Ponies sometimes say that, when somepony has all the opportunities they could ask for, then “the world is their oyster”. This fits well with pony philosophy because you’re supposed to open up an oyster nicely, remove the pearl with tact and poise, and leave the oyster alone until it grows another one. Maybe sing some sort of pearl-gathering song, too.

But there are other things that can hold goodies within, and not all of them have convenient hinges.

The world was Tempest’s piñata.

“Stop! Thief!” a shopkeeper yelled from behind Tempest, as she trotted down the street holding the entire contents of that pony’s jewelry store. Still in the store. It seemed simpler than removing all the jewelry one piece at a time.

“Seriously, stop! I’m getting storesick!” the shopkeeper yelled. Tempest glanced behind herself and noticed that, yup, the pony in question hadn’t left the building. Judging by the screams from inside, neither had several of the patrons. Well, she could cross kidnapping off her bucket list: win-win!

It was crazy; even in her take-over-the-world days, Tempest had always been a bit of a buzzkill about the whole looting and pillaging thing. She’d even actively discouraged her troops from it. And now she was doing some of it herself, and she had no idea why she’d ever been so against it!

Voices buzzed around her: “Is that Tempest Shadow?” “Commander Tempest?”

“Nah, Tempest Shadow didn’t have a horn. This has gotta be someone else.”

“Stop!”

This voice sounded authoritative, if only barely, and was right in front of her. Tempest looked back ahead from the shop to see a police officer. “Stop in the name of the… um….” He seemed to be deflating, probably at the sight of the store behind her. “Please put that down,” he said instead.

A lawman! He’d know the city. “Excuse me!” she called out, trotting toward him. “Can you please direct me to the Cloudsdale Bank? It’s just that... .” She blushed. “Well, it’s always been my dream to do a big heist, and steal a bank. Since I was a kid, y’know?”

“Rob a bank?” the officer suggested.

“Either way.”

“And, um, ma’am? This is Las Pegasus.”

Tempest blinked a few times. “What? Could have sworn it was Cloudsdale. Or maybe Manehattan?” She rubbed her eyes, feeling the bags under them, and also some wetness. It seemed a little dribble had made it from her her phallus-horn down to her eyelids. “Do you have a tissue?”

The cop’s jaw flapped. “What’s that?” he finally said.

“It’s cum, I think.”

“But... you don’t have any—”

“Like that’s the biggest problem here? Actually, hang on—” Tempest bounded forward, the jewelry store bouncing behind her. “Did you say Las Pegasus? As in, I could hit a casino?”

He looked at his hooves and whimpered, “Please don’t rob a casino.”

“No, not hit up. I mean, like, I could punch it real hard. That could be fun! Wait, hold on,” she said, a thought striking her like a swung bat. “What time is it? Do you have a watch?”

“Um.... twelve thirty three?”

Tempest gasped. “My lunch break ended three minutes ago! I’ve gotta go, sorry!” She released her magic, and the store behind her crashed into the street with many an unhappy tinkle and crash. “You can move this back where it goes, right? Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on keeping it,” she said to the bewildered officer.

As the dazed victims crawled out of the shop’s open door, Tempest went cantering down the road toward the Wonderbolts. Random acts of theft and vandalism were nice, but state-sponsored violence? Never got old.

When she reached the training grounds, Rainbow Dash was doing some dumb drill with the battalion. It didn’t look very interesting.

“Hey, Wonderbolts!” Tempest yelled. “Surprise attack!”

The closest Wonderbolt had time to look up just before Tempest lunged forward and walloped him in the stomach with her hoof. He barfed all over the clouds below. “Ooh, sorry,” Tempest said, grinning. “Looks like somepony just wasted his lunch break.”

Nervous laughter sounded behind her. “Think fast!” she yelled, as she whipped her head around for a magical blast. It shot forward, and Rainbow Dash just barely jumped out of the way. “Good one,” Tempest laughed.

Rainbow squinted at the blast zooming toward the horizon. “Oh, jeez, that’s just gonna keep going until it hits something, isn’t it.” She winced. “Hey, listen, I was thinking—stop that!” she said, turning around to find Tempest already punching another Wonderbolt.

Tempest groaned, but let the poor stallion go. “I’ve been thinking,” Rainbow said, zipping toward her, flapping just above the clound and clearly ready to dodge. Tempest liked that. “We’re, like, both really spent. Or you wouldn’t have gone outside with that thing in the first place.”

Tempest grunted, uncertain where this was going.

“So maybe,” Rainbow continued, “I could send Celestia a letter, asking to pad out our schedule a bit? She’d probably say yes. She’s a nice lady.”

With a toss of her head, Tempest strode past Rainbow. “I started this job, and I’m the pony to finish it—on time.” If she had a fist, she would have clenched it, but she made do with holding her foreleg in front of herself in the appropriate pose. “No one beats ponies up like I do.”

“Yeah, uh, that is not our job. Hey, stop beating up ponies while I’m talking to you!”

Tempest looked up wide-eyed, her hoof buried in a Wonderbolt’s ribs. “What?”

“Jeez, you’re making me sound like Twilight.” Rainbow rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Okay, stop. Look, I like indiscriminate violence just as much as the next pony… actually, I like it a lot more, come to think of it. But this isn’t helping anypony.”

Tempest shrugged. “It’s helping me. I feel great!”

“No, you don’t! You don’t enjoy….” Rainbow’s eyes went wide. “Oh, oh jeez. I think we need to get that thing off you.” She pointed her wing at Tempest’s forehead.

Tempest sneered. “Oh, you mean my functional horn?”

“I mean your headpenis! It’s messing with your brain, we still don’t know where all that fluid is coming from—” Tempest wiped off her forehead “—and I think it’s turning you into, well, a dick!”

“If that’s the price for having a working horn—”

Tempest made to rush at another cowering Wonderbolt, but Dash landed between them. “Then it’s not worth it! Because Tempest Shadow doesn’t enjoy fighting!”

Tempest just raised an eyebrow.

“I mean,” Dash continued hastily, “not fighting like this! You never enjoyed beating down on defenseless ponies, even when you were bad, right? I’m not gonna let you enjoy it now that you’re good!” She gritted her teeth. “Now that you’re my friend.”

Tempest laughed. “I thought we were rivals with benefits?”

“Yeah, well, so did I. The world’s a funny place.”

Tempest bent low to the ground. “So that’s what friends do, huh? Threaten to cut off each others’ genitalia?”

“Oh, it’s not a threat.” Dash entered a similar fighting stance. “It’s a promise.”

Wonderbolts were fleeing all around them. At least they had a little intelligence, then.

“All right.” Tempest cocked a smile. “Show me a fight I’m supposed to enjoy.”

She immediately hopped to the left as Rainbow burst forward—the pony could be so predictable—except Rainbow had sped not toward her original location, but toward where Tempest was now. With her hooves forward, Rainbow crashed full-on into Tempest’s chest, knocking her back.

It hurt. Tempest hadn’t been hit like that in a while. But it hadn’t been long enough that she’d forgotten how it felt, and in any case, she still had her armor. She gritted her teeth through the pain, and as Rainbow flew away, Tempest screwed up her eyes and fired a blast.

It was fast as sound, and still not fast enough. Rainbow rolled under the blast, which vanished up into the sky, and then she dove toward the cloud-ground and spun into a kick at the last moment. A lattice of lightning flew Tempest’s way, running across the cloud terrain and spreading out, and she jumped to the side as it passed under her.

Which gave Rainbow the opening she needed to dive in with another kick. Tempest twisted in mid-air but still caught a glancing blow, and fell to the ground in a heap.

She got up, mouth twisted in anger. What in Tartarus was going on? Rainbow had never managed so much as a hit on her before, and now she’d been struck twice in ten seconds. She snarled, and then blinked as some fluid got in her eye. Was Rainbow right? Was this thing on her head draining her brain?

“Stupid!” she yelled, and shook her head, her new horn flopping just behind the motion. So what? She had access to more focused power now than she’d ever had before. Play to her strengths!

She fired blast after blast at the quick-moving pegasus, trying to lead her. But Rainbow kept moving faster, and before long Tempest found herself backing up. She shouted, and widened her radius.

Rainbow, rushing forward, was caught in a beam of light far wider than any before: about the size of a blimp. She disappeared from view. “Ha!” Tempest yelled, as the beam faded and she saw no sign of her rival.

Then her knees buckled, and an enormous quantity of fluid spilled onto the clouds in front of her. She gasped; the feeling was somewhere between euphoria and light-headedness, and her vision was swimming.

Slowly, she stood, and laughed at the onlooking Wonderbolts, many of whom were flat against the deck. “Who’s next?” she yelled, her voice only shaking a little.

Then she saw the rainbow.

It was at least a mile distant, a rainbow ring expanding toward the sky. A jet of light was shooting out from it, toward Tempest. Rainbow hadn’t been hit by the blast; she had outflown it.

If yet more power was gonna be Rainbow’s answer, it could be Tempest’s too. She fired another blast—just as strong as the last, only focused—and struck Rainbow Dash full on, halting her in midair. But she didn’t fall out of the sky. She kept moving, the air cone around her deflecting the beam, and if Tempest stopped it for a moment Rainbow would be able to come forward.

“Give up!” she bellowed.

“Why!?” Rainbow yelled back.

“So I can win!”

“And then what?” Rainbow screamed. “Do you want to be fighting the rest of your life?”

The beam faltered. Just for a moment, but it was enough. By the time it was back on, Rainbow had veered out of the way, and regained her speed.

No, Tempest realized, she didn’t. She knew that.

But she also knew she didn’t want to lose.

Something had to give. Come on, Dash, she thought.

Rainbow was veering crazily, but moving closer with every new turn, and firing a blast of energy would never work. But there was a spell for this—the firework! Tempest screwed up her face, felt for the magic….

The spell fizzled into nothingness.

Rainbow Dash flew in a straight line at her, wing outstretched.

The next thing she knew, Tempest was clutching her head and collapsed on the ground, and something flopped to her side. Floppy and Fizzlepop-colored, and soaked in fluid.

Rainbow landed in front of her, or at least a blue pegasus did. It wasn’t like she could see much right now. “Got it! Oh, wow, that’s a lot of fluid. Tempest, you okay?”

Tempest’s vision swam and then cut to black.

“Tempest!”

Good one, Dash.

Author's Note

Dinoguy1000 did some pretty great editing work for this, so thanks!