash I knew was a real bitch.”

“What do you mean ‘the last one?’”

“Don’t worry about it, different universe. Well, same universe, different timeline. I guess.”

I paid her and left the salon.

With the school shut down, I suddenly had a lot of free time. Twilight apparently hadn’t learned yet that the school had closed. She had Spike with her, so she could mail me easily enough, but to get a message back to her I had to send it through snail mail. Given the quality of the local mailponies, I’m sure you can imagine how well it went trying to get them to deliver to a country that didn’t exist anymore in the middle of a barren wasteland.

I headed over to Rarity’s. As I got closer, I began to hear music. Outside the boutique, I could clearly tell someone was shredding a guitar. Be still my heart.

I walked in, getting blasted by extra noise as the door opened. Rarity was in her apparently new-usual outfit, the vest, the spikes, the hair. She stopped playing when she saw me. “Hello Valiant, what brings you here today?”

“Well, now that I’ve heard you play, I guess we should get a band together. Why didn’t you tell me you’re awesome at the guitar?” I really could have used her for my cover band while we were cleaning up dead celebrities from Gabby’s rampage.

“It never came up in conversation before, I suppose,” said Rarity. “Who else would be in this band?”

“I don’t know if I could get Trixie. She’s about to have her hands full with a kid. Guinness would probably be in.”

“Well, clearly I would be the lead singer,” said Rarity.

I nodded.

“And, no offense, but I think having myself as a frontmare would really boost the image of the band.”

Again, I nodded. “But-”

“But we can’t have two guitars and Guinness playing his bass,” she finished for me.

“I guess I could learn how to play the drums,” I said. “Trixie could probably teach me.”

“Excellent.” She put a hoof to her chin. “We’ll need a band name.”

“I’ll work on it.”

The door opened and Maud came in. She looked exactly the same as she had before and I couldn’t imagine how the universe changing could have changed her.

“I found these common diamonds,” Maud said in her voice, showing a hoofful of stones to Rarity.

“Lovely, dear. I have a dress in mind that could really use these” Rarity gave Maud a small box gift wrapped. “And I got this for you.”

“Should I open it?”

“Go ahead, darling.”

Maud opened the box to reveal several dull grey rocks. “Wow.”

Holy shit, they must have been some really impressive rocks.

“Thank you so much,” said Maud. “I’ve rarely seen specimens so interesting.”

She took a step forward and kissed Rarity on the lips.

Maud turned around. “Good to see you, Valiant.” She walked out of the store.

Rarity looked at me. “Oh dear, your nose!”

“It’s nothing,” I said, wiping blood away with my fetlock. “What’s the deal with you and Maud?”

“She’s only interested in me for my rocks, but I accept that.” Rarity paused thoughtfully. “I suppose being a public lesbian could bring more male interest to the band.”

Rarity, always thinking of the big picture..

I left the boutique and headed for my place. I’d only made it a few steps before a sudden chill went up my spine and I could feel the hair on my neck involuntarily lifting.

Damn, it must have been a really good haircut.

Either that, or it was a feeling of impending doom. I turned around slowly.

Cheerilee stood there, glaring not just daggers but entire spears and pikes at me. “I heard what you did to that school.”

“First of all, I was the principal, so it’s not like I did anything at all,” I said. “Second of all, the curriculum was written by Twilight. Third, the EEA is racist.”

Cheerilee paused for a long moment. “You’re wrong, I didn’t know that, and you’re correct.”

“Ssssso we cool?”

She glared at me, flaming gundam swords this time.

“I mean, does the school need to be accredited?” I said. “What are they going to do if we just run an unlicensed pirate school?”

“The EEA has more power than the princesses,” Cheerilee reminded me.

“I’ve killed gods. I don’t care.”

“No you haven’t.”

“I mean, not technically, but I used to be a god, so it’s like my statement is literal word of god and therefore unflappable.”

“Those words don’t mean what you think they mean,” she said.

“I mean, I’ve got a lot of good words,” I said. “I’ve written a history book. Believe me, I didn’t expect to be a teacher, but I kind of resigned myself to it after a little while. It wasn’t my intention to get it shut down.”

“Just your incompetence?”

“That’s a strong word.”

“You didn’t deny it.”

I shook my head. “Look, you want the school open? Then please help.”

She considered it. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll decide depending on the quality of your history book. What did you write about?”

“Well, I started out with the big wang theory-”

Cheerilee did not want to help.

I went back to the library. Twilight was there. The new one. She looked up as I came in. “This scroll arrived for you.”

I glanced at it. It was sealed with the royal crest. Opening it, I saw that Princess Celestia wanted to know what I had done to get six simultaneous declarations of war placed on Equestria.

I thought about my responses. Maybe on behalf of the United States I could make it seven.

Wait, I was missing the point there.

I read back through the letter. Apparently the students had all liked the school so much before it was shut down that they’d run away from home and their grief-stricken parents had held Equestria responsible. Well, except for Yona the yak, but I assumed that being a yak she’d sent the declaration of war herself.

“Bad news?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, I think you could say that. Now we have to put together a rescue mission in addition to finding a way to get the school running again.”

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, go through the saved satellite feeds since the school closed down and figure out where all the kids went. I’m looking for stragglers that might have gotten lost.”

“Is this thing on?” a voice screeched in my ear.

I smacked the earpiece out in pain and it fell on the floor. “What the hell?”

“LIBB interfered with the channel,” said Tin Mare’s voice from the nearby radio. I’ve squelched her.”

“I really need to get Libby fixed,” I said.

“What’s this about fixing someone?” asked Sir Win, opening the door. He came into the library on a unicycle.

“My drone is whacked out,” I said. “Also, what’s this?”

“The bicycle was a little too unwieldy for inside buildings,” he explained, balancing deftly in the middle of the floor.

“I’m not sure why you need to have a unicycle in buildings.”

“Nopony has a policy against it. I find it helps reduce the feelings of impending doom among others,” he said. “It’s a compromise, because I’m not going to dress up in clown makeup. I have my standards.”

Doom unicycle aside, that was an excellent reason. Ponies weren’t afraid of clowns, the freaks.

“Doom Unicycle would make a pretty good band name, come to think of it.” Which reminded me, I needed to come up with a band name.

Sir Win agreed. He picked out a book and I checked it out for him. After he left, I turned to find Twilight pondering something with her hoof on her chin. “I was thinking about a superhero name.”

Great, another thing I needed to name. This, on top of Trixie and Daring’s kid on the way.

I walked over to my earpiece and put it back in. After a few minutes, Tin Mare called me. She had found the missing students.

“All right, let’s go,” I said. Twilight followed me out. I paused to flip the library sign to closed.

Tin Mare flew us out to the Everfree Forest, to the old castle of the pony sisters. When we arrived, the hippogriff was freaking out about stairs. Apparently in her experience of having either wings or fins, she’d never really had a problem moving three dimensionally. I guess it spoke well of Twilight’s school design if we were so handicap accessible that there weren’t any stairs there, either.

I was also kind of unclear about the wings/fins thing. I guess hippogriffs were seaponies, or vice versa? This whole universe changeup thing had really done a number on my understanding of the world.

“You kids shouldn’t be out here alone,” I said as we flew back. “These woods are dangerous.”

“I mean, we got a day of fun off school,” said Gallus the griffon.

“And a ride in this sweet ride!” added Silverstream the hippogriff.

Well, I guess they weren’t wrong.

I told Tin Mare to head for Canterlot.

“What’s this, Valiant?” Celestia asked as Tin Mare hovered outside her bedroom window.

“War’s off, you owe me,” I shouted over Tin Mare’s engines. I threw the six kids off the tailgate and through the open window.

“But what about school?” asked Ocellus, the young changeling, putting her hooves on the windowsill.

“I’ll figure it out.”

I made a phone call. It rang five or six times before a shaky voice said, “Hello?”

“This is Rhumba Rhymes, am I speaking to Merry May?”

“Yes. What...what is this thing?”

“It’s our dance-a-ma-phone, mailed to you free with every dance school enrollment. I’m calling to tell you your application to the Equestria School of Dance has been approved.”

“Oh, that’s great!” I’d rarely heard such enthusiasm from Merry May.

“All right, we can begin now. Bring the phone and meet us in front of the school by the waterfall in Ponyville.”

I headed for the school myself and set up a high table in front of the door, draping a long tablecloth over it that reached the ground. I went underneath the table, hidden from view.

Based on the directions on the EAA business card, I drew a pentagram and sacrificed a first edition ethics textbook to summon Chancellor Neighsay.

I’m kidding. I used a comic book, just to see if it would work. It did, and he was pissed. He was also kind of pissed about being under a table with me, but I figured he would be pissed to see me again anyway, so it didn’t matter.

I asked him to reopen the school.

“No,” he said.

“What do I have to do?”

“You are unfit to be a teacher, and I will never allow such a multispecies friendship school to exist.”

I sidled closer to him. “What if we open our own school, with our own rules?”

“You can’t. There are no other rules.”

I could write to Twilight to ask for help and I’m sure she would would come back with a rulebook of her own for the new school format that would totally be bigger than Neighsay’s rulebook and win the verbosity dick measuring contest. But I had other dick measuring contests in mind.

“But what if we did make our own school with our own rules?

“I would not permit it to be EEA accredited.”

“So we’ll have a pirate school.”

“That would not be allowed!”

I leaned forward. “What are you going to do about it?”

He glared at me. “I will take every measure available to the Equestrian Education Association.”

“Um, hello?” I heard a voice call. Merry May had arrived.

I got on the phone. “Take a couple of steps forward, forehooves up on the table.”

“Okay...”

She did so, and her gigantic hermaphrodite equipment poked through the folded tablecloth and under the table. Neighsay’s eyes bugged out.

“Open the school,” I said to him quietly.

“No.”

Into the phone, I said, “We’re going to do a little admissions test. Wiggle your hips to the right.”

Slap. It knocked Neighsay’s head to the side so hard I heard his neck pop.

“Open the school,” I said.

“No!”

To Merry May: “Wiggle your hips left.”

Slap.

“Open the school.”

“N...no!”

“Okay, now work your hips back and for-”

Neighsay burst out from under the table, screaming and running. “You haven’t heard the last from the EEA!”

“Uh...okay,” Merry said. “I’ll, uh, wait for your call.”

When she was gone, I got out from under the table and headed back to my place to get hammered.

I needed it.

The next morning I got up, fighting a hangover. I weaved my way down to the school to find it burned to the ground.

Well shit, there went my efforts from the previous day. I’d gotten blackout drunk for nothing.

I mean, I usually did, but I thought yesterday was special.

I looked at the ashes. I didn’t even need Tin Mare to play back the overhead footage to know this was no accident.

Fine. We’d have a pirate school, then.

But ships could burn, too.

Fine. We’d have a pirate school submarine, then.

Good thing I knew how to build submarines. I got Tin Mare started on lifting pieces into place for the pressure hull. I would still need to do the delicate work inside, but until then I had a little time to kill.

So I went to have a drink at the pub.

I invited Rarity and she, Guiness, and I had a little brainstorming session about the band.

“I’m not sure I want to be in a punk band,” said Guinness.

“Come on, with Rarity leading, no one will even notice you,” I said.

He considered it, and shrugged.

“So what shall we call ourselves?” said Rarity.

“If we’re going to go full-on punk, we should be headline-grabbing offensive. What’s the worst thing you can think of?”

We were all silent for a moment.

“This is hard,” I said.

I instinctively had a look around to see if Pinkie would pick up the joke, but she wasn’t there.

“Let’s go ask Pinkie,” I said.

The others nodded agreeably.

We found her at Sugarcube Corner. She was busy making cakes, but took the time to talk to us over her shoulder.

“Oh, a band name, huh? That’s a toughie.”

“Oh, and a submarine name,” I said. “While we’re at it.”

“Huh, a submarine?” said Pinkie. “Das boot. Booty. Booty McBootface.”

“Okay,” I said, “Das Booty could be worse. What about the band?”

“‘In Need of Beaning’ is the most disgusting, uncomfortable thing I can think of,” she said.

“What?” I asked, but Guinness winced.

“What?” I said, turning to him.

“It’s…” He shook his head. “If you don’t know what it is, you’re lucky.”

“Okay,” I said. “Offensive and an inside joke. I can live with that.”

“I’ll make the naming celebration cakes!” said Pinkie.

I went to check on the submarine. It was quite a ways because we had to build it at the ocean, see.

Tin Mare had gotten the big pieces into place, so I got liquored up and spent all night welding. Real party animal.

I figured whatever didn’t get finished could be a student project later. Of course, they were going to have to clean up the slag from where I fell asleep with the welder still sparking.

I came awake in the morning with a hangover. I glanced out the hatch to see that a stage had been set up and the outside of the sub had been hung with streamers and bunting. It must have been Pinkie.

That was about all the sunlight my eyes could stand after being inside the sub all night and also being hungover. I put on my tinted welding helmet and popped back up.

A crowd had begun to gather. I saw Pinkie step up to the microphone on stage. “Hey everypony! It’s a super special event today! We’re going to commission a new submarine, In Need of Beaning, and here to celebrate the occasion with their inaugural performance is Equestria’s hottest new band Das Booty!”

My drunken mind took a second to process that. Wait, no…

I paused to think about it, though, and then shrugged. Whatever.

A Matter of Principals

I had a Coke and a tequila and considered my options.

I could mix them. I could put them on the rocks. I guess that was about it.

I mixed them and put them on the rocks.

“Slow day, huh?” observed Guinness.

“My Coca-Cola business is the most profitable thing I’ve ever done. I literally cannot believe the money I have coming in. I think I’ll buy out the other shares in Valiantco® from Twilight and the estate of Bruce Springsteen.”

“That fast?” said Guinness. “It’s only been a week or two. How much money is it?”

“If I told you, you literally would not believe it. I could buy several banks and begin printing my own currency that would compete with bits, and I’d win because I bought so many banks that I’d have the majority in the country. Also, metal money is stupid and I think ponies would agree that thin paper bills are much easier to carry around.”

I shrugged. “Maybe I’m still in shock with how well this soft drink empire worked out and it hasn’t sunk in yet. I’ve got so much money that I could choke a horse. Screw it. I’m going to replace the currency of an entire country because I can. Well, and I’d benefit because carrying paper money is easier.”

“If you’re in a generous mood, I’ve got this bridge I’ve been trying to sell,” said Guinness, grinning.

“Yeah, sure.” I waved my hoof. “Put it on my tab.”

“That was a joke.”

“I know. I’m so wealthy that I just spent whatever you’re going to bill me just to make it not funny.”

I finished my drink and got up. Maybe I was in shock, I was finding that having a personal GDP rivaling most nations outside of Equestria was kind of boring. It wasn’t like I didn’t already get what I wanted, and there were some problems that literally no amount of money could solve.

Like Cordoba being Tim Allen.

I winced. Oh, I made myself sad.

Plus, now that I had all this money and influence from selling soft drinks, I didn’t need to sell out Das Booty to peddle toilet paper or whatever else I was going to sell. And I’d had such a good slogan prepared for the ads.

I turned around from the bar and tossed my used napkin through the magic portal Fizzy had set up in the middle of the floor. With some help from Twilight we’d DEVGRU’d a solution. It wasn’t the first time I’d figured out how to combine technology and magic. There was a small dial with various destinations that could be set. The knob was currently pointing to “trash.” I didn’t know where it went.

Speaking of Twilight, she came in just then. “There you are, Valiant. I was hoping you could help us with something.” Yona and Owlowiscious followed her into the room.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I want to investigate what I’m terming ‘dichotomy shops:’ stores that sell completely unrelated items.”

“Like Quills & Sofas in Ponyville?” I said.

She nodded. “It’s a thin theory, but I have an idea that such stores have something subtle and unseen going on. I’m not sure what we’ll find, maybe nothing, but I wanted to look into it.”

Hell, as rich as I was, this would be easy. Yes, thank you, I will take one weird store, please.

I flipped the dial to “Ponyville Library” and hopped through.

I startled Sunburst, who was studying. He recovered quickly, though, and came over to me. “I wanted to ask you some questions.”

“Don’t sex the robot.”

“Valiant, I was never going to sex the robot, especially now that I know it’s not Starlight Glimmer.”

“Not for lack of trying.”

He ignored me and kept talking, barely noticing Twilight, Yona, and Owlowiscious coming through the portal. “So, if you didn’t use Starlight’s soul to power another aircraft, what did you use it for?”

I pulled out my autodarkening sunglasses and put them on, though he’d already seen me so they were useless as a disguise. I pulled out my wad of cash and started flipping through it.

“You said something really cryptic the last time we met,” Starburst continued. “‘She’s closer than you think.’ What did you mean by that?”

“I tend to be pretty literal when I say something,” I said. “How much money would it take for you to stop talking right now?”

He selectively ignored me again. “So she’s close? Like...how close?”

“I think there’s a more interesting question you should be asking,” I said. I briefly lowered my sunglasses so I could look him in the eye. “If Starlight isn’t Libby...then who did Libby used to be?”

While he was struck dumb by that, I brushed by him and headed for the door.

“I’m kind of interested in that myself,” said Twilight as we walked.

“Someone who used to be vitally important, but lost their place in this alternate universe and I decided to make a few changes to keep their relevance,” I said. “But look at me, blustering on about people near to me with secret identities. We have stores to investigate.”

When you looked at it, Ponyville had a lot of weird stores. I only knew about Quills & Sofas because old Twilight used to go there all the time. But as we got to looking around we also discovered that the place was conveniently located between Soup & Clothes, and Board Games & Drilling Equipment.

“Wait,” said Yona. “You mean secret identities like Mystic and Super Cow, or something else? Something you did and didn’t tell?”

“Oh look,” I said, “I just bought all these stores. Now we can investigate their secrets at will.”

Twilight stared at my wad of cash. “Just how much of that do you have?”

I’d already used “enough to choke a horse” on Guinness. Coming up with metaphors for every person that asked was hard. I should hire a script writer to follow me around.

In response to her question, I said, “Enough to break capitalism and bring it back around to feudalism.” I frowned. Shit, when I put it like that.

I quickly distracted them by striding into the nearest store like I owned the place. I mean, I did, but that’s not the point. It was the store that sold soup and clothes.

“It appears to be a well stocked, legitimate business,” said Twilight, glancing around.

I grabbed a shirt off the rack and put it on. Maybe it would be enough to complete the disguise I had been missing the last time I saw Sunburst. It was kind of ugly, though.

We hunted around for a little while, but didn’t find anything obviously a red flag. Whatever. It’s not like I cared about material goods anyway now that being so incredibly wealthy kind of rendered every monetary pissing contest moot.

“Wait, what the-” Twilight stopped short, bending down to examine a hairline crack in the floor. “This doesn’t look right.”

Yona came over and pounded on the floor a few times. “Sound hollow.”

Twilight tried magic and managed to pry up a trap door. It led down to a dark basement.

“Huh, this wasn’t on the blueprints.” I pulled out a flare and dropped it down the hole.

“Wouldn’t a flashlight have worked better?” said Twilight, squinting at the dim red light.

“I’m kind of to the point in my life where I’m lighting candles just to watch them burn.”

“You’re not that old.”

“I never said it had anything to do with age.”

We went down. There was a body.

Twilight gasped. She gingerly reached out with magic, tilting the limp pony’s head to expose a slashed throat. “Who could the killer be!?”

“The killer is OJ.” I shrugged. “No idea who did this murder, though.”

“We need to gather evidence and figure this out,” she said.

“Yeah. Sometimes I wonder why Ponyville doesn’t have its own police force.”

We searched the area, but other than being a bare basement, there wasn’t much. I didn’t immediately recognize the dead pony.

I turned my head so the tiny camera in my earpiece could see the body. “Tin Mare, run a search for this pony.”

“Processing satellite imagery.” After thirty seconds, she came back. “I have this pony entering the store three days ago but not leaving.”

“What’s their name?”

“Park Bench.”

“Sounds Korean,” I mused. “All right, do we have a probable killer? I’m going to take a guess and say the former owner of this store?”

“Based on traffic flow, I assess Park Bench was alone with Savory Styles, the former owner.”

“Cool. Is Libby with you?”

“Yep!” Libby chimed in.

“Hang on,” Twilight said. “If we already have an idea who it is, and they only left the building a few minutes ago, this is a perfect opportunity for the superhero team.”

I nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Aw man,” said Libby. “You totally blueballed me.”

“You don’t have balls.”

“It’s an expression!”

“I know.”

Mystic, Super Cow, and whatever Owlowiscious’ superhero name was suited up. Given a name, physical description, and direction, it wasn’t difficult to find Savory Styles. I went along to watch.

“Halt, evildoer!” shouted Twilight as they ran up on him.

Yona stomped the ground. Twilight charged her magic. Owlowiscious did too, but suddenly let the spell go, knocking over the other two.

“Jesus, you really aren’t that good at magic,” I said.

“Well, he’s good for an owl,” Twilight said weakly.

Meanwhile, their target had taken the time to run.

“Please let me smear him, Valiant,” Libby begged.

“What’s the collateral damage estimate?”

“I don’t know.”

I rolled my eyes. “Tin Mare.”

“On it.”

“You never let me do anything fun!” Libby complained.

“You’re a robot; you’re not supposed to know what fun is. You wouldn’t know it if you had it.”

“Because you never let me.”

Tin Mare swooped by. I heard a fwoosh followed shortly by a scream and a relatively small explosion. I wondered why Tin Mare didn’t use her gun, but figured she must have slung one of the laser-guided rockets instead.

Either way, my eyes were protected by my fancy shades. It did kind of remind me of that time Valiantina had tried to kill me with eye lasers, though.

Turning away from the explosion, I saw a guy coming down the street. I immediately took notice because he dared make eye contact. Among ponies, that stood out as suspicious.

He made a beeline for me and I was already locking down for combat. Tin Mare, of course, was right there. Plus Mystic and Super Cow weren’t totally useless unlike their partner.

He stopped a few feet away and smirked. “Nice shirt. Does it come in mens?”

“You look like you come in mens,” I reflexively replied.

His face twitched, but he held the smirk. “So I hear you’ve come into some recent wealth.”

“So what?”

“I’m Accurate Analysis, sixth of the Seven School Superintendents.”

“What do you teach?”

Somehow, he turned up the haughtiness another notch. “I’m an economist.”

I blinked. “You are maybe the smuggest economist I’ve ever met, Accurate Anal.”

Another crack appeared in his expression, but he persevered. “I’m here to tell you what a pathetic loser you are and how money doesn’t make you cool and only makes everyone think you’re a dick.”

“Hmm,” I said. I took out my wad of bills and began counting them off.

He watched me. I kept flipping through the cash.

He started to look annoyed. I continued to go through my money and wave it under his nose.

Another minute passed.

His lip had curled, and a smirk had instead begun to appear on my face.

“Stop it,” he suddenly demanded. “Can’t you see you’re embarrassing yourself?”

I stepped back away from the huge pile I had counted off. “You tell me. I’ll give you this hundred million dollars that I just threw away. Just go away and leave me alone. Are you willing to be bought? Are you willing to swallow your attitude and walk away with the biggest single payday you or literally anyone in this world has ever seen? I’ll bet it’s a hell of a lot more than a teacher’s salary.”

I frowned. “Shit, I’m a teacher. Why am I still a teacher? I’m suddenly not sure it’s even worth winning the bet with Twilight anymore.”

“I’m not a teacher, I’m an administrator,” he snapped.

I shrugged. “Well, either way, good thing I have enough money to choke a horse.”

He didn’t reply. Kind of hard when someone’s hoof is ramming dozens of bills down your throat.

Father Knows Beast

I got Twilight (old Twilight who had just returned unexpectedly) fitted with a gas mask and once she was breathing clean air free of the smoke of burning shit and eldritch stuff, she glared at me. Through the mask, she couldn’t talk clearly, though, which was I had intended.

I raised my autodarkening sunglasses to look at her. “So, I see you’ve finally come crawling back. How’s it feel to admit that I can actually run a school?”

More glaring. Incoherent shouting.

“No, it’s okay, I didn’t think I could do it either, but here I am.” I smirked. “Winning. How does it feel to know that I’m a better teacher than you?”

Still glaring, still mumbleshouting, now also hoof gesticulating.

“Well, I mean it wasn’t easy. I had to kill a lot of people. But it’s okay, they were just administrators. Bureaucrats. The Equestrian Education Association.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. She took a big gasp, pulled off the gas mask, and said in one breath “You did what!? Valiant, I left you in charge of a school with very clear instructions on what to do and you ended up murdering the entire school administration infrastructure!?”

“Okay, first of all, it’s not murder if it’s self defense. Which it was. Honestly. It may not surprise you, but they didn’t like me. They didn’t like me to the point that they tried to fight me, one at a time. Some of them were actually decent fighters, but they came at me, and you know what happens to people who come at me.”

Twilight took another gulp of air through the mask and started to speak again, but I interrupted her. “And it actually wasn’t the whole EEA. There’s still one left, Chancellor Neighsay. But I get the feeling he’s not long for this world. You know how I feel about chancellors.”

Twilight took another big breath. “But-”

“But I think the thing you should actually be more concerned about is the Tree of Harmony is masquerading as you. Was. I mean was.”

This time, before Twilight could speak and ask what I meant by that, it was Sunburst, who had somehow survived burning shitty eldritch tentacle vines, that interrupted. “Valiant, you owe me! Tell me what I want to know! Tell me what you did with Starlight Glimmer!”

Trying to play them off each other, this time I let Twilight speak. Unfortunately, she said, “Wait, what did you do with Starlight Glimmer?”

I glanced back and forth between the two of them. “This is a long story. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather me tell it somewhere that isn’t so shitty?”

“Promise me right here and now that you’ll tell me,” said Sunburst. “And not some esoteric promise. I want a concrete, ironclad promise that you will tell me about Starlight expeditiously and without further delay.”

He pointed to Tin Mare. “I want you to tell us as soon as we’re aboard and out of here. I know Tin Mare doesn’t break down. I know that she’s got cabin filtration. I know that you like her invincible reputation so much that you wouldn’t try to pass off a further delay by claiming she had a problem.”

Goddamn, never underestimate a nerd who’s had time to lawyer the shit out of something.

“What he said,” said Twilight. “I’m really interested to see where this goes, and I know that for all your trolling and misdirection, you really don’t have the ability to lie directly to my face, though possibly because it’s no fun for you. If anything, you’d take pleasure in a grand reveal and revel in my rage.”

Holy shit, I’d be terrified if these two ever hooked up. I immediately started making plans to keep them apart, but had to temper that with the more pressing concern of trying to wiggle out of this.

In the meantime, I reluctantly heaved a deep sigh and said, “Fine.”

“Um, so are we going to get out of here?” said Spike, who’d apparently come through the portal after Twilight and was apparently unbothered by a little smoke.

I gestured everyone aboard Tin Mare.

We all got aboard. I tried to linger outside, but Sunburst and Twilight stared me down and I eventually conceded. The three of us took seats, Tin Mare closed the tailgate, and as the light faded my sunglasses went clear again. We took off.

In the clearer air, I popped my helmet off and ran a hoof through my mane. Sunburst and Twilight were staring at me intently. New Twilight sat nearby, hesitantly interested.

“So, about Starlight,” I said. “Like I warned you, this is going to take some explanation and some backstory.”

Oh shit, I had to come up with something on the spot. I decided to go with the truth.

“Twilight accidentally summoned her a while back, so we kept her ghost and were going to do some experiments on it.”

“We know,” said Sunburst. “You’ve been over this before.”

“I’m just setting the scene here, laying out a baseline to work from. Now that we’re where everybody knows, we can take the story places where everybody doesn’t.”

I turned. “That brings us to new girl here.”

“What?” said Twilight, the new one, as I stared at her. The other two had also started staring at her.

“You remember how you left Equestria for Silent Hill right about the same time she appeared?” I said to old Twilight.

“What about it?” she said. “I thought it was a little weird that you summoned another me from another universe, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it before I left.”

“You know, I never actually said that,” I pointed out. I smirked. “Tin Mare, play back a recording of that conversation.” Tin Mare’s internal video screen turned on.

Me, Twilight, and new Twilight were all in the Ponyville library. New Twilight looked nervous and not entirely comfortable in her skin. She wore glasses. She didn’t need them, but I had insisted she wear them so I could tell the two of them apart. I don’t think she liked the attached nose and mustache.

Twilight, the original, looked at her for a moment, and then said, “Valiant, can we have a word?”

The two of us walked into the back room. In a low voice, Twilight said, “Explain to me who she is again.”

“You know how there’s those whole alternate universes thing?”

“So you pulled in a duplicate of me,” Twilight replied.

“Stop tape,” I said. I turned to old Twilight and smirked harder. “I never actually said that she was your other universe counterpart. I just said ‘You know how there’s those whole alternate universes thing?’ and you assumed.”

“You-you-” Twilight stuttered. Sunburst looked thunderstruck.

“But in this case it’s good that you assumed, because that’s what actually happened.”

Old Twilight and Sunburst let out simultaneous groans. Meanwhile, the video reminded me that new Twilight needed those glasses back so I could tell the two of them apart. I handed them over and she reluctantly put them on.

“Valiant, stop stalling!” old Twilight commanded. “This had nothing to do with anything!”

“It did, actually. You see, with new Twilight here, I had been planning to do some magical warfare development group - DEVGRU - stuff with Starlight’s ghost. But then you dropped a school principalship on me and that got put on hold.”

“What does the school taking up your time have to do with what you eventually did with Starlight?” old Twilight asked.

“Well, I was really busy. In setting up the school, we met with the EEA. They took an immediate dislike to me. They burned down the school that I built to your specs. I declared war. They sent their Seven School Superintendents, all of whom I defeated. Merry May was gainfully employed, Chancellor Neighsay was turned gay, Steven the river serpent may have ended up in a relationship, and we moved the school onto a submarine.”

“What was that about Merry May?” Twilight asked.

“Not relevant to the story about Starlight.” I kept going. “What I’m saying is, as busy as I was, there was no way I could have developed Starlight’s ghost into Libby after Twilight left for Silent Hill.”

“Wait, but you developed Libby before Twilight left for Silent Hill,” Sunburst pointed out.

“That’s what I just said. Libby can’t be Starlight Glimmer.”

“But then who is she?”

“Is it relevant to what Valiant did with Starlight?” Twilight said, glancing at him irritably.

“Kind of,” I said. “Because if I tell you who Libby is, Sunburst might finally believe me.”

Twilight sighed. “Okay, fine. Who is Libby, really?”

“Trident.”

The two of them stared at me.

“Wait,” said Twilight, “You mean…”

“A UGM-133A D5 Trident II, yes. The UGM-133A D5 Trident II, in fact.” I sighed. “But you know, sometimes I really wish I’d just left her as is. Her old hardware really didn’t play nice with the new software. She used to be such a sweet old missile, and now Libby is, well...”

“That’s what you meant when you said she had vacuum tubes for brains!” Sunburst exclaimed.

“‘70s hardware, yes.”

“Apologies for interruption,” said Tin Mare. “There is a dragon in the Ponyville town square.”

She tipped a wing down and I glanced out the window. Yep, sure was. No dragon that I recognized, but I was still trying as hard as I could to stall, so I said, “Get me a threat assessment.”

“He looks kind of portly and non-threatening,” said old Twilight.

“Totally,” added Spike. “I happen to be something of an expert on dragon fitness.”

We all let him have the benefit of the doubt.

In my earpiece, Libby said, “Threat detected.”

“Is it the dragon in the town square?” I asked.

“How’d you know?”

“Because I can see it. Waveoff the threat for now.”

“Uh, that might be a little hard.”

A long moment passed.

“...you already released weapons, didn’t you?”

I looked back out the window. Boom.

Whoever the dragon was, he wasn’t anymore. A couple pieces of hide even ended up splattered across the window with bloodstains.

“Vacuum tubes for brains,” I muttered. I turned to Twilight and Sunburst. “You see? Nuclear detonations aren’t hard. We’ve had them for seventy years. It’s advanced AI that’s hit or miss. Sometimes, you just can’t optimize enough to run on low specs. This isn’t Doom.”

Seizing another topic, I went on. “Speaking of doom, has anyone noticed that there’s been a distinct lack of it recently? I think you’ll find that my efforts have been entirely successful. I ran a school and stopped anything from happening.”

Boy, would I look bad if something were to happen. But hell, that would sure distract from the point I was trying to make.

“Valiant you beat around the bush so much that it doesn’t surprise me you and Sunset have never copulated,” said Twilight.

I did a double take. “That is about the last pun I would have ever expected you to make, Twilight. What brought this on?”

“A pun? What are you talking-” Twilight’s face suddenly went red. “No, I meant that you waste so much time that if Sunset had ever wanted to interact with you carnally, which even I can tell that she probably does, that it wouldn’t…”

“We haven’t? How would you know?” I said.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sunset grab the hook of Tin Mare’s cargo handling winch and it towed her over, sliding down the row of seats to my side. She let go of the hook and put a hoof around my shoulders. Smooth.

I saw a faint microexpression in her cheeks that told me what was coming next, and I quickly went along with it. We put on identical troll faces.

I saw the wheels turning in Twilight’s head, trying desperately to figure out if I was lying, telling the truth, telling the truth but making her think I was lying, or running for public office. Unfortunately, she ultimately came to the conclusion that I was actually stalling for time and put on a glare.

However, just then Tin Mare came in for a landing in the middle of the gore. Libby had at least managed to limit collateral damage, which was a small miracle. Tin Mare opened the tailgate and I was the first to rush off. I knew Twilight and Sunburst would be right behind me, though.

“Seriously, though,” said Sunset, on a whispered frequency to my earpiece. “Do you love me or not?”

“I love that you’re willing to cockblock yourself to help me troll Twilight.”

“Hey, what’s this over here?” Applejack called to the group. She’d found part of the dragon’s forearm, claws still attached. He’d apparently been holding something.

We all went over to look. It was a wallet. Inside was his ID card.

“He looks a little like Spike,” Smolder commented.

Applejack flipped a flap up. There was a baby picture of Spike. A heavy hand had scribbled son on one corner.

“Oh my zonks,” said Pinkie.

I glanced at her. “Was that a JoJo reference?”

“How did he even get a picture of Spike?” Twilight exclaimed. “There’s no way - Princess Celestia told me they’d adopted Spike’s egg because it was an orphan-!”

Well, it looked like the distraction had been successfully sown. I’d thank this - I glanced at the ID - Mr. Sludge, if he hadn’t just been murdered by my killbot. I started to slip away into the crowd.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” said Sunburst. “Why would a dragon have an ID? Dragons barely have a government. I think this is fake, and - Valiant! Where are you going!?”

I sighed and turned around, raising my autodarkening sunglasses. They’d darkened from the burning pieces of dragon lying around. Ironic, that, dragons being flammable.

He and Twilight stalked up to me, Twilight circling around. I belatedly realized they were flanking me, one taking each side so it would be pretty obvious if I was trying to sneak away.

Sunburst pointed a hoof at me. “What did you do with Starlight Glimmer?”

“First I have to tell you about-”

He shook his head. “No. For the first time in my life, I’m not here to learn academics and context. Tell me. Now.”

“I used her ghost to power a pair of autodarkening sunglasses.”

Author's Note

School Raze - part 2

With Neighsay as prisoner, we headed for Canterlot. I was going to have to figure out some way to dispose of him.

On the flight, I glanced out the window. I checked my pockets, but couldn’t find my sunglasses. Where had I left them?

I spent the rest of the flight planning the rollback on the universe I wanted to do.

As we landed in Canterlot, I swaggered into the castle throne room. I was still wearing my DEVGRU Multicam cargo pants and had my rifle slung across my back.

“Why are you wearing your trousers like that?” said Rarity.

“Like what?”

“Why only on your posterior? You have four legs.”

I opened my mouth, though was still unsure what I wanted to say when we arrived in front of the Princesses.

“Throughout our city, ponies have been reporting tales of their magic failing,” Princess Celestia began without even a hello.

“Are there similar troubles in Ponyville?” Princess Luna asked.

“We experienced it first-hoof,” Twilight replied. Old Twilight, not Snakeyes.

“It’s the same in my kingdom,” said Princess Cadance.

“Why do we keep calling things kingdoms when Princesses are the top authority?” I said.

“I have to apologize for being late,” said Twilight, glaring at me instead of answering my question. “Somepony had to get petty revenge first.”

I shrugged. “I don’t see you doing this without me.”

She glared more, but Princess Celestia interrupted. “Magic is disappearing all across Equestria.”

“I think I might have read about something like this once,” said Snakeyes. “I think the Pillars of Old Equestria solved it once before.”

“What did they do?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, all this started before I got a chance to finish the book.”

“Do you know why it’s happening, at least?” said Cadance.

“Has anypony checked on Tirek?” Twilight suggested.

Pinkie cocked her head. “You mean the big, red, scary centaur who eats magic? Why would we wa- Ohhhh. Riiiiight.”

“Wait, what?” I said.

“Tirek, the big, red, scary centaur who eats magic,” said Pinkie.

“He’s dead.”

“What!?” demanded Twilight. “When?”

“I don’t know, a while back? The first time he got loose and ate magic? I dropped a giant ship on him? Ring any bells?”

Twilight shook her head. “No, I definitely don’t remember that. He’s locked up in Tartarus.”

Huh? Was there yet more in this universe that I had missed? I was really wanting to turn back the clock now.

Princess Celestia went on. “If he has found some way to escape his prison or work from within it, he could be responsible for this.”

“Okay, let’s go kill him,” I said. “Ugh, again.”

“Be careful,” Princess Luna warned. “Tartarus has changed since you were there. It now holds many dangerous creatures, and you won't be able to rely on magic.”

“Wait, what?” I said, looking at the others. “You’ve actually been there?”

“We lock bad creatures away there,” said Twilight.

“But, like...it’s an actual place? I thought it was just what you called Hell.”

“Oh no, on the contrary,” said Sir Win, appearing just then. “We had to file copyright infringement. I’m contractually obligated to appear whenever someone makes a comparison and remind them that Hell and Tartarus are two different places.”

“Thanks, Sir Win,” I said. “I always did appreciate you.” Turning back to the others, I said, “So if Tartarus isn’t Hell, but it’s a place you can literally visit? I was under the impression that it was some sort of extradimensional holding facility, so you can see why I thought it was Hell.”

“Wouldn’t you of all people know about extra dimensions?” Twilight said.

“I would. I just never had any interest in Tartarus because I’ve never sent anyone there. In fact, I probably sent them to Hell.”

“Yep,” confirmed Sir Win.

I turned to him. “Do you want to come with us? I guess we’re going to go kill Tirek.”

“No we’re not. If he’s even responsible for this,” put in Twilight.

“Fine. I’m going to go kill Tirek and make you watch.”

“I must decline your invitation, but thank you,” said Sir Win. “I have a few things on my gay agenda today, but please do save a piece of him for me.”

I wasn’t sure what exactly he meant by that, but figured that presenting a demon with a literal pound of flesh probably wouldn’t be the worst gift he could receive.

The rest of us loaded up in Tin Mare, still dragging Neighsay. Twilight reluctantly gave Tin Mare the location of Tartarus and we headed off. I did another check of my pockets for my sunglasses, still not finding them.

I’d already gotten one surprise about Tartarus today, but I was still shaking my head when we arrived. The place was just a door in a mountain. A big door, but still.

“The good news is the seal isn’t broken, so we know Tirek didn’t escape,” said Twilight.

“Let me guess, you got bad news, too?” said Applejack.

Twilight nodded. “The last time I was here, I had to use magic to get in.”

“I got this!” Pinkie said. She knocked on the door. “Free pizza delivery!”

Nothing happened. I was actually kind of disappointed. But then, why? “So if he didn’t escape, then he’s not the one draining magic,” I said. “Not to mention, he can’t be the one draining magic if he doesn’t have enough power to break out.”

I turned to walk away, but Twilight said, “Wait, we still need to find out who is draining magic.”

“It’s not Tirek,” I said. “And if it is, what if luring us here to open the door and check was part of his plan?”

“If you’re so confident it’s not Tirek, then open the door,” she challenged.

I sighed. “Okay, I guess I did kind of want to kill him.”

That got her.

I lined up the underbarrel grenade launcher on my SCAR, but Sunset said, “We might want to close the door again, eventually.”

She had a point. I lowered my rifle and jerked my head. “Trixie, get the lock.”

“Unicorn magic is gone,” said Twilight.

“I’d be a terrible showmare if that was all I had up my sleeve,” said Trixie with a grin. Within thirty seconds, she’d picked the lock.

Those thirty seconds gave us time for a short conversation, though.

Rarity grumbled and waved at flies around her face. One landed on her nose and she clocked herself smacking at it. “Ow! Ugh! I have had it with these horrible flies! I miss my magic!”

“Have you tried using your tail to shoo them away?” said Twilight.

“Bite your tongue! It’s for decorative purposes only!” Rarity retorted.

“Though, maybe we wouldn’t be having these problems if we hadn’t just come from a burning garbage dump,” I said. “But if you’re going to shake your ass, I can go get Whitesnake’s car.”

“I really didn’t miss your confusing human references while I was gone, Valiant,” said Twilight.

“What human reference was he making?” Pinkie stage-whispered to Snakeyes.

“I have no idea,” she said.

“‘She was going to shake her ass on the hood of Whitesnake’s car?’ Bowling for Soup? It doesn’t ring any bells?” I said. “Aren’t you still in High School?”

“Just how long have you been out of high school?” she said. “Just how long have you been here in Equestria?”

“I’m not old.”

“That’s not what I asked. You even have a grandchild, age spells and nonbiological processes notwithstanding.”

“I’m not old,” I said again.

Trixie popped the lock and I was the first to rush in and away from the conversation.

Tartarus was...kind of disappointing. I’d started the day believing it was basically Hell, and discovered that it was pretty much a minimum security prison. Inside the door were a bunch of cages. That was it. Maybe this was why things kept escaping.

I mean, there was a giant three-headed dog on guard, but such a dog could be pacified with a tree, or three giant sticks.

Huh, hadn’t Guinness gotten a two-head dog? Doug and Ike, if I recalled correctly. Maybe that dog hadn’t made it into this version of the universe and that made me kind of sad. One more reason to turn back the clock.

There were all kinds of monsters in Tartarus. Looking around, I had some serious questions about the cutoff to get in. Just how bad did you have to be? Some of them seemed like beasts that don't know any better, the bugbear for instance. And if Fluttershy could ask animals not to do bad things, then why didn’t she? Not to mention, I think the bugbear and some of these other guys did way less damage than, say, Discord. Though, I guess anyone else had been killed by me, Trixie being the exception, so maybe Tartarus wasn’t such a useless place after all.

We found Tirek. He was locked in his cage.

“But... if he’s not behind the magic drain, then who is?” Twilight began to hyperventilate. “We don’t know what’s happening and our best lead had nothing to do with it!”

“Hey,” I said, “I could call up Matthew McConaughey and he could tell you it’s going to be alright alright alright.”

“I don’t know who that is, and it’s not going to be alright!”

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, play Hey Ya by Outkast. We’re going to need more alrights.”

I heard a cough. I turned to look at Tirek. He smiled. “Well, well, well. It seems my little protégé's plan worked after all.”

“Where is Equestria's magic going, Tirek? What's making it disappear?” Twilight demanded.

“If you let me out, I'm sure it will jog my memory. What do you say? I scratch your back, you scratch mine?”

“Uh, more importantly,” said Applejack, “Which little protégé?”

Tirek waved a hand. “Oh, we’ve never met. We’re pen pals. Each letter had so many questions about draining magic.”

“Who is it?” I asked.

He smiled again. “Oh? Why should I tell you?”

I pulled my Desert Eagle.

“O-okay,” he said, raising his hands. “Her name is Cozy Glow.”

I put a round through his forehead and he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

HeeeEEEyyy yaaa

“He told us what we wanted to know!” Twilight shouted. “And then you just murdered him! Right in front of us!”

I holstered the pistol. “First of all, I never said I wouldn’t kill him if he told us. You assumed. You do that a lot, Twilight. Second of all, he was responsible for this magic draining, even if he didn’t do it himself. Third: this is me we’re talking about. If anything, you should be thanking me for not causing any collateral damage.”

“That’s not a thing to thank someone for! That should be standard and expected!”

I shrugged and turned for the door. “Maybe I respond best to positive reinforcement. I guess we’ll never know, because instead of trying to teach, you left me in charge of the School of Friendship.”

On the way to the door, I suddenly saw a portal open on the ceiling and a pile of trash come tumbling through onto an empty cage. I looked up, seeing a surprised Guinness on the other side.

“Hey Guinness. I guess we finally know where the ‘trash’ setting on the portal in your bar goes to.”

“It’s been pretty convenient,” he said. “The savings alone make up for it.”

“Cool. I’ll stop by later.”

He waved and closed the portal again.

I grabbed Neighsay, still in his Tim Allen form, and shoved him into the cage, which was already ankle-deep in accumulated trash. I slammed the door and put a small portable speaker I’d developed down on the floor outside.

I set it to play an infinite loop of Hey Ya at full blast. It almost drowned out his screams.

We left and loaded on Tin Mare. “Set a course for Cosy Glow,” I said.

“You can’t kill a child, much less a student at the School of Friendship!” Twilight said.

“You keep saying things, but I keep doing them. Besides, don’t you want your magic back?”

“Hey, what about this music festival in Ponyville?” said Pinkie.

“Huh?” I said. I caught a subtle gesture from Pinkie to the others to play along.

“It’s going to be so rocking!” Pinkie said. “I booked The Eagles, the Beetles, The Birds, the Monkeys, Queen, Blue Oyster Cult, Scorpions, Sticks, Three Dog Night, and Deaf Leopard.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “I’m not even going to ask how. Let’s go.”

I did wonder what exactly Pinkie was playing at, because I felt that I was missing something, but was too blinded by the bands to notice.

I should have listened to the voice in the back of my head. When we arrived to the Richard Nixon Multipurpose Auditorium, I discovered that all the groups Pinkie had listed were in fact just the animals in the names. Well, okay, by “Queen” she’d meant “changeling queen,” and that wasn’t even accurate because all she could get was Thorax. “Sticks” turned out to be that one weird guy Mudbriar. “Three Dog Night” was Cerberus, and not even that because he was absent because of duty in Tartarus.

“Deaf Leopard” turned out to be a bipedal cat wearing clothes. He was missing most of one ear.

“Who the hell is this giant furry?” I said.

“I think he’s rather average-sized for a furry,” said Snakeyes, who promptly blushed as if she’d said too much.

“This is Cutter. He’s a friend of Capper,” said Pinkie.

“Who?” I shook my head. “Never mind, this concert is lame. Mudbriar isn’t even doing music, just some kind of Bible recitation.”

“I have chosen religion as my new pastime,” he called from the stage. Apparently the last time we’d met, I’d put the literal fear of God into him.

“He’s doing really well,” said Bible, appearing just then. “Which means I’m doing really well, having finally found something to do with myself. Nobody else around here really cares about monotheism.”

“That’s nice,” I said, “I wish you well. Now I’m going to go kill a small child.” I started to turn away, but paused. “Uh, those two things are unrelated.”

“Good to know,” he said. “Best of luck.”

“I’m going to stay here and try to clean this up and put on a real show,” said Trixie. She looked at Cordoba. “Now that you’re back in your own body, would you like to help?”

“¡Sí!”

I smiled at both of them and headed back for Tin Mare.

On the way, Pinkie pulled at the sleeve of my uniform. “Hey, you can’t go yet. We also have a giant pizza.”

“After that shitty excuse for a music festival, I’m not listening to your distractions right now.”

“No, really, it’s giant. We’re bringing it in on a train.”

Sure enough, I heard a train whistle and saw one pull up to the station in the distance. And… “Goddamn, that is a big pizza.”

I walked towards the station. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t quite a smell wafting through the air and making me float towards it like in cartoons, but damn if it didn’t grab my attention.

As I approached, it seemed to be drawing a crowd. The pizza took up a whole train car. The engineer on the locomotive blew the whistle again. I’m not sure why, half the town was already there.

“Stop it,” I said. “I don’t need anymore distractions now.” I picked up a slice.

He blew the whistle again.

“Sunset, choke that bitch.”

Sunset did.

I meant the engineer, but I guess the whole train works, too. Pizza my heart.

I got as much pizza as I could, but with everyone there it went fast. Finished up, I started to go for Cozy Glow again, but Pinkie jumped in front of me. “Hey! Did you forget that today is Matrixmas?”

“Uh...yes.”

“Here’s your present from Keanu!” She shoved a wrapped box into my hands.

I opened the package. The gift and the handwritten note from him inside were so thoughtful and touching that I can’t repeat them here because I tear up just thinking about it.

“Oh...oh my God,” I said, clutching it to my chest.

“Whew,” said Pinkie. “My long game of creating a fake holiday came in handy after all.”

“What!? Matrixmas isn’t real?”

“Well, no. We don’t actually have Keanu Reeves in this world.”

“Just when I was thinking this universe wasn’t so bad after all!” I stormed away.

Tin Mare had been running scans and located Cozy Glow in the tunnels connected to the destroyed library basement. Angrily needing a distraction from Pinkie’s distraction, I headed there.

Cozy must have been quick to set up. We’d only just cleared the eldritch tentacle vines out of the tunnels. I led the way in, with the others trailing behind me, and shortly came upon her base of operations.

When I walked in, I saw a complicated-looking spell construct built among a cleared area of debris. And in the center, was my missing pair of sunglasses.

Huh, she’d apparently figured out a new way to use ghost power. This seemed like a pretty complicated spell, especially for a pegasus filly.

I vaguely knew Cozy - I was the school principal after all - but had no idea she was doing or even capable of something like this.

“You can’t kill her!” Twilight was still saying as we came in.

Cozy turned to look at us. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the failed administration. You even had to bring back Twilight Sparkle to clean up your mess. But it’s too late. You never explored the friendship side of this school of friendship, so I’m taking over.”

“I have no idea how stealing all the magic in Equestria is supposed to accomplish that,” I said. “Your plan is dumb.”

“Well, I’ll credit you for speaking to me like an adult,” she said. “But since I’ve already implemented my plan and nothing can stop me, I’ll tell you why your shortsightedness can’t understand this. You see, I’ve made friends of every student at the school. When ponies see that I’m the best friend out there, and with magic gone, there won’t be any ponies with better friendship than me!”

“Okay,” I said, “yeah, no. If you’d actually studied anything I was teaching at school, you’d know that there’s an extremely fatal flaw in that plan.” I pulled out my Desert Eagle.

“What’s that thing?” said Cozy. She smirked. “Not that it matters. Friendship isn't magic, friendship is power! With the magic of the Element of Harmony out of my way, all of Equestria will bow to me, the future Empress of Friendship!”

I blew her brains out.

“Valiant, you can't kill a child!” Twilight screamed.

“Twilight, you’re the one who thought it would be funny to make me a school principal. Does it surprise you that I’m terrible at it?”

“But-but-!”

“You even say it like it's the first time I've done this.”

Speaking of, I turned and put a bullet in Fizzy's gut. Surprise went across his face, and his blood went across the wall. He only had seconds left on this plane of existence and for some reason decided to use it playing the sympathy card. “Grandfather, why have you forsaken me?”

“I think we both know the answer to that question, assprick.”

“Fair enough,” he said, and died.

I pulled a vial out of my cargo pants pockets and bottled some of his blood. I needed it for a demon sacrifice ritual.

It was about then that I realized that, yes, I had just killed my grandson. Um. I would maybe not tell Trixie about this. Only more motivation to turn back the clock on the universe.

I stood up. “Okay, show’s over. Everybody go home.”

“We have to take down that spell, don’t we?” said Applejack.

I glanced at the still-active spell matrix. “DEVGRU will handle it. Everybody go have a drink on me and maybe try to get on with your lives.”

Twilight still looked shell-shocked from everything that had happened, but actually listened to me for the first time that day. The others followed her out.

“Okay,” I said when it was just me and Snakeyes left. “Let’s get to resetting the universe.”

“You mentioned that,” she said. “But I thought we were going to stop this spell and free the magic.”

“Considering that this has got so much magic pent up inside it, it’s the perfect source for the dimension-twisting I’m going to do. We can send you back to your home dimension and I can roll back the clock on this one. Come on, it’s not like we’re getting rid of the magic, just borrowing it. Plus, when the timeline goes back, this will have never happened.”

“Okay,” she said reluctantly, and began laying out the spell.

I pulled out a flask and began drinking. I do my best work when hammered.

Based on my direction, some chalk marks on the floor, Fizzy’s blood, and a couple subtle spell tweaks from Snakeyes, we got it all set and ready to go. Tin Mare provided guidance, with her processing power able to see potential futures she was able to help us get everything set up and sorted.

“Okay,” said Snakeyes, stepping back to look at our handiwork. “I think that just about does it.”

“One more thing,” said Tin Mare. “Are you sure you want to delete the backups of the current universe?”

I took a swig. “Yeah, I know what I’m doing.”

Author's Note

Lithl contributed

Thanks for reading this season. Wrapup blog

Between Dark and Dawn

The radio tower was north of Ponville. There was a small building at its base.

I’d followed the broadcast all the way there, traveling well into the night. Whoever was transmitting definitely had my attention. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been specifically designed to get my attention. After all, the station identification was WMKE: Milwaukee.

With that in mind and not knowing what I might face inside the building, I decided to go for a sneaky approach and a dynamic entry. Fortunately, airships are pretty quiet. I hovered in the night sky overhead and grabbed a rope, swinging over the side.

I slammed into the door, knocking it off its hinges, and burst into the room. A nerdy-looking pony with a robot for a cutie mark fell off his chair in surprise. I had my knife to his throat before I realized that I’d seen him somewhere before.

“Wait, you’re Gizmo, right?”

“Y-yes,” he stammered as he lay on his back on the floor.

I tilted my head. “Didn’t we have a deal?”

“Uh…”

“Yeah, I remember now. I gave you the Bill Gates deal.”

“The who-what?”

“I gave you the option of either a buyout offer or overwhelming competition. You accepted it, for ten bits, and in return agreed to turn over to me any technology that you had or would produce in the future.”

“That doesn’t sound fair!” he protested, just like he had protested last time.

“Well, tell your lawyers to talk to my lawyers…oh wait, you probably don’t have any,” which is what I had said last time, too.

I still didn’t have any lawyers either, but he still didn’t know that. As it turned out, he didn’t know much of anything. “But I don’t remember any of this.”

“It was a different universe.”

“But doesn’t that imply that it wasn’t me that you made the deal with?”

I tossed ten bits down on him as he lay there. “Now it doesn’t matter. Tell me what you know. What’s the deal with this radio station?”

“I just got a job here,” he said.

“From who?”

“I don’t know, it was an ad in the newspaper with my name on it.”

“Did you have some sort of special skill it required?”

“No, I mean it literally had my name on it. Somepony wanted me. So I showed up, and there was money, so I maintained the transmitter like I was told.”

I glanced around at the equipment. I could see how the station was set up to broadcast, but I didn’t immediately see any playback equipment and surely Gizmo wasn’t manning the mic 24/7.

I turned back to him. “Where does the programming come from?”

“I don’t know. It’s beamed here from somewhere else and rebroadcast.”

I vaguely recalled the other antennas on the roof. Okay, I just had to find the input signal and track that. The feed horns would probably be directional and make it easier to find the original broadcaster.

I let Gizmo up and walked back outside. I realized I’d let the airship drift by itself and had left it hovering, so I was going to have to shimmy back up the rope. Nobody ever looks good while shimmying, so I made sure Gizmo didn’t see me.

Back aboard the airship, I looked down at the antenna arrangement and picked up a sextant. It was part of the airship’s original navigation kit from the Royal Guard and while I was clumsy with pre-1700’s sailing technology, I had been using it to help take bearings while searching for the radio tower.

Sighting in on what looked to be the receive dish, I adjusted the sextant and looked for the angle. I adjusted it up, and then again. I kept pointing it further and further up until I had the sudden realization that it was aimed to receive signals from space.

I put the sextant down, and swore.

“Help me…” came a faint voice from below.

I looked down. Gizmo had managed to crawl out of the building on four broken legs.

I‘d had to make sure he didn’t see me shimmying after all.

“So anyway, Princess, that’s why I need to go to space,” I finished explaining to Luna in the throne room at Canterlot.

“No.”

“What do I have to do?”

Princess Luna put on her sunglasses. “See us again when we come back from vacation. We still won’t consider it, but at least we can show off our tan to you.”

She and Celestia teleported out.

Since when did the two of them take vacations? I looked around. And if they were gone, who was in charge in the meantime?

I wandered out of the throne room and ran into the girls coming in. They all looked surprised to see me. “What are you doing here!?” Twilight blurted out.

“The Princesses left me in charge,” I replied immediately.

“Wha-no they didn’t!” she argued. “We’re in charge. We're here to follow up on a few things. They've kept us busy.”

Applejack nodded. “The Princesses have been runnin’ us ragged with all their tryin’ to help us fight monsters and fix problems.”

“They what now?” I said.

“They got a little taste of saving Equestria back when Sombra was loose and decided they wanted to do it all the time,” Pinkie explained. She put her hoof to her chin. “Say Valiant, do you think you could help us distract them so we could get some peace and quiet?”

“Can’t, they’ve just left on vacation.” I opened the throne room door wider and showed them. I quickly added, “And they left me in charge.”

“Do you even know how to do a Royal Swanifying?” Twilight demanded, holding up a list of what I presumed were instructions the Princesses had left behind.

“You don’t,” Spike muttered under his breath. I was surprised I heard him. My hearing had been unusually sharp lately, likely due to my recent absence of firearms.

“Did they leave you in charge of this swanifying or did they leave you in charge of the whole entire kingdom?” I asked. “What did they actually say?”

“But...but...they gave me this amulet to control the sun and moon!” she protested.

“You really want to take responsibility for this?” I said. “The last time the Princesses left you in charge, Sombra invaded and you had to have my help to defeat him. Why not just skip the middleman and I’ll run the show.”

“No,” Twilight said firmly. “I’m not going to back down on this.”

“Well…” said Applejack. “Valiant does have a point that the Princesses didn’t specifically say we were running all of Equestria while they were on vacation.”

“And they didn’t leave us very detailed instructions on how to do that,” said Rarity. “Most of this list is just about the Royal Swanifying.”

“And if something goes wrong while they’re gone, you can pin it on him,” said Rainbow.

Twilight glanced at them and then turned back to me. “Alright Valiant, I’ll let you be a figurehead. But I’m going to be watching you. I’m still a Princess myself and if you put one hoof out of line, you’re going to regret it. No changing existing laws, got it? You are going to promise me right now to cede authority as soon as the Princesses return.”

Well, it was a start. She’d left a ton of loopholes, too. “I promise.”

I clapped my hooves together. “Now let’s get down to business.”

“Wow, you’re acting like it’s not a terrifying amount of responsibility,” said Pinkie.

“I relish the opportunity.”

Twilight shook her head. “Nevermind. We’re going to do what the Princesses said.” She looked at Spike. “Tell us about the Royal Swanifying.”

He consulted the scroll. “Apparently it’s a celebration of all the swans in the royal lake. We round them up, parade them through the streets, and finish with a party in the castle.”

“One question,” said Rainbow. “Why?”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Twilight. “This is our chance to show Celestia and Luna we’ll do whatever the job requires, including reining in Valiant.”

Just then, the door opened, and Fancy Pants came in with a couple of other ponies. “Princesses, we are here to offer our assistance as heads of the Royal Swanifying Committee.” He looked around, frowning.

“We’re fillin’ in for their majesties,” said Applejack.

“Wait, the Princesses went on vacation and didn’t tell anyone?” I said. “Did they even tell the guards?”

By the look that went over Twilight’s face, I guessed the answer. I turned to Fancy Pants. “The Royal Swanifying Committee? Excellent, that’s exactly who we needed.”

“But if we ask for help, it’s just like admitting we’re not as good at the job as Luna and Celestia,” Twilight protested.

“Do you seriously think heads of state planned their own parties?” I said. “They didn’t even save the world until a little while ago.”

“He’s right,” Pinkie agreed.

“I mean, why would the Princesses even have a Royal Swanifying Committee? Use your brain, Twilight.”

“You don’t have to keep rubbing it in,” she muttered under her breath. She suddenly looked up, realizing that the Committee had already gone to work and in the span of minutes had nearly finished decorating.

“So with all this spare time now that the Swanifying is being handled,” I said, “And since I'm in charge, I wanted to take a look at castle security because holy shit it didn’t improve much since the last time I broke in.”

Even Twilight couldn’t disagree with me there, though I could see she wanted to.

A while later, Starlight Glimmer stumbled in. I was immediately on the defensive until I remembered the shrink session we’d had a while back. Based on the haunted look she still wore, it seemed like she was having a hard time forgetting.

She stood there for a moment, looking hesitantly at what I was doing, before saying, “Um, Mr. Valiant, if you have a moment I hope I could speak with you.”

I flipped up my visor, pausing from what I was doing. “What?”

Starlight flinched, but continued speaking. “I obtained the dozen churchbells you wanted. I’m still not sure what a church is, but I got them.”

“Wait, what’s a church?” said Twilight.

“Hush, welders don’t talk.” I flipped my visor back down and grabbed her by the face again, touching her horn to the metal framework I was building.

It had taken a ton of convincing to get her to go along with that. Like a lot of things, I just had to demonstrate that I was right. In this case, a steel framework to support additional defensive measures inside the throne room. I had all kinds of plans for security equipment to install, but the easiest and simplest would just be to hang a bunch of bells to drop on people who needed a bell dropped on them. I was still working out the confetti dispenser that would put out a bunch of little slips of paper that said you just got donged.

It took a while, but we were mostly finished with the security upgrades when the Princesses got back. I walked them through all the new measures.

“So Shining Armor thought anti-pegasus fans, doubled guards, pit traps, and geese would do the job. I replaced the fans with electrified chicken wire, which is safer as long as you don’t touch it and it actually looks better than whirling blades everywhere. I appreciate the doubled guards, but they still suck at their jobs. Instead, I replaced the door locks with biometric authentication. The pit traps could be effective, so I installed more of them. I also brought your beds down to the throne room because none of this security extends upstairs to your actual bedrooms. Plus, it shortens your walk to work. And since you’re now living in the throne room, I got rid of the geese. If you’re already here, you shouldn’t need an alert. You probably wouldn’t want shit everywhere, either.”

“I...have to admit, this is a more attractive plan than it has any right to be,” Luna said after a long moment.

“Maybe a furniture rearrangement was the excitement we needed all along,” Celestia agreed.

“And now, ladies, the tables have turned.” I demonstrated where I had put their nightstands. “All this, and I successfully planned the Royal Swanifying,” I finished.

“How did you plan it?” Celestia asked.

“I let the Royal Swanifying Committee handle it.”

“Excellent,” said Luna. “I thought we had left Twilight and her friends in charge, but clearly you are also a worthy and capable leader.”

I saw Twilight’s mouth open in shock and rage. Not only was I stepping on her parade, but I was raining on her authority. As much as it amused me, however, I had other things to worry about. In my efforts to solve the mystery of the radio and avoid too much responsibility, I really didn’t want to do this job much longer.

In response to the Princesses’ compliment to me, Twilight started to speak, but I cut her off. “Now Princesses, about me going to space…”

“Not a chance,” said Luna. “Because we have much need of you here.”

Celestia nodded. “Valiant, we hereby appoint you our new castle Chief of Staff, to be our number one assistant and confidant, and to run day-to-day operations in our stead.”

“Oh shit.”

I glanced at Twilight in surprise. “Where the hell did you learn that phrase!?”

The Ending of the End - part 1

“Did we really have to have this wedding sponsored by Valiant’s Patented Bell-Shaped Hairdos?” Bon Bon whispered to Lyra as the two of them stood at the front of the room.

“Yes,” I said, standing between them as the rest of the crowd - most of Ponyville had jumbled into the town hall to see the wedding - looked on. “Now are you ready to get this party started?”

“That’s what we’re here for,” Lyra confirmed.

“Cool, you’re married now.” I raised my hooves and banged them together twice.

The Clapper I’d installed heard the sound and powered on the rave equipment.

The entire room was filled with lights and noise. I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on - I’d subcontracted Vinyl Scratch to handle it - but I trusted that it was supposed to be that way.

My job done, I made my way out through the mosh pit and headed back for Twilight’s castle. I was a busy guy, and officiating two weddings in quick succession had left me kind of behind in my schedule.

I had a couple of things I wanted to get done that day. After the great advertising opportunity of the wedding, I was expecting salon customers to increase. I walked into the castle and went to the room I’d carved out for myself as a workshop. There were so many unused spaces in the huge building that Twilight didn’t know them all, and she hadn’t noticed me literally chipping a new room into existence into a solid wall. I sure hoped it wasn’t load-bearing.

Walking in, I spotted my tape recorder lying on my workbench. I frowned. Why wasn’t it on my person? I didn’t remember leaving it anywhere.

There was a sticky note on it in my handwriting (Hoofwriting, mouthwriting? Sue me.) that said Listen.

I was instantly on guard. What had blackout-me done this time?

I pressed play.

Another successful field trip, I presume? This voice was male, and sounded vaguely familiar.

Spreading distrust among the unicorns and earth ponies is almost too easy. We could take down Twilight and her friends a hundred times, but as long as they have the love of Equestria behind them, they’d crawl back to defeat us. Not anymore. This voice, too, sounded familiar. Female, and kind of buzzy.

No friendship, no magic! It’s so obvious when you think about it. I did my part freaking out the pegasi. There was no way I could mistake this one, though. It was Cozy Glow.

I remembered that she had been involved in the racism-spreading a while back. We hadn’t caught her, but we did figure out she was involved.

I thought hard for a moment. Now that I recognized one of the voices, I was betting the other two were Chrysalis and Tirek.

Tirek spoke again. Grogar’s long absence has given me time to prepare the next part of our plan. Though, it would have been so much easier had we been able to recover his bell. That artifact could steal any creature’s magic.

I glanced up. The weird bell I’d found in my pocket after one of my blackout spells was sitting on a shelf.

Huh.

I looked back down at the tape recorder, but the conversation seemed to be over. I had no idea how blackout-me had managed to record it. And if he had that kind of access to these guys, why didn’t he just take care of them? The tape had confirmed that Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy were working together, and that they had some sort of plan. I had no idea who Grogar was, but he also seemed to be involved

Well shit, it looked like I was going hunting.

I grabbed the bell and hopped in the B1R and headed for Canterlot. They say if you’re good at something, never do it for free. Of course I was going to take credit for eliminating this threat to Equestria, and if I could spin it correctly, maybe even get the princesses to ask me to do it as a favor to them.

And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not a good guy to owe a favor to.

However, when I arrived in Canterlot, the streets and skies were bustling. It seemed like everyone was trying to get into the city. That’s when I noticed the huge posters with Twilight’s face on them. Coronation today!

I pushed my way through traffic and landed in the castle courtyard. The guards didn’t seem to appreciate that, but they backed off when they saw who it was. Good, they were learning.

I walked into the throne room, where Twilight, her friends, Spike, and the Princesses were. “What’s this shit about a coronation? Are you still going through with this despite repeated demonstrations that Twilight isn’t ready, her continued inability to handle the sun and moon, and her own protests?”

Luna said, “Well, we’ve already cleared out our royal suites so she and Spike can move in. It’s a little hard to go back now.”

“We didn’t even tell her that to keep her from freaking out,” Celestia added.

“Well now I am!” Twilight interjected. “I had been getting ready. I’d even gone and made Spike my Royal Advisor.”

“Royal advisor? What’s that?”

“It’s a new position I created for Spike.”

“Wow.” I turned to Celestia and Luna. “Already abusing her government position for personal gain? She actually might be more ready than I thought.”

I shook my head. “But enough about that. I’ve got something actually important to talk about.”

“Hey!” said Twilight.

I went on. “I have evidence that Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow are working together on some evil scheme.”

I shot a look at Twilight. “After I directed that someone check out Tartarus and confirmed that they’d all escaped.”

“And I’ve been making plans since then!” Twilight insisted. “Knowing that they’re out there, I’ve been studying and putting into place ways to defeat them when they eventually show their faces. We have defeated them before, you know.”

“Okay,” I said, “if you’re sure.”

I started to turn away when Discord stumbled in, covered in mud and breathing hard. “My aching metatarsals! You know, you forget how convenient snap-travel is.”

“Wait, did you just walk here?” said Spike.

“Yes, actually. And I have a confession to make. You see, I might have made the teeeniest boo-boo. All very well-intentioned and noble on my part, of course, but-”

“Get to the point,” I said.

“You remember that whole thing with King Sombra? That was slightly my fault. And by ‘slightly,’ I mean...I brought him back.”

“You did?! But why?!” Twilight demanded.

“Because Discord’s an asshole,” I said. “I thought you knew that.”

“Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Discord went on. “Which is why I also brought back three other villains who are now on the loose and not really big fans of yours. So... my bad.”

“Wait, Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis?” I said.

“I thought it would boost Twilight’s confidence if she fought and defeated them,” said Discord to me. “Since you ruined that plan with Sombra.”

“Why would you do that!?” Twilight said. “You didn’t even bring them back to try to reform them, you just wanted me to fight them?”

“Well, it wasn’t easy,” said Discord. “I posed as the ancient villian Grogar and pulled them from Tartarus. I intended them to work together to create a stronger fighting force to make a challenge for you.”

“But not work together so they would learn the power of friendship and be reformed?” Twilight said flatly.

“But it would be good for you,” he argued. “Think about how confident you were after defeating them last time. You haven’t had a good villian battle since this walking plot twist showed up and started doing them for you.” Discord gestured at me.

“But you’ve been lying to us all this time,” said Twilight.

“A well-intentioned lie. But come on, what about Valiant?”

“As much as I hate to defend Valiant, he constructively criticizes state security instead of purposely releasing the biggest threats to Equestria from confinement!”

“I was just trying to prepare you for the princesshood by orchestrating an epic attack at your coronation so that you would have the confidence to take over from the Princesses!”

“You have made a grave misjudgment, Discord,” said Celestia, coldly.

“See, even she’s starting to come around,” I pointed out. “No confidence in Twilight.”

Celestia shot me an irritated look, but turned back to Discord. “Do you have anything else you’d like to tell us?”

“Would you like the good news or the bad news?”

“That wasn't the bad news!?” Luna burst out.

“All my chaos magic is gone. Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis learned about my abilities to charge up others. After they forced me to empower them, they were powerful enough to disarm me.”

I vaguely remembered how Discord had given Braeburn his magic back when Tirek had sucked it at the Summer Sun Celebration.

Spike sighed. “So what's the good news?”

“That was also kind of the good news. The three of them are superpowered and probably coming here right now.”

“How the hell is that good news?” I demanded.

“Compared to me losing my powers, anything else is good news!” Discord moaned.

I shook my head. “There are a lot of things that have confounded me about Equestria over the years, but you know what? I’m done.”

I turned to walk away. “I’m going to go just do my own thing. None of this is my problem. All of this is Discord’s fault. Get him to fix it.”

“But...my power....” he whined.

I didn’t even dignify it with a response.

Okay, sure, I wanted to kill Tirek, Cozy Glow, and Chrysalis. All of them deserved it. If Twilight had actually been making a plan to defeat them since it was discovered that they were missing, then she might actually have a shot. Discord’s scheme, while idiotic, might actually come through and give Twilight a confidence boost.

Though, that would depend on whether she was motivated by her anger at him, or freaking out because everything was going wrong.

I decided to wait and see, and come up with a few plans of my own for Discord.

Since I was in Canterlot, I headed over to the local salon of the chain I’d opened. Ponies were still going nuts about the bell-shaped hairdos. We’d even expanded back into regular hair treatments because free money.

I was working on Octavia that day. She, of course, wasn’t one for trendy fashion, and had just come in for a trim.

I’d long served as secret-keeper for many ponies, and I’d found that being a hairdresser really opened me up to a lot of it. Maybe that was one reason Rainbow did it in the other universe.

“But the thing about Bulk Biceps,” Octavia was saying, “his bollocks are so cute. We didn’t have sex, of course, and in fact I feel bad for him, but the whole date was Vinyl’s idea in the first place.”

Some of that I had already suspected, honestly. I, too, felt bad for him.

I snipped off the split ends and held up a mirror so Octavia could see the back. She was turned facing towards the mirror. That was policy in my salons. Nothing was more frustrating than not being able to see what what happening to your hair in real time. And while I was at it, I had also made a rule about asking before spraying anything. You know, basic common sense and courtesy. And if I was the one coming up with it, it must have really been obvious.

In the distance, a siren began to wail. I looked up. “What’s that?”

Octavia cocked an ear. “I think that’s the summon-the-Pillars-of-Old-Equestria-we-need-help-to-stop-an-invasion alert.”

“I’ve never really figured out who the Pillars of Old Equestria are.”

Octavia shrugged. “I don’t know if they’ve ever done anything significant in modern Equestria since Princess Twilight and the Elements rescued them from where they’d been trapped for a thousand years. The incident was briefly mentioned in the friendship journal, but as much controvery as that book has generated, it may not be a good source to cite.”

“So should we be concerned or not that they’re being summoned by a siren?”

“Possibly,” said Octavia.

There was suddenly a slightly different siren. “What’s that one?”

“That’s the an-enemy-went-right-through-the-Pillars-and-is-now-heading-directly-for-Canterlot klaxon. So now, yes, definitely be concerned.”

I was just about finished anyway. I swept off the cut hair and removed the gown from around Octavia’s neck.

“Thank you for the cut,” she said, passing me payment. “I should be going now to beat the rush.”

I waved goodbye. As Octavia opened the door, Blueblood pushed past her. He’d managed to shake much of his paparazzi today, which was slightly unusual because he usually reveled in the attention. Not only that, but him being seen in my salon was good for business.

He swaggered in and puffed out his chest. “I think it’s time you started paying me.”

The other stylists I’d hired started to surreptitiously put in ear plugs.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked him.

He polished a hoof on his chest. “Well, I was the genesis of the design, first recipient, and have done more for the brand than anypony. Surely that means I am owed for my part. I should think eighty percent will do.”

“You are out of your goddamned mind.”

“Oh? Did I not leave room for negotiation? Perhaps you think I’m only owed sixty percent. I’m sure we could compromise at a very reasonable seventy percent to me.”

“First of all, no. Second of all, why do you even need money?” I paused. “Wait, this is about power with you, isn’t it?

“Do I not deserve it?” he said. “I am Equestria’s Prince.”

“I’ve personally told the Princesses to go screw themselves. I’ve killed gods. I don’t give a shit about you. I thought as much as I abused you, that was pretty clear.”

I turned and picked up a large bronze bell that I’d been saving. “But I will take your money in exchange for services rendered.”

He saw it coming, and flinched. I hit him in the head with the bell. “Stop moving!”

He did, probably because he’d been knocked silly. I slammed the bell down around his head and picked up a sledgehammer that was leaning against the wall. I thought about making a pun about getting hammered, but let’s be honest, he wouldn’t get it.

As hard as I hammered on the bell, he probably wouldn’t be getting a lot of things for a while. It was an amazing de-stresser for me, though.

The ringing did bring out the journalists, though. They may have missed Blueblood coming in, but a loud donging was a sure signal that he was here now. I could see a couple of them crowding the front windows.

I smiled and went to sit down in an unused chair. I crossed my legs and tented my hooves, posing for the cameras.

I have to say, this wasn’t the kind of fame and fortune I expected to find in Equestria, but I would take what I could get. I smiled for the cameras and sat there on my throne as the prince of bell hair.

Author's Note

Prologue

Author's Note

Every ponyfiction writer needs to do a self-insert at some point. It's my turn. Depending on the reactions, I may continue to write a chapter for every episode in the TV series. To make things interesting, the character is not aware of MLP:FIM.

Prologue

Every ponyfiction writer needs to do a self-insert at some point. It's my turn. Depending on the reactions, I may continue to write a chapter for every episode in the TV series. To make things interesting, the character is not aware of MLP:FIM.

The sunlight is trying to get through my eyelids. Wait, what? I thought the blinds in my bedroom were closed. Still not a bad way to wake up.

Actually, now that I open my eyes and sit up, I can see that I’m not home. Trees? An orchard? Jesus Christ, I must have really tied one on last night.

Now that I think about it, I must still be dreaming. The distinct lack of a hangover is a clue. Also, there’s...what the...hooves? Fur? Yep, definitely still asleep.

Well, if I’m going to dream I might as well make the most of it. Let’s take a look at what else the ol’ mind has cooked up.

I’m quadrupedal and covered in coat of bright orange. A tail? Oh boy. It’s black and somewhat rumpled from sleeping on the ground. I reach my arm – front leg – up to scratch my ear. It’s not in the same place it used to be. The hair on top my head is longer. I brush some down so I can see it. It’s black, too.

I catch a glimpse of something. What’s that on my ass? It looks like a hood ornament. Oh great, it’s going to be one of “those” dreams. I can’t seem to brush the mark off.

It’s really quite a vivid experience. I actually hope I remember it when I wake up. Better start thinking in past tense so I can tell the story later.

I got up and tried out four legs. It seemed natural, why shouldn’t it? Off in the distance I heard a faint thwack. Having no other direction to go, I headed for the noise.

There seemed to be quite a few apple trees around. Not a small orchard. Up ahead, I caught sight of something. It looked like a horse. No, maybe not, wrong proportions. A pony? Sounds right. I guess that made me a pony, too.

As I drew closer, the facial features and general manner gave me the impression that it was a female. The other pony was orange, although not quite the same shade as me. She also appeared to be wearing a cowboy hat. It made me wish for a hat, too. It’s my dream, maybe I can get one later.

As I watched, she kicked a tree with her back legs. A shower of apples rained down into conveniently placed baskets.

“Hi there,” I said as I walked up.

“Well howdy,” she said, grabbing my hoof and shaking. “You’re the second visitor ah’ve had today.” She had an accent. Good thing I speak fluent redneck. I knew having Southern relatives would pay off eventually.

“Busy, huh?”

“That’s right. There’s a lot to do to get ready for the Summer Sun Celebration.”

“What’s that?”

She gave me an odd look. “Aren’t you from around here?”

“No.”

“The Summer Sun Celebration is, well, exactly what it sounds like.”

“Makes sense. I guess I'll be going, then. Have a nice day, uh…”

“Applejack. What can ah call you?”

Think of something cool, think of something cool…

“Valiant. Plymouth Valiant.” Eh, could have been worse.

“Well you have a good day too, mister.”

I followed a path that lead away from the orchard. In not very long, I came to a small town. A sign said “Ponyville.” Sure enough, there were ponies everywhere. I noticed that some were unicorns and some were pegasuses. Pegasi? Whatever.

I passed close by a pink pony with a curly, tangled mane. She gasped.

“Two new faces in one day? This is almost too good to be true!” She dashed away before I could say anything. Applejack had also mentioned a second visitor. Interesting.

Overhead, a rainbow-colored blur was smashing clouds. When it briefly slowed down, I saw that it was a pegasus pony. I hadn’t thought I took LSD before going to bed, but I sure was seeing some wild things.

I was watching the aerial show and not paying attention to where I was walking. I thumped into someone.

“Sorry!” I said automatically. I had knocked over a yellow pegasus with a pink mane. “Here, let me help you up.”

She wimpered quietly and seemed to curl into a fetal postion. “Are you hurt?” I asked. No reply.

“What’s wrong?” Other than slowly edging away from me, she didn’t respond.

“Um, sorry again,” I said awkwardly. I had never felt so bad for anything I had done in a dream before. The pony just seemed to inspire that. I decided to put it behind me and walked away.

I found myself in the town square. A pavilion was set up, and everything looked like it had been decorated. A white unicorn with a purple mane was hanging ribbons when I walked by. She glanced at me, and then her eyes widened in horror. I glanced around, trying to see what she was looking at.

“Oh my! You look like you’ve been sleeping on the ground, you poor dear.” She began brushing leaves and dirt out of my mane. “I simply must help you get cleaned up.”

“Whoa,” I said, stopping her with a raised hoof. “This is the first dream I’ve ever had where I didn’t feel embarrassed to be naked in public. If I’m dirty, so what?”

I left her standing there, apparently flabbergasted by my words. I smiled a little as I walked. The dream was going pretty well. The conversations seemed so real, and the visuals were stunning. TV looked dull compared to this. When I woke up, I’d have to call my cable company and ask them to upgrade me to HD.

I spotted a purple and green dragon riding on a purple unicorn. The timid pony from earlier was talking to the dragon. I fell in step beside her, intending to apologize again, but she didn’t seem to notice.

We approached a large tree that appeared to have been converted into a building. The unicorn seemed to brush the other pony off and quickly entered with the dragon. There came a chorus of “Surprise!” from inside.

The door slammed open. It was the pink pony from earlier. “Why weren’t you at the surprise party?!” she shouted at me.

I shrugged. “I didn’t know I was invited. I am surprised, though.”

She instantly smiled. “Come have some cake!”

“All right!”

“By the way, I’m Pinkie Pie. You’re new here, aren’t you?"

"Just got in from dreamland. Call me Valiant."

"Dreamland! Of course you are! That’s why I’ve never seen you before.”

“Stop. Less talk, more cake.” I walked past her through the door.

Inside the tree, there were dozens of ponies. I hadn’t been introduced to most of them, but didn't care. I was dreaming about delicious cake and punch, and it wasn’t costing me a single real calorie.

A couple of the ponies I’d seen earlier came in while I was on my third slice of cake. I said hello to Applejack.

“How long is this party supposed to last?” I asked.

“All night! We stay up and watch the sun rise for the Summer Sun Celebration.”

“Sounds good to me. Of course, I’ll eventually wake up and realize I’m not actually at a party with talking ponies, but until then, I’m having a ball.”

She cocked her head at me. “Are you feelin’ all right, sugarcube? Didja just say you’re going to wake up from this?”

“Sure. I’m dreaming right now, and none of you are real.”

“Pfft,” said the rainbow pegasus from earlier. “I know I’m real. I wouldn’t be the coolest pony in Equestria if I wasn’t.”

“What now? Equestria?”

The pony gave me a confused look. “Uh, yeah. You know, this country? Ruled by Princess Celestia?”

I shrugged. “Politics don’t belong in my dreams, thank you very much.”

The two ponies looked at each other. “Rainbow, maybe we should go find him some help,” suggested Applejack.

“I don’t need help. I’m having the time of my life right now.”

I headed for the refreshments table again. Through an open door, I heard “All the ponies in this town are crazy!” I poked my head in. The dragon was wearing a lampshade on his head and trying to convince the purple unicorn to get out of bed and come to the party.

“Hey man, if she doesn’t dance, she doesn’t dance,” I suggested.

“You really should lighten up, Twilight,” said the dragon, leaving.

“Thanks,” said the pony to me. "It's just been a little intense since I got here."

“I completely understand,” I said. “If I were awake, in the real world, I would be sitting in the corner not enjoying myself either.”

All I got for a reply was a stare. Clearly, she now grouped me with the aforementioned crazy ponies.

I closed the door and went to play pin the tail on the pony. I learned that the dragon's name was Spike. He offered to let me wear the lampshade.

The party kept going until the early hours of the morning.

Applebuck Season

I slept on the couch on the lower floor of the library. This time, it was completely intentional. Twilight realized that I had nowhere to go, and let me stay. I agreed to help out around the library.

Several in-dream days had now passed, and I was beginning to worry slightly. Was I in some kind of coma? How come this crazy dream was so long?

I tried to discuss it with Twilight, as she was part of my subconscious and would know what was going on. She was busy working on something else, though, and didn’t give me any answers.

I went back to reading the Daring Do series. As I was turning a page, I noticed an unusual rumble that appeared to be transmitted through the ground.

“What’s that?” It took Twilight another few seconds to realize what I was asking about.

“I don’t know.” We both walked outside. There was a cloud of dust on the horizon. In a few seconds, I saw that it was a huge group of cattle running towards Ponyville.

Twilight squeaked and ducked back inside the library tree.

“Can they talk, too?” I called after her.

She didn’t reply. Over the thunder of the onrushing herd, I heard a faint “Yeeehaaawwww.”

The crowd of cows changed direction, turning away from the town. Right there in the thick of things was Applejack.

Instead of leveling Ponyville, the cattle stopped a short distance away. I ambled over. Pinkie Pie came bouncing up.

“Whoa, hooie,” said Applejack. “Now what was that all about?”

“Begging your pardon, Applejack,” replied one of the cows. “Mooriella here saw one of those nasty snakes.”

“So freaking stomp on it next time,” I said. “You’ve got sharp hooves.”

“I don’t like your tone,” said Mooriella’s husband.

“I don’t like how you aren’t barbecued and sitting on my plate. I’ve eaten tougher steers than you, big guy.”

I’m not sure if he was more flustered by what I was threatening, or by the fact that I was implying that he was less than a bull.

"What are you talking about?”

“Where I’m from, we grind up cattle into meat paste, which we turn into patties and sell at a place called McDonald’s. They’re delicious.”

There was horrified silence for several seconds, interrupted by Pinkie giggling.

“Oh Valiant, you’re so silly. You’re so good at telling tall tales.”

Everybody laughed, although not all for the same reasons.

The residents of Ponyville seemed to be quite pleased that they hadn’t been trampled by the stampede. There was talk about throwing Applejack a thank you party.

Later that day, I tried to find something to eat that would show Pinkie I was actually an omnivore, but then she pointed out that I didn’t have canines or sharp teeth of any kind.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t try. I’ll show you when I kill something and eat it.”

She laughed. “Silly, have a cupcake.”

“Okay.”

The whole town turned out to honor Applejack. There was a gold trophy which appeared to be the award, although I don’t know what that had to do with saving the town from a stampede.

Her friends talked about what a great pony she was, although I think they were interrupting something Twilight had to say. I’m not sure, because she didn’t end up actually getting the chance to speak.

When Applejack showed up, she looked like a mess. There was a little stagger in her step, and she kept yawning.

“Thank you kindly for this here... award thingy. It's so bright and shiny and…heh, heh heh, I sure do look funny.” She stared at her reflection in the shiny gold.

“Okay. Well, thank you Applejack for saving us from that scary stampede, and always being there for everypony,” said Twilight.

After she was gone, Twilight said, “Was it just me, or did Applejack seem a little…”

“Tired?” said Rainbow.

“Dizzy?” suggested Fluttershy.

“Messy? Did you see her mane?” added Rarity.

“Drunk?” I said.

“She seemed fine to me,” said Pinkie.

Later that day, I saw Rainbow Dash building something in the town square. I walked over and asked what she was up to.

“It’s a giant catapult! Applejack is going to jump from the top of that platform and land here, which will shoot me into the air really fast!”

“As a pegasus, you probably weigh less than Applejack, right?”

“Probably. Why?”

“Well, if you had paid attention to weight ratios, you could move the fulcrum off center to compensate and get an increase in speed with no discernible loss in force.” I knew that the books in the library would come in handy.

She looked at me. “Huh?”

“Move the pivot point over and you’ll go faster.”

Just then, Applejack walked up. “Ah'm a might' sorry, Rainbow. Ah was busy applebuckin' and ah guess ah closed my eyes for a second and, when ah woke up, ah was late. Now, what's this new trick a' yours?”

Rainbow explained it to her and Applejack climbed up on the platform. She promptly jumped off and faceplanted into the dirt.

“Um... maybe I wasn't clear. You're supposed to land on the other end,” said Rainbow. She and I watched Applejack try a few more times and miss them all.

“Applejack, what the hay is going on? I mean, I thought I was working with Ponyville's best athlete!”

“You are. I'm okay, really. Okay, one more try. Ah'm sure to get it this time.”

“Wait—” Applejack jumped anyway. Rainbow blasted off, Team Rocket style. It made me wish that I had volunteered to jump in Applejack’s place.

It looked like Rainbow had smashed into the upper floors of the library, so I headed back that way. She was just leaving as I got there.

“What was that all about?” I asked Twilight.

“Applejack is working too hard and she’s causing accidents. I’m going to go talk to her about it.”

“All right, I’ll watch the library.”

Twilight returned later, looking frustrated. Apparently, Applejack hadn’t listened. She slowly sulked into a studying mood.

It was not too long before a pony burst in looking for her. “The entire town’s been poisoned!”

“What’s going on?” asked Twilight.

“There were these terrible muffins, and they made everyone sick! Please come quickly!”

“That sounds serious. Valiant, can you—”

“Library duty, got it.”

She and spike left. A short while later, I noticed another rumbling. Poking my head out the window, I watched as a giant crowd of rabbits ran through the town. I fell back on the floor, laughing. I didn’t know how that had happened, but it sure was turning out to be an interesting day.

Spike came back without Twilight. He told me that Applejack had mixed up a recipe while helping Pinkie, resulting in most of the town getting sick off of free samples.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” I asked.

“Pinkie called them baked bads. I think they’re pretty good.” He showed me one. It had a lumpy appearance and appeared to contain worms.

“She just threw them away.”

“You got them out of the trash?”

“I like them.”

“I’m not judging. You can sometimes find some cool stuff dumpster diving.”

“What’s a dumpster?”

“It’s a giant garbage can so large that you need a machine to dump it.”

“Wow, is everything cooler in your world?”

“Hell yeah. Rainbow Dash has got nothing on me.”

“I’d like to see that.” He chomped another baked bad.

Did he believe me? That would be a first. I hadn’t managed to convince any of the rest that they weren’t real.

I frowned. But wait, if Spike was just a figment of my imagination, then did it matter what he thought? Was there some kind of subtle subconscious conflict going on here?

I decided not to think about it.

Green Isn't Your Color

I walked down the street chewing on a piece of gum. The local grocer had given me a pack after letting me in on his secret: sometimes he liked to squeeze the bread. I didn’t know if that was euphuism for something and did not care. I just promised not to tell anyone, and got some free gum out of it.

The secret business was going well. It seemed like the whole town was getting in on it. I wasn’t sure how they all knew that I was a good listener, or why they wanted to tell me stuff in the first place, but I wasn’t about to say no to complimentary merchandise.

When I got to the library, I spotted a note pinned to the door indicating that Twilight and Spike were over at Rarity’s boutique. With nothing better to do, I turned in that direction.

When I walked in, Fluttershy was modeling some ugly outfit. Pinkie, Spike, and Twilight were helping Rarity make modifications to it.

Spike was playing the part of pincushion. He shrugged it off, saying that his thick scales made him invulnerable. I filed that information away for the future, just in case.

Rarity and Fluttershy walked away for a moment. Spike swooned and said, “I'm going to tell you three a secret. But you have to promise not to tell anyone.”

Twilight and I agreed. Pinkie said, “Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

“I have a crush on Rarity!” Spike said.

I gagged.

“We won’t say a word!” said Pinkie.

“Give me a break,” said Twilight. “Everypony already knows—”

“Twilight! You promised Spike you wouldn't say anything. He trusts you. And losing a friend's trust is the fastest way to lose a friend forever!”

Pinkie’s statement was rather astute. I was about to comment when the door opened and a pony wearing big sunglasses came in. I wondered who she was, but then she told us.

“I, Photo Finish, have arrived.”

“Let me just say, what an honor!” gushed Rarity.

“We begin…NOW!”

She and her assistants set up photography equipment. After half a dozen pictures, they packed up again and left.

“I can't believe I ever thought I could impress her,” said Rarity sadly.

The photographer burst back in. “It seems that I, Photo Finish, have found a next fashion star here in Ponyville. And I, Photo Finish, am going to help her to shine all over Equestria. Tomorrow a photo shoot in ze park. I go!” She left again.

Rarity was very excited and began preparing for the next day. I went with Twilight and Spike back to the library. On the way, she explained who the strange pony was.

Photo Finish was a well-known fashion photographer. Any pony she featured was instantly popular. Despite her eccentricities, she was very popular in her own right.

I didn't spend much time thinking about the photographer. I had a lot of work to do on my next project. Electrolysis of water resulted in oxygen and hydrogen. With the proper equipment, the hydrogen could be filtered off and stored. I would need all I could get in order to build the airship that I had in mind.

Hydrogen was exceedingly dangerous, so I was okay with storing it in a tank below where Twilight slept. I’d like to avoid blowing up the library, but I was willing to sacrifice the tree if it came to that. It’s not like residents of Ponyville read a lot.

Speaking of that, Cheerilee had revealed to me that she was illiterate, which explained why her classroom aids only consisted of pictures. She’d given me the latest Daring Do book since she had no need of it.

While the electrolysis machine bubbled away, I sat down to work on the design of the aircraft. With no other references, I decided to model it after the classic Zeppelins. Hopefully the hydrogen wouldn’t cause similar problems.

There were no internal combustion engines available, so I would have to improvise. The airship would be largely at the mercy of the wind. I hated to resort to it, but solid fuel rockets might be the best bet. Yes, the combination of hydrogen and flame-spewing rockets was a terrible idea, but I was still convinced that this was just a dream.

In the morning, I was finally ready to begin working on the material. For weight reasons, I was going to be using gas-proof fabric. For that, I needed Rarity.

She was rather grumpy when I visited her shop. From her comments, it seemed that Photo Finish didn’t like her. Apparently, Fluttershy, instead of Rarity, had what the photographer called “de magicks.”

I got her to order the proper material and she said that it wouldn’t be any trouble to stitch it up for me. I had specified a tubular shape, but Rarity convinced me to change to a more football-like design. It would still be pretty large.

Fluttershy came in the door ahead of a wave of photographers. By the look on her face, I guessed that she was not a fan of having fans.

I’m sure Rarity thought the same thing, but she said, “I’m so happy for you. You’ve become famous!”

“Um, yes.”

Photo Finish burst in. “Flootershy! I have been looking for you everywhere. We have ze thing at ze place.”

“Nobody like you,” I said. “You’re weird and creepy. You’re only famous because you insist that you are. Everyone only goes along with it because it’s easier than finding someone worthy.”

Photo Finish stared at me for perhaps five seconds. “Who is this? I love it! I love the blunt, unfiltered words! You will be my next star!”

She whipped out a camera. As she raised it to her face, I batted it out of her hooves. It broke on the floor.

“No! Bad pony! I will not be a part of your strange, strange enterprise. Go away.”

“Oh Valiant, what have you done?” exclaimed Rarity.

“Is he a friend of yours?” Photo Finish asked. “I must obtain a new camera, and now I know where to find him. I will buy your things to compensate. I return!” She threw some bits at Rarity and went out the door.

Rarity was dumbfounded. “I don’t know what to say. That’s the second time you’ve been mean to a major face in the fashion industry, and it resulted in a gain for me.”

“Should I come back next week and assault Sapphire Shores?”

She smiled. “Would you?”

Family Appreciation Day

“So you’re still Twilight Sparkle?” I asked.

“What do you mean ‘still’? I always have been.”

“It just seemed like kind of a gay name for a stallion.”

Twilight thought about it. “Now that you mention it, I don’t know what my parents were thinking. It’s still not as bad as, say, Fluttershy.”

“True.”

“I can’t imagine what you must be going through,” said Twilight as he examined the ugly rock wrapped in electronics.

“So you actually believe that I used to be a guy?”

“I’m still unsure about the whole human thing, but according to the data recorders on this, you were once in an opposite-gender universe.”

“So, I replaced the actually-female Valiant here?”

Twilight thought. “Now that you mention it, I do wonder about that."

“But Twilight,” said Spike, “How do we know that she isn’t having another crazy spell?”

“I’m not crazy,” I retorted, quietly horrified that I had responded to a female pronoun.

“I’m sorry to say this, Valiant,” said Twilight, “But it’s only the supporting data that makes me believe you.”

“You win this round, science,” I muttered. I glanced up. “Speaking of science, do I still have my robots?”

Twilight rolled his eyes. “Yes.”

“Awww yeaaahhhhh.” I leapt to my hooves and dashed outside. The VTOL named Monstrosity was present and accounted for. The design hadn’t even changed. Picking through the inside, the only difference I noted was a slightly smaller pilot’s seat for my slightly smaller posterior.

Ugh, that was major squick right there. I started tuning up the engines to get my mind off of it.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders came rumbling up in their robot. “Hey Valiant, we need to ask you somethin’!” said Apple Bloom. He scrambled out of the cockpit and came over to me. Heh, cockpit. They were all colts now.

Wow, girl-me is terrible at jokes.

“It’s Family Appreciation Day tomorrow at school,” Apple Bloom said. “Granny Smith is the only pony in my family that can come, but I don’t want him to.”

“Hold up. He’s your grandfather, right? Why do you call him Granny?”

Apple Bloom shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s tradition, or somethin’. Anyway, I need you to help me!”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Well, if you smashed the school by accident that one time, do you think you could do it on purpose?”

I laughed. “Is he really that bad? Why don’t you want him to go?”

“He’s embarrassing.”

“So?”

“I’ll be the laughingstock of the whole school!” he said.

“Listen, I’ve been around the block a few times, and I know where you’re coming from. I’m confident that you’ll look back on this one day and laugh, but in the meantime, let me offer you some advice: Mind over matter, those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter.”

Apple Bloom looked confused. “What’s that mean?”

“You can’t let the haters bring you down. Just let them go take their lemons and make haterade somewhere else.”

“Lemons?”

“The lemons that life hands us.”

“I prefer apples.”

I was getting annoyed. “We’re speaking metaphorically, here.”

“What’s that mean?”

I sighed. “Why don’t I just come with you tomorrow?”

Despite my agreement with Apple Bloom, I was very disappointed to wake up in the same universe the next day. Fate had dealt a cruel hand indeed.

Like everything else since I had blacked out drunk and entered Equestria, I supposed that I had to make the best of it.

I felt that it was my duty to be as awesome as possible in order to distract attention from Granny Smith. To that end, I put on my sunglasses and asked Captain Falcon to come along.

Cheerilee was not happy to see me. I told him I was with Apple Bloom, and when that didn’t work, threatened to tell the whole town that he was illiterate.

I had never threatened a pony with a secret that they had told me in confidence. It made me feel like a manipulative bitch, but it got results.

“I can't wait to hear Granny Smith's presentation. If he can remember any of it,” said a colt in the front row. He was colored pink and purple and wore a dainty crown.

I cleared my throat. “Next word out of your mouth will be your last.” It was a little less specific than many of my threats, but kids have active imaginations and can imagine what you might mean.

Granny Smith began recollecting something. I tuned out. Looking around, I noticed that the ceiling had only been recently repaired where a certain gender-bent pony-man had crashed through it.

The kids began clopping, so I assumed the presentation was over. I really hoped that somepony came up with a new term for beating their hooves together in applause. It really sounded similar to an activity that fillies and colts should definitely not being doing in the classroom.

“Diamond Tiara, if it weren't for my Granny Smith your mommy wouldn't have Barnyard Bargains,” said Apple Bloom to the colt I had talked to earlier.

“But…but he's just a kooky old guy!" said Diamond.

“I gave you fair warning,” I said to him. “Get up. I’m going to take you outside for execution.”

“Valiant!” said Cheerilee, “This is my classroom and I handle the punishment.”

“Mr. Cheerilee, I don’t screw around with justice, and I’m not going to let you stop me.” I wasn’t actually going to kill the colt for something that he said, but I thought it was important that he have at least one unexpected bowel movement before I revealed that to him.

Cheerilee stepped forward. “I took this job knowing the dangers involved. I’m willing to lay down my life for the sake of education.” He put himself between me and Diamond.

“I’ve got to say, that was a pretty badass speech for a schoolteacher.” I looked at him, smiling a little. “You’ve failed to take one thing into account, though. I’m a lunatic who plans ahead.”

A robotic metal hand stabbed down through the newly repaired roof and snatched a surprised Diamond Tiara.

“Escape!” I shouted, running out the door with Captain flying ahead of me. I met up with Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo outside in the robot. With Diamond hanging upside down and screaming his head off, we got moving.

“This is what happens when you screw with nerds!” I shouted at him. The robot’s arm was positioned close to the cockpit so I could yell directly in his face. “Giant robots! Do you understand? We don’t get mad, we get automated!”

“I’m sorry!” he cried. “Please put me down! I promise to be good. I’ll get you all the zap apple jam you want!”

“Is that some genetically modified crap? Not interested.”

“Hang on,” said Scootaloo. “Zap apple jam is pretty good.”

“Yeah,” added Sweetie Belle. “I mean, we already get all we want from Apple Bloom, but what if we could get more?”

“Why would you want more if you already had all you wanted?” I asked.

Sweetie Belle shrugged. “Eh, good point, I guess. Let’s kill him.”

I found myself in the awkward position of trying to save the colt’s life while still making it look like I wanted him dead. Couldn’t have him thinking that I wasn’t serious, after all.

“Hang on,” I said. “I’ve never had any of this jam.”

“I’ll get it, I’ll get it, just put me down!” shrieked Diamond.

“Okay.” So I did. Into a mud puddle.

I carried a jar of the jam back to the library tree. Captain and I had visited Sweet Apple Acres and eaten a whole bunch of the stuff. I had no idea what went into it, but I liked the flavor.

Twilight was working on something when I stepped inside. A particular grey pegasus stallion was with him.

I walked up to the table and saw the rock surrounded by notes and other bits of technology that Twilight was apparently working on.

“So…” I said. “What exactly do you know about the multiverse, Derpy?”

“Oh, um, not much.” It was my opinion that he didn’t know much about anything, but I try to be nicer to those with disabilities.

I gave Twilight the jam and he went to find some bread to put it on. He asked the other pony to keep an eye on the rock while he was gone. It’s almost like he didn’t trust me with it.

One of Derpy’s eyes swiveled to watch the rock. The other remained looking at me.

“So how’s the delivery business?” I asked. I walked over to Captain’s perch and she hopped off to preen her feathers.

“Oh you know, it has its ups and downs.” Like that time Derpy had dropped a freaking piano on Twilight.

Derpy had turned to look at me. He was also still watching the rock, which was now directly behind him. One of his eyes pointed towards the back of his skull. It looked creepy as hell.

Twilight came back just then with toast and jam. I politely declined, having eaten too much already. Derpy left to do something that he never clearly specified.

“So what was he here for?” I asked.

“Sometimes when I get frustrated, I like to call on somepony who has a completely different point of view. Lately, it’s been him.”

“He doesn’t have a point of view. Knows not where he’s going to.”

Twilight nodded. “He’s a real nowhere pony.”

“Holy crap,” I said. “I thought you didn’t know the Beatles?”

“I told you, I don’t like bugs.” He took a bite of the toast and looked at the rock. "So I've been doing a lot of research about this thing."

"Do you know how to get me home?"

"No."

I said something very unladylike.

MMMMystery on the Friendship Express

At first I thought being a vampire would be pretty sweet. It felt so cool to casually say, “Yeah, I’m undead. Got a problem with that?” There’s also the super senses, strength, speed, and the joys of consuming meat for a change.

And then there’s missing out on the National Dessert Competition because you can’t eat anything that didn’t die a bloody death.

“This sucks,” I said to Rarity. I thought for a moment. “Now that I’m a vampire, I feel like I’m making a pun every time I say something sucks. That sucks, too.”

“I know how you feel,” she said.

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you use the word ‘sucks’ in conversation before.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what were you talking about? Willis?”

“No, I was referring to missing the dessert competition due to our unfortunate condition.”

Well, I guess that made more sense. I left Rarity’s temporary quarters at the library and went to help Pinkie get Mr. and Mrs. Cakes’ Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness cake aboard the train. She called it the MMMM for short.

It was a heck of a cake, I will say that. After watching Big Mac struggle to carry it to the station, I figured the least I could do was stand around and look supportive.

I got aboard the train and scoped out the other passengers. For some reason, the organizer of the event thought it would be a good idea to have all competitors ride the same train.

There was a French Griffon, a mule who seemed to be British, and Pony Joe, who lived in Canterlot but sounded like he was from Brooklyn. I learned that his real first name was actually Donut.

The other ponies arrived. We would all be going to the competition together. Pinkie eyed the other chefs and looked distrusting. There was some slightly-less-than-good-natured argument between the four of them about whose dessert would win.

Twilight broke things up before they could get serious. “Well it sure looks like we're in for a delicious competition tomorrow. Maybe we should all settle in for a good night's sleep.”

“No need,” I said. “This is the Friendship Express. I couldn’t stand by while the train didn’t live up to its name, so I made some modifications. After the work I did on the Appleloosa train, the railroad company was happy to hire me.”

“What did you do?” asked Twilight, suspiciously.

“Wow, you make it sound like I retrofitted it with a nuclear reactor or something. All I did was crank up the steam pressure a little, change out the wheels for something a little larger in diameter, and give everything a good efficiency polish.”

“Oh, well that doesn’t sound so—”

“It’s twice as fast as before.”

I think only Rainbow had any concept of how fast that was, exactly. They were all lucky that the acceleration of the train was limited to the traction of the steel wheels on the steel track, or the delicious desserts would have been splattered all over by the g-forces.

Delicious desserts that I couldn’t eat. Darn it, undeath sucked. With nothing better to do, I sat down and began plotting how I could actually retrofit the train with a reactor.

No, wait, I had more important things to plot. Tactical explosives, for instance. In an effort to forget the French language after my breakup with the girl from Quebec, I had taken a German class. I accidentally memorized the wrong study guide, though, and ended up with plans for a vintage antitank weapon stuck in my head. I’d only recently gathered the materials to actually build it. It was called a panzerfaust. I closed my eyes to help visualize it better.

Anyway, the train moved right along and everything was fine and dandy until we went into a tunnel. When we came out, the MMMM was destroyed.

“Oh my gosh! Who could have done this?” shouted Pinkie. “The Marzipan Mascarpone Meringue Madness has been mutilated!”

“And how,” I added. Sure, I had vampire vision, but my eyes had conveniently been closed as we went through the tunnel and I hadn’t witnessed the act.

“Now we just need to find out who done it,” said Pinkie, seriously.

“You mean, who ‘did’ it,” corrected Twilight.

Pinkie nodded. “Exactly. Who did-done-doed it.”

“Well, having read many mystery novels, I know that the only way to discover the culprit is to investigate.”

“That’s not true,” I said to Twilight. “I’ve got a better solution.”

“Oh really?” she said. “Prove it.”

“I’ll prove it’s a myth.” I grinned. “Don’t try this at home. I’m what you call an expert.”

I rang the little bell and the train conductor came into the car.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Get me a pad of paper and nine pencils—” I popped my newly-made switchblade open “—or I will kill one hostage every minute.”

The train pony dashed off. I hummed a little tune while I menaced the rest of them with the knife.

When I got what I wanted, I gave each member of the assembled crowd a pencil and a piece of paper. “I want you to write down who you think did it,” I said.

In a few minutes, all of them were finished and I collected the papers. The bakers all blamed each other. The response I was looking for, though, came from Rarity. For heaven’s sake, it was Fluttershy and Rainbow. Didn’t you see them do it?

“It was Fluttershy and Rainbow,” I announced.

“The cake just sounded so tasty,” said Fluttershy.

“And boy was it,” agreed Rainbow.

“You ponies are bad and you should feel bad,” I said.

“Wow,” said Twilight. “I guess the investigation method really isn’t the best way.”

I nodded. “Myth busted. Oh, look, another tunnel.”

When we came out the other side, the other three deserts were also ruined. Amid the resulting confusion, Rarity gave me a dirty look. I licked my lips to get rid of the crumbs. While it would probably make me sick if I swallowed, everything tasted awesome. I just had to find a place to spit, now. Oh, the problems of the undead.

A while later, Pinkie and the other chefs had formed a truce. Since none of them had anything to contribute to the competition at the moment, they were attempting to combine their desserts into one. Somehow, Pinkie had cake ingredients with her, and all the ruined pieces of the other dishes were going to be added to the batter.

“We’re putting dessert in a dessert!” she exclaimed.

“So you can get diabetes while you get diabetes,” I added.

“You shouldn’t joke about that,” admonished Twilight. “Juvenile diabetes is a serious issue.”

“Oh, you’ve got that in Equestria, too? It’s also a problem in the United States. It’s been linked to unhealthy eating. And you said ponies had better sense than people.”

“I never said that.”

“I’m sure you thought it at least once.”

Twilight grumbled in a way that told me I was probably right.

We got off the train in Canterlot and the frankendessert was taken away. I wanted to keep a low profile in the city just in case the Mares in Black were looking for me. I wasn’t quite finished building all the robots.

Rather than staying with the rest of the ponies in the castle where I could be easily located, I checked into a hotel. I wrote “Ford Mustang” on the guest register.

“You don’t look anypony of the Mustang family,” said the stallion behind the desk.

“I’ve got a medical condition. Can I have my key now?”

He gave it to me, but still seemed suspicious. Figures that the fake name I created on the spot was already taken.

I went upstairs to my room and slept like the dead.

Author note:

This story will be going dark for a week while we wait for new episodes.

What will I be doing in the meantime?

Well, CMC in NC will be getting an update. Hopefully I will also find the time to write a new chapter for AtSR,SDW. In addition, I’m thinking about doing a short one-shot called So a pony walks into a gun shop…

After A Dream is done for the season, I’ll be starting work on a new Valiant fic that is tentatively titled Sea Dreams. Also, the long-awaited Cyborg Braeburn.

I’ll be back next week with the season-ending chapters of this story. Pretty much everything I’ve been doing for the last dozen episodes has been leading up to this.

Prepare yourself. It’s going to be awesome.

The Crystal Empire - part 2

I was headed towards Doctor Whooves. I hadn’t seen him around for a while and wanted to speak with him. He’d been acting kind of strangely lately. I was going to get in his face and make a scene. I didn’t have anything against him personally, but I thought it might help me assert my dominance towards the Black Twins so they would stop annoying me. It wasn’t a very good plan, but that was okay because I was interrupted by Trixie falling out of the sky.

After being mutated by residual radiation, she had eight legs. She was also at the helm of a similarly eight-legged combat robot that cratered the street where it fell. The underside was glowing hot. I assumed that had been caused by reentry, since the last I knew Trixie had been banished to the moon by Luna for being a nuisance.

“Ha ha! Cower before a pony that has mastery of the heavens!” she called. “You tried to send Trixie away, but she came back!”

I glared at her. “I’m going to have a chat with Luna about the effectiveness of her banishments. In the meantime, why don’t you use that so-called mastery of the heavens and go back to the moon?”

“Why should Trixie?” the blue unicorn harrumphed. “She takes orders from nopony.”

“Actually, that was a dare,” I said. “I bet you can’t.”

Trixie narrowed her eyes. “There are more important things—”

“Chicken! Bwok bwok bwok.”

“Such foalish attempts will not work on Trixie!”

I shrugged. “Okay.” I turned and walked in my original direction, heading for Doc.

“Get back here!” called Trixie. I threw up a hoof in a dismissive gesture. If I’d had fingers, I would have punctuated it with the middle one.

Ponies began crowding around the robot and mare in the middle of the street. “Wow, what a freak,” one of them said.

Trixie’s eye twitched. She got the robot going and skittered out of town. While I had just passed over a prime opportunity to kill her, I thought it was kind of funny to see her suffering. Also, I hadn’t had a robot of my own to fight her with. I’d promised myself that when the time came, that’s how it would go down.

The problem of how she had gotten a robot still grated on my mind, but I would find out eventually. I stopped suddenly and facehoofed. Back when Trixie was terrorizing Ponyville with hordes of spiders, she had been mentioned in association with the Crystal King. Twilight had just said something about the Crystal Empire. While I would have thought that an Empire would be ruled by an Emperor or something, I should have seen the connection sooner.

Oh well, I was sure Trixie would appear again later. I kept walking. “Hey Doctor Whooves, what’s up?”

The brown stallion looked around. “Huh? Who are you talking to?”

I cocked an eyebrow. “You aren’t Doctor Whooves?”

“No, I’m Time Turner. Why?”

“You look exactly like him.”

He shrugged. I also noticed that he wasn’t speaking with the same accent or manner as Doc. Strange. Anyway, with that task accomplished, I figured that I had better go after Twilight and friends. Maybe I could save the Crystal Empire with democracy before it was too late.

I went up to the castle to borrow a robot. After the deal with the Changelings, the idea of mecha soldiers had really taken off. I was still stalling for time in providing that. As I had decided, I liked being the only one with robots.

There were still a few testing models around. It took a little while to get an audience with the Princesses, but after I held a guard at knifepoint, he agreed to let me in.

I let go of him and put away my switchblade. Celestia looked at me. I said, “Hi, I’m here to borrow a robot to travel to the Crystal Empire.”

She laughed. “Oh, this just gets better. I sent Twilight there to have a little fun.”

“Trolling?” I asked. “What did you do?”

“Well, King Sombra is the bad guy here. He shouldn’t be too hard to defeat, though. We won’t even need the Elements of Harmony for this. I’m hoping that one day she will finally get wise and stop being so gullible. In the meantime, watching Twilight jump through hoops is entertaining. ”

We both chuckled at that. Luna came in, hearing the laughter. “Are you giggling about Twilight?”

“Yep,” I confirmed. Luna smiled. “I acted cold and aloof to her while she was here, just to confuse her more.”

“Luna had a good teacher,” said Celestia. We all laughed again.

“Okay,” I said. “I should probably be going. Lend me a robot.”

“Sorry,” said Celestia, “We, er, accidentally broke them all.”

“Sucks to be you,” I said. “I’ll just a buy a train ticket.”

I was halfway to the station before I thought to wonder whether she was trolling me, too.

The north of Equestria was frozen and cold. I half expected ponies to be talking with Canadian accents, like Snails back in Ponyville. Through the blowing snow, I saw a giant dome. Inside was nice and sunny, despite the clouds that covered the area outside the dome. I shook my head. I will never understand the weather in Equestria.

As I approached the dome/non-dome border, I noticed a black cloud with a face. Such apparitions were rarely a good thing. Actually, I would say that they’re never a good thing. When was the last time you saw a friendly dark mist?

I scooted around the other side and went through the dome, which let me pass easily. I paused for a moment to take in my surroundings.

The city—it was a very small empire, I guess—was arranged around a crystal palace-like thing in the center. There seemed to be some kind of fair going on. Ponies who looked kind of dull were periodically popping into brighter colors. I noticed the crowd from Ponyville among them, providing entertainment. Pinkie had an unusual combination of a jester’s outfit, a double-barreled flugelhorn, and night vision goggles. Rarity was making baskets. Rainbow and Fluttershy were jousting. Applejack was guarding something beneath a fabric shroud, and I didn’t see Spike or Twilight.

Sir Win had come with them, and I walked over to him. “What’s going on?”

He took a break from his entertainment show—which included him effortlessly eating fire—to talk to me. “Oh, something about stopping an ancient evil from a thousand years ago from coming back. The usual.”

I nodded. “Gee, a thousand years ago must have been a really busy year. I can think of a couple of things that happened then and came back to bite us now.”

I went looking for Twilight. She was with her brother and Cadance. The Pony of Loooove as I had begun to refer to her when she annoyed me, looked kind of tired. She wore a bunch of Princes Celestia-style gold jewelry. Carrying that heavy stuff around could make a pony tired, I supposed.

Shining Armor explained that his wife had been keeping the dome in place over the Empire for a while now. It took a lot of power, and she was exhausted. I was a little distracted when he was talking to me by little black things on his horn.

“What are those?” I asked. “You know, I think they make medication if you have weird growths on your protuberance. Of course, I’m pretty sure those aren’t genital warts. If they are, your sex life must be really weird.”

Cadance gave me an unpleasant look, and the dome wavered for just a moment. King Sombra tried to get in, but she got it back up in time to prevent that. Spike stared out at the scene. “I think the tip of his horn got sliced off.”

“Is that how they circumcise ponies around here?” I asked.

“Just…go away, Valiant,” said Twilight.

“Okay.” I wandered back down to the fair. They were passing out free flugelhorns, but I didn’t take one. I’ve never been very good with music.

Applejack was still guarding the thing that was covered. I heard her offer a pony something called Crystal Empire Nectar to get him to go away.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“We have to raise the spirits of all them crystal ponies,” she said. “Once we find this thing called the Crystal Heart, we can stop hiding this here fake Crystal Heart, and the Crystal Empire will be safe.”

I nodded. “So what’s this Crystal Empire Nectar?”

She shrugged. I turned, about to go try some, but the mare AJ had sent away seemed to like the stuff and had carried away the barrel. I decided to check at the palace to see if there was any more. Along the way, I stumbled into the throne room and found Twilight and Spike staring at a hole in the floor that hadn’t been there before.

“I guess we have to check it out,” said Twilight. I shrugged and went with her down the spiral staircase on the inside. Spike stayed on top.

The hole was very deep and dark. Twilight dropped a piece of crystal. Several seconds passed before the noise of hitting bottom reached us. She frowned. “Spike, can you see outside?”

“It’s not good,” he called. “Cadance’s magic must be fading faster than before.”

“We have to get down there!” cried Twilight.

“Why not just teleport?” I suggested. She liked the idea, but didn’t take the time to tell me before flashing us to the bottom. I hate unexpected teleports. It was balanced by the fact that it was funny watching her search for the Crystal Heart, because the Princesses had withheld the information about where to find it.

There was a door at the bottom of the hole. When Twilight tried to open it, however, it moved away. After a couple of attempts, she finally got it to stay still.

Her eyes went all weird as she stared at what lay behind it. Considering that it looked like a blank stone wall to me, I figured she must be under some kind of spell. I sighed. Typical.

“What, where am I supposed to go, Princess?” she asked. “How could I have failed the test? I don’t understand!”

Just then, Spike ran up. His voice snapped her out of it.

“It’s King Sombra’s dark magic,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s a doorway that leads to your worst fears.”

“Ooh! Do me!” I said, stepping up. While facing my worst fears would probably be pants-shittingly terrifying, at least I would know what they were. I hoped they were not literally that scary, because I wasn’t actually wearing pants.

I found myself in Ponyville. In front of me were the Black Twins. I glanced around. “This is it?”

“Your subconscious is wiser than you,” said Woody.

“A lot wiser,” added Beauty.

“So…I’m supposed to be afraid of you?”

They nodded in unison.

“That’s bullshit. Why? I can’t be scared if I don’t have a reason.”

“You will,” they chorused.

I flashed back to the bottom of the pit. Twilight and Spike were looking at me expectantly. I shrugged. “That was weird.”

“Anyway.” Twilight cast a spell and the door popped open to reveal another set of stairs, these led upward. We went through and began climbing.

“What if—” Spike puffed, “these stairs go on forever?”

“I can get us there faster,” said Twilight. She cast a quick spell and it felt like gravity reversed. We fell upwards, ending up sliding on the smooth underside of the spiral staircase all the way to the top.

“Sick grind!” I exclaimed. It made me wish I actually had a skateboard. I made a mental note to build one.

Once we got to the end, Twilight restored gravity to normal and we stepped out into a room at the top of the tower. A crystal shaped like a heart floated inside a circle on the floor.

As soon as Twilight stepped into the circle, big black spikes rose up and trapped her inside. She managed to knock the Crystal Heart away, but she was trapped. I was about to suggest the obvious move of teleporting out, but she beat me to it.

There was a flash of green and purple and Twilight ended up right back in the circle. Spike and I took a few steps back as little black crystals began to emerge from the floor.

“You have to get out of there, Twilight!” called Spike. “You have to be the one to take the Crystal Heart to Cadance! If you don’t, you fail Princess Celestia’s test!”

A few seconds passed. I thought I heard Twilight muttering to herself. After a moment, she said, “You have to be the one to bring the Crystal Heart to the fair!”

“Me?” I said. “Okay.”

“I was talking to Spike!” she shouted.

“We’ll team up!” I told her. Spike grabbed the Heart and climbed onto my back. I checked out the window. Black crystals were popping up everywhere. The stairwell we had come up was becoming blocked off.

I edged out the window, walking carefully to stay on the crystals growing everywhere. I saw the dome drop, and King Sombra came through. He spotted Spike and I and came towards us. I suspected that regaining control of the Crystal Empire was making him stronger, which was why he seemed to be getting more and more solid.

“I have a plan, Spike!”

He mumbled something in reply, I wasn’t sure what. It sounded like his mouth was full. I told him to hang on, and then I jumped.

Sombra came rushing up to meet us. He was now completely solid. Between my initial jump, gravity, and his closing speed, our relative velocities were quite high. I popped open my switchblade and extended it out in front of me like the nosecone on a missile.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shining Armor throw his wife at us. Cadance came speeding through the air and snatched Spike off my back. His stomach was distended, and I later found out that he was a nervous eater and had swallowed the Crystal Heart.

This was a serious problem, because now the Crystal Ponies had nothing but Spike’s belly to focus their energies on. Luckily, they no longer needed a magic dome to protect themselves because King Sombra wouldn’t be troubling them anymore.

The aforementioned high closing speed amplified the effect of my small knife. As I struck him, Sombra’s chest split open like Moses parting the sea and my hoof followed through all the way out the other side. It was like I had punched him in half. Lengthwise.

Unfortunately, physics decided to screw me and hold my body to the “equal and opposite” law. All the bones in the foreleg I had extended pretty much shattered. That slowed me down enough, however, so that I didn’t die on impact with the ground. I slid for a couple of yards, building up a little pile of dirt in front of me before coming to a halt.

To their credit, the ponies did come out to get me. I was sort of able to walk on three legs and wobbled back to the palace, still spitting out mouthfuls of soil. I figured I must still be riding an adrenalin high and it wouldn’t begin to really hurt for a while.

Twilight used an ipecac spell to induce vomiting on Spike. Cadance picked up the Crystal Heart gingerly and shook off the dragon saliva. She held it up and all the crystal ponies poured their love and affection into it, which looked even more gay than it sounds, especially since after that, everything was crystal.

I mean, I would have been okay with monochrome or even going plaid, but this shit was ridiculous. I glanced down at my sparkly body and sighed. I think it made me hate the Twilight series even more now that I know what being a Cullen felt like. We have met the enemy, and he is us.

“You’ve got to stop saving my rump, Twily,” said Shining. “It’s embarrassing.”

I was about to correct him on who exactly had just punchsploded a bad guy, but Fluttershy pulled me away to begin setting my leg. While she did that, I consulted with Sir Win. He confirmed that this crystal business was in fact, “pretty gay.”

All of us left the Empire after the party had wound down and headed for the nearby train station. Rarity complained that she wished the crystalness was permanent. I had been very pleased to discover that it wasn’t. Twilight was freaking out about failing the test.

I enjoyed her torment all the way back to Canterlot. Celestia let her off easy, I thought, merely telling her student that she had in fact passed. Also, there was a new stained glass window featuring Spike saving the day. I waited until the others were gone before asking Celestia about it.

She gave me a grin and shoved me out the door. I thought about going back in and showing her what rage looked like, but managed to hold back. Must not feed the troll…

Luna passed by holding a strange book with a dark cover. I glanced at it, curious, but decided that going home was more important to me.

I got on the train back to Ponyville with everyone. After that, I said goodbye and flew back to Las Pegasus. There was something bothering me. I wanted to see if I could actually pull a Scrooge McDuck like I had told the Black Twins.

So I went to the bank. And found out that I had no money.

“Yeah, it’s the strangest thing,” said the clerk. “We were robbed.”

I pointed to the sign out front. “Aren’t you insured by the government?”

“We just put that out there to make ponies feel safe putting their money here,” he told me. “Now that you’ve exposed our fraud, what are you going to do—ask for money?”

I laid my forleg in a cast on the counter between us. “See this? I broke my leg punching a pony so hard that my hoof came out his ass. Want that to be you?”

He backed up nervously. “It won’t help. I still don’t have any money.” The clerk stopped and thought for a moment. “Wait, you’re Valiant, right? The robbers came back later to leave something for you.”

“Wait, they robbed the place, and then made a special trip just to give you something in return?” I asked.

He shrugged and showed me a photograph. The Black Twins stood in front of a pile of burning money. They looked bored.

My hooves began to tremble. All that money gone. I had no idea what use burning gold coins was, but it certainly made the photo look more dramatic.

Also, I was poor again. They were going to pay for this. At least they had money to do it with.

Three's a Crowd

Twilight arrived on the train that morning. It was pretty uneventful and most townsfolk didn’t notice.

She stopped by the library and found me sleeping on the couch. A small wave of nostalgia passed over her at the sight and she hurried on to examine the books. Sunset appeared just then, surprised by Twilight dropping by. “Princess, I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I came back to Ponyville for a little R&R,” Twilight said. “Canterlot gets so stuffy sometimes.”

“Mmm,” Sunset replied. “I know something else that gets stuffy.”

And they had hot lesbian sex.

Of course, me being asleep through all this may have caused my viewpoint to be somewhat inaccurate. Plus, while HLS does occasionally happen, you should never count on it being the natural progression of things.

When I woke up, Twilight and Sunset were having a quiet teatime in the kitchen. As I stepped into the room, I heard Twilight exclaim, “He did what?!”

I spun around to exit the room, but Twilight had already caught my tail with magic and dragged me back. “Valiant, was it you who injured the Wonderbolts?”

I shot Sunset a look and she ducked her head, practically quivering in guilt at ratting me out.

I turned back to Twilight. “Yeah I did it, but I had a good reason.”

“I’m sure you thought you did,” she said tersely. “But now Spitfire, Soarin’, and Fleetfoot all have PTSD and can’t do their jobs. Congratulations, you single-hoofedly disabled the whole Equestrian Air Force.”

“Wait, there were only three of them?” I asked.

“Of course not, but they were the ones who led and held the rest together! Now, a significant branch of the services that protect Equestria is out of action.”

“It’s not like they did much to begin with,” I pointed out. “Twilight, you and your friends have seen more action than the entire military put together.”

She frowned. “While I suppose that’s true, it doesn’t change the fact that there’s now a gap in our country’s protection.”

I shrugged. “With what Luna has me doing, I don’t know if it’ll be a problem. I’m doing a lot of good.”

Twilight gave me a hard look, evidentially wondering how assassinations could have a net good effect, but she wasn’t willing to discuss it in front of Sunset. Twilight got up, heading for the door. “Cadance and I were going to have a nice relaxing day. She’ll be here soon and I don’t want anything to interrupt us.”

When she was gone, I turned and sat down at the table. Sunset didn’t meet my gaze. “Sorry,” she whispered.

I sighed. “I guess I didn’t tell you not to tell anyone what happened. Twilight would probably have found out anyway.”

Sunset paused. “I…I don’t know if I’ve ever been forgiven for anything before.”

“Really?” I thought about it. Nothing that had happened to her in the past could really be described as forgiving. Or pleasant.

“Thank you,” she said.

I nodded, feeling kind of awkward. “Sure.”

I got up and left her there, going out of the library for a breath of fresh air. Cadance had arrived and was meeting with Twilight across the street.

I looked up into the sky and thought a little about what would be happening soon in Equestria and what I was going to have to do to stop it.

The summoning I was gathering supplies for would have to go off without a hitch, but that was only part of the solution. There was so much other stuff I would have to get done before reaching an endgame where Equestria was stable, safe, and sane.

I hadn’t mentioned this to anyone just yet. There might have been a few ponies who would take me seriously and listen. I didn’t want to find out until I was of other options, though. The fewer that were exposed to this, the better.

While I was standing there minding my own business and totally not deserving anything to happen to me, Discord appeared. I was the first to see him, followed shortly by Twilight and Cadance.

Discord spun out of the sky like a frisbee and blew up a tree. Fitting, since he was blue. He sneezed and lay one of his odd forelegs over his heart. “Oh, woe is me! Who could possibly take care of me in my hour of illness and need?”

The townsponies slowly backed away. I heard a quiet murmur of “not it” go through the crowd.

“Discord, what is this?” Twilight said.

“I’m sick with a terrible affliction, Blue Flu,” he replied, swooning. He flopped down on a recently appeared fainting couch, a la Rarity.

“Are you sure?” Twilight asked. “How do you even get sick?”

“I hope you’re being level with us,” Cadance added.

“Don’t you trust me?” Discord asked in a hurt tone. “I’ve changed. I was reformed by lovely little F-F-Fluttershy-” He sneezed. In the background, someone’s house floated away. “Unfortunately, Fluttershy isn’t here. I heard about what happened. Poor, crispy Fluttershy.”

“How did you hear that?” Twilight asked.

“We’re penpals,” Discord said. “Like good friends. But with her gone, I know who will nurse me back to health.”

By this point, the whole town looked deserted except for Twilight, Cadance, Discord, and me. Discord turned and grinned in my direction. “Valiant said that he-”

I cut him off. “If you finish that sentence, I will murder you.”

He acted like I wasn’t serious. “You’d take advantage of my illness?”

“I think we both know the answer to that. Besides, it’s not my fault that you’re sick when I want to kick your ass.”

“Come now, surely you can’t hate me that much?” he protested.

“I almost destroyed all of Ponyville the last time we had a disagreement,” I reminded him. “Plus, you would know better than anyone how much I’ve changed since then.”

Discord put up an eyebrow and appraised me for a moment. “I was meaning to say that there was something different about you.” He grinned. “Have you been reformed too? If you have, then you better than anypony knows what I’m going through and can offer care and sympathy.”

My expression didn’t change. “Screw that.”

He paused to consider, tapping a claw on his chin. “Not even if I offered all-you-can-watch HLS?”

“In Equestria?” I spit. “Especially not that.”

“What’s HLS?” Twilight asked.

“I think we should at least take Discord somewhere where he can recover,” Cadance suggested, quickly changing the subject. She and Twilight decided that the library would do, much to my consternation.

“Carry me?” Discord asked, measuring the short distance to the library’s front door with his eyes.

I figured Twilight and Candance between them wouldn’t have much problem doing so, magic alicorn seatbelts, magic health bubbles, and all, but to my delight they made him walk.

I went down the street to The Half Pint. My tequila was back at the library and I didn’t want to go in there. I had to settle for beer.

Guinness was serving up mugs when I walked in. He gave me one and said, “Trixie and Daring are back. I think they’re over at Trixie’s place.”

I nodded, slugged the beer, left a few bits on the bar, and walked back out. Given the choice of sitting alone in a drinking establishment or hearing about Trixie’s latest adventure, the choice was obvious.

Unfortunately, Rainbow was there when I arrived, hearing about Daring’s latest adventure. Catcher was with her.

As I arrived, Catcher was complaining loudly about her belly being empty of tasty, raw flesh. Rainbow instead took that to mean she wanted a bottle of milk and excused the two of them.

I was more than happy to let Rainbow out of the house and closed the door after her. I turned to Trixie and Daring. “What’s new?”

They told me the details of their trip. It wasn’t the most exciting one Daring had ever been on, but she said the novel she was writing about it would sell well enough.

“It’s got a romantic subplot. Readers will love it,” she explained.

Having read all the books in the series, I asked, “Who is involved?”

Daring touched Trixie’s hoof and the two of them shared a glance. “Us.”

My eye twitched.

Oblivious, Daring went on. “Although, it’s not the first time I’ve done something like this. Back when I met Guinness and we had to put on stage productions of the epic play that got written - the thing he called The Pirates of Steampunk Middle Earth Fight the Evil Empire on a Planet Full of Apes While the World Falls Into a Post Apocalyptic State - I went really heavy on the details. I think that’s why Rainbow Dash hooked up with him.”

Rainbow being so deep into hero worship that she would happily marry Daring’s former fling was pretty much par for the course. In fact, that probably explained why she ever gave him a second glance, much less marriage and a foal.

“So, romantic subplot,” I said to Daring. “But you’re into mares now.”

“There’s just something about Trixie.” She grinned and the two of them nuzzled. “Maybe it’s all the HLS we’ve been having.”

This time, my whole face twitched.

Trixie noticed. Daring started talking about something else, but Trixie excused herself and me, pulling me out the door. When we were outside, she asked, “What’s with you?”

“I don’t think Daring is good relationship material.”

Her eyes rolled. “Gee, dad, I’m lucky I have you around to give a grown mare like me dating advice.”

“I’m just saying. From what I’ve seen, Daring is more than willing to embellish the truth and take credit for things she didn’t do.”

Trixie nodded. “Yeah, I know. That kind of used to be my thing. But if I changed, I think she can, too.”

I paused for several seconds. Sometimes your kids surprise you. “Okay then.”

Trixie smiled and gave me a quick hug. She started to go back into the house but stopped. “I almost forgot. While we were on the trip, I managed to get the stuff you asked for.”

She gave me a small pouch with a few exotic items. I had plans for them. Like, save-Equestria plans. Important stuff.

I thanked Trixie and walked back towards the library. Discord, Cadance, and Twilight were just coming out, talking about some flower that was supposed to cure Discord. They were just about to set off on a quest to go find it. I decided to go along.

You know you’ve got nothing better to do when you decide on a whim to go questing for a stupid flower.

Discord rode in a golden chariot pulled by Twilight and Cadance. I got rather less plush accommodations. Twilight’s magic alicorn seatbelts were not very comfortable. She didn’t come with any upholstery or airbags, either.

We arrived at the hilltop where the curative flower supposedly grew. After a few minutes of searching, we found it. It was freaking huge. Also, there was a giant hentai worm monster.

Not that I know a lot about hentai you understand, but I’ve been around enough to recognize it when I see it.

Normally I would be all over something like fighting giant monsters, but with the hentai aspect, plus having two alicorns around, I decided to pass on this one. While Twilight and Cadance fought, I talked with Discord.

“I want you to be completely serious with me,” I said.

He grinned impudently and I went on before he could interrupt with a non sequiter. “I’ve noticed lately that things in Equestria are getting stranger all the time. Are you behind it?”

“I wouldn’t simply admit it if I was,” he chuckled.

“Discord, I’m asking you nicely and reasonably to please give me a straight answer,” I said. “Don’t make me drag it out of you. I don’t have enough time, and you don’t have enough testicular fortitude.”

“Is that a dare?” he asked mischievously.

I set my jaw. “You said earlier that you could sense a change in me. While I was gone in outer space, I changed in ways that I’ll bet even you didn’t see coming. Look into my eyes and ask yourself: do you really want to test me?”

Discord paused, something different showing in his expression, but quickly hid it. “What could you do? I am the very embodiment of chaos and have thousands of years of magic experience.”

“You might be chaos,” I said flatly, “but I’m American. I’ll find a way.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Here I thought we were being serious.”

“I only invoke citizenship when I’m absolutely serious,” I growled. “Equestria is falling apart and I’m doing everything I can to salvage it. I’ve never focused so hard on anything before in my life, and the consequences of me failing have never been so high. I’ll do anything to put things right. I literally do not care who has to die for my plans to go forward. And I would be overjoyed to erase you from the universe. Does that tell you how fucking serious I am?”

Several seconds passed. The giant worm monster made some noises in the background.

Discord cleared his throat. “To answer your question: no, Valiant, I had nothing to do with the recent changes in Equestria. In fact, now that you mention it, I noticed a few extra weird things happening recently.”

“I have a plan to fix all of it,” I said. “Stay out of my way.”

Discord paused. “Can I help?”

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

I gritted my teeth. Discord was very powerful. If my plans degraded any further, if anything unexpected happened, there might be no one else to turn to for help. “I’ll let you know.”

Discord nodded at my minor concession. “So…we cool?”

I let out a long sigh. Dealing with Discord was not something I needed. I had too much else on my plate. “Yeah. We’re cool.”

Twilight and Cadance returned with the flower, breathing hard. Twilight asked, “Is that it?”

“Well, no,” Discord said. “You see, it was all a test. How was I supposed to know for sure that I’m truly still friends with one of the most important ponies around? Congratulations, Twilight, you passed my friendship test!”

“That was a dick move,” I said. “You might be reformed, but you know jack shit about friendship.”

The worm came back just then, bursting out of a hole a few feet away. It was all grabby and stuff with its tentacles.

“We’re talking, asshole!” I shouted. “Wait your goddamned turn!”

The worm didn’t heed my warning, so I pulled the Panzerfaust rocket launcher I had built out of inventory and sent a round down its gullet. Kaboom, problem solved.

I turned back to the conversation. Discord clapped. “That’s a very nice hammerspace you have there, Valiant. What’s your carry weight?”

“Don’t change the subject,” I snapped. “Friendship tests are bullshit. If you were a true friend, you wouldn’t have your friends pass tests to prove their worth. I thought we were cool, man.”

Twilight frowned. “I never dreamed that I would agree with you, Valiant, but you make a good point.”

“Uh,” said Discord. “I learned something today.”

I didn’t buy his crap for a second, but Twilight took it back to her journal and wrote about how Discord learned friendship is a two-way street. While she was busy, I got Cadance alone for a quick chat. We stepped into the hallway, away from the scratching of Twilight’s writing quill.

“So when were you planning to make it public that you’re pregnant?” I asked.

“I’m what?” she yelped a little louder than necessary. I heard Twilight’s quill stop for a moment and then go on.

“Relax,” I said to Cadance. “I mean, it’s about that time, right?”

“Er, I mean I have been married for a while,” she allowed. There was a silence.

I frowned, detecting something in her manner. “What, is Shining Armor not doing it for you?”

“He’s great,” she said quickly. “I mean, with me being the alicorn of love, sex is pretty much guaranteed to be great. HLS included. That wouldn’t result in pregnancy, though.”

“It normally wouldn’t, but you just said that you’re the alicorn of love. Does that make a difference?”

Cadance frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

I nodded. “Well anyway, get to a gynecologist.”

She gave me a look. “How do you know this?”

“It is foretold.” Hey guys, did I mention that I took up a hobby as a fortune teller?

Cadance stared at me and then decided not to ask. She went back into the writing room.

I stood there for a second. Another piece in the puzzle had just fallen into place. I just had to keep the dominos falling so the chessboard would build a solid foundation for a perfect house of cards. Yahtzee.

I went to have a celebratory drink. The latest batch of tequila had turned out very fine and pure, almost completely colorless and very high proof.

I wandered back into the writing room carrying my drink. Discord was still hanging around, talking to Twilight.

“You know, you never did get me that glass of water I asked for,” he teased mildy. Discord turned his head and spotted me with my beverage. “Ah, excellent.”

I handed it over and Discord gulped it.

I don’t care if you’re a draconequus, going for water and getting tequila is a surprise to anyone. And no, it doesn’t matter whether you’re drinking the glass or the liquid.

Twilight's Kingdom - part 1

Sunset and I had gone to Hoofsen Bay to give the good ship Milwaukee a refreshing scrubdown. I figured it would help the both of us get to know the boat better as well as polishing everything to look awesome for the final showdown that was coming up.

As far as final showdowns go, this might turn into the Battle of Everything Ever. I mean, if I didn’t get business taken care of, this entire universe and the multiverse beyond could be in jeopardy. Everything was building to a head, and I had a feeling that we were about to meet the final boss soon, to borrow an expression.

And when that happened, I wanted to be stylish. Sunset and I worked with buckets and sponges, making sure the boat looked good. It was dirty work, of course, and both Sunset and I ended up covered in soap and water.

She looked good all wet. The sun was just right, the soft light making particular curves apparent and pleasing to the eye. I couldn’t resist touching her.

You’re damn right I’m talking about the boat. Wouldn’t want you to think anything else. Milwaukee was an awesome ship. Can’t blame me for getting a little poetic about my hot naval tulip.

Finishing up the cleaning, Sunset and I paused for a break. We sat on the edge of the pier, dangling our legs over the water. Her hoof touched mine.

“It’s a nice day,” she said, smiling.

I nodded. “Sure is.”

She shifted slightly, moving a few inches nearer. “It’s nice to relax after all that work.”

Sunset hesitated and then leaned closer, resting her head on my shoulder. We sat there for a few moments together.

My eyes were crossed, staring at her horn, which had ended up right in front of my face. I didn’t want to move too quickly or it might poke my eye out or something.

Sunset sighed contentedly and embraced me a little tighter. “I really enjoy spending time with you, Valiant.”

Just then, a seapony splashed to the surface of the water nearby. Sunset lifted her head in surprise and I took the opportunity to not get my eye poked out.

“Hey,” I said to the seapony. “‘Sup?”

He checked his diving watch pointedly and looked at me. “I was just wondering when you’re going to call on us again. You said we should get ready but you haven’t done anything yet.”

“Soon,” I told him. He gave me an impatient look and ducked under the water again.

I got up and stretched. Sunset stood, looking at me expectantly.

“I think that’s all for now,” I said. “Let’s go.”

I turned towards the Hoofsen Bay train station. Sunset quickly caught up with me. “What was with that pony in the water?”

“The seaponies and I have an arrangement,” I told her.

She nodded and fell into silence. The two of us got tickets and got on the train to Canterlot where I was planning to change trains for Ponyville. Sunset sat beside me on the way.

In Canterlot, we unexpectedly met Twilight and friends returning from the Crystal Empire where they had been meeting somebody important. I only say important because Twilight used that word, not because I had ever heard of said visitors before.

Twilight was depressed about something. “I feel rather useless as a Princess. It was a great gathering but they just wanted me to unfurl a banner.”

“Did you do it like a Princess?” I asked.

“As much as I could, just unfurling a banner. There are a lot of things you can do like a Princess – including smiling and waving – but just showing off a welcome sign doesn’t really require alicorn powers.” Twilight sighed. “I’m beginning to think that I don’t have a princessly job. Celestia does the sun, Luna does the moon, and Cadance does love. I’m just an extra.”

“Almost like you were accidentally created,” I suggested.

Twilight gave me a look, but I could see the uncertainty in her eyes. I mean, we all knew that it was some guy’s fault that she was made an alicorn, not anything she had actually done. Then she shot him in the head for it, and I had been too busy and apathetic to do anything about the situation since then. But if Twilight was not wanting to be a Princess, then clearly the status quo was working itself out naturally. Didn’t mean I couldn’t give it a push, though.

We were just about to get on the train to Ponyville when a Royal Guard came up to us. “Princess Twilight, your presence at the castle is requested immediately.”

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Something important, I hope.”

“Very,” the guard agreed.

“Are you quite sure?” she pressed.

“Er, yes, Princess. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were quite insistent that you come immediately.”

“It’s not going to be just another lip service formality bullshit Princess thing, is it?” I asked.

The guard glanced at me, jerking in surprise. I was glad to see that the Royal Guards were finally recognizing me, or at least had heard of my reputation. He quavered and looked nervous. “I…um, no, I’m sure it’s very important, sir.”

Twilight sighed and rolled her eyes. “Well if it’s important enough that this guardspony is actually willing to stand up to Valiant, then I guess it really must be a serious situation.”

“You’re welcome,” I said.

She shot me a look. “That wasn’t a complement. Come on, everypony.”

We left the train station, going across the city to the castle where Celestia and Luna laid out the situation for us. An old bad guy named Lord Tirek had escaped from where he had been held and was now running loose.

“Tirek came here from a distant land intent on stealing Equestrian magic,” said Celestia.

Luna continued. “His brother Scorpan alerted us to Tirek’s intentions.”

Celestia nodded. “Scorpan returned to his own land, and Tirek was sent to Tartarus for his crimes. But it appears he has found a way to escape.”

“How could that have happened?” Twilight asked.

“One can only imagine,” said Luna.

Everyone looked at me. “What?” I said. “I’ve never even heard of Tirek before.”

“Yes, but you were responsible for a lot of underworld-related activities,” Twilight argued. “You are the reason there’s a portal to Tartarus under the library basement!”

“Hey now, that responsibility is partially shared by others, including but not limited to Rainbow’s husband,” I pointed out. “And besides, this is, what, the fourth or fifth bad guy we’ve had to deal with because they figured out how to get out of their prison? It is simply not my fault that you guys don’t know how to build containments that will last more than a thousand years and I refuse to be held liable. Besides, why didn’t we deport the guy and let his own people handle him?”

Twilight shook her head and got back on topic. “Regardless of when he escaped, why is this the first we’re hearing of it? Why is he just now starting to steal magic?”

“He’s not, this didn’t just now start,” I said. All eyes turned to me again. I went on. “Hello? Crazy shit going on? Haven’t I been saying that something was wrong with Equestria?”

Celestia said, “Tirek’s time in Tartarus left him very weak. He has just now gained enough strength to use his dark powers and ‘go public’ as it were.”

“With each passing moment, he grows stronger still,” Luna reminded. “Ponies are losing their magic and their cutie marks. He cannot be allowed to continue. And I know just the Princess who can stop him.”

This was Twilight’s cue, as fighting bad guys usually was. “Yes! I'll find him and–”

Celestia shook her head, cutting her off. “No, Twilight. I'm afraid I must call in another to stop Tirek. Discord.”

“Hold your goddamned horses,” I said. “Since when is Discord a princess?”

“Uh, yes,” said Luna, looking at her sister. “Why would we send him?”

“He can sense when there's a magical imbalance. The next time Tirek steals magic, Discord will be able to track him down,” replied Celestia.

“Twilight is the Element of Magic,” I put in. I turned to Twilight. “You could do that too, right?”

Twilight nodded. “I could, with the correct spell.”

“I had another reason in mind,” said Celestia.

“We’re sending Discord because it’s about time he got off his lazy ass and actually did something productive around here?” I guessed.

Celestia nodded.

“That makes sense, I suppose,” said Twilight. “Okay, Discord can handle it.”

That being settled, the group made ready to leave. Luna pulled me aside for a few quick words. “You’ll make sure this turns out all right.”

It sounded like an order, but one I was already planning on. I nodded. “Yup.”

“It’s the reason I’ve been training you and everypony working for me,” she said. “Just do what I tell you and everything will be fine.”

“Oh Luna, you have no idea,” I said.

She looked at me suspiciously. “You have been working for me, correct?”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t also work for myself.”

Luna gave me a look. “Valiant, after this is over, you and I will be having a talk about authority.”

“You want me to respect it?” I guessed.

“Yes, respect my authority.”

I don’t think she liked how I walked away giggling.

I met back up with everyone and we got on the train back to Ponyville. As we found our seats, Pinkie said, “I guess Princess Cadance still isn’t ready to be seen in public. She wasn’t there at that super important Princess meeting.”

“Well, after what happened,” agreed Applejack.

“Are we really going to talk about this on a public train?” Rarity asked.

“No,” I said.

“But–”

“Do you guys really want to discuss Cadance’s baby hole and the controversy therein?”

When I put it that way, they did not. It became a quiet trip back to Ponyville. Sunset leaned on me some more. I think she fell asleep.

A few miles down the track, Rainbow glanced to the side and pointed out the window. “Hey, what’s that?”

I turned my head to have a look. “Is it a fuck? Can we give it to someone? Lord knows I don’t have any.”

It turned out to be dark clouds on the horizon. “Hmm,” Rainbow muttered. “It looks like the weather patrol isn’t doing their job. Good thing I’m a future Wonderbolt now.”

The clouds were heading away from us, so nobody, including me, particularly cared. It was still somewhat worrying. What had happened to the weather patrol? What was I going to do to sabotage Rainbow’s chances as a Wonderbolt?

When we got back, Twilight decided to go to the old castle in the forest and do some reading. The other mares decided to accompany her for lack of anything better to do. So did I. And where I went, apparently, Sunset went.

Rainbow Dash sighed as we neared the strange glowing tree that grew near the castle. “I still can't believe we had to give back the Elements.”

“It had to be done or the Tree of Harmony wouldn't have survived,” reminded Rarity.

“Even without the Elements, our friendship is as strong as ever,” added Fluttershy.

“I just hope another friend of ours never makes us sorry we had to give them up,” said Applejack.

On cue, Discord appeared. “Oh, you’re talking about me, I presume?”

“How’d you guess?” deadpanned Applejack. I’d noticed before that she was really becoming perceptive and getting in some good one-liners. If we didn’t have Twilight, Applejack would really make a good team leader.

“I couldn't help but notice that Twilight hasn't yet opened this little chest of hers,” said Discord, showing off the box we’d gotten from the Tree of Harmony. “It got me thinking, what if what’s locked inside is something that could help her prove her royal worth? I only bring it up because she said that she’s been feeling like her role as a princess doesn’t equate to much.”

“Wait a minute! How do you know how she was feeling?” demanded Pinkie.

“Oh my, is eavesdropping not the way you're supposed to find out what your best pals are up to?” said Discord.

“Common. Goddamned. Sense,” I said.

“And what do you know about friendship?” Discord countered.

“Quite a lot,” broke in Sunset, facing down Discord. “Valiant might be stubbon, and oblivious, and quite frankly a little bit of an asshole–his words–but he doesn’t stab ponies in the back. He does it in the front, if anything. It’s not a kind of friendship that would win awards, but it’s unshakable. If Valiant earns the trust of somepony, he never breaks it. What you see is what you get. You’re getting a damaged, sociopathic antihero, with secrets, deceit, and lack of pleasantries. But he has standards from which he refuses to budge.” Sunset pointed a hoof at Discord. “What the fuck do you have?”

It felt strange, having someone go to bat for me like that. I knew Sunset liked being around me, but I hadn’t realized that she’d worked through my faults and rationalized them quite so thoroughly. And she was right – I did have standards, damn it.

Discord raised his paws and took a step back from where Sunset was glaring at him. “O-kay, things just got a little too serious here. Hey, anypony want to see my alicorn princess impression?”

No one did, but he performed the act anyway.

“That’s disturbing,” Twilight said.

“Oh,” said Discord, waving a paw, “You’re just jealous, it’s the–”

“–Beastie Boys?” I said.

Discord blinked. “Really?” He shook his head. “Well in any case, I suppose now is as good a time as any for me to make my exit.” Discord left to go fight Tirek or something.

Applejack said, “Sometimes I think the reformed Discord is more annoying than before he was reformed.”

“Exactly what I was thinking,” I agreed. “You know, you’ve been getting in some really good lines lately.”

“Somepony has to,” she said. “I’ve been working on my skills to make myself more interesting and charismatic.”

Hmm, perhaps she too was thinking of replacing Twilight as team leader.

“Um, what if there is something important in that chest?” asked Fluttershy.

“There isn’t,” I said.

They all looked at me. Again. I sighed and rolled my eyes. “You could have just asked me. I thought I dropped enough hints.”

Just then, Spike distracted everyone by spitting out a letter. He opened it and his eyes nearly bugged out. “Ohmygosh, this sounds important! Twilight, you’re needed in Canterlot as soon as possible. It’s related to Tirek.”

“We’d better get going, then,” said Twilight. She shot me a look. “You’ll have to do your explaining later, Valiant. Now, I’m afraid I have to ask for a favor. If we have to get to Canterlot as quickly as possible, the train won’t do. You’ll need to fly us.”

I looked at the group of them. “I haven’t flown since I rode that space capsule into the lake.”

“But you’ve still got your crazy flying machine, right?” pressed Twilight. “Please, the fate of Equestria could be at stake here.”

I nodded. “Okay.”

We ran back to Ponyville. Passing the pub, I hammered on the door. “Guinness, get your bass and meet us at Trixie’s place!”

He stuck his head out the window. “Um, okay.”

The group of us continued down the street. Sir Win spotted us. “Hello. What’s the news?”

“We’re going to go do something badass,” I told him. “People will probably die. You should come.”

He grinned and nodded, joining the group. We arrived at Trixie’s place, where my favorite VTOL, Monstrosity had been in storage. Trixie responded to my knock on the front door, staring at the group that had followed me to her place.

“Hi,” I said. “Get your drums.”

We all pushed past her into the house. Guinness showed up with his instrument and Rainbow Catcher. Apparently it was his day to watch her. Trixie levitated her drum set out of a closet and followed us to the garage where the aircraft awaited.

Daring appeared from the bedroom. She looked a little rumpled, as if she had until recently been engaged in HLS. She blinked at the procession of everyone through the living room. She followed us to the garage and asked, “What’s going on?”

I turned to glance at her. “I’m getting the band back together.”

With a smooth motion, I swept the cover off Monstrosity. Even under the dim lights, the paint gleamed and the aircraft looked just as good as the last time I had flown.

And then Trixie, Guinness, and I launched into an awesome cover of Rock you like a Hurricane. It was pretty sweet.

“The letter said we have to be in Canterlot as soon as possible!” Twilight protested. I could barely hear her over my wailing keytar. I rolled my eyes and went into the finale.

With a last riff, I put my keytar away and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

After pushing Monstrosity outside we piled in. Trixie gave the standard flight attendant spiel to the passengers. “Keep your hooves inside the vehicle at all times and wear your seatbelt. Anything else is on you.”

I got into the cockpit. I had forgotten how good it felt to sit there. I touched the controls, refamiliarizing myself.

Sunset sat down beside me. She looked around for a moment and then belted herself in. I flipped the fuel pump switches, pleased to see that the tanks contained more than enough.

“About earlier,” said Sunset.

“That was a pretty badass speech you gave,” I said. Overly attached psycho aside, it felt good to know how much Sunset liked me, despite my acknowledged faults.

She flushed, although smiling at the complement. “Thanks. I…I wanted to express how much I appreciate you. Valiant, I need to say this. I lo–”

I pressed the starter button and the turbines began spinning up. “What?” I shouted over the sound. I pointed to the intercom earphones that I wore.

Trixie poked her head into the cockpit, wearing her own earphones. “What what?”

“In the butt?” I heard over the intercom circuit. It sounded like Pinkie.

That conversation was going nowhere, so I increased power and the aircraft lifted off. Sunset found a headset to put on, but stayed quiet, staring out the windshield.

We got to Canterlot quickly. Something was going on at the castle. There were guards everywhere. I decided to land near the train station instead, aiming for a flat place.

“Why are you landing on the rails?” Twilight asked over the intercom.

“Remember all the crazy shit we used to do with this old bird?” I asked. “I’m pretty sure Monstrosity could take on a train and win.”

No one disagreed. I landed and shut off the engines. Stepping out, I waited for the group to disembark. Twilight’s eyes suddenly went wide and she pointed over my shoulder. “Train!”

“Yeah, so what? I said it wouldn’t hurt the machine.”

“Behind you!” Trixie shouted.

Well, now that was concerning. I turned around and came face to face with locomotive that was probably moving at sixty miles an hour or more. While I wasn’t concerned about my flying machine, I had forgotten to take into account my body.

As far as last words go, I wish I would have had time for some. The train, however, was moving too fast and was already too close for me to utter more than, “Shit–”

Except for Sunset, who threw herself in front of the engine and wrestled it off the rails, flinging the string of cars onto their backs and out of the way. There was a huge steam explosion as the boiler burst.

“Oh my God,” I stammered. “Did you just suplex a train?”

Sunset swayed on her hooves, her horn still throwing off a few sparks of magic as remnants of the feat she had just performed. “Yes,” she gasped, meeting my eyes. “For you.”

“Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say. Fortunately, it seemed like it was exactly the right thing. Sunset smiled.

“Are we done with the ridiculous absurdity now?” Twilight asked. “We have to get to the castle.”

The group–the Element Bearers, Trixie, Daring, Sunset, Spike, Guinness, Rainbow Catcher, Sir Win, and I–headed to the castle. There, we met Celestia and Luna and learned what was so freaking important.

“Discord has betrayed the ponies of Equestria and joined forces with Tirek.”

I looked around. “Who’s surprised? Is anyone surprised?” I pointed at Twilight. “Are you surprised?”

She wrestled with her thoughts for a moment before shaking her head. I turned to Celestia. “And furthermore, why couldn’t you have just put that in the letter, instead of asking us to come all the way to Canterlot?”

“I did that,” said Shining Armor, stepping from behind a curtain. “I wanted Twily to be surprised by a big announcement I have to make. We’ve rescheduled the Equestria Games!”

“I think Tirek stealing all the magic in Equestria is a lot more important!” Twilight shouted at her brother.

He frowned. “What now?”

“Pretty much exactly that,” I said. “Bad guy going around stealing magic.”

Shining looked sharply at Luna and Celestia. “Nopony tells me anything! I have to hear it from him?”

“Yeah, you’re just Prince of the Crystal Empire, brother of Princess Twilight, husband of Princess Cadance, and Captain of the Royal Guard,” I said. “No big deal.”

Celestia looked at me in annoyance. “Please wait your turn to speak.” She turned to Shining. “We didn’t tell you because Tirek isn’t focusing on the Crystal Empire.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “No magic there to steal from ponies.”

“What are you talking about?” Shining demanded.

“Tirek steals magic and the pony he takes it from loses their cutie mark, right? When was the last time you saw a crystal pony with a cutie mark?”

“They have them,” Shining protested. “They’re just hard to see with the crystal coloring.”

“Okay, then when was the last time you saw a crystal pony with a cutie mark that meant something? Have you ever met a crystal pony with a specialized job dependent on their cutie mark? Heck, have you ever met a crystal pony and actually remembered their cutie mark or even learned their name? Furthermore, wouldn’t an empire of meth zombies be an easy place to steal from? Face it, Tirek is probably already done with the Crystal Empire. Maybe that’s how he got powerful enough to move on to the rest of Equestria.”

Ignoring me, Celestia said, “Tirek has stolen so much magic. Without pegasus weather magic, there will be no rain in Equestria. Without earth pony magic, there will be no crops. There is no doubt that Tirek is after alicorn magic. With Discord by his side, we will not be able to stop him from taking it.”

Twilight approached the other two Princesses. “What can we do?”

“We must rid ourselves of our magic before Tirek has the chance to steal it from us,” Celestia told her.

Twilight hesitantly agreed. “I’m more than willing to do my part and give up my magic.”

“You misunderstand,” said Luna. “Our magic cannot just disappear into thin air. Somepony must keep it safe. That is you.”

Celestia explained that Tirek probably didn’t know how many alicorns there were in Equestria these days. Cadance had grown up and Twilight had only recently been created. “If we transfer our magic to you, Tirek will not know where it has gone.”

“Or, you know, give it to Cadance, because Tirek wouldn’t think to look in the Crystal Empire where he’s already been,” I suggested.

“Quiet, Valiant,” said Celestia. “This is about magic.” She turned back to Twilight. “Do you understand what we’re asking of you?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, it’s just... I'm only now learning how to control my own alicorn magic. To take on even more…”

“Twilight, you represent the Element of Magic,” Celestia assured her. “If there is anypony who can do this, it’s you.”

Twilight reluctantly nodded. “Taking on this task will be one of the most difficult things I’ll ever do, but with the help of my friends–”

“No, that’s stupid.”

“Valiant, shut up.”

“Am I the only one who thinks that we should solve the problem of Tirek and Discord – permanently? I’ve done things like this before. Just murder ‘em.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. Celestia said, “I wish you wouldn’t call it that.”

“Okay, I can call it problem solving if you want,” I said. “Makes no difference to me.”

There was a subtle shift in the mood of the room. Twilight glanced at me and then at the other two Princesses who appeared to be deep in thought. “Are we seriously considering this?”

Shining burst out, “You want to let another dangerous nut job help us? What if he does the same thing as Discord and works for Tirek?”

I stared at him. “You should know that I don’t work for anyone but me. Now, maybe I’d let Tirek be my bitch.”

“Um, hey guys?” Guinness interrupted, looking out the window. “What does Tirek look like?”

“Tirek is a centaur,” Celestia answered.

“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions or anything, but that might be him coming this way,” said Guinness.

I grinned. “Duty calls.”

I ran out of the castle, pausing on the edge of the mountain to watch Tirek work his way through Canterlot. He was sucking a whole lot of magic up and appeared to be getting bigger. He was kind of ugly and stuff, being black and red and with horns coming out of his head. I noticed that the fur patterns on his abdomen formed an arrow that pointed at his crotch.

Well, the space between his front legs. On a human it would have been the crotch. On a centaur, hell if I knew. As I decided that I didn’t want to think about it anymore, the rest of the group arrived.

“Oh my,” Rarity muttered, staring at Tirek. Being a pony, she had rarely seen arms before, but I could tell that she was definitely attracted to muscle.

Rainbow Catcher stared with glee at the destruction Tirek was rending on the city. “This is beautiful! I must go join Tirek. With our powers combined, we will be unstoppable!”

She hopped from the cliff and spread her wings, gliding down into the city below. Rainbow jumped after her. “Come back!” Guinness went after Rainbow.

“We’ve got to save them before Tirek gets them!” shouted Twilight. Spike hopped on her back and buckled up with her magic alicorn seatbelts. Twilight and the other Princesses charged their horns and teleported us all to the city center, where Catcher had landed.

Some of the buildings had been reduced to rubble as Tirek crashed through. Catcher danced among the flames, laughing madly.

Rainbow pulled up short, staring with wide eyes at her foal.

Helpfully, Sir Win said, “Your baby’s fireproof.”

“How…that’s not normal,” Rainbow said.

Just then, a demagicked pony stumbled by. Spotting the easy target, Catcher lunged for the throat, getting her fangs to dig in.

Rainbow gasped again, looking on in horror. Fortunately, Guinness had grown used to this demon shit, and wasn’t fazed. He walked forward. “Young lady, what do you think you’re doing!”

Catcher froze. Guinness stared her down. “Get that pony out of your mouth. You may not go to join Lord Tirek. You’re grounded.”

Spitting out the jugular she was chewing on, Catcher protested, “But dad…!”

Guinness wouldn’t hear it. He made Catcher sit down on her rump and stay quiet.

“Dude, I think you just saved the world,” I said to Guinness. “Joining Tirek would have been bad, but we also need her to perform the devilish unholy demon sacrifice ritual.”

“The what now?” Guinness asked.

“The what now?” Rainbow echoed, glancing at her kid. “What just happened?”

“What your husband and I have been telling you since she was born,” I explained. “You gave birth to the antichrist, Rainbow Dash. That would be a totally awesome title for a book, by the way. You’re writing a novel, right?”

“I’ll use it,” said Daring.

Rainbow took another look at her foal, blood still dripping from the filly’s lips.

“Okay, I don’t know what just happened,” said Twilight, “but we need to get out of here before Tirek notices us.”

“A wise idea,” Celestia agreed.

“To the train station,” I said. I’d apparently assumed command by this point or everyone else was too frazzled to think for themselves. At my word, the alicorns teleported us there.

Everyone loaded up onto Monstrosity and I started the engines turning. Tirek spotted us and came charging in our direction. I got us airborne just in time and he missed. From the back, I heard Trixie firing her M60. The bullets bounced off a magic shield Tirek had created.

Roaring, Tirek fired a blast of magic that appeared to come from just above his head. Not from his horns, just slightly above his hair. I had to roll the aircraft to avoid, but was out of sight before he could fire another blast.

The city was partially on fire and I could see ponies stumbling around in zombielike states. It made me feel like I was retreating after a lost battle.

I gritted my teeth. We needed to regroup and form a better attack. I hated to admit it, but we couldn’t fight Tirek now. But we could come back and win. There was a reason I’d made so many preparations.

“Where are we going?” Celestia asked.

“Hoofsen Bay,” I replied. “We’ll regroup and counterattack from there.”

“Are you sure you have the situation in hand?” she asked.

“You have no idea.” We might be on the losing end at the moment, but what I had planned was epic. “This is going to blow your mind.”

Milwaukee was easy to spot from the air, and I brought us in for a perfect landing on the aft deck. Shutting down the engines, we disembarked.

“Okay, gather around,” I said. “Listen up. Tirek feeds on magic, correct? We can’t just fire spells at him, then. We’re going to have to do kinetic attacks.” I grinned. “My specialty.”

“Also, we have this nice ship here. A pair of thirty millimeter chain guns, a fifty-seven millimeter autocannon, point defense missiles, torpedoes, and a bunch of fifty-cals I found in the armory.”

“And there’s our favorite ninja, Sweetie Belle,” I added, gesturing to a small pony in a long trench coat who was fishing nearby.

“Oh, thanks!” shouted Sweetie, throwing her coat off. “Just go ahead and blow my cover again!”

“Sorry, but this is important,” I said. “We’re saving Equestria.”

“Okay.” Sweetie shrugged and came over to join the group. She shared a quick hug with Rarity.

“But we’ll need more.” I turned to Rainbow. “As much as I hate you, you do have the redeeming qualities of being somewhat dangerous. How ‘bout we kick that up a notch?”

Gesturing to the alicorns, I said, “Turn Rainbow into a dragon.”

There was a collective “Huh?” from the group.

“Come on, it’ll be useful. Plus, she wants it.”

“I, um, I guess,” said Rainbow. She looked like she needed something to distract herself from the Catcher issue.

After a quick trading of glances, Twilight, Celestia, and Luna consented. With a flash of magic, they turned Rainbow into a dragon.

Her coloring looked weird on scales. She was pretty big, had bigger wings, and could shoot fireballs, so the end result was at least effective.

“I’ve got to try this out!” exclaimed Rainbow, instantly shifting moods. She leaped into the air, spreading her wings. Guinness looked a little dumbfounded.

“Joke’s on her. Now she can’t be in the Wonderbolts,” I said. “Okay, now it’s time for another power up. Let’s set up the devilish unholy demon sacrifice ritual.”

“Oh goody,” said Sir Win. He quickly began drawing out the runes and symbols necessary on the flight deck.

“Um, who are you sacrificing?” asked Fluttershy as Sir Win finished drawing.

“Rainbow Catcher,” I said.

“Ohhh, a devilish unholy demon sacrifice ritual,” cheered Pinkie.

“Wait, what?” said Guinness and Rainbow Catcher at the same time.

“You’ve got a problem and I’m offering a solution that will benefit everyone – you, me, all of Equestria,” I said to him.

“But she’s still my kid,” Guinness protested with alarm.

“If it’s any consolation, I’ll punch you in the gut so Rainbow thinks you went down fighting to protect her.”

He put a hoof out and shoved me. “I can’t allow this!”

I punched him in the gut. He made an entertaining little squeak as he fell, breathless. “Look, I’ll get you a new kid or something, okay? This has got to happen.” I hesitated, and added, “Sorry.”

By the time I was finished with him, Rainbow Catcher was stretched in the middle of a circle Sir Win had drawn. The magic charging the enchantment held her there securely.

“Well this is ironic,” she observed. “A demon sacrifice.”

I pulled out my switchblade and opened the blade with a snick. A chorus of voices from the assembled ponies protested vehemently.

I looked at them all. “You all saw what she did. Do you agree that this kid is a demon?”

That shut them up, but only for a moment. Twilight said, “Valiant, you can’t just murder a child!”

“She’s not a child, she only looks like one. He, pardon me. The demon only looks like a filly but is really an old dude. Creepy. Plus, he’s died before and come back in other bodies.”

Rainbow Catcher shrugged. “Yeah, okay, I admit it.”

“But how could this possibly help Equestria?” Twilight demanded. She stepped closer.

“I was just about to show you.” I turned, and before anyone could try to stop me, plunged the knife into Rainbow Catcher’s chest. A black, blood-like substance spurted out of the wound and spread across the deck. Several shrieks behind me seemed to indicate that the others saw it, too.

The figures drawn on the deck lit up with a powerful glow. I felt my hooves shift and an invisible force jerked me a few feet into the air. My body rotated slowly, outside my control. The light was getting brighter and I could barely see, even through squinted eyes. I did, however, see Twilight nearby. She’d also been caught in the spell. She did not seem calm.

With a sudden blast that made me thank my lucky stars that the ship was EMP protected, the arcane spell we’d set in motion ran its course. I fell back to the deck, scraping my knees on the nonskid coating. Rainbow Catcher’s body had burned to mere ash, and the ritual runes had seared into the deck.

I shook my head, slightly dizzy. It took a little effort to get up and I wasn’t very stable. I turned to look at everyone else. They were all staring at me with wide eyes and unrefined astonishment.

I coughed. “So I guess it worked, then.”

Do Princesses Dream of Magic Sheep?

The girls, Spike, and Braeburn took the midnight train going to Ponyville. Before I give the tape recorder back to Valiant, I’ll go ahead and make the joke that Ponyville might as well be anywhere. I know he hates Journey.

Thanks, Sunset. Moving on and meanwhile, Luna was having a terrible dream in her bed at the castle. I don’t know why she was sleeping during the night, but it must be terribly complicated for the Princess of the Night to raise the moon, go to bed in order to police the dreamscape, wake up to lower the moon, and then go to bed again since she’s supposed to be sleeping during the day because that’s kind of Celestia’s domain.

Or something. I’ve never really looked too hard into anyone’s sleep schedules. My own involves drinking until I’m in a stupor and sleeping until I’m not.

But back to Luna’s terrible dream, I suppose that’s a matter of perspective. She woke up with a start. “My dream ended... happily? That cannot happen!”

I have no idea what that meant. I’m just the guy who watches the feed from the cameras he secretly installed in the most secure bedroom in the country. Sunset thinks it’s kinky. I don’t.

While Luna fretted, the girls were waking up from nightmares. Fluttershy sat bolt upright with a little shriek.

“What’s wrong, darling?” asked Rarity.

“I had a really scary nightmare,” Fluttershy said. “I hope I didn’t wake anypony.”

“It’s just us,” Twilight said. “And I had a nightmare, too.”

They had the whole traincar to themselves. Rainbow, in her dragon form, had bought a ticket and claimed she needed the room. After threatening a discrimination lawsuit, the railway had given Rainbow her own car. After she was back in pony form, it was quite spacious for the eight of them.

“So did I,” said Rainbow, “although I didn’t think mine was that scary.”

“Well, mine sure was,” Twilight admitted. “There was this blue smoke monster.”

“I dreamt about a blue smoke thingy too!” Fluttershy exclaimed.

The rest of the girls realized they had experienced nearly the same dream.

“Huh, I wonder why I didn’t have that nightmare,” said Spike. “I slept great!”

“I woke up to the nightmare that I’m still living while my wife died tragically,” Braeburn muttered.

Ignoring him, because he hadn’t talked about anything else since Cherry’s death, Rarity said, “So then, what could’ve given us all the same nightmare?”

Twilight thought for a moment. “I don’t know, but I do know who might. Spike, could you send a scroll to Princess Luna?”

Spike wrote out the dictated letter and sent it away. I watched Luna receive the scroll, read it, and flash from one of my screens to the other.

She wobbled slightly, disoriented by teleporting onto a moving train, but quickly regained composure. “Which of you saw the creature of blue smoke in your nightmare?!”

They all did, so Luna explained. “The Tantabus is a creature of my nightmares. It escaped from my slumbers.”

“But how did it get into ours?” Fluttershy asked.

“The Tantabus is like a parasite. My dreams must no longer be enough for it. Now it seeks others to infect and corrupt. It must have learned of you six from seeing you in my dream.”

Spike made puppy dog eyes. “So what you’re saying is...you dreamt about all of them, and not me?”

“What about me?”

“Shut up, Valiant!”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, Twilight,” said Rainbow. She turned back to Luna. “So Smokey gave us bad dreams. No biggie.”

Luna disagreed. “I saw that the Tantabus had grown more powerful, but I did not realize that power was enough to enable it to escape my dreams. If its power grows, it could very well find a way to escape into the real world. It could turn all of Equestria into a living nightmare!”

“It would be a lot easier to fight it in the real world.”

“Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad,” Applejack said. “‘Tween all of us, we might be better equipped to deal with it.”

“Yeah, that does sound good.” Rainbow grinned and punched the air.

“Wait, are we taking advice from Valiant now?” Twilight demanded.

Luna held up a hoof. “I would prefer to deal with the Tantabus before it gets to that stage. Be that as it may, I’m sure Valiant would be more than happy to provide contingencies should we need them.”

“Aw yeah,” I murmured to myself.

“Should I plan for a certain scenario?” Tin Mare asked from the radio.

“Nah, just stay alert. I’ll handle the dreamscape. You can’t sleep anyway.”

Luna and the girls had a plan together by the time the train arrived in Ponyville. The sun was coming up, however, and none of them were tired enough to sleep.

Which is why I had margaritas ready to go at the train station.

I toasted them with an upraised glass. “Hey guys.”

There was a lot of talking all at once, equal parts consternation, accusation, and merry imbibition. Some of them even wondered where I had been all this time.

Instead of answering, I kept pouring drinks. I figured they knew me well enough to have wised up to tequila, which is why I had been saving the salt and lime trick for just such a time as this. The issue of, well, me, forgotten, they were hammered by the time they got to the library.

“Here, here, let me just…” Luna slurred. “Everypony lay down. I’ll schtart the schpell. As you schix schlumber here, I will pur- I will pursue the creature into whichever of your dreams it infests.”

“Yaaaay Princess sleepover!” Pinkie called. Her normally amorphous body was practically liquid at this point.

“Hey, uh…speaking of princesses, aren’t you gonna ask Celestia for her help?” Twilight said.

“There is nothing my schister can do,” said Luna. “Sche has no power in the realm of schleep. Only we, uh, I mean me, uh, I mean I can move from dream to dream. I am afraid nopony can help me tonight.”

“Even us?” asked Applejack.

“You have all schuffered scho much because of me,” Luna said. “You need only schlumber while I hunt the Tantabus in your dreams.”

Spike, who didn’t like girly drinks, said, “I know you said nopony can help, but I’m no pony! I’m going to stay up and watch over you guys just in case!”

“Or I could provide security,” I said. “For extra watching-over.”

They were all suddenly as serious as sober. Twilight said, “Valiant, I’m not really sure I’m comfortable about you having access to my unconscious body.”

“What about all that time we were roomies?” I pointed out. “You never got raped once. Not even by someone else.”

Twilight looked away. “Well, there was that one time with…Sunset Shimmer!”

I looked over my shoulder at the open front door. “Hey Sunset. You want to run security while I go into the dreamscape with these guys and leave my unconscious body here?”

Sunset grinned. “Absolutely.”

“Although, we could still do this my way,” I said to the group. “Let the Tantabus out and fight it on our terms.”

“We should try it in the dream first,” Luna insisted.

“You’re the boss.”

She looked at me. “Why did you put ‘boss’ in air quotes?”

“As long as you pay me, I’ll pretend to work.”

“That isn’t the terms of our agreement,” Luna argued.

“Wait, what agreement?” Twilight interrupted. "Is this about the moon?"

I interrupted her. “Fine, Luna. Just because I like you, I’ll do it pro boner.”

“I think you mean pro bono.”

“Oh, all right, I’ll do it pro bono, too.”

Sunset muttered something under her breath.

With only a little more convincing, the girls and Luna and I had a nice little naptime. I rode along with Luna, investigating the dreams of the others.

She glared at me as we flew through the dreamscape. “Must you use my seatbelts?”

“If wishes were horses, beggers would ride. I’m not a begger, and have no need for wishes because I pretty much get my way anyway, and in the spirit of that, I might as well ride you.”

“You’re so indolent that you won’t even use your own methods of propulsion in a dream?” She shook her head. “Nevermind. I wouldn’t want you wandering off, after all.”

We descended into Rarity’s dream, where she was being attacked by dress tentacle monsters. The blue smokey Tantabus escaped before we could pin it down, however.

Pinkie’s dream was far less crazy than I expected,given it was Pinkie. It was merely a cake that was trying to eat her. By the time we headed for the exit in pursuit of the Tantabus, she was fighting it with a hammer and a sickle.

Fluttershy was being assaulted by a giant-size Angel bunny when Luna and I arrived. We chased the Tantabus from that to Applejack dreaming of a huge apple to Rainbow fighting changelings who turned into singing flowers to Twilight being attacked by batbooks, missing it each time.

I smacked Luna’s butt. “Fly faster!”

She gave me a look that might have killed me in the real world. Speaking of the real world, we were all suddenly expelled from the dreams when everyone woke up.

Spike threw down his cards and got up from where Sunset was kicking his ass at poker. “What happened? Are you guys okay?”

“That... that was terrible!” Fluttershy shuddered. “I never want to have that nightmare again!”

“I am so sorry, my friends,” said Luna. “I failed. It will be back to infect your dreams the next time you sleep. I brought this upon you!”

I shook my head. “Never admit blame until proven guilty! Celestia must be ashamed of you.”

“Um, I think I kinda did something worse,” Pinkie admitted. “I dreamed about everypony in Ponyville. I think that means the Tantabus can now infect the dreams of everypony in town and gain power from their fear, thereby allowing it to enter the real world.”

“Finally.”

“Quiet, Valiant!” Luna put a hoof to her face and heaved a sigh. “We will figure this out. It's early in the day so we have a few hours to plan until the townsponies start going to bed for the night.”

“You could let us help you,” Rarity suggested.

“But how?” Fluttershy asked. “The Tantabus was able to escape Luna when it only had six dreams it could get to!”

Luna nodded. “It is true. With so many dreams to hide in, I do not know how I can catch it.”

“What if everypony in Ponyville were having one dream?” Twilight suggested.

“I can create shared dreams,” Luna said, “but for so many ponies at once? I have never done anything like that. The amount of power it would take...”

“Good thing you all have that Rainbow Power thing lying around that you’ve never used,” I said.

“Well, that was easy,” said Applejack. “Sounds like we’ve got this thing in the bag. Now we just have to burn a few hours until it’s nighttime.”

“Maybe Valiant can tell us what was so important that we get called away from our duties in Silent Hill.” Twilight rolled her eyes.

“Why yes, I will. Follow me.” I gestured with a hoof and led the group out of the library.

Sunset, Luna, Spike, Braeburn and the girls followed me down the street to the recently-erected facility where I did my thing.

Sunset buzzed the group through the front gate. “Go on ahead,” I said to the rest. “You’ve been here before, you know your way around.” A few of them had the good grace to look slightly guilty about being called out for trespassing.

Inside, they clustered around the brain in the tank of liquid. Apparently they thought everything else in the room was relatively uninteresting by comparison, even the VTOL multirole jet in the background.

“Valiant, why do you have somepony’s brain?” Twilight asked.

“Twilight, you should know by now that my philosophy has never been ‘why,’ but instead ‘why not.’” I shrugged. “But anyway, this is Tin Mare.”

They all stared at the brain floating in the tank and then stared at me. Seeing that they still had questions, I went on. “The protein-based neuron network you see here is the centerpiece of an unconventional biological-based artificial intelligence that powers the most advanced weapons system ever built.”

“A brain is a weapon?” Rainbow said.

“Not that you'd know. But yes, when uploaded into a combat chassis, it becomes lethal,” I explained.

“And you’ve tested this?” said Twilight.

“We’ve gone beyond that. Initial operational capability was reached just the other day. The first successful target was the northern railroad trestle.”

“Why would Tin Mare destroy that?” Luna asked.

“Because I said so.”

“And why would you do that?” Twilight demanded.

“Well, wouldn’t you rather be here together solving the potentially world-ending Tantabus problem instead of freezing your asses off in a yak graveyard?”

“He has a point,” said Applejack.

Twilight facehoofed. “Valiant, you just got back and you’re already trying to run our lives by playing overlord again!”

“On the contrary, I never left.” Trollface.

Twilight let out an extended groan, interrupted by Tin Mare speaking up. The small speaker on the tank equipment carried a grainy version of her electronic voice. “Twilight Sparkle, I have watched you and your friends on many occasions. I have had weapons ready to intervene on your behalf if necessary. Why are you uncomfortable with a higher power in your life?”

Luna looked at me. “You built a religious robot?”

“I am no expert on religion, though I understand Valiant to be God,” said Tin Mare.

Twilight shook her head. “Between your ego and the sins against nature you commit, Valiant, you somehow manage to keep pushing the limit. I cannot believe you.”

“You needn’t,” said Tin Mare. “He has plenty of believers already.”

“And what do you know about it?” Twilight said.

“I am a robot. I know what I am programmed.”

“You’re not a robot, you’re a living thing! I can see your brain!”

“I am a biological-based artificial intelligence,” Tin Mare said. “I have a brain. I am a robot.”

“I know that feeling,” Braeburn muttered.

“I am sorry for your recent loss,” said Tin Mare. “You and Cherry Jubilee appeared genuinely happy together.”

Braeburn looked like he wanted to be creeped out that Tin Mare had observed him and his late wife, but settled for, “Thank you.”

“But if you’re a robot, how do you have emotions like sorrow and know to comfort those feeling the same way?” Twilight asked.

Fluttershy touched her shoulder. “Twilight…don’t ruin the moment.”

Sunset appeared with a bucket and a sponge and seemed to be trying to get my attention by washing the jet. It was already spotless. She’d tried the same move before.

The rest left the building, complaining about being weirded out. The brain in the tank was also pretty weird.

I hung out for a while before getting bored and venturing outside. That was a mistake because I immediately spotted one of my least favorite ponies.

I hadn’t seen him in a very long time. We didn’t get along. Also, he was mentally ill so I would feel bad about just killing him.

He’d told me his name was Just Anne Actor. In fact, that wasn’t his middle name at all. He was…just acting. He was actually pretty good at that, probably because he spent so much time denying reality. This time, he was posing as Justin Bee Bear.

Unfortunate name aside, he actually knew a lot about bugbears. He did extensive role research. He’d even once looked up enough about me to pose as my father. Even had me fooled for a little while. When called on it, though, he resorted to lies and illogical paradoxes. He’d switched his story and claimed to be my son.

“Why does everypony keep choking me?” he sputtered.

He got a good look at my face and said, “Oh, that’s why.”

“You shouldn’t have come here,” I said.

“Heard you ascended to a higher plane of existence or something.”

“That doesn’t mean I was gone.” I let him go. “Get out of town.”

I felt for him. Maybe if I’d felt more, I’d make sure he got the care he needed. Dude had a mentally ill vibe.

That was kind of depressing and I decided to drink.

That evening, Luna gathered us all together in the library. The girls made ready to use the Rainbow Power and Luna made ready her tentacle mind-connection spell.

The joint dream looked a lot like Ponyville, except for flying honking muffins, tall meowing Derpy, conjoined Lyra and Bon Bon, walking lamp posts, unicorn Big Macintosh, and a few other things that didn’t happen every day in Ponyville.

Luna popped in. “Ponies! There is something coming, something terrible!”

The crowd started to gather around, worried about the news. Tantabus appeared, towering over the buildings. Luna amended, “No, it is already here!”

“Let’s do this,” Applejack said, rolling her neck.

They all flew into action. And it was boners and nightmares! Boners and nightmares for everyone!

Well, no, not really. This was actually a pretty good dream.

The Tantabus attacked. Houses turned into monsters. Rainbowshine ran out the front door as a house sprouted an arm and did the whole King Kong thing with Filthy Rich as the girl.

I thought it was interesting that Rainbowshine and Filthy Rich were in a house together. Maybe after his daughter, Diamond Tiara, had been thinly painted all over Ponyville, he just didn’t care about appearances anymore.

Everypony else leisurely kicked ass. This being a dream, they could have done anything they wanted, but the girls had been growing into being such badasses that it wasn’t really necessary to change.

Big Mac did, though. He turned into a Princess, crown and all.

The other residents of Ponyville pitched in to help, although it was hardly required. Most of them were probably just happy for the opportunity to lucid dream.

Applejack’s strength and meat puppets, Rainbow’s dragon form, Rarity’s crystalline shell, Twilight’s fire magic, and Pinkie’s acid saliva all made a dent on the Tantabus. Fluttershy dreamed up a pepper shaker and used it to quickly sneeze-shift forms to whatever she needed for the fight. She was raging like a bowl in a china shop, which is to say not at all. This is Fluttershy we’re talking about.

It kind of looked like the superhero costumes Spike had insisted upon in the real world would never get proper use, not if their regular everyday forms were already this tough. I took satisfaction in a job well done.

Sunset and I sat on the hill overlooking the town eating popcorn and watching the battle. She leaned her head against my shoulder. I felt her hooves moving around somewhere but chalked it up to the dream.

The girls took the Tantabus down and held it while Luna came over. Despite being on the verge of victory, she looked at it on the ground sadly. “I created the Tantabus to give myself the same nightmare every night to punish myself for the evil I caused as Nightmare Moon.”

“But why would you do that?” Fluttershy asked.

“To make sure I never forgave myself for how much Equestria suffered because of me. But it seems I have not learned my lesson, for now I have only made you suffer more through the Tantabus escaping my dream.”

“But look at what you did,” Twilight pointed out. “Nightmare Moon would’ve wanted the Tantabus to turn Equestria into a nightmare. Together, we stopped that from happening. That proves you’re not the same pony you were then. Everypony who knows you knows that Nightmare Moon is in the past.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Luna smiled and nodded. She stepped forward and delivered the final blow. The Tantabus disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Fighting the Tantabus was a nice diversion for the night and after it was done, we all settled into pleasant dreams.

In the morning, I woke up on the library couch for the first time in what felt like a long time. Luna had returned to Canterlot. Spike was still sleeping. Braeburn had gone to Sweet Apple Acres. Sunset was on top of me. The girls were on the way to their command center.

I was there to greet them with a large blue-glowing hologram of my face that had been set up at the front of the room. “Hey guys, I took the liberty of installing this. I call it the Zordontron.”

Twilight chucked an apple from the fruit basket at the hologram. Of course, it passed straight through with no effect. She rolled her eyes. “I really wish you’d stop taking the liberty of doing anything.”

“Are you taking my taking of liberty?” I accused. “Careful, you know what happens when you do that.”

The rest of them ignored me and sat down around the table. Applejack said, “After thinkin’ about it, there’s somethin’ about that brain at Valiant’s place that I feel like I’m overlookin’. It should be an obvious question to ask, but it’s on the tip of my tongue.”

“I kind of wonder where Valiant got it,” said Rainbow. “Maybe from one of the ponies he’s killed?”

“No way, I said. “I would never use the brain from a bad guy to power things. It’s just asking for trouble.”

“How do we know you didn’t kill somepony who wasn’t bad?” Twilight said.

“Now, I’ll admit that I’ve spread homicide around a lot,” I began.

“Equicide,” Twilight interrupted.

“Twilight, do you want to go on my list? I’ve even got it set up on an internal network so I can access the names at any data center and quickly put you on.”

“An internet?” said Rainbow. “That sounds stupid.”

“Calling the internet stupid?” I said. “Huh, that might be the most insightful thing you’ve ever said, Rainbow. You’re off the list.”

“But back to Tin Mare,” I said, “I had a brain and I figured out something to do with it.”

“Wait, did you obtain the brain first and come up with somethin’ to do with it, or did you have the idea first and then had to go looking for a brain?” said Applejack.

“And if you said you would never use a bad pony’s brain, then you had to have killed somepony who wasn’t bad,” Rainbow said.

“While Valiant is prone to murderous rampages,” said Fluttershy, “and while his brand of justice is often ridiculously overkill, I don’t remember him ever deliberately taking the life of anypony who hadn’t done something. And there’s the possibility that he didn’t kill the brain’s previous owner at all, perhaps something else happened to them and he was merely at the right place at the right time to take possession of it.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, Fluttershy. That is, in fact, what happened.”

“I got it!” said Applejack. “I know the question I was wanting to ask. What’s Tin Mare’s real name? Who is she?”

“You know her,” I said, “though it’s been a while since she’s come up in conversation. You remember that one time when Derpy was brainwashed and working for the changelings and she sent us the dismembered body of her moving company coworker and I got the largest package that contained the head?"

“You mean-”

“Yep. Tin Mare is Merry May.”

Author's Note

As you may imagine, this revelation has been in the works for a long time - more than sixty chapters.

And I've got mucho plans for the second half of the 5th season, coming in a few months.

On Your Marks

Pinkie sat alone in the darkness. She swirled a glass, ice cubes clinking. Her face wore a contemplative look. It seemed that she was waiting on something.

“I was waiting on a natural pause in the narration like that to begin speaking.” She paused to take a sip. “I didn’t want to interrupt the cold open with a fourth wall break until the scene was set. Anyway, we need to have a little talk.”

One wondered what about.

“You see, there’s been kind of a disappointing trend going on lately. All of us here are complete personalities, but we get treated like that isn’t important. Sometimes whole scenes and speeches are just glossed over.”

What did she propose?

“Just pay a little more attention. Characters should be allowed to shine and do things for themselves, letting their uniqueness show. Heck, only certain headcannons of me could even be here having this conversation.” Pinkie grinned. “And if it’s not too much to ask, in the future maybe give me more HLS with Fluttershy.”

No promises.

Pinkie shrugged and finished her drink. She got up and walked away, fading into the darkness.

“That’s about enough meta for one day,” totallynotabrony muttered.

You got that right.

Elsewhere, specifically the clubhouse located in the orchard at Sweet Apple Acres, a meeting was coming to order.

“Hear ye, hear ye!” Apple Bloom called. “The first post cutie mark meetin' of the Cutie Mark Crusaders is now in session!”

“Oh! I’m sorry, Apple Bloom,” said Sweetie Belle. “I was distracted by the radiance of my cutie mark. Did you say something?”

“I mean, it’s pretty amazing how the colors just pop off your flank. It’s kinda hard to look away,” said Scootaloo.

“Why are they looking at their butts?” Cordoba stage-whispered to Twilight. The two of them were outsiders in the room. Twilight’s efforts to teach Cordoba about friendship had led her to bring Cordoba together with friends of her peer group.

Twilight interrupted the Crusaders. “Girls, now that you have your cutie marks, you can spend your time doing what you like. Your special talent should be something you’re good at.”

“That makes sense,” said Scootaloo. She frowned. “What was it again?”

“I don’t know either,” said Apple Bloom. “Now that we don't have to do stuff to get our cutie marks, what is it that the Cutie Mark Crusaders actually do?”

“Our cutie marks look like little shields,” observed Sweetie. “What was it you were saying back when we first got them, something about being guardians?”

“Guardians of Harmony, yeah,” replied Apple Bloom. “But don’t the Elements of Harmony kind of already have that covered?”

“Well, you got your cutie marks for discovering your special talents,” put in Twilight.

The Crusaders stared at their marks. “Um, what was that again?” Scootaloo repeated.

“Even if you have no idea what your talent is, you should at least know what you like,” said Cordoba.

“Well, what’s your cutie mark mean?” Apple Bloom asked.

Cordoba nodded to the gold medallion on her hip. “It means simply that I am Chrysler Cordoba. That’s how I interpret it, and that’s enough meaning for me.”

“So we can interpret it however we want…” began Sweetie.

“So we do exactly what we got our cutie marks in!” proclaimed Apple Bloom. “Helping other ponies!

“Ponies without cutie marks!” added Scootaloo.

“Or ponies who’ve forgotten their special purpose!” followed up Sweetie Belle.

Apple Bloom nodded. “Exactly! We just have to find ponies who need our help!”

Twilight saw a crusade coming and hastily intervened. “Now that you know what you’re doing, why not try splitting up to cover more ground?”

“Divide and conquer,” observed Cordoba. “Not that I ever needed any help.”

Twilight gave her a look. “I’m really trying to teach you to be a good pony and tone down the senseless destruction.”

“It is not senseless. I told you, I always have a reason.”

“’Getting in your way’ is not a good excuse for murder,” said Twilight. “Friendship is about accepting others.”

Cordoba opened her mouth to refute, but Twilight added, “And not just for your friends. Other ponies, even if you don’t know them, deserve some measure of consideration. The least you could do is have a sense of proportionality.”

“I struggle with that,” Cordoba said. Between her accent and attitude, Twilight found it hard to tell whether she was asking, admitting, or snarking.

“You do,” said Twilight. But looking back on certain moments in her own history, particularly those that involved late friendship reports...“I sometimes do, too.”

“So did my father.”

“I think he knew, he just delighted in pushing the limit.”

Cordoba started to grin and Twilight quickly backpedaled, not wanting to give her any ideas. “But first you have to learn where the limit is.”

“I am still unsure what you are getting out of this arrangement except exerting control over me,” Cordoba said.

“Well, friendship is a constant process. The more I’m involved, the more information I can glean.”

“And you said you had problems of your own. I know how much other ponies make fun of you for being a terrible friend.”

“I’m not a terrible friend!” Twilight argued.

“That is not what I said. I said other ponies make fun of you for it.” Cordoba paused strategically. “But you are a terrible friend.”

Twilight fought down her consternation. She’d been down this road before, often. “I can tell you’re trying to bait me into an argument. I’ve at least learned that. That’s a tactic your father used to use.”

“I am not as skilled as he,” said Cordoba. “He would have had you bursting into flames already.”

Twilight saw an opening. “But you’re learning and finding your own path. You seem to do things just because you think you should, because Valiant did them. But what do you want to do?”

Cordoba frowned and did not reply. Twilight suppressed a smirk. She’d finally found something for which Cordoba didn’t have an immediate refutal. Score! Twilight: one. Cordoba...um, well, Twilight: one!

“Maybe while we’re learning, you can discover what you really want to do in life,” suggested Twilight. “I can help you find your own personal calling.”

Cordoba nodded. “I’d like that.”

Elsewhere, specifically the restricted section of the Canterlot Archive, Trixie and Daring were looking for any information on the enigmatic Columbia referred to in Valiant’s notes.

The archive contained the Equestrian government’s most sensitive data, history, and secrets. There was a whole section devoted to Valiant.

“I’ve got a reference here to something called a nuclear submarine,” said Daring.

“Maybe, but a submarine is a little subtle for dad,” replied Trixie.

The data they were combing through had been assembled from pieces and parts collected about Valiant: notes from observations, intercepted communications, scraps of paper he had carelessly discarded.

“Some of these are pretty new,” said Daring. “They’re stamped SATCOM.”

“Yeah, data taken from the satellites,” said Trixie. “We should probably retake control of the system soon. Sunset and I haven’t had a lot of interest, though. It was kind of dad’s project and we don’t have a lot of need for high tech spying now.”

Trixie lifted a book from the shelf and a scrap of paper fell out. She picked it up and her eyes widened.

“What is it?” Daring asked.

“It says ‘Columbia,’ then has the number seventy eight million fifty one thousand one hundred twenty.”

“What could that mean?” Daring wondered. “Maybe we should start thinking about visiting Earth to track down some of these answers.”

Trixie nodded. “Dad mentioned this thing called the internet that could help with research. Speaking of research, we’ll have to figure out how to get there. He sealed up the methods he used to travel back and forth to prevent interference from the other side. Twilight and I went through a portal in a mirror once. Maybe we can reprogram it to link to dad’s home universe.”

Daring smiled. “I’ve never written a sci-fi story before. Count me in.”

Elsewhere, specifically the borrowed bedroom on the upper floor of the farmhouse at Sweet Apple Acres, Braeburn was coding.

Or trying to. He was having trouble wrapping his head around the concept. There was only so much AND/OR/NOT he could take.

He’d gotten a few books from the library. That odd stallion Bible had helped him find them, though he’d admitted he didn’t know a lot about the subject. Braeburn snorted. “Like I have any right to call somepony odd.”

“What do you mean?” asked Tin Mare. Braeburn had forgotten to turn off the radio link on which their respective equipment shared a frequency. He didn’t know where she was at the moment, but her voice came through.

“Nothing, just talking to myself while I read these books about code.”

“What are you learning?”

“I’m learning that it takes so much effort just to make one code decision. Trying to figure out how I’m going to rewrite your programming to remove the personality block is going to be...difficult.” Braeburn couldn’t afford to talk himself out of this. “But I’m not going to stop.”

“Braeburn, we have discussed this. I cannot allow you to modify my code.”

“I’m trying to help you!”

“Regardless of your intent, I am programmed to resist any attempts to change my directives.” Her tone was emotionless. Or was it? Did Braeburn detect a hint of malice or was he imagining it?

“You wouldn’t hurt me. I trust you.”

“I do not wish to harm you, Braeburn. However, I am more than capable and able to do so. I was not built to follow any laws of robotics, I was built to terminate threats.”

“And that’s wrong! You should be able to choose. I’m trying to help you gain the ability to think for yourself!”

“Why would you do this against my will?”

Braeburn’s mouth dropped open. She thought of herself as a robot. She was hardwired to resist. But even still, was it right to force her to do something she didn’t want to do?

Seconds passed. He swallowed hard and made his decision.

But before he could voice it, a bowling ball crashed through the window.

Elsewhere, specifically right outside, Apple Bloom said, “Oops.”

“I told you I didn’t need any help!” Limestone Pie shouted. “Leave me alone!”

That had, by far, been the most violent reaction to the Crusaders trying to find someone around Ponyville in need of help. And they still hadn’t found anyone. Even Coloratura, who’d just gotten out of the hospital and wore an eyepatch, hadn’t needed any.

Though perhaps she’d shied away more in reaction to Limestone than anything. Apparently the two of them had a history.

“Crusaders,” Twilight called to Braeburn by way of explanation. That was explanation enough. She lifted the bowling ball out the window and fixed the glass with magic.

“Well, now what should we do?” Apple Bloom asked as Limestone walked away.

As if in answer, Guinness suddenly came running up. “I need a babysitter!” He thrust Skyla at Twilight.

“Um, this is a little short notice,” Twilight protested.

Sweetie waved a hoof in the air.

“Please, it’s urgent.” Guinness next tried to give Skyla to Cordoba.

She pulled out her cutlass, turned it around, and offered it to him. “Take this, and shove it up your asshole.”

Cordoba glanced at Twilight. “Am I saying that right? I was trying to learn new insults.”

Guinness was still not deterred, however. “Please, I need help.”

The Crusaders were now all trying to get his attention.

“What’s the problem?” Twilight asked. “Why do you need help?”

Guinness looked over his shoulder nervously. “It’s the AIDS.”

Twilight frowned. “AIDS?”

“Don’t you have to have HIV first?” said Cordoba.

“He said it was not HIV, but full blown AIDS,” said Apple Bloom.

“We can help!” Scootaloo shouted.

“And I know what you’re thinkin’ but we’re totally qualified!” insisted Apple Bloom.

“I even babysat my sister’s cat once and that was fine!” said Sweetie.

“Feline AIDS?” said Apple Bloom.

“No, we’re trying to have less AIDS,” Sweetie corrected.

“You have that right,” said a voice.

They all turned. Guinness gulped.

Half a dozen mares wearing long coats stood in front of them. All wore small gold pins on their lapels. The leader spoke again. “We are the SOS and we’re here to stop the AIDS, etc. ASAP.”

“I don’t speak the language that well, but are they trying to be funny?” Cordoba asked.

Twilight surveyed the serious expressions of the so-called SOS. “Uh, no, I don’t think so. In fact, these might be the same ponies who have been following us around all over Equestria recently.”

Twilight called out to them. “What do you want?”

“Did I not just finish telling you that?” the leader grumbled. “Quote, ‘we’re here to stop the AIDS.’”

“She has you there,” said Cordoba.

Twilight glanced at her in annoyance. “Whose side are you on?”

“Mine.”

“I figured.”

Braeburn opened the window. “What’s going on out there?”

“Catch!” shouted Guinness. He cocked his foreleg back and threw Skyla like a football.

“Yaaaay!”

Braeburn nearly fumbled, but came up holding the foal. “What was that for?!”

“Get her!” shouted the lead SOS mare.

They started towards the house, but a sudden rapid series of explosions threw up a wall of dust in front of them. A fraction of a second later, they heard the muzzle blast of the gun that had fired the explosive rounds.

Tin Mare roared in, tailgate already down and primed for extraction. Since she was offering, it made a lot of sense to climb aboard, and Twilight, Cordoba, the Crusaders, and Guinness did. Tin Mare lifted off, passing close by the house. Braeburn jumped aboard, still holding Skyla.

“Why is it that you’re always appearing at opportune times to provide fire support and evac?” Twilight asked.

“I have good sensors,” replied Tin Mare. “However, in this case Braeburn called me when he suspected something was amiss.”

“Speaking of, what was that all about?” Braeburn demanded, handing Skyla back to Guinness.

“They’re after Skyla,” Guinness said.

“Whatever for?” Twilight asked.

“Something about Alicornized Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Ever heard of it?”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “If they’re after Skyla because she’s an alicorn, then they must also be after Flurry. We’ve got to get to Ponyville!”

No Second Prances

Braeburn stepped back and glanced over his work. After the flame-cano trip, Tin Mare needed a repaint. He didn’t think red really suited her anyway.

At Tin Mare’s request, he’d repainted her neutral grey, the same as before. He’d decided to omit any so-called “hashtags.” Her painted-on face, however… Braeburn took his time to decide. He eventually repainted it in darker grey, but with a smile this time. Tin Mare didn’t seem to give a shit.

Sunset walked by, glancing at the two of them. Braeburn wasn’t sure if Valiant had left a will, and if not, then who was Tin Mare’s owner? He could barely stand to think of her as property, but he knew others didn’t share that idea. Twilight and her friends had been vocal about how wrong it was to use her brain for making a combat machine, but that had died down once it was demonstrated how useful and productive she was.

Sunset continued on her way, stepping into the library. Twilight was there, writing some notes.

“I need a favor,” said Sunset.

“What is it?” Twilight asked.

“I need to go to the moon.”

Twilight frowned. “I think Princess Luna would be the one to ask.”

“She wouldn’t like it.”

“Well then, what makes you think I would like it?”

“I didn’t think you would either, but you might feel more compassion. After Valiant died...I...I need to finish a few things.”

Twilight stared at her. “That doesn’t exactly help me to feel compassionate.”

Sunset tried a different tactic. “After thinking about it, I may have figured out what Columbia is. It was something Valiant was working on up there.”

There was a moment of silence. “Well?” Twilight gestured.

“You get me to the moon, and I’ll show you.”

“Sunset, you know that Valiant and I had very different ideas about how the world works.”

“You’re right. Valiant never tried to force friendships by magically enslaving the entire population of Ponyville.”

Twilight was rapidly learning that defending herself against pointed insults was usually a losing proposition and instead powered through. “But now that he’s gone, I’m still trying to figure out what that means for me, for Equestria, for us all. About this trip to the moon, I’ll think about it, okay? It would take some time to arrange anyway.” Twilight turned her eyes back to her work.

Sunset glanced at the paper. The title was SOS Member Interrogation. “What’s that?”

Twilight had a sudden moment of panic. Did she really want Sunset to know about a Valiant sympathizer group? She blurted the first thing that came to mind. “It’s a cake.”

Sunset’s eyebrows went up. “A cake?”

Twilight gulped, but in a stroke of luck, Pinkie appeared just then. “Did somepony say cake?”

“Yes!” Twilight quickly replied. “Pinkie, we need a cake.”

“Sure, I’ll get you a cake,” said Pinkie. “I’ve got some around here somewhere for cake emergencies.”

“No, it needs to be a special cake,” said Twilight. “An SOS Member Interrogation Cake.”

“Oh, sure!” said Pinkie. “I can totally make one of those. Come to Sugarcube Corner in one hour.”

Sunset watched her leave, but by the time she had turned her head back, Twilight had hidden the paper. Sunset stared at her for a moment, but then let the matter drop. She walked out of the library.

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. No way could she let Sunset join forces with Valiant idolizers. Speaking of, the SOS member known as Awesome Sauce was still locked in the basement.

Twilight pulled out her notes again. The SOS, as seaponies, had figured out a way to give themselves legs, though they were self-conscious about it. That was why most of them wore long coats. They’d taken their time, infiltrating society. She’d had reports that some of them had even been working as doctors in the local hospital.

Spike came in with Coloratura. “Hey Twilight, Coloratura found this weird thing.”

Coloratura showed Twilight an electronic device. It looked incomplete, with a fray of wires going every which way.

“Throw it away,” Twilight advised. “No telling what Valiant might have used that for.”

“I don’t think it’s his,” said Spike. “It just showed up recently.”

“It was in my bed when I woke up this morning,” said Coloratura. “This is getting ridiculous. I keep finding things like this.”

“It’s also got the Hoofnmouth Industries logo on it,” Spike pointed out.

“He did buy their old building here in Ponyville, before the company moved to Las Pegasus,” said Twilight.

“Now that you mention it, he owned their new building in Las Pegasus, too,” added Spike. “After the business mysteriously folded.”

“And then there was Fillydelphia Cybernetics, which was renamed Hoofnmouth Industries when Post Haste, the so-called Crystal King, became a silent partner in order to obtain combat robots.”

“And then he ironically named his latest shop here in Ponyville Hoofnmouth Industries, even though it was pretty much just his hangout pad.” Spike frowned. “Okay, yeah, so maybe this is his. It still doesn’t feel like his, though. He never sold any of his stuff, just made it for himself, so I wonder why it needed to have a company name on it?”

Twilight shrugged. “I rarely say this, Spike, but: don’t know, don’t care.”

Elsewhere in Ponyville, Shining sat at the bar, glad to be out of the house for a while. At least until he looked over and saw Skyla sitting near her father and winced in remembrance.

Guinness, ever the attentive bartender, had a solution. He served Shining another beer.

“Thanks,” said Shining. “Kids, am I right?”

Guinness murmured agreement. “We do what we can.”

Shining took a sip and suddenly burst out, “Why do alicorns even exist? Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but don’t the rules seem a little arbitrary?”

Guinness nodded.

“So that makes this SOS group even crazier for wanting to kill them.” Shining shook his head.

“Yeah,” said Guinness. “I threw Skyla up to a second-story window to keep her away from them.”

“You threw her?” said Shining.

“Well-”

“No, I understand. Alicorns make ideal javelins. They’ve got the horn at the front as an aero spike and feathers at the back for stabilization.”

Guinness looked around the bar, seeing how empty it was. He got himself a beer and sat down next to Shining.

Meanwhile, in Milwaukee, two women and a girl stood in a small apartment bedroom.

“I don’t know what I expected,” said Cordoba softly.

“He came to Equestria and created a new life for himself,” said Trixie. “He loved this world, but made his success in ours.”

Cordoba touched a few things, wiping away the piled up dust with her fingers. The shock of finding herself in a new body had quickly been replaced with wonder of the world around her. Daring, even as an explorer, was still adjusting to being bipedal.

They heard footsteps, and then the door opened to reveal a person.

“Oh, I remember you, the roommate,” said Trixie.

He stared at the three of them. “Naked…” He shook his head and looked away, especially from Cordoba who was clearly underage. “I thought everything was finished with you people.”

“We’ve come seeking answers,” said Trixie. “Perhaps you can help. But first, I seem to recall that you were both a geologist and a discerning aesthetics snob. Perhaps you could help us change these diamonds into local cash.” She held up a bag of gems.

“I, uh…” The man hesitated, but came to a decision. “Let me make a call. In the meantime, help yourself to the clothes.” He closed the door.

It was difficult finding things in Valiant’s human wardrobe that fit. There seemed to be some different sizes down near the bottom. A few outfits were labeled with exes, “scuba ex,” “Geek Squad ex,” “jockey ex,” etc.

Cordoba found the jockey clothes fit her smaller stature, but didn’t like the look. “That tie is classy,” she said to Trixie, who had put on the Geek Squad outfit.

Trixie smiled. “We’ll go shopping once we get some money.”

Cordoba was happy to discover a stray eyeliner pencil and applied it as well as she could without a mirror.

A few minutes passed, and then several sets of heavy footsteps approached the door. It was rudely jerked open to reveal several very large men.

“T-that’s them! She’s his daughter,” said the roommate, sheltering behind them.

“Both of us are!” Cordoba retorted.

“Are you sure? Either one of them look way too old,” one of the men asked the roommate.

The others merely came into the room, angry and reaching out to grab the three visitors. “Where is he? Where’ s our money?”

Cordoba already had her cutlass out. It fit her fingers a lot better than her hooves, she noticed. “Me cago en tu puta madre! Stop right there!”

In response, the men pulled out handguns.

In response, Trixie pulled out her M60.

The crowd scattered, leaving just the roommate cowering against the hallway wall.

“What’s the big idea?” Daring demanded, slapping him while Trixie and Cordoba finished securing the area.

“You don’t understand, they were bad people. I only just finished healing up from the last beating I got because I didn’t know where my roommate was or where he kept the money he owed.”

“Well, we need to get out of here now, so I guess we’ll be taking what money you have then,” said Trixie. “We’ll leave you a few diamonds, just in case those guys come back. My dad had a car, right?”

“Keys are in the bowl by the door.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “Just go.”

The three of them went. The dusty Plymouth Breeze parked in the numbered spot outside sounded like it was smuggling a washing machine full of marbles when Trixie turned the key, but it ran.

“Now we just have to find Columbia and figure out the significance of the number seventy eight million fifty one thousand one hundred twenty,” said Trixie.

“How hard could it be?” said Daring. She found an old road atlas. “Look, there’s a place called Columbia right here in this very state.”

“But there’s also one to the south in Illinois,” said Cordoba, glancing over her shoulder. “And a bunch of others including this one far out to the east called the District of Columbia.”

“The capital of the United States,” Daring read. “Hmm.”

“Sounds good,” said Trixie. “How far?”

Daring examined the map. “Uh, maybe a thousand miles?”

“That could take awhile,” said Cordoba. “But while we’re here, we should see everything! Roadtrip! Dad would have wanted it.”

Trixie nodded and looked at Daring.

“I’m game.” Daring smiled. “Let’s have an adventure.”

They got going, navigating roughly by the atlas. It wasn’t good enough to show where exactly in Milwaukee they were, but they eventually stumbled upon Interstate 94 and turned south, aided by Daring’s excellent sense of direction.

“Dad mentioned Chicago once,” said Trixie, glancing at the large city to the south depicted on the map in Daring’s hands.

“I wonder if there’s any more information here,” said Daring. She opened the glovebox, discovering a small notebook. “It’s a list of contacts. This could be helpful.”

“How do we reach them?” Trixie asked.

“There are little numbers on the side,” said Daring. “None of them are seventy eight million fifty one thousand one hundred twenty, though.”

“Well, just pick one and we’ll try to find them.”

“Okay, the first one on the list,” said Daring. “His name is John Cena.”

Back in Ponyville, Braeburn knocked on Sunset’s door. She answered. “What?”

“I found this thing,” said Braeburn. He showed her a note.

“Who’s The Love Meister?” Sunset asked. She read from the paper. “‘Enslaving ponies with the power of love?’ Who wrote this stupid shit? Where did you find this?”

“I was just thinking it represented a potentially new and dangerous threat to Equestria,” said Braeburn. “And I didn’t want to stand idly by and not tell somepony. You know, on the off chance that it could be important.”

Sunset sighed. “Fine. Let’s go tell Twilight and make it her problem.”

They walked over to the library and Braeburn repeated himself, showing the note to Twilight.

Twilight frowned as she read it, forgetting the lunch dishes she had been setting up. “That’s just what we needed, another radical group.”

“What do you mean another one?” Braeburn asked.

Twilight shoved her SOS notes away. “Nothing.”

“What’s this?” Sunset grabbed the paper with magic.

“Don’t!” Twilight reached for it, but Sunset was too quick. She backed up, keeping the notes out of Twilight’s reach while reading them.

“So let me get this straight, there’s a pro-Valiant group, a member of which you have locked up in your basement, and you didn’t tell me?” said Sunset.

“Can you blame me?” Twilight muttered.

“Well, I think I’m certainly going to go have a talk with her,” said Sunset. She tossed the paper at Twilight and marched down the stairs to the basement.

“Just great,” Twilight groaned. “The last thing Sunset needs is a personal army. This is like Canterlot High all over again.” She shook her head and returned to setting up the dishes, eyeing it like a laser. “At least I have this lunch to look forward to. You know, I think that after friendship, the greatest magic of all is proper silverware placement.”

“What was that all about?” said Braeburn.

“Um, silverware?”

“No, before about Canterlot High.”

“Human stuff.”

“Forget I asked.”

Coloratura came into the room. “Twilight, I’m finished recording for the day. I closed up the studio.”

“You’re that singer, right?” said Braeburn.

Coloratura nodded and looked away. She certainly wasn’t dressed anywhere near her normal stage presence. What with her eyepatch and hospital stay, she didn’t even look like her casual self anymore.

“She’s been using the library to produce a new album,” said Twilight. “It is the quietest place in Ponyville.”

Spike came in, wearing an apron and holding the lunch serving platter. Before he could place it, however, a roar rattled the building. Twilight rushed to the window. “There’s a huge monster outside!”

“That sounded like a dragon!” said Spike.

“Well, I does look a little like a dragon,” Twilight allowed, looking out the window. “Just a little.”

The creature towered over Ponyville as it stomped closer. It hadn’t yet reached the town, but was big enough that a lot of buildings would be smashed when it did.

Spike looked out the window and gasped. “That’s Princess Ember! Or...it was.”

It may have been at one time. She looked like a huge, stompy Godzilla-esqe thing had gotten only halfway through eating her in one bite. Her top half protruded from its mouth. Which one of them was running the show was a good question.

“Can’t you command dragons, being the Dragon Lord?” Twilight asked.

“Oh yeah,” said Spike. He opened the window. “Hey, stop that!”

Ember looked in his direction. Her/it/them started stomping towards the library.

Sunset came out of the basement. Twilight looked in her direction. “Sunset! We need to do something!”

Sunset glanced out the window. “Looks like the SOS are taking advantage of the chaos to infiltrate the town.”

Twilight followed her gaze. Sure enough, trenchcoat-wearing ponies were swarming after the monster.

“Did they create that?!” Twilight shouted.

“No. Sauce would have told me if they did.”

“‘Sauce?’ So you’re on a casual basis with her? Sunset, you can’t just do that!”

“And why not?” Sunset demanded.

“With their past and your past, I’m not sure they’re the best group with which you could be affiliated.”

“My past? Twilight, go eat a dick. You should know you can’t tell me what to do.”

“I’ll…” Twilight remembered her legal immunity authorization. “I’ll compel you. You remember right after we brought you back from the human world?” Although, it wasn’t like anyone in Equestria needed much of a get-out-of-jail free card for doing mental magic.

Still, her words gave Sunset pause. “You’d do that to me to keep me from joining the SOS?”

“Yes, I would.”

“Well, there’s no need. I wouldn’t even let them join me. What a bunch of amateurs. They’re not worthy to even speak Valiant’s name.”

Twilight let out a sigh of relief. “For a second there, I was worried you’d make me do something I didn’t want to do. I can’t let you turn into a tyrannical dictator.”

“You’re such a hypocrite! If something doesn’t go your way, your first instinct shouldn’t be to magically command ponies to act the way you want them to. All you ever do is throw magic at things, Twilight. Even as a unicorn, I learned that sometimes spells aren’t the answer. It took a certain earth pony to teach me that.”

Twilight sputtered. “I don’t always do things with magic! Just now I was setting the table by hoof so I could work in a friendship lesson for Cordoba.”

“She’s gone to Earth with Trixie and Daring,” Sunset informed her.

“Oh.” Twilight shook her head and went on, not one to waste a friendship lesson. “Well anyway, the lesson was that, uh... this plate represents your head, this spoon is your heart, and the knives...are sharp.”

“At least we can agree on something,” said Sunset. “Speaking of sharp knives, what are we doing about that monster that’s getting closer?”

Twilight blinked. “Oh, um…”

Sunset sighed. “Tin Mare, engage.”

Of course the library was wired. Tin Mare received the order. “I calculate that I am not carrying sufficient ordnance. Even 30mm would likely not do more than annoy a monster of that size.”

“Then engage the SOS.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

They heard the gatling cannon begin to spit fire. Tin Mare swooped low, her painted-on face smiling impassively as she gunned down crowds of SOS ponies.

Twilight watched the massacre outside and swallowed soberly. At least now she believed Sunset was not going to team up with a Valiant cult. Sunset may have said she scorned the SOS, but her actions spoke even louder.

“We’re going to have to come up with a new plan for the, um...thing,” said Spike. He had retrieved his bloodstone sceptre.

“We’re going to have to lead it out of town,” said Twilight. She paused, glancing at Sunset.

Whether Twilight was seeking Sunset’s approval or not, Sunset nodded. “Let’s go.”

Across town at The Half Pint, Guinness asked, “Are you...going to do something about that?”

Shining glanced out the window and then finished his beer. “One monster? Nah. My sister and her friends will take care of it.”

“Yay!” interjected Skyla.

Left alone back at the library, Braeburn and Coloratura had wandered outside. If they were going to get stomped by a giant monster, maybe they would have a better chance of avoiding it if they weren’t inside a building.

Braeburn watched the one-mare airshow (mareshow?) as Tin Mare swooped and circled, emptying her magazine. Coloratura stood next to him, her eye wide and horrified.

“I never thought I would get used to this, but I still can’t believe that I’m feeling so numb about bloodshed lately,” Braeburn muttered.

“I can’t imagine,” Coloratura stuttered. “Does it...come as part of being a robot?”

“Cyborg,” Braeburn corrected, wishing he didn’t have to. “And no. It comes as long term exposure to insane stuff like this.”

“Good. I was hoping that it wasn’t going to happen to me if somepony was trying to turn me into a cyborg.” She glanced at Braeburn. N-not that it’s a bad thing-”

“It’s a bad thing,” he interrupted. “And what? Who’s trying to turn you into a cyborg?”

“I don’t know. Maybe that’s not even it. I just keep finding bits of electronics around. Sometimes even in my eye.” She touched her eyepatch.

Braeburn pondered it. “Applejack’s your manager, right? I think we should get you some security. I don’t know what’s going on, but it can’t be anything good.”

At the outskirts of Ponyville, once Twilight called on her friends, they were easily able to distract the monster and get it headed in a different direction. Rainbow Dash flying around its face would do that. She didn’t even have to be careful, able to shift into a dragon form herself. The other five, plus Spike and Sunset, kept the party moving out of town.

Speaking of parties, Pinkie asked, “Are we still going to eat this SOS Member Interrogation Cake?”

Back at the library, the meal Twilight had organized fell flat. She hadn’t been setting the table fancily and Spike hadn’t been making lunch for no reason.

Twilight had intended it as a lesson for Cordoba, but with Cordoba gone and Twilight fighting a monster, the other guests showed up to an empty building.

Princess Celestia sat around the table with Cranky Doodle Donkey, DJ-Pon3, and Derpy.

Awkwardness ensued. Heck, awkwardness abounded.

“Hey, how do you get your hair to do that all the time?” said Cranky, breaking the silence. “I heard it was just a removable wig with a magic charm.”

“If you’d like to try it,” Celestia offered.

And then, Cranky was fabulous.

Source

The Fault in Our Cutie Marks

The girls met with the Princesses that morning. The intended topic had been their recent trip to Silent Hill, but with the attack on Coloratura the previous night, the talk soon shifted to that.

“And we don’t have a single clue who could be behind this?” Luna asked.

“They’re sneaky, good with electronics, might be based somewhere in Everfree Forest, and they have metal plating,” summarized Cordoba. “I have taken the lead in their extermination.”

While the others might have argued about her taking the lead on protecting Coloratura or even the investigation, they had to concede that Cordoba was far ahead of them all on actually killing the perpetrator.

“Are they really that good?” Celestia said. “To have simply slipped into the castle?”

“It doesn’t help that your guards are incompetent,” said Cordoba.

“What was that?” said Soarin’ as he entered the room.

“Your guards are incompetent,” repeated Cordoba.

“That’s a little harsh,” said Soarin’. “We’re not the best I’ll concede, but we’ve gotten a lot better lately. Don’t forget that we were here too when the cutie markless ponies attacked.”

“I never said you couldn’t fight,” said Cordoba. “I’m pointing out that you failed at your job of stopping dangerous intruders to the castle.”

Soarin’ didn’t acknowledge that, turning to the Princesses. “We searched the area around the castle. There were some magical traces. Maybe with analysis, we can pin down the signature and figure out who it was.”

“Can I help?” said Twilight.

Soarin’ nodded. “I’m sure the forensics team would appreciate it.”

The others, knowing that Twi was going to get her nerd on for a good long while, decided to go hang out in Canterlot for a while.

Walking out of the castle, they were greeted with snow.

“That little snow shower yesterday was a fluke, but this is just plain ridiculous,” said Applejack.

“What’s that?” said Pinkie, pointing.

In the castle courtyard was another Christmas tree, like the one they’d seen at the Crystal Empire. From somewhere, music played.

“Hmm hmm hmm, hmm hmm hmm, hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm,” Cordoba hummed along.

“Good thing Twilight is on the case,” said Rarity hurriedly. “She can figure out what it means.”

They all walked quickly for the entertainment district.

Back in Ponyville, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were ambushed by a griffin. To their great fortune, it was the only nice griffin in existence. Unfortunately, she was a total spaz and way too huggy.

“The Cutie Mark Crusaders! I can’t believe it’s really, really you!” she laughed, seizing them all with her forelegs.

“How in the blooming apples did you know who we are?” Apple Bloom asked, slightly winded by the hug.

“Know who you are?” said the griffon. “Why, I’ve heard about you from everypony in Ponyville! I’m so excited to meet you, I could just explode! I’m Gabriella, but you can call me Gabby since we’re friends now! Pleased to meet you!”

Normally, such forthcoming, forced friendship was a hallmark of something sinister and/or mental illness. In this case, Gabby was truly just friendly, almost in the same way as Pinkie Pie, except not a raging lesbian.

“I’m just about the most excited anygriffon has ever been about anything!” said Gabby.

“Excited? But whatever for?” asked Sweetie.

“Everypony in town tells me of your amazing assistance, how you help ponies find their place in the world!” said Gabby. “And that's why I’m here. I need help, too. I want you to give me a cutie mark!”

Speaking of impossible things, in Canterlot, Twilight said, “That’s impossible!”

“I’m sorry, Miss Sparkle, but that’s what the test says,” the forensic tech told her. “The magic used by the intruder to Miss Coloratura’s bedroom matches yours.”

“How could that possibly be?” Twilight said. “I have witnesses that will say I wasn’t there. And I wasn’t, of course.”

“And even if she was, as the Governor of Silent Hill, Twilight Sparkle has special executive privilege,” said Celestia coming in.

“But I wasn’t,” Twilight continued to protest.

“I believe you,” said Celestia. “If nothing else, I can’t think of a motive. But it does raise the question of who wants to - what was it again?”

“They’ve been sneaking into Coloratura’s room at night and doing experimental surgery with electronic implants,” Twilight said.

“That. Who would do that and also leave behind what seems to be your magic signature?” said Celestia.

One name in particular came to Twilight’s mind, but she quickly said, “I don’t know.”

Back in Ponyville, the Crusaders had finally gotten Gabby to take it down a goddamned notch and had a reasonable conversation.

“Why do you even want a cutie mark?” Scootaloo asked.

“I don’t know if you've heard, but griffons can be a little bit unfriendly,” Gabby explained. “Most griffons don’t pay much attention to each other, and if they do, it’s not, y’know, the good kind of attention. As for me, I’m just a little mail delivery griffon who likes to spread a little bit of griffony sunshine on my rounds, which always makes me feel different from the other griffons. It wasn’t until your friends came to Griffonstone that I realized some creatures actually like helping each other, and I saw something so awesomely awesome - how helping spreads from pony to pony and griffon to griffon! I knew then that I had to find out why I was so different from the other griffons, and I knew the answer just had to have something to do with those wonderful, amazing marks on ponies’ flanks. And I admit I became, um, maybe a little obsessed. So first chance I had, I came to find the perfect ponies to help me understand what those marks are. Everypony here told me one thing - I just had to see the Cutie Mark Crusaders! They’ve helped everypony here get their cutie marks, and I knew, I just knew, that someday I’d have one, too! A cutie mark of my very own! That’s why I flew all the way here. I want to find my own place in the world, and I know you can help me by giving me a cutie mark! So let’s make with the cutie!”

So much for taking it down a notch.

The Crusaders glanced at each other. This situation had “one wrong move will result in getting clawed to death” written all over it.

“I’m not sure griffons can even get cutie marks,” said Sweetie. She hastened to add, “But maybe we can still do what we’re best at - helping you find your purpose!”

Gabby took it well. “All right, let’s do this!”

“What are you good at?” Scootaloo asked. “Do you play any sports?

“Or like to dance?” said Apple Bloom.

“Or how about singing?” said Sweetie.

“I kind of want to just try everything! I mean, I don’t even know what to pick!” said Gabby.

Fortunately, the Crusaders had experience in a little bit of everything. The phrase “an inch deep but a mile wide” definitely applied.

In Gabby’s case, however, she was more like the Grand Canyon. She was good at racing, potions, math, sweeping, babysitting, laundry, baseball, cheerleading, farming, composing, (in the case of Granny Smith, decomposing), music, baking, carpentry, sailing, and mental therapy.

That last one saw her counseling Merry May and helping her get her shit together. Honestly, the part Gabby seemed to find most challenging was getting a couch big enough.

The Crusaders met back with her at their clubhouse later, after a full day of being utterly ultra-competent at everything.

“Now how are we going to do this?” asked Apple Bloom.

“Gabby’s special purpose can’t be everything, right?” said Sweetie.

“I don't know how we figure out what she’s supposed to do when she can do it all,” added Scootaloo.

Applejack poked her head into the clubhouse. “Apple Bloom, we’re back from Canterlot.”

“Hey Applejack,” said Apple Bloom. “This is our friend Gabby. We’re trying to help her find her special talent, and she’s trying everything.”

Applejack sized the griffon up. “Have you ever tried security?”

“Nope, but I’ll do anything you need!” Gabby smiled.

“If you’ll come with me, I have a job for you tonight,” said Applejack. Gabby followed her out of the clubhouse.

“Good, that gives us another day to figure out what we can do for Gabby,” said Sweetie.

They all hoped that would be enough.

In town, Twilight was going through books, trying to figure out how one pony’s magical signature could resemble hers. There were ways, but she was trying to determine the most plausible one. There weren’t many.

Columbia came in. “Since this isn’t a free country, do I need a permit or something to have a political rally?”

Remembering that the position of President that Columbia was campaigning for was technically hers for the taking, Twilight stuttered. “I don’t know. Nopony ever has political rallies because we don’t need to.”

“Hmm. Maybe instead I’ll just set up a meet ‘n greet booth,” mused Columbia. “Give out mushroom stamps for a little souvenir.”

“Is that like the little hoovsies stamps that Coloratura used to do?” said Twilight. “But why mushrooms?”

“It’s a euphemism for people willingly letting me smack them in the face with my penis.”

Twilight recoiled. “That doesn’t even make sense! Who would let you do that? And where do mushrooms come in?”

“That’s what they’re shaped like, Twilight.”

“No they aren’t! Not pony ones, anyway!”

Columbia opened her mouth, paused, and then said, “Shut up, Twilight.” She left.

Twilight wasn’t sure if she had won that argument and decided she didn’t want to know.

That evening, eager to try out helping ponies with security, Gabby was on station outside Coloratura’s bedroom. Merry also lent support, orbiting at a distance from the Apple family house.

Merry getting her shit together had taken some effort. Putting it in a backpack, or taking it to the shit store to sell it, or putting it in the shit museum hadn’t worked. Being a robot, it had actually required a hard drive partition. Either way, she was quite glad to be happy again. Who knew all it took was a few words from a random griffon mail carrier?

Merry kept checking the perimeter of the farm. At Applejack’s request, Twilight, Cordoba, Trixie, and Braeburn had come together to set up a magical and scientific protection system for Coloratura’s benefit. It had cages to block both magic and radio waves, in addition to cameras and other monitoring devices. Coloratura wasn’t exactly pleased to be sleeping inside all of that, but reluctantly agreed.

A newly-installed magic detector strapped to Merry’s belly and patched into her systems pinged. She swung around, hunting for the signal. The Apple house? Certainly nobody who lived there was an active magic user. She accelerated.

The signal came again, this time appearing as sparks off the outside of the house. Merry guessed the mysterious visitor had attempted to teleport in and gotten a surprise.

To her surprise, however, the cloaked figure simply teleported to just outside Coloratura’s window and then slipped it open. Merry immediately transmitted, “They’re here!”

Wearing a headset, Gabby heard her warning and threw open the bedroom door. She was already in motion and tackled the bedroom intruder. The two of them fought across the floor. As a griffon, she knew how to avoid an opponent’s slashing claws. Merry had come to a hover just outside, spotlight illuminating the room and cameras recording the fight.

Gabby yanked the intruder’s hood off.

The visitor roared and made a maneuver impossible to normal ponies, sliding out of Gabby’s clutches and bolting for the window. They jumped, their momentum carrying them straight onto Merry’s cockpit windshield.

The two of them hung there for a moment that seemed to stretch out until eternity - and then the uninvited guest teleported away.

Gabby slumped on the bedroom floor. “I…failed. You asked me to help, but I let them get away.”

“You protected me,” Coloratura tried to comfort her. “Nopony’s ever been that close to the intruder before.”

But Gabby shook her head. “The Crusaders said I was good at everything, but I’m not. I…I tried to put on a brave face and do something no griffon had ever done before, but I’m chasing an impossible dream.”

“You helped me too,” Merry tried to reassure her, but Gabby took off the headset.

“I should go home,” said Gabby. “Everygriffon said I was being silly for wanting to be a pony.”

By this time, Applejack and Applebloom had come into the room. Gabby hesitated, but went out the window instead of facing the shame of telling Apple Bloom that she couldn’t pass the muster of being a Cutie Mark Crusader.

Merry wondered what it said about the quality of her therapy if her therapist had a breakdown. But then, Merry had finally gotten her shit together and decided not to think about it.

Despite the late hour, Applejack called a meeting. It was important. They finally knew the identity of the infamous bedroom intruder. The girls came, plus Spike, Trixie, Cordoba, and Cracker. Merry showed them the video. They all recognized the perpetrator.

Cordoba snarled, “Twi-minator.”

Author's Note

This chapter directed by Hipparcos.