Don't Worry, It's Just the Apocalypse

The thrash throbbing bass rattled cobblestones free from the street to be sucked into the vortex. Ducking my head under the hail, I continued forward to the source of the noise that was luring ponies throughout Canterlot. Vodka beside me was in rare form, “Bread and Circuses”-this and “Breakdown of the System”-that. Gin, however, was keeping oddly silent, either at the prospect of what a citywide open bar meant for his father's business or the fear that his brother and his brother's idiot friend might have been right about something.

On the outskirts of the party, a yellow pegasus was operating in the presence of a group of ducks. Periodically, she would mutter, “I have to get the animals to safety,” and surge around the passing ducks, only to lapse back into catatonia after a few moments.

Gin and Vodka passed by as casually as any other, but I stopped. “Are you in trouble?” It was difficult to tell what was going through the brain behind her utterly blank face.

“I'm fine,” the yellow pony replied, “I'm Fluttershy. I'm … I have to get the animals to safety.” her mouth moved slightly as she spoke, but the words never reached her eyes, dying somewhere behind her lips. The ducks vanished around a corner and probably were eaten by a bear, because Celestia knows that it is impossible for an animal to survive without a pony of some sort constantly hovering around and making sure it doesn't set itself on fire.

Wait, Fluttershy. It took me a moment to realize that that barely contained mess before me was one of the Element Barers, and the key to barely containing the mess before the entire city.

Vodka Martini returned, having already made the round trip from street to party to bar to absolutely shit-faced, the speed with which he could accomplish this being one of the many things he resented about his special talent. “Why are you wasting your time on this pegasus?” he slurred, “Hey that rhymes.”

If it were anyone other than Vodka I would have pointed out that the way he was slurring pegasus into a “shhh” sound, as if he were desperately trying to silence some suicide voice inside his skull, prevented the words from rhyming. As it was Vodka, I said nothing and, when he dropped his drink, I stretched out my tail hairs to catch it.

Fluttershy looked like someone who was trying to be surprised, but who's face has been torn off by an apocalyptic storm and so is having difficulty expressing anything.

“My tail is prehensile.” I explain lamely, “some sort of weird magic, it runs in the family. Supposedly it has something to do with either a great great great great grandfather who was a unicorn and sneezed in the middle of spell, or a great great great great great grandfather whose backside experienced something very rude happened involving an alicorn's horn.” Vodka took his drink back and my hairs drummed lightly on the floor.

“But that's ridiculous!” Fluttershy said, “You can't inherit a trait like that. It would be like cutting a bunny's legs off to see if you could create a family of worm bunnies who can't ever run away or abuse you.” she paused, “Not that I'd ever do a thing like that. It would be simply insane … to do a thing like that,” the pegasus looked down and shuffled her hooves, “even if you did live all alone at the edge of the forest and sometimes you just got so desperate and lonely because even your parents and people who should be your friends always abandon you.”

“That's great!” I replied, thinking how wonderful it was that I never payed any attention to anything other ponies said. “We have to get ahold of Princess Luna, have you seen her.”

“Oh, ah, oh, ah, oh, oooh, ah,” Vodka interrupted again, clearly trying to break into song. Fortunately, his drunken state prevented him from composing anything, and so he soon gave up, “She's in the party. The happy party with the free drinks. My drink is empty,” he looked at the lone ice cubes resting in his glass, “How did that happen?”

“We have to talk to her,” I said, resuming my pace toward the party.

“I think it would be better if you didn't,” and Gin was there, not as drunk or enthused as his brother, but still a complete jackass. Hate his brown on brown boringness.

“But, she is talking to everypony,” I replied, and, truly, from the edges of the party one could see the alicorn mingling with her drunken revelers, for once enjoying a taste of popularity that didn't have to do with her threatening to brutally murder ponies. At least, not directly.

“But she is not talking to you, because you are a pain in the flank.”

Ignoring Gin's comment I pushed through the crowd to Luna. “Princess,” I called.

“Please, call me Luna. All Our friends do.” She leered crazily with the word 'friends.'

“Princess,” I repeated not certain what that leer meant about her friends and in no hurry to figure out, “you've got to do something about the vortex. All of Equestria-”

“All of Equestria is perfectly fine,” she dropped the party girl act in an instant, “look at them! The rioting has been stopped and they're all perfectly happy and content.” Past the end of the hoof telling me things are perfect, I saw a good number of ponies passed out already, others being regrettable. Lots of vomiting. Not much perfection, unless perfect delirium is a thing and it is your thing, in which case I guess this would be pretty cool.

“But they must be warned!” I replied and loved it. How many times in your life do you get to say something so portentous and pretentious and ridiculous and other -ouses? Not often enough in this blasted life.

At that moment a particularly strong gust from the vortex ripped away several pony's inhibitions, and a small orgy began on the fringes. Grinding their nether regions to grind out thoughts about the nether regions of the world they would soon be sucked into.

“No! No one has ever liked one of Our parties until now!” Luna stamped her hoof, allowing a little of the crazed Nightmare fire to enter her eyes, “We are finally popular for being Us, not as some horror show monster, and We owe it all to the vortex!” The Princess of the Night and Not Looking Over There, Where the Apocalypse is Happening, Have Another Drink on the House threw here head back and howled, “We LOVE THE VORTEX!”

I could picture the royal marbles swirling down the rent in the ground, like bits in one of those coin race funnels. Rolling around and around until they vanished into the hole. I still don't know if that is literally, exactly, what happened, but I could definitely picture it.

After the Princess of the Night and Now Constant Delirium vanished into the mingle, like her marbles must have vanished somewhere, I was grabbed from behind by a strong pair of tan forelegs.

“Don't panic,” said the legs, “Ah'm not going to kill y'all.”

“I didn't suspect you were going to kill me until you mentioned it,” I replied, “and if you are, I think I might just panic plenty.”

“Well, Ah'm not, and Ah'd prefer you not to panic. We need to talk somewhere quieter,” the tan legs said as they dragged my corporal worthlessness back where they'd come from.

I meant that she dragged me to the edge of the party. I guess you could have interpreted that as being some sort of weirdness related to returning to the womb. Given the current apocalypse, you might not have been too wrong about that, except that what you might have thought would be completely crazy. Almost as crazy as a planet of talking horses being utterly destroyed by a magical vacuum, ok I'll stop now.

“Ya'll have some sort of plan?” the hooves that had dragged me spun me around, presenting freckles and a stetson hat.

“I, well, I, um, I mean.” I stuttered. I hadn't considered the possibility of someone taking the word-noises coming out of my mouth seriously, and this sudden earnest interest found me utterly wordless. “We could try clogging the vortex, like with a giant cupcake.”

“Can y'all make a giant cupcake?”

“No. Wait! I got another one! You know about the eye of the storm right? The center of the storm where it doesn't reach? What if we moved all of ourselves to a giant, flying platform in the center of the vortex?”

“Any pegasus taking to the sky gets sucked into the vortex,” Applejack replied, turning her head to the party. The suction of money and noise could, if not physically, at least beat the vortex in the minds of these ponies.

“Besides,” Gin added, “How would you grow food or get water on this platform.”

In frustration, I snapped, “Well, if you're not going to help why are you even here?”

“Ah thought ya'll had a plan.” Applejack slurs lightly, she'd apparently been dipping into her own bar. “And Ah'm one of the heroes right? A hero, right? Ah'm supposed to save, to save everypony. Because we're the Elements. We save everypony. Because … because I need another drink.”

And with that 1/6th of the only hope for Equestria sauntered back into the party. Another 1/6th was staring at a wall a short distance away, and another 1/3rd was somewhere in the center of a swirling mass of death. The situation was hopeless and full of swirlies, just like high school.

“So what now?” Vodka looked at me.

“I don't know. What is your fucking problem? Why does everyone expect me to have the fucking ideas?”

“Because you're trying to be the fucking leader here. I'm sorry if I assumed you were trying to get us somewhere other than flailing randomly.”

And, just like that, our friendship was gone. Ripped away by the void. Vodka Martini, a strange pony whose name I knew for some reason, looked at me in confusion for a moment and walked off to the party. Gin, with whom I'd never been friends, seemed as if he was about to say something, but he had to run after his brother.