The Good, The Bad, and The Beanis
“Welcome,” said Twilight, “to the first official All Hands meeting of Beanis Inc. Before we get to attendance, does anyone have any questions?”
Sunset Shimmer raised her hand.
“Why am I here?”
“Well, as head of both Human Resources and Accounting, I thought it prudent that you—”
“No, Twilight,” said Sunset, not bothering to hide the irritation in her voice, “why am I here?”
The question was as much for herself as it was for Twilight. In her tenure at Beanis Inc., Sunset had partaken in (or been complicit to) a lot of things she wasn’t proud of. She’d facilitated the production and distribution of a product she found repugnant, committed literal breaking and entering, learned unspeakable truths about her closest friends, made use of questionable taxation exemptions for personal gain, and much, much more.
But today she had sunk to a low: she had entered, and continued to exist within, the same room that contained The Couch.
She wasn’t sitting on it—perhaps there was still hope for her, after all—but her friends and coworkers were. There they sat, pressed together shoulder-to-shoulder like sardines so it could fit them all, staring across the room to where Sunset stood, her back pressed firmly against the far wall.
Twilight sighed and adjusted her glasses. “We all agreed to vote on the location of the meeting, Sunset, even you.”
“I was promised I would get a vote for each of my departments.”
“You did,” said Wallflower Blush, who was sitting next to Twilight and, like her, had a clipboard resting on her lap. “That brought the total to… two votes for Sunset’s office, and, well, the rest for here.”
Sunset shot Twilight a disheartened look. “Even you, Twilight?”
“It has a couch!”
“It has The Couch! We could just buy a different couch for another room!”
“But Sunset,” said Fluttershy, “you’re the one always telling us we can’t waste company money.”
This drew a chorus of murmurs and nods from the rest of the group. Sunset buried her face in her hands, let out a muffled scream, then allowed them to drop to her sides.
“Anything else?” asked Twilight.
“Yes, unfortunately. If this is an All Hands meeting, why aren’t ‘all hands’ in attendance?”
“We were just getting to that,” said Twilight, and she and Wallflower simultaneously flipped the pages on their clipboards. “Absent from today’s meeting is Applejack, who opted not to attend—”
“That was an option?”
“—and Rarity, who said she was doing some important PI work and would read the minutes some other time.” Wallflower nudged Twilight with her elbow. “Oh, right, and does anyone know if Somnambula is here?”
Flash Sentry, who Sunset only just realized had red cheeks and a pillow pressed to his crotch, spoke up. “She’s here.”
“Hang on,” said Sunet, exercising her ability to repress her gag reflex in a very different way than most of her coworkers, “since when is she an employee?”
“Somnambula represents a very lucrative push into the paranormal demographics not already covered by Beanis Inc.,” said Twilight. “Besides, since you own her soul and she’s not technically alive, we don’t actually have to pay her!”
Great, so now Sunset could add ‘slavery’ to her list of sins.
“Anyway, since (almost) everyone is here, I thought we could move on to our first topic of conversation. As I’m sure you all know, every year, Fjorbes magazine hosts its ‘29 under 29’, where it celebrates young entrepreneurs whose vision and influence are changing the very landscape of their industry.”
“And let me guess,” said Sunset, “they’re featuring you.”
Twilight laughed and shook her head, but it was the sort of ‘help-me-I’m-dying-inside’ laugh that Sunset was intimately familiar with. “No, while one could certainly argue that my creative genius, prodigious understanding of multiple scientific disciplines, and status as CEO might entitle me to such an honor, the folks over at Fjorbes had someone else in mind.”
“If not you then—” started Sunset, before realization hit her like a extra large bean paste cockslap. “You couldn’t possibly mean—”
Rainbow Dash, whose crossed legs were propped up on the coffee table and whose arms were slung around the shoulders of Twilight and Fluttershy, waggled her eyebrows at Sunset.
“‘Sup.”
“That’s it, I’m out,” said Sunset. She threw up her hands and had already taken two steps towards the door before she stopped herself. As much as she wanted to leave and get as far away from both Rainbow Dash and The Couch as possible, she knew that she couldn’t. There had to be some voice of reason in this meeting; otherwise this company (and Sunset’s life) would spiral even further out of her control. She took a deep breath, lowered her arms, and returned to her spot by the wall.
“How did this even happen? Why you of all people?”
“Why not me?” asked Rainbow, puffing out her chest. “Think to yourself: who is the coolest, most awesomest employee at Beanis Inc.?”
Sunset didn’t respond.
“Come on.”
Nope.
“Say it.”
“I swear, I will burn this whole place down and take you all with me, Rainbow—”
“That’s right: Rainbow Dash!”
Sunset’s eye twitched and visions of fire danced in her mind.
“Besides, that’s not all I have over Twilight. She might have built the Beanis, but I’m the one who came up with the idea in the first place! Also, with me you’ve got the diversity points, because I’ve got a—”
“Learning disability?”
“—huge penis. Truly mind-blowingly huge. Up top!”
Rainbow held out her hand towards Sunset, who, unsurprisingly, did not cross the room to return the high-five. Rainbow must have realized this after a few seconds, as she proceeded to turn towards her compatriots on either side of The Couch.
“Anybody?”
Eventually, Tempest leaned over Fluttershy and the sound of slapping flesh echoed through the room once more… just not in the way it usually did.
“Anyway,” continued Rainbow Dash, “they sent me an email saying that they wanted to get inside my head and ask just how I’d come up with the idea for the original Beanis. I told them it was usually me getting inside people—if you know what I mean—and that I’d get back to them with the story.”
The room went quiet.
“So...” probed Sunset. “Did you?”
“That’s the problem,” said Twilight. “We don’t think that the story behind Beanis will resonate with the readers of Fjorbes.”
“I can’t imagine why,” muttered Sunset.
“So, what we’re going to discuss today is… how should I put this, revitalizing the company’s background to appeal to a wider audience.”
“We’re going to lie,” said Sunset.
Twilight looked appalled. “We’re not going to lie! We’re just going to, you know, stretch the truth a little.”
“I think that’s just another way to say lying,” said Fluttershy.
“Yup,” said Tempest. Wallflower nodded, and Flash made a grunting noise that could, theoretically, be interpreted as assent.
“Look,” said Rainbow Dash. She removed her arms from the shoulders of Twilight and Fluttershy before leaning forward and lacing her fingers together. “It’s time that I tell you the real reason I called this meeting.”
“I called this meeting,” said Twilight, but Rainbow ignored her.
“The truth is; that story about Fluttershy being pregnant? I made it up.”
The room fell into stunned silence.
“No you didn’t,” said Fluttershy.
“Okay, I didn’t make it up, but it isn’t the whole truth. You see, I wasn’t the first girl to dream of a penis made of beans. To delve into the true origins of the beanis, we have to look back. Our story begins over a hundred years ago in the lawless lands of the wild west...”
The sun sat high in the sky as a lone stagecoach rode into the town that would, one day, be known as Canterlot.
The driver, the coach’s sole occupant, tugged at the reins of the pair of horses that drew it. They were good, strong horses, but the last settlement was nearly two days back, and the driver knew that they must be exhausted and in desperate need to be watered. Besides, they had arrived.
It had been a long time since the driver had been to the town, and though it had certainly changed in the years since she’d last seen it, not everything was different. She hadn’t forgotten the name of the Saloon, the Mourning Wood, nor had she forgotten the sight of town’s gallows, which stood at the entrance to the town, warning bandits and desperados what would happen if they dared to make trouble for its inhabitants.
That was the intent, anyway. In truth, the trio of nooses that swung lazily in the slight wind were a familiar sight to the driver and to all those who dared skirt the law, almost as familiar as the figure who stood in the center of town, awaiting her arrival.
The town, it seemed, had not forgotten the driver, either.
The driver slowed the carriage, coming to a stop about six feet away from the figure. The wide brim of the figure’s black hat shielded her face from the noonday sun, which glinted off the silver star pinned to her chest. A pair of pistols hung in their holsters at her sides, and her chest was strapped with crisscrossed bandoliers holding far more bullets than even the most ambitious of murderers would ever dream of firing.
The very presence of the figure seemed to unsettle the horses, and as the driver stepped down from the coach, she placed a calming hand on one of their flanks.
“Well, well, well,” said the figure, “look who’s back.”
The figure took a step forward, causing the spurs on her boots to jingle as she tipped back her hat, revealing a sinister smile and torrents of red and gold hair that could only belong to the most notorious killer to ever haunt the frontier: Sunset—
“I just want to remind you,” interrupted Sunset, “that, until recently, me and my family lived exclusively in Equestria.”
“I know that,” said Rainbow Dash, defensively.
“So if you’re trying to write me or some ancestor of mine in as the bad guy to this story, that’s not going to work.”
“What?” Rainbow forced a laugh, glancing around sheepishly. “Ego much? I would never—I told you, this the real, actual origin of the Beanis. Besides, her name wasn’t Sunset Shimmer, it was, uh...”
Sunset’s eyes narrowed.
“Got it,” said Rainbow Dash.
“Sinner,” said the driver. “Sunset Sinner, fancy seeing you here.”
“That’s Sheriff Sinner, to you,” sneered Sunset Sinner. She looked down at the silver star, picking at a spot of dry blood with her nail before turning her attention back to the driver. “You shouldn’t be surprised. This is where you left me, after all.”
The driver smirked under the shade of her own hat, its white fabric a stark contrast to Sinner’s. “That’s right. Last I remember, you I left you in the loving care of the hangman.”
“Nobody hangs in this town, you know that.”
“A girl can hope,” said the driver. “Now, Sheriff, my horses are thirsty and so am I, so how about we finish our catching up in the saloon over a drink?”
“I don’t think so,” said Sinner. She snapped her fingers, and all around them doors burst open. Two dozen armed men dressed in black poured out of the surrounding buildings and surrounded the two women and the stagecoach.
“So, it’s like that, is it?”
The driver folded her dust covered, sun bleached poncho over her shoulder, revealing her own pistol strapped to her side. It was big—nearly twice as big as Sunset Sinner’s—and both the Sheriff and her goons looked at it with fear and envy.
“No need for that,” said Sinner. “These are my deputies, and as the Sheriff, I’m simply exercising my right to search any coach that comes into town for anything… untoward.”
“You won’t find anything like that in my coach,” said the driver.
“We’ll see,” said Sinner. “You know, ever since you left, rumors started drifting into town from across the border. Folks would say that that a mysterious stranger with an enormous… gun had pulled some of the most daring heists they’d ever heard of. They even claimed that she’d gone so far as to steal all the gold.”
“All of it?” asked Sunset Shimmer.
“All of it,” said Rainbow Dash.
“That, among other things, seems hard to believe.”
“It’s funny you say that, because Sunset Sinner was about to say the same thing!”
“That, among other things, seems hard to believe. First of all, while you certainly are daring, skilled, and handsome, you’re far too heroic for your own good. You wouldn’t rob a whole country, not without saving a bunch of people with exploits so heroic they couldn’t possibly be contained within a single story. And second of all, all the gold wouldn’t fit in that coach of yours.”
“You’re right on both accounts,” said the driver, humbly.
“So,” continued Sinner, “what I think I’ll find in that cart is half the gold, and that you gave the other half to starving orphans. Does that sound about right to you?”
The driver shrugged. “Why don’t you see for yourself?”
Sunset Sinner drew one of her small, laughable guns, and motioned for the driver to step aside. “If she tries anything,” she said to one of her ‘deputies’, “shoot her.”
The driver stepped away from the carriage and watched as Sinner approached the door and took hold of the handle.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she cautioned, but Sinner ignored her and pulled it open, spilling the coach’s contents out onto the dusty, unpaved road.
Sinner looked down, blinked, then looked at the driver. “This isn’t...” she stammered. “What is all this?”
“Here it comes,” said Sunset.
“Brown gold,” said the driver, a wide grin stretched across her face. “Also known as beans.”
“Beans?!” cried Sunset Sinner. “No—it can’t be!” She climbed into the coach, fighting against the tide of beans as she rooted around desperately in the truly astounding amount of beans that filled the stagecoach. “It must be in here somewhere!”
But her search was in vain. Eventually, Sinner emerged from the carriage, her clothes and skin plastered with smashed beans, wearing a horrific sneer. She drew her (again, very tiny) gun from her holster and pointed it at the driver.
“Where is it?” she demanded, her eyes wide and crazed. “Where is the gold?!”
“It’s gone,” admitted the driver. “Traded for beans.”
Sinner looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “What?!”
The driver nodded.
“Beans?” asked Sinner.
The driver nodded again.
“Beans.”
“Beans.”
“Why?”
“Because of a dream,” said the driver. She leaned down, taking a fistful of beans from the ground and holding them out towards Sinner. “What do you see?”
Sinner lowered her gun and peered into the driver’s palm. “I see… beans. Just beans.”
“What I see, Sunset Sinner, is the future.”
Sinner thought for a moment before the epiphany hit her. “I think I understand. You couldn’t spend all that gold, but beans can be planted. You traded a fortune for a bean empire that would last you and your kin a thousand years.”
“Oh Sinner, you ignorant, shortsighted fool,” said the driver. “I’m not going to plant them, I’m going to fuck ‘em.”
Sunset Sinner blinked.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Wait,” said Sunset Shimmer. “I changed my mind, I want to be related to her.”
“Sunset,” said Twilight, “could you please stop interrupting the story?”
“Seriously,” said Wallflower. Tempest and Fluttershy nodded in agreement.
“But I was just—”
“When I was south of the border, I learned the true, mystic properties of the bean. If harnessed correctly, I believe that these beans could provide us with the kind of ecstasy previously thought impossible. A level of sexual fulfillment that only a truly mighty member with a truly masterful wielder could ever come close to providing. A bean penis.”
The driver tilted her head back, locking eyes with the sheriff.
“A Beanis.”
“You’re mad,” said Sunset Sinner.
“Am I? Or is my genius merely unappreciated in my time?”
“Mad.”
“Don’t you understand what I’m doing, Sunset Sinner? This isn’t for me, but for people everywhere who don’t want to get their friends pregnant! Surely you of all people can understand!”
“Why me?” asked Sinner.
“Everyone knows that you’re a total prude who only ever got to second base with her boyfriend!” The driver paused, almost as if she was waiting for an interruption that never came. “Don’t you understand? I’m doing this for you!”
Sinner was quiet for a long time. She paced around the coach, smashing beans beneath her boots with every step. Eventually, she returned to the front of the stagecoach, stroked the mane of one of the horses, and spoke to the driver once more.
“How?” she said, her tone flat and her face obscured once more by her hat. “How would you create such an object out of beans?”
The driver shook her head. “I mastered the technique from a bean master, who has since become one with the beans. I alone know the secret of the Beanis, and have sworn an oath to take it to my grave.”
“Then so you shall,” said Sunset Sinner. She snapped her fingers again, and in an instant each of her deputies had drawn their weapons, but the driver was faster. Despite the sheer size of the gun, the driver wielded it with masterful fitness, fanning the hammer and dropping half the deputies before they could get off a single shot.
“Timeout,” said Sunset Shimmer, eliciting a frustrated groan from her coworkers (and a different sort of groan from Flash Sentry).
“Sunset!” hissed Twilight. “What did we just say?”
“Sorry, but I have questions. The driver’s gun is, what, a revolver?”
Rainbow Dash nodded.
“And Sunset Sinner—who, I’d just like to add, is living out a fantasy I have personally dreamed about for a long time—had how many deputies?”
Rainbow thought for a moment. “What did I say, two dozen?”
The group let out assorted sounds of agreement.
“Make it three dozen.”
“Right, changing it part way through hurts its credibility a bit, but I think we’re beyond that at this point. The point is, the driver killed eighteen guys with a revolver which would have, what, six bullets?”
Rainbow thought for a moment. “Maybe she had two revolvers.”
“Okay, sure, but that’s still not enough—”
“And some of the deputies were standing in front of each other, making each shot even more impressive.”
“Fine, but fanning the hammer take two hands. If she was holding a gun in each hand, how did she cock the guns fast enough to take down all those guys?”
“Oh,” said Rainbow, a sly grin sliding across her face. “You want to know how she cocked her guns?”
“Yes,” said Sunset Shimmer, “and don’t tell me it was with her—”
Penis. In a display of manual and phallic dexterity that might redefine the laws of physics as we understand them, the driver gunned down eighteen of Sunset Sinner’s deputies in a blink of an eye. But more came from around the other side of the coach, taking the place of their fallen allies, and the driver was forced to discard her second pistol (which she’d had the whole time), to focus on reloading with one hand and shooting with the other. Even the beans seemed to be on her side, as deputies slipped and slid on mashed bean paste as the driver painted the town red with their blood.
It seemed, for a moment, that the driver might do the impossible by defeating Sinner’s new gang and delivering the world to a bean filled paradise, but it was not to be. As the driver executed the last of the deputies, she heard the discharge of a comparably small pistol, and felt a lancing pain as a (small) bullet drilled through her back and exploded out of her chest.
Her arms hung limply at her sides as the last of the driver’s strength left her body and she collapsed to her knees. The devious Sinner, who had no hope of defeating her in a fair fight, stepped into her vision.
“It’s over,” said Sinner, leveling her pistol at the driver’s head. “Now no one will know of this miraculous Beanis, which, by the way, is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re making a mistake,” rasped the driver. “I may die, but the Beanis will live on in the hearts of man. This is only the beginning.”
“No,” said Sunset Sinner. She pulled the trigger. “It’s the end.”
“And, as the driver’s lifeless body collapsed to the dusty ground, her hat dislodged from her head, revealing glorious cascade of rainbow hair. Yes, that’s right, the hero whose very blood watered the beans that would, one day, grow the foundation of Beanis Inc., was none other than me,” said Rainbow, extending a thumb and pressing it proudly to her chest. “Rainbow Dash.”
The room erupted into applause. Well, most of it, anyway, Sunset Shimmer remained silent.
“So,” asked Rainbow, leaning back on The Couch. “What do you think?”
Sunset steepled her fingers, pressed them against her mouth and nose, took a deep breath, and let it out.
“I have questions.”
Rainbow Dash groaned. “You already asked questions!”
“I have more questions,” said Sunset Shimmer. “First of all, you expect us to believe that it was you, Rainbow Dash, who came with the idea for the Beanis over a hundred years ago.”
“That’s right,” said Rainbow Dash.
“At which point you were shot and killed by a notorious outlaw that I’m willing to bet no one has ever heard of.”
“Yes. People were so outraged that Sunset Sinner had killed a visionary like me, that everyone decided to forget she existed.”
“Except for you.”
“Yes,” said Rainbow, putting on what she must have thought was a dark, haunted expression. “I could never forget.”
“But you died.”
“She already said that, Sunset,” said Twilight.
“Right, but I feel like it’s a pretty important part of the narrative that we’re glossing over here. If Rainbow Dash died before the Beanis was ever created...” Sunset made a rolling motion with her fingers, but when she was met with a Couch full of blank stares, she gave up. “...if Dash died in the past, how is she alive now?”
That seemed to have reached them. Even Rainbow Dash looked perplexed as the group pondered this predicament, only for the solution to come from the most unexpected of places.
Flash Sentry’s crotch.
“Maybe the beans resurrected her!” said Somnambula, whose translucent head poked out from Flash’s pillow. Flash, it seemed, had fallen asleep.
“Great idea!” exclaimed Twilight, who began scribbling madly on her clipboard. “Sunset, double her pay!”
“But we don’t—oh, I get it.”
“I do have a couple of concerns,” said Twilight. “First and foremost, bleeding on the beans might hurt our ‘vegan’ image.”
“That’s what you’re concerned about?!”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Nah, people love blood! Blood oranges, blood pudding, blood diamonds...”
Sunset had heard enough. Resisting the urge to bash her head against the wall until she couldn’t remember the word ‘Beanis’, she calmly yet swiftly walked out of the room with The Couch and into the hall.
“Sunset?” called Twilight. “Where are you going? The meeting’s not over yet!”
“Fuck the meeting.” said Sunset. “I go to work: Beanis. I go home: Beanis. I close my fucking eyes for one second, and guess what? Beanis! I’m going to go get in my car, and I’m going to drive until the world makes sense!”
“So, do you want us to email you the minutes, or…?”
Sunset grabbed two fistfuls of her own hair and screamed.
“...is that a yes?”
Author's Note
I have stared too long into the abyss.
