"TERRANCE PHILLIP SPARKLE!" Twilight shouted from the front hall of her crystal tree castle, with the volume itself nearly enough to shake the tree-castle on the same level that Aunty-Luna's Royal Canterlot Voice would.
The person in question, a human of fairly slim build with mousy-brown hair that he kept in short spikes with a single dyed bang of green hanging in front of his right eye, walked into the main hall with a grimace on his face. "Yes... mom..." He groaned as if saying the second word hurt his throat to utter.
The violet alicorn stood in front of him with her arms crossed in front of her chest and had a deep frown on her muzzle as she narrowed her eyes. "Care to explain... this?" She asked with slight impatience as she held out a sheet of paper to the human teen. It had a large, red 'B+' in a similar red circle at the top of the page.
Terrance simply shrugged. "What's there to explain? It was just a history test..."
"Just... a history test?" The violet mare parroted with an angry twitch of her left eye. "Just A HISTORY TEST!?" She said once more as her wings flared out in frustration. "This isn't just a test Terrance! This test was worth one third of your final grade in history this year!" Twilight growled as she clenched the paper in her fist. "How are you supposed to take care of yourself when you're out on your own if you don't get good grades in school?"
"An eighty-nine percent is a good grade Twilight! Not everyone can be a perfectionist like you!" The teen shouted in reply. Over the past year his tensions had been rising. He had gone from one of the most respected people on Earth, even if it was a secret, to a mere student meagerly making his way through the Equestrian education system. He knew that his adopted mother was frustrated at the lack of progress he had made in a few particular subjects, science to him had nothing to do with magic while Equestria merged science and magic like they were the same thing, but there was just an entire lifetime of earth knowledge that he had to un-learn in order to not have his brain explode when he tried to figure out how Equestrian magic worked.
It didn't quite help that he couldn't cast magic himself, even Twilight had found no strains of magical energy in him to use as focusing points for spells. They tried for months, scanning his body with every device that Equestria had available and none of them had been able to find or transplant magical leylines into him.
He shouldn't have trusted that Bureaumancer...
It wasn't something he could change now though. As it was he had to deal with an angry OCD alicorn with a penchant of freaking out if anything was less than perfect. He let out a sigh. "Maybe I don't want to kill myself studying for days on end without food or sleep like you prefer to do. Did you ever think of that? History is one of the most boring subjects there is, Bronze Shield talks in a boring monotone and half the lights in the classroom are always off so more than half the class ends up asleep before the end of the lecture! Lectures suck! They don't do anything but put people to sleep!"
"That still doesn't excuse you giving any less than your best on the test Terrance!"
"What if an eighty-nine is my best? What if all those study sessions you force me into only make it harder for me to remember any of the facts when it comes to test time?!" He let out a growl and began to make his way upstairs, stopping only when an amethyst aura surrounded him.
"Where do you think you're going, mister?" Twilight scolded as she began to have him following her in her magical grasp. "You may not have flunked the test but you certainly didn't pass. So, your punishment will be to help me at Rarity's house."
Terrance's eyes shrunk a bit as the two of them passed the doors of the castle, he frantically reached out to get a grip on the open door but missed and accidentally grabbed one of the guards in purple armor that were typically standing as still as a statue. "Oh... Hey Sentry? Sorry about that..." Terrance apologized when he noticed which guard he grabbed.
The pegasus shrugged a little. "It's fine... you mind letting go? The boss is going to shout at me again if I leave my post for too long."
"Absolutely not, if I have to deal with the snooty white alicorn then you will have to as well."
"Let him go Terrance, the punishment is for you alone." With a glare that the teen directed at his adopted mother he reluctantly let the guard go. Twilight let out a silent sigh of relief as sweat began to build on her forehead.
"I don't get why you keep picking me up like this... you know it takes a lot of magic for you to do..."
"Because, if I didn't you'd try to worm your way out of your punishment." Twilight replied without looking back. "You're going to Rarity's anyway because you need a new set of clothes... I don't know what you're doing that has you come home with your clothes all ripped like that but it's not a fashion statement Terrance, Rarity would have a heart attack if she saw what happened to your clothes." She shot him a small glare. "And don't tell me it's because you get into fights, your teachers have never contacted me once about you getting into a fight in school."
Terrance simply decided to remain silent during the remainder of the trip and accept the fate that the powerful violet alicorn had planned for him... didn't mean he was going to go easy on the white mare though... His mouth curled from a frown into a nearly-sinister smirk as he floated along behind Twilight.
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Twilight let out a sigh before she began to drink the tea that Rarity had offered her. "Thanks Rarity... I don't actually know how much longer I would've been able to hold him."
A white-furred alicorn with an excellently-kept royal purple mane waved her hand with a smile. "It's not a problem dear, I'm more than happy to help, after all, you've given me the perfect manikin for making outfits for stallions." She giggled before she looked over at the human teen that was locked into place by an ice-blue aura. "Oh don't look so upset Terrance, you know that I could be having you do much more demanding things than being a model."
"You're not the one with an itch on your butt that you can't scratch." The human replied with a frown.
Rarity sighed as she ruffled her wings a little. "always so crass... while I do believe that this is rather tame for dear Twilight's punishments... you're certainly not doing yourself any favors." Everyone turned towards the door when it began to open though, signaled by the bell still hung over the door. "Oh! Sweetie Belle! Spike! How was your date?"
A curvaceous white unicorn mare with curly pastel purple and pink hair leaned up against the amethyst-colored dragon she had walked into the store with. "It was good Rarity, Spike took me to the movies and then to that restaurant that just opened up in town." Sweetie cooed while she nuzzled the dragon's neck, causing him to blush.
"I wanted to try the place myself Sweetie, it was a great opportunity to try something new." The purple dragon replied with a small smile as he nuzzled the petite unicorn back. He looked back up to Rarity and raised a brow. "Why's Terrance on your modeling stand?"
Twilight cleared her throat, drawing everyone's attention. "That would be because he slacked off on his history test and got a 'B-plus' on his history test instead of the 'A' I know he could get."
"Wow... harsh..." Spike replied with a pitying look at the frozen human. "Don't worry bro, maybe next time you'll get a better grade and you'll finally get rewarded... maybe you'll even be lucky enough to get homeschooled like I was."
Sweetie gave him a confused look. "You were homeschooled?"
Spike nodded. "Yep, I mean... did you ever see me in Cheerilee's class? I was practically living with the equivalent of a college staff in one pony." He looked over to Twilight and noticed the small blush that the violet alicorn was wearing. "Don't lie Twilight, You're probably going to be the pony making all of the future scientific breakthroughs."
Terrance let out a groan. "Spike! Bro! Could you do me a solid!?" He pleaded, getting a confused look from the dragon.
"Depends on the solid..."
"Rarity has had me frozen in place for the past hour and my butt has been itching for the past twenty minutes!"
"If you wouldn't try to run then I wouldn't have to keep you in place dear, I do need a fairly stable model after all."
"I promise not to run if you let me use the bathroom!"
Rarity smirked at him and raised a brow confidently. "Pinkie promise?"
Terrance bit his lip, he didn't want to make a promise like that, the last time he had made a Pinkie promise without realizing it he had completely forgotten what the promise was for and then spent the next week hiding from the crazy party alicorn and her cannon full of cakes and confetti. As much as he wanted to, the aura keeping him frozen wouldn't let him shudder. He took a deep breath. "Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye..."
With that little recitation Rarity dropped the spell with a smile. "You know where it is darling." she giggled as she watched him take off up the stairs. She let out a sigh as she turned to Twilight though. "Really Twilight?"
"What?" The violet alicorn asked in confusion.
"You consider coming to me punishment?"
"I don't, he does... I really don't know why he acts so weird about getting new outfits though."
Rarity crossed her arms over her chest. "Still, that's so..."
"Uncouth?" Sweetie suggested with a shrug.
"Yes Sweetie... Anyway I do have some important work for a client that I absolutely have to finish, Twilight... perhaps you should take Terrance out on the town for once... He does have a point about not all ponies being as studious as you are dear. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen Rainbow Dash today."
Twilight gave a small shrug. "She's head of the ponyville weather department, you know that being this close to the Everfree throws off the weather schedule."
"Yeah, I know... Doesn't make the weather any less dreadful when it rains." Rarity sighed as she looked out the window at the approaching thundercloud. "I don't know if the larger weather nowadays is solely from Rainbow Dash or because of all six of us."
"Oh come on Rarity... We're Alicorns, not sources of weather..." Twilight replied with a roll of her eyes as she got up to stand next to her friend. "The weather is just because the Everfree is being a bit more chaotic since Discord is with Fluttershy."
"I don't know... it just seems to have gotten... bigger... I don't quite know how to explain it-... huh?" The two alicorns, unicorn mare and dragon all turned towards the stairs as the moans of pleasure the sole bathroom's occupant began to grow louder. Spike looked down at his feet as his muzzle began to burn, Sweetie took a couple of awkward steps away from the dragon and both of the alicorns flattened their ears against their heads.
"I uh... Does your younger brother have a girlfriend...?" Sweetie asked Spike as the moans died down.
"No... I... I think he's repressed..."
"Twilight dear... I think it would be best to get him enrolled in a sex ed class..."
Twilight blinked a few times. "I-what!?"
"Sex ed dear, from the sounds of it I don't think he gets out much... Come to think about it he did look a bit pale... Anyway, it would be best to have him educated by a professional so that when he finally does find a mare to start his herd with he doesn't accidentally hurt her."
"Rarity!? Do you really have to talk about that while Spike and I are in the room!?" Sweetie shrieked with a deep crimson blush before she bolted to her room. Spike let out a groan and followed in close pursuit.
Rarity let out a sigh. "I'm going to have to get a new bathroom..."
"Oh that was good... Don't worry Rarity, I made sure to sanitize everything I used, I know how much of a germophobe you are." Terrance explained as he made his way over to the modeling stand. "Even got under my fingernails like Twilight yells at me about."
"Hey!"
"See! Case in point." Terrance smirked.
Twilight gave him a glare. "It's because I'm technically responsible for you until you're an adult so you're going to be clean and healthy!"
"I tried to warn you that the sleazeball in charge of Honorhall was going to try and pawn me off on you but what did you do? You blindly signed all the damn papers!"
"None of them showed up on a Bureaumancy scan."
"You don't have to know bureaumancy to make a crap agreement look good on the surface."
Rarity stepped between the two of them. "Okay... I think that's enough... Twilight dear, please... for your own sake, do take my advice and for goodness sakes don't get a private tutor on the subject. My cousin tried to get his son a private tutor and it turned out VERY badly." She turned to Terrance. "Terrance, sweetie... please... ease up on your mother, Everything's getting more stressful by the day. She needs to keep her mane from fraying for eternity if you catch my meaning."
The teen sighed a little as he backed up. "Yeah... You're right... I'm sorry Twilight, I've just been getting irritable with those week-long sleepless study sessions."
Rarity gave an inquisitive glare to Twilight before she sighed. "Twilight, He's a growing colt-... boy... He needs his rest almost as much as Spike did when he was a hatchling. You may have a photographic memory but that's not the norm, it's the exception." Twilight at least had the sense to look a bit embarrassed. "Studying without sleep is like casting magic while you're at your limit dear, you can't expect to be able to pull off a passable result when you've given out every bit of magic in your reserves."
"Now... both of you... Go out into town and do some mother/son bonding, it'll be good for the two of you to get some fresh air away from that drafty castle."
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Terrance gave an impressed sniff as he and Twilight approached Sugarcube Corner. "It looks like they took my advice to update the design a bit..." He commented about the building now being made mostly out of colored clay and stone instead of wood. "At least now Pinkie won't have an assistant burn the place down again."
Twilight shot the teen a small glare. "It wasn't that bad..."
"Twilight... The guy burnt a pot of water... and I don't mean evaporated, I mean literally set the water on fire!"
The violet alicorn rolled her eyes again as she opened the door to the building. Within seconds she was rushed by a blur of pink that knocked her back onto the street. "HEY TWILIGHT!" Pinkie squealed happily as she hugged her gasping friend. "My Pinkie sense is going CRAZY about a new superhero in town... and it's not one of those small heroes either... it's like... a really, REALLY big one! and you know what that means right!?"
"Uh... no Pinkie... I don't know what that means..." Twilight replied cautiously as she gingerly peeled the excited pink alicorn away. Terrance had a small amount of shock on his face that he quickly hid by acting like he had a far greater interest in the sweet shoppe behind the pair of harmony alicorns.
"Twilight..." Pinkie groaned with a slight pout as she bounced on her hooves. "A really strong hero means there's gonna be a bad guy with the power to match! We gotta find the hero so that ponyville isn't defenseless!" She let out a small squee as she stopped in midair. "I could even throw the new hero a party! Heroes love parties!" Her horn lit up with a hot pink aura before she simply vanished from sight.
"I don't know why you bothered trying to teach her magic... she got the hang of it quicker than any natural-born unicorn did." Terrance replied.
"I don't know either..." Twilight groaned as she dusted herself off. "She laughed off the laws of magical theory as if they didn't govern everything related to magic..." She let out another sigh. "I need some coffee..."
Terrance made a face. "Ugh... I don't understand how you could like that stuff... it tastes so nasty."
"I don't drink it for the flavor if I don't add anything to it... when you drink it straight black it's mainly because it wakes you right up."
"Whatever..." Terrance replied before he opened the door once again to the sweet shoppe and made his way inside... only to get bowled over as a colt and filly tackle-hugged him and knocked the wind out of him. "Good... to see you... too guys..." he wheezed out as the cream-colored colt and butter-colored filly giggled in their hug.
The butter-colored unicorn filly with the orange mane smiled up at him. "Do you have any more cool stories to tell about the Emerald Star Terry!?"
"Yeah!" The cream colored colt added as his chocolate-brown mane bounced a little when he looked up. "You gotta know more about him!"
Terrance chuckled as he slowly pushed himself up from the ground, he peeled the two school-age foals away with a laugh. "Come on guys... give me a bit of space, if you let me get a root beer float I'll tell you about the time that The Emerald Star saved Silver City from the evil mastermind Confundo!" The twins eagerly bounced around their human friend once he finally got up and made his way to the counter. Twilight already had her cup of bitter, black liquid and had a notepad and pen already hovering in her magical grasp as she took a few sips. Terrance rolled his eyes a little before he took his seat and waited for the root beer float order.
With a smile he turned to the twins who had sat across from him and were now staring with eager eyes. He gave a small chuckle. "Okay... It happened during my Freshman year of high school... about two years ago now that I think about it... the day itself started off normally enough in Silver City, the morning had been bright and sunny with only about a small chance of it raining by mid day..."
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After about an hour of storytelling Terrance had begun talking animatedly as he seemed to mostly-ignore the half-melted root beer float on the table next to him. Several patrons had stayed to order extra foods off of the store's menu as they listened to the human teen regale them with tales of his favorite super hero. "... And when he was down to one knee, his vision blurred because Confundo threw off his equilibrium. Let me tell you, it's not fun to have that thrown off... I was part of the crowd and it made me feel like I was going to lose my lunch even a week afterward." He grimaced a little as he thought back to the fight before he shook his head. "Anyway, he was down to one knee and Confundo had him right where he wanted him, his henchmen surrounded The Emerald Star and he drew a handgun from the holster on his hip."
Twilight gave him a slightly shocked look but Pumpkin Cake got to her question first. "Terry... what's a gun?"
The human smiled a little as he pulled out a flat metal object. "It's gonna take me a minute to pull up the picture of what he was using... but do you guys know what a crossbow is?" There was a general murmur of agreement among the gathered ponies as Twilight narrowed her gaze a little, the notepad in her magical aura seemed almost like it was smoking with how fast she was putting notes down. "Great, a gun is a lot like a crossbow, except it fires a projectile smaller than the head of a crossbow bolt at a really fast speed." He put his phone down on the table to give everyone a view of a Beretta M92F model handgun. "That one... The ninety-two-F... fires a nine millimeter sized bullet out of the barrel at over three hundred and eighty meters per second. I think the final conversion comes out to firing that little bit of metal at about a mile per second."
A few ponies winced away in fear as they eyed the image on the phone before Terrance picked up the phone and stowed it away. "I've used a few of the high powered rifles before for target practice, when you're shooting a target that's shaped like a dartboard it's actually a pretty good way to let off some stress... Anywho, back to the story..." Terrance quickly got back into his ministrations. "So there he was, had this gun pointed at the Emerald Star and everything, he pulled the trigger and what do you think happened?" Terrance asked the crowd with a smile. Most of them gave confused shrugs and the Cake Twins smiled eagerly for the answer. "The bullet hit him in the chest and squished into a disk against him, then it dropped to the ground like Confundo had shot a reinforced steel door!" He laughed, getting a few of the other ponies to smile. "And what's Confudo's henchmen do? One of them looks to the guy next to him with a smirk and says..." Terrance cleared his throat and adopted a thick boston accent. "Ay... I tol' ya dat 'e was bullet-proof, pay up."
"Wow, that sounds a lot like Applebloom's cousin Babs! Was he from Manehattan?" Pound Cake asked.
"No, he was from Silver City I think... you never know, some villains had to outsource their help from cheaper cities because heroes were really good at putting bad guys behind bars." Terrance replied. "But yeah, the other guy fished out his wallet and gave the first guy twenty bucks. I don't know whether they had a union going but a bet on a hero being bulletproof being worth twenty bucks mean they must have had a decent wage as henchmen."
"They were getting paid to be the bad guys?" One of the stallions in the crowd asked.
"Of course..." Terrance replied. "As good as some of the mastermind bad guys were, it's really hard to try and take over the world if you don't have a legion of terror. They go mad with power because it's boring to go mad without power, to quote The Indominable Slime... 'have you ever tried going mad without power? It's boring... nobody listens to you'... and honestly, I can understand the mindset." He smirked at Twilight. "Take the Princesses for example, they could say that proper was wearing a fish on your head like a hat and I know that dear mother over here would be the first to pick a fish."
"That is NOT true Terrance!"
"Oh please, you practically worship the ground that Aunty Celestia walks on... if she told you she wanted you to do something you wouldn't hesitate to overreact and do it." The teen replied with a roll of his eyes.
"Hey Terry... why do you always wear those metal things?" Pumpkin asked as she pointed at the metal bracers on Terrance's wrists, causing the human to smile.
"Because they were really top-grade props that I bought from a convention and they're surprisingly comfortable. They're replicas of The Emerald Star's bracers and greaves... I'm one of his greatest fans I guess." Terrance rustled the filly's hair with a chuckle. "Well, it looks like we have to cut storytime here, I'll try to be back later in the week though." At that he got a group 'aww' from the gathered crowd. "Don't worry guys... I'll keep telling you guys about The Emerald Star later."
"Okay..." Pumpkin pouted before she brightened up a little. "Oh yeah! Mama wanted to go to the Crystal Treebrary later so you could tell Pumpkin and me about the Emerald Star!"
Terrance brightened a bit. "I'd be happy to, Pumpkin."
As the crowd faded away Twilight poked the human in the side, getting his attention as she gave him a small smile. "If nothing else you could be a good foalsitter..."
"Yeah... Ditsy and her husband asked me if I'd be willing to watch Dinky for them on Saturday... I told them I'd have to run it by you."
"Doctor and Ditsy want you to watch Dinky? How come you didn't bring that up earlier?" Twilight asked in confusion as the two of them got up from the table.
"Because the first thing you did this morning was yell at me for getting a passing grade on my test." Terrance replied without missing a beat. "I'd be happy to babysit for them, but I still have to have your 'ok'..." He explained.
Twilight pulled him into a gentle hug, causing him to blush as his cheek pressed against her chest. "Yes... you can babysit for Ditsy and Doctor Hooves on Saturday."
"C-cup... soft, balconette bra... all in all, very nice 'mom'..." Terrance thought as he tried to pull out of the violet Alicorn's grasp. "Okay... I'll be sure to let them know... can you let go?"
"Why should I? If I let you go you'll probably run off..."
"I-..." He was cut off though as the room seemed to shift and pitch. "...Oh no..." Terrance mentally groaned before the two of them, and most of the store's patrons collapsed to the ground in order to try and keep from getting sick.
A human in vibrant purple and black styled like a stage magician strode into the shop, his similarly-colored cape flowed behind him as well as two burly men with guns that Terrance immediately recognized as MP5k's. "Good afternoon ponyfolk!" The magician-dressed man said with a somewhat jolly tone. "Today I shall be robbing this establishment of any and all pastries as well as any money that you wonderful citizens have on hand. Anyone who does not comply will be persuaded by my public relations employees..." He jabbed a thumb towards the two burly, gun-toting men. "...to give up more than just your cash." He smiled as he made his way through the shop. "If you have no arguments against it please stay where you are." He explained with a smile, watching for anyone to try and move off of the floor. He clapped his hands with a grin. "Wonderful! Brutus, Hagar, please relieve them of their money. I shall procure our snacks."
Terrance grit his teeth a little as his vision swam, "Confundo? How the hell did you get here!?" he thought with a small amount of panic. "I have to at least get his goons away from everyone... but how...?" He tried to look around a little in order to formulate a plan but the effects of Confundo's power kept him from moving too much.
"Ey boss... We got an Emerald Star fanboy over here." One of the bulky men grunted as they stepped up to Twilight and Terrance.
"...uh oh..."
The human magician cocked a brow as he strode over with a danish in his hand. "Well... hed nod a big deel... we god bedder dings to..." The magician paused before swallowing the bite of danish he had. "Ah, much better... We have better things to do than to use a fanboy as a punching bag, do you two have all the cash?"
"HEY! PUT THAT MONEY BACK! AND YOU BETTER PAY FOR THAT DANISH!" shouted a familiar pink party alicorn. Her eyes seemed to be on fire as she stood at the bottom of the stairs with her signature party can-... wait... bazooka? "Put them back, or you get to feel the portable party-zooka." She growled as she hefted the huge pink, candy-painted metal pipe.
Confundo quickly put his hands up to shield his face. "Wait wait wait! You wouldn't fire that with the possibility of getting innocent bystanders hurt... would you?"
Pinkie smirked. "This party-zooka is filled with high grade party supplies... one shot from this and it's instant-party... now the question is... can... you... boogie?" She grinned like a madmare before her index finger squeezed the trigger of the bazooka, creating a deafening boom as smoke filled the room.
