Itty Bitty Living Space

Chapter 4: Second Master

"Well, that was totally a bummer..." Scootaloo said, voicing the thoughts of all three fillies.  Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle nodded their agreement.

"I didn't even get a wish!" the orange filly continued.  Of all the bad things that had happened to them, that was still what she was most hung up over.

"Be glad ya didn't!  You saw what the human was doin'!  No matter what ah wished fer, he always tricked me!" Apple Bloom complained.  She was still sore over the whole "bathroom cleaning" cutie mark.

Oh, and the part where he turned Sweetie Belle into a dictionary.  She didn't seem to remember what had happened though.

"I'm still shocked those things even exist, though!  What are we gonna do now?" Scootaloo piped up.  Apple Bloom just shook her head.

"Ah dun't know.  But, ah better keep this thing secret from Applejack, an' hope I never run into that thing ever again.  Mah sis would tan mah hide if she knew what I jus' did..." the yellow filly said.

"It's settled, then.  We'll forget this ever happened and pretend that we never, ever saw the human!" Scootaloo reasoned.  It was the best they could come up with.

"Nice kids.  They almost made me wanna be nice to them.  Almost..." Damien chuckled, after he had been forcibly sucked back into his bottle after the third wish.

The experience wasn't painful, but even after going through it thousands of times he still never got used to it.  It was like riding a roller-coaster without any harnesses, and it always ended with him disoriented.

He was back in his gold plated home once again, and to kick the boredom, he supposed he would already begin cataloging Master #7564 for his Hall of Fame.

"I wonder what's going to happen now.  My bottle's been underground for a good number of years, but those fillies apparently dug it up.  I wonder if this means I'm going to become a lot more active now..." he wondered out loud, taking a sit at his kitchen table.

He had no control over where his bottle would end up, but usually it didn't go far.  Sometimes, it would be in a particularly precarious place, and what happened at that point was that he would wind up being inactive for quite a long period of time.  If he appeared in a bustling center of activity, on the other hand...

He had gone to sleep not long after that.  He didn't need to sleep, of course, but he always found that being cooped up for years at a time in a bottle left only limited things to do.

It wasn't the first time he had been awakened to the sounds of a new master.

"Oh, for fuck's sake, it hasn't even been a day yet!  This has to mean that someone found my bottle already!" he said groggily, lifting up his facemask as his bottle began to rumble.

"I haven't even finished cataloging that filly yet.  I'm going to get behind schedule if I have another master to deal with on top of it all, but I guess I better go see who it is this time..."

It wasn't like he really had much of an option anyway, for as the rumbling got louder and heavier, Damien was once again pulled from his home to meet with his new master.

It was midday in Ponyville, and the sometimes not-so quiet little town was bustling with its usual activity.  Applejack was selling her fresh apples at the corner of the market.  The smell of baked goods wafted out of the gingerbread walls of Sugarcube Corner.  The residents of Ponyville even saw the unicorn librarian running to and fro, but they never knew what was going on with that girl.  Probably just some disaster or whatnot that had her paranoid.

Unbeknownst to any of the townsfolk, there was a burst of magic in the air above Sugarcube Corner, and before anypony knew an ornate bottle had materialized in mid-air, before gravity won out and it plummeted into the bushes outside the bakery.

The bottle likely went unnoticed because the townponies' attention was drawn to a rainbow blur that was currently zipping through the Ponyville skyline.

Rainbow Dash was in a particularly show-offy mood that afternoon, and she had pulled out her best tricks to practice above for the earthbound ponies below.  With a dazzling display of acrobatics, she spun around in mid-air, drawing a bunch of oohs and aahs as she turned.

Unfortunately for her, she misjudged just how low she was actually flying.  For par with the Rainbow Dash flying course, she invariably slammed into an obstacle, this time it being the very top part of Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie's residence to be exact.

With her mind scrambled, she plummeted down below into the bushes that the strange lamp had landed into just a few moments before.

"Gah!  Who put that building there?!" Dash asked nobody, seeing as the other ponies just shrugged off the event as a regular occurrence.  What was not regular was the bottle that Rainbow had accidentally sat on during her way down.

"Owowowow!  What am I sitting on?" she asked herself, pulling her flank up and depositing the bottle in her hooves.  Her face brightened by the apparent value of the bauble.

"Hey!  Neat fancy bottle!  Wonder what it's doing here!?"

Rainbow Dash lifted the ornate bottle to her face, shaking it lightly.  There didn't seem to be anything in it, but she figured that Rarity or someone might like something like this.  It was shiny and looked valuable.

"But there's a bunch of dirt on it..." she said to herself.  Taking flight once again with the bottle in her hooves, she soared out of the bush and came to rest upon a small cloud above the Ponyville market.

Brushing some of the dirt off the metal bottle, she took a closer, tinkering with the narrow neck of the bottle.  A light mist rose from the bottle, making Dash yelp and almost dropping it.

"What the hay?!" she said outloud, as the mist thickened and began to take on a new form.  It was a form that she had never seen before; she didn't know how to describe it.

"Well, that was quick!  I guess I'm going to see a lot more action from this point on.  What a fucking joy!" the spirit known as Damien said as he reformed outside the bottle, standing in front of the startled Dash.

He promptly received a hoof to the face, which phased right through him.

"What in the hay are you?!" Rainbow Dash said brashly.  Damien was checking out one of the rings on his fingers as she addressed him, pretending not to notice her existence.

Finally, he looked at up, and saw the prismatic mane, the overconfident expression, and the general daredevil vibe he was getting from this one.

"Oh, great!  I knew this was gonna happen!  Loser, egotistical pegasi always seem to end up on my wish list..." he said, as his shoulders slump.

"Huh?  Who do you think you're messin' with, pal!?  I'm Rainbow Dash, fastest flyer in all of Equestria!" she yelled at the human, her hackles raised as she pointed her hooves at him in a fighting stance.

"Oh, just shut the fuck up for a second!  Just get used to me calling you names for the time being, because unfortunately, I have to do whatever you say..."

Rainbow Dash stopped.

"Allow me to introduce myself.  I am Damien, great and powerful human of the bottle.  Since you have released me from my bottle, you are my master, and I hereby grant you three wishes of whatever you desire..." he said.  He got tired of that shtick, but it always helped to add a little pizazz to his dialogue with a new master.

"Five bucks she doesn't question it..."

"That.... is.... so.... AWESOME!" Rainbow Dash squealed, her previous anger completely forgotten, and her eyes were now completely alight.

"Yep, I don't think I like this one...

"So, you grant wishes?!  I can wish for anything!  Bits, power, fame, ANYTHING?  Even..." a devious smirk lit up on her face.  "Even more wishes?" she said slyly.

"Oh, great.  Here it goes again..."

"Yes, yes, yes, and no.  Sorry, but that "more wishes" thing is a no-no." Damien told her.

"Oh..." her face went downcast.

"God, that was easy..."

That bluff of his always seemed to work.  These ponies were generally pretty trusting; it generally didn't occur to them that an ancient wish-granting spirit might be lying.

"But, hey!  You've got three full wishes!  You might as well use them to make your life better!"

"Y'know what, you're right!  Okay then big fella, get ready for the wish of the century, cuz I'm about to wish to live the dream right here and now!" Dash announced, getting up off her cloud perch.

"I wish I was a member of the Wonderbolts!"

Damien smiled, and snapped his fingers.

Rainbow Dash awoke with a front, in a place she had never seen before.

"Huh?  What happened?" she said, as memories of the human and his three wishes came back to her.  Excitedly, she looked around her surroundings.  She was in a white-washed building, and she knew she wasn't in Ponyville anymore.  She had been deposited on a bed, and she squealed when she saw the signature logo of the Wonderbolts all over the covers.  A certificate hung on the wall, signifying an entrance into the greatest flying team to have ever lived.

Barely able to contain herself, she opened a door on the far end of the room, and squealed as she saw the dozen or so Wonderbolt uniforms hanging up.

"Yes!!  YesYesYesYESYESYESYESYES!" she whooped.

Before she celebrate her joy, there was a knock on the door, and she grinned even wider when she saw Spitfire, Captain of the Wonderbolts, in all her uniformed glory.

"There you are, Rainbow Dash!  We need you!" the orange pegasus said.

"Oh my gosh!  This is the moment I've been waiting for!" she closed her eyes, expecting the moment when Spitfire asked her to go flying with them.

"It seems you're done in my room, so report to the Mess Hall immediately.  There's a big mess that you need to clean up!" Spitfire told her, and Rainbow Dash's mouth dropped open as the Captain left the room.

She was confused.  Why would a member of the Wonderbolts be called to clean up messes?  It didn't make any sense.  Before her mind could process what happened, there was a rustling from over to the side.

A very familiar bottle was resting upon Spitfire's nightstand.

Rainbow Dash grabbed it, and Damien rose out of the bottle immediately, fixing Rainbow Dash with a grin.

"What's going on?  You told me that you could grant any wish!  I'm supposed to be a member of the Wonderbolts!  Why am I at their headquarters being asked to clean up their messes?!" she yelled, glaring at the genie.

"Hey, you weren't being specific enough!  Being a member of the Wonderbolts entails many different things, from being one of the elite fliers, or in your case, being the Head Janitor of their facility!" Damien said, as Rainbow Dash's mouth dropped open.

"I didn't think I needed to be that specific!  You did this on purpose, and now I'm stuck here being a janitor!" Rainbow Dash cried indignantly.

"Well, you have two wishes left, so maybe you can make up for this right now.  There's no rule that says you can't move up in the Wonderbolts rank.."

"So maybe, I should look at this differently.  I have the eye of the Wonderbolts, so if I can impress them with my flying, they would invite me in as one of them!  But..." she pondered for a moment, before her eyes snapped open.

"I wish I was the fastest flyer in Equestria!" she blurted out.

"Didn't she say she was the fastest flyer earlier?  Oh well, her funeral..."

Damien snapped his fingers, and the smiling Rainbow Dash disappeared.  Damien watched on as a piece of yellowed paper appeared in mid-air, slowing floating towards the ground.

"Hey!  What's the big idea?!" Rainbow Dash's voice called out.  Somehow, it was coming from inside the sheet of parchment.  Smirking, Damien lifted it up to his face, reading the information on it before turning his attention to the big picture of Rainbow Dash on the entire top half, which was somehow moving"

"You weren't specific enough again, but I granted your wish.  Congratulations, you are now the fastest "flier" in all of Equestria.  Considering fliers don't move, your by default the fastest!" Damien said, laughing obnoxiously.

Once again, Rainbow Dash was at a loss.

"You stupid human!  I didn't wish for this!  I'm a sheet of paper, for Celestia's sake!  I said I wanted to be the fastest flyer, not flier.  Change me back, or I'll-"

"You'll what, exactly?  Make your third wish, maybe?  If there's anything I hate, it's loser pegasi like you who think they're all-that.  Selfish ponies to the core, and you didn't disappoint.  But while you're at it, make your third wish something big and grandiose, try to outwit me, and watch your life get screwed up one last time!  Or you could be smart and wish yourself out of this mess..." he said, all humor gone from his expression.

Rainbow Dash's picture seemed to deflate a little, but she didn't lose all her fire.

"Just you wait!  I'm gonna tell my friends about you, and you're gonna regret tricking me.  I wish everything was back to normal, and I was back in Ponyville!" Dash proclaimed, prompting Damien to snap his fingers.

The flier disappeared, and with it, the three wishes were up.  True to the rules of Damien's bottle, he was once again sucked back within the depths of the lamp.