Almost Nothing Can Stop The Smooze!
The ground obsidian basin was about the size of a foal’s bathtub and exactly half filled with an opaque purple substance. Its mirror-like surface had been completely still for quite some time, yet neither dust nor oil interrupted its uniformity.
Sinewy red hands grasped the black pedestal. A soft grunt echoed through the cavern as it fell, ancient glass shattering into smaller and smaller pieces as it tumbled down a crude stone staircase.
The purple disc rolled the whole way down, striking a muffled and short-lived tone whenever it touched ground. It retained perfectly the shape of its container, and wobbled on its rounded side when it could roll no longer.
“You are free,” hissed the emaciated figure as it descended the last glass-littered step.
That was all it needed. The rigid disc lost all integrity, instantly becoming a shallow puddle on the cold, uneven ground. It slithered along at an alarming rate, flowing uphill towards the distant light at the end of the narrow bridge.
It knew only two directives: consume all non-living things and make the living things miserable. But it was small now, only a billionth of the original batch (if even that). Only a strand of hair! A flake of skin! A nail clipping!
Two black eyes formed in the gelatinous purple mass as it emerged from its subterranean prison. A white palace shimmered on the side of a distant mountain, and the sun seemed to be rise from among its many ivory spires.
A palace was kind of like a castle.
Ponies lived it castles.
Ponies were alive.
It could make ponies miserable.
The puddle set out with newfound eagerness, singing a gleeful, wordless tune with its broad, transient mouth.
Princess Luna entered the kitchen with her head barely held above the spotless marble floor.
What a night! Two owl bears, one pack of timberwolves and fifty kids having nightmares about zombies! The Trotting Dead should be illegal!
A whole black forest cake floated out of the refrigerator and followed the alicorn to her ornate black table. The princess picked up a kettle, a coffee filter, a sauceboat and her bug all without lifting her head; the table was set in the blink of an eye.
Princess Luna was about to retrieve her usual dark roast coffee when the small silver tin caught her eye. Micro-roasted coffee, one week off the tree. A present from the zebra ambassador, attached to a wager that even an alicorn could not finish a full mug of that strong brew.
I could use some extra bits today…
The kettle dropped into the sink. Luna was already wrestling with the wax-sealed tin, and so did not notice the viscous purple blobs that occasionally interrupted the flow out of her faucet.
It reabsorbed its eyes in preparation for the final squeeze. The water was interrupting its form, so that it could not get through all at once. That didn’t matter. It could sense the pony on the other side; a very powerful one. In its giddiness the gelatinous mass broke into even smaller pieces, each one with a mouth that gurgled its repetitive song until it plopped down into a flat-bottomed basin.
Luna replaced the kettle lid, lit the stove and set the coffee filter over her mug, all while prying at the airtight lid of the coffee can with a butter knife clenched between her teeth.
Did you really think a seal can stop me? I am getting those twenty bits, and I am getting them TODAY!
Tiberius gnawed on the side of the lid opposite to her tool, his pointy opossum teeth leaving dozens of tiny dents in the metal without breaking through.
“Cease this nonsense at once, Tibby! Thou art slobbering on my coffee!”
With a loud pop the lid took off, spinning like a tossed coin and disappearing behind her icebox. The air was suddenly saturated with the rich scent of roasted coffee beans; just breathing in made Luna feel a little better.
The basin was getting uncomfortably hot. It circled in the water like an eel, avoiding all contact with the metal walls.
The kettle whistled just as Luna placed a heaping spoonful of shiny brown ground in the filter. Her heart raced at the thought of the hot, delicious and (most importantly) heavily-caffeinated drink she was about to consume.
Maybe I’ll make an eclipse just to freak out Tia! I haven’t done that in ages!
Luna happily closed her eyes as she poured out the contents of the kettle, listening to the crackling of the best coffee in all of Equestria.
The burst of caffeine caught it off guard. The pony was trying to fight it! She was trying to make herself feel better!
It would have laughed. Ponies had tried all kinds of things to fight its powers: hugs; colourful cards; parties; sugar; caffeine. Nothing ever worked.
If making ponies didn’t feel so good, it would have felt sorry for its latest victim.
Luna filled three quarters of her cup with water before emptying half a box of sugar cubes. Surely the coffee couldn’t be that strong. Besides, her blood sugar was low after running around for most of the night.
She topped off with fresh cream and carried her mug back to the table where her cake was waiting.
It began to feel uncomfortable as the water level dropped steadily. Maybe its plan wasn’t so great. Usually it needed only touch its victims to initiate the change; what exactly would happen if it entered a living thing? It was already feeling unwell from absorbing the mountain of sugar and caffeine and fat; its victim was utterly unprepared for the attack, but could it take in any more stimulants if the pony tried to flush it out that way?
The blob brooded on this idea at the bottom of the mug, and did not notice that all the warm coffee was gone.
Gravity was abruptly reversed; it clung onto the porcelain walls with all its strength.
And then she began shaking her mug.
“Come on! Get out of there!”
Luna found the brew rather underwhelming. Slightly bitter and watery throughout, it seemed to be more for her nose than anything.
The brownish sludge at the bottom of her mug piqued her interest. It looked like chocolate syrup, and she was willing to bet half of her winnings that it contained the concentrated goodness of her exotic brew.
It peeled off the mug after some vigorous shaking.
And it tasted like nothing.
She rested her chin on the table with a dejected sigh. Twenty bits was hers, but the zebra’s deception left her sour.
Sour and sleepy.
She nibbled on the remaining half of her cake listlessly, watching her opossum play with two of the strawberries. She didn’t find it all that amusing.
This pony was not like the others. It did everything it could to alter her mood; she should not be able to move!
But she was moving, filling her stomach with enough sugar and chocolate and fat to feed an army. It took in everything; to do anything else was to admit defeat.
And there was nothing in all of Equestria that could defeat the Smooze!
Luna was growing increasingly agitated as she struggled to stay awake.
I am the Princess of the Night! I am more than a thousand years old! I am an immortal alicorn! And I will not be lied to by a zebra! I shall banish her to the sun for what she’s done to me today!
She looked over at the open tin on the counter. Even now it teased her with its heady aroma, like the carrot on a stick that donkeys used to motivate themselves on a long journey.
But the co-ruler of Equestria was no donkey.
YOU WILL SATISFY ME!
It felt sick. Its mantle had broken into thousands of little spheres, each one saturated with chemical happiness. But the pony was getting weaker. Its victory was within reach. Very soon, the pony would be hopelessly miserable. It could feed on her endless despondency, and then its present suffering would seem like nothing at all.
The floodgates opened, buffeting its remnants with wave after wave of steaming coffee.
With her alicorn magic Luna kept her one-mare assembly line running like a well-oiled machine. The kettle barely made a peep before it jumped off the burner, emptying over a large paper cup (she didn’t have enough mugs to keep up). Boxes of sugar moved along an invisible conveyor belt, and it mattered little to her that half of it did not make it into her drink.
The princess was starting to despair. The second cup had tasted amazing, but she felt none of the pleasant effect. The third and fourth cups went by just as the second, and she ran out of the good stuff after the twentieth.
She flung the seventieth cup into the growing mountain of mixed containers.
Halfway through the eighty-seventh, her eyes widened.
Princess Celestia heard her sister’s laughter all the way from her study. Her heart leapt into her throat as her mind was suddenly flooded with memories of that fateful day one thousand years ago.
The sun disappeared.
And then reappeared.
The rapid strobing made her dizzy. Outside her window the moon sailed across the sky like a hockey puck, rising and setting many times a second. It even changed directions.
She took off from her balcony, reaching out with her magic to navigate a world that came to her in still frames.
The big window shattered, announcing Princess Celestia’s arrival in her sister’s private kitchen. She inhaled deeply, preparing to speak, but her breath caught in her throat.
Standing atop a pedestal of coffee cups, her dark wings locked open, Princess Luna stared at her big sister with a wild smile on her face. Her bloodshot eyes were practically bugging out of her head, and her long, unkempt mane dangled down past her feet. She took deep, shuddering breaths; Celestia though she could see her heart jackhammering through her ribs.
“Tiathisisamazing!” The smaller alicorn hollered, flapping her wings for emphasis.
Princess Celestia advanced a few steps, ignoring the sticky cups that stood in her way.
“I feel like I can do anything!”
She was stuck up to her shoulders in coffee cups now.
“I’ll bet I could fly!”
Unable to push forwards any further, Princess Celestia stood shoulder-deep in debris and frowned up at her sister (who had blinked not even once since her arrival).
“I’m switching you to decaf.”
