Couch Gagging

by Fuzzyfurvert

Rating: teen
Tags: Comedy, Equestria Girls, Tempest Shadow, Flash Sentry, Main 7 (EqG), Slice of Life, Wallflower Blush
Length: 6117

Ttthhhheeee Bbbeeeeeeeeaaannniiiiiiissss...

Just a regular morning commute to work, nothing out of the normal at all. Not for Canterlot. Not for the employees of Beanis, Inc.

Well, maybe not completely normal.

A part of the Beanis Cinematic Universe, I'm afraid.

Published 2018-06-25 10:10:07 UTC
Last updated 2018-06-25 10:10:07 UTC

The Simpsons Did It First

Couch Gagging

6:56 a.m.

The chalk went click click swish click against the board in a rapid, almost musical staccato. Numbers, equations, denotation of chemical compounds in strict amounts, practical and impractical usages of the resultant formula flowing lyrically from her hand to written form on the chalkboard, over and over again in neat rows. The repetition helped burn the formula into her body’s muscle memory, which always seemed to aid in getting her ideas across. She hummed quietly as she wrote, theme music from some old cartoon of Twilight’s childhood.

Midnight Sparkle, hair loose, wings spread, and wearing nothing but her ethereal blue flame glasses finished up and took a moment to stand back, admiring her work. “Twilight will love this.” She grinned in unpleasant amusement. “Sunset will hate it.” A glance at the bedroom clock confirmed the time. Putting the chalk away into the board’s built-in tray, Midnight turned and sauntered back toward her bed, a swirl of glowing clothing surrounding her like a flock of attendant ravens. She stepped into lacy undergarments, arms up for a simple tee shirt to shimmy its way onto her. Midnight stopped at the edge of her bed and ran her fingers through her hair, shaking it into a tangle before collapsing face first into the pillows.

Two minutes later the alarm clock sounded, and Twilight Sparkle jerked her head up, blinking sleepy, blurry eyes. She fumbled for her glasses, slapping off the alarm in the process, and sat up to stretch the sleep out of her system. She noticed the chalkboard a second later. “Oh poo...I’m doing science in my sleep again!” She squinted at her neat handwriting, smirking. “Still, Sunset’s gonna love this when I show her. It’ll open up whole new markets!”

She snapped a quick picture of the board with her phone and glanced at the clock to confirm the time. “Time to get moving. The marital aid business sleeps for no woman!” Twilight smoothed her hair with her hands, her clothes flying to her from across the room. In moments she was dressed and ready to start her day, exiting her bedroom at a run.

7:10 a.m.

Sunset yawned wide enough to pop her jaw. Her lunch today was going to be a triple decker tomato and bacon sandwich, no crust, cut diagonally. She had half of it in a ziploc bag, the other half waiting while she pried the second bag open.

“Can Flash come back today?”

“No, Somnambula.” Sunset sighed, packing the rest of her lunch into a tote.

“Please? Or perhaps you’ll allow me to visit your place of employment? That would keep the apartment cleaner.”

“I said no. Drop it.” Sunset growled and looked over her shoulder at the translucent egyptian floating in her living room. “An entire weekend of debauchery and the occasional at work hook-up should be enough. I had to buy a whole new sectional because of you two, by the way.”

“At least we didn’t flood your lavatory with his seed. Isn’t that enough to consider another visit? He is most virile and I’ve not had such a good dick in many centuries!”

“Don’t care. Still not gonna happen.” Sunset dropped her bagged sandwich into her tote just as her phone alarm sounded, a long old school air whistle noise. She turned, lunch in hand, and grabbed her jacket, her horny house ghost firmly ignored as she walked toward the parking garage and the last of her morning commutes to Beanis Inc’s HQ.

Somnambula frowned at Sunset’s back, floating silently behind the girl. If her words could not convince Sunset, maybe what she needed to try was a more corporeal, physical implement of desire to nudge the stubborn breather into getting her some more of that warm man-stick. Swooping through the kitchen cabinets provided her with just the fetish she required. She levitahto’ed a spare beanis out of a drawer where it had been buried behind Sunset’s modern embalming tools and dropped it unnoticed into Sunset’s pocket just as the girl walked past the seals that now kept Somnambula confined to the building and away from her potentially many times removed great grandson’s splendid ectoplasmic dipstick.

7:12 a.m.

“So you want a number nine large with cheese?” The voice from the loudspeaker screeched with static at Fluttershy, making her flinch behind the wheel of her little yellow beetle.

“Um...two number nines, yes. And a large soda too...if that’s okay?”

The person inside taking her order spoke again with another burst of static. “And you wanted extra dip with your number six, right?”

Fluttershy’s belly gurgled hungrily and she nodded for a good ten seconds before realizing that the person inside the Burrito Bandit probably couldn’t see her. She hoped they couldn’t see her. “Please and thank you.”

“Please drive forward!” The old speaker in to the drive thru fizzled and popped when a far more chipper voice came through it. Fluttershy sat there, unsure about the sudden change, but her stomach gurgled again and her hunger reminded her brain just what it was supposed to do. She pulled around the side of the little fast food restaurant slowly, carefully watching the edge of the building as she steered.

“I’m glad we decided to carpool like this, Tempest. It’s so much nicer to have company on these stressful drives into town. The traffic makes me anxious...and hungry...for some reason. At least with friends along, I won’t feel so embarrassed when I order a big meal out like this.” She pulled up to the order window and rolled her window down. “But I think I need to start watching what I eat, my dresses are starting to feel a little tight over my middle. You don’t think I’m starting to get fat, do you?”

Silence reigned in the car. Fluttershy looked over at the passenger seat, finding it empty, the seat belt hanging loose. “T-tempest? Where did you go?” Fluttershy bit her bottom lip, hunching her shoulders as she quickly looked around. “Ooohh...Tempest, sweetie? When you do this spooky ninja stuff...it makes me so nervous!” Her oddly skilled friend didn’t immediately poof back into existence and Fluttershy’s stomach gurgled again, mixing a heaping helping of butterflies in with her hunger. She hit the brakes automatically as the car pulled up even with the to-go window on the side of the building. “I hope you get back soon, w-wherever you are. I don’t want to be late or...you know, eat your order too…”

Tempest Shadow smirked and tossed a couple of brown bags, the bottoms already dark with hot, oily, breakfast juices, out of the Burrito Bandit’s drive thru window and into Fluttershy’s lap where they landed with a splat. “Oh don’t be such a mom, Fluttershy. We’re not gonna be late.” She ignored the started ‘eep!’ from the Beetle and lifted herself up like a powerlifting balance-beam gymnast using the frame of the takeout window, pointing her toes and swinging, feet first through it, over Fluttershy, and into the passenger seat where she then buckled herself in. “Let’s go!”

“Um…” Fluttershy looked back and forth, one finger swinging from Tempest back to the now empty drive thru window, “...how...why...I haven’t paid for these…”

Tempest patted Fluttershy on the thigh, her hand lingering closer to the hip than the knee. With her other hand, she slipped Fluttershy’s phone out of her own back pocket, tapped it against the restaurant's touch pad to complete the transaction, and then tucked the phone away between Fluttershy’s breasts. “We’re good, see? I just wanted to make sure they weren’t cheating you on that extra dip like they did last time. Also the employees should be just about out of the walk-in cooler by now, so we really should go.”

Fluttershy ‘eeped’ again, but in that resigned-to-her-fate kind of way, and hit the gas to merge (with many half starts and full stops) with early morning Canterlot traffic. Tempest passed out the food, sucking on the tortilla tube that contained her protein meal, and turned back to playfully shake her fist at the first Burrito Bandit employee chasing them futility out of the parking lot.

7:23 am

“It’s totally gay to touch a Beanis.”

“But,” Soarin scratched at his hair, confusion plain on his face, “those beanis things are based off of you, right? Wouldn’t that be just the same as touching your own dick?”

“Would you touch a dildo shaped like your dick?”

“Well, probably to clean it or something.”

“That’s gross and totally not straight.”

A loud as fuck whistle tore through the dugout, silencing conversation and piercing eardrums in equal measure. Everyone stopped what they were doing to turn and stare at Spitfire, captain and coach alike for the Canterlot Ballkickers local soccer club. She banged her palm against a locker to make a point since she already had their attention. “Enough with the unrelated chatter! Focus people, we’ve got to get these plays down or we’re gonna be toast out there next week against the Southside Knobgobblers!”

Rainbow Dash, dense as a brick, continued on being Rainbow Dash. “Take it from me, dude, I’m like the straightest person ever! If I don’t do it, it can’t be a straight thing to do, duh. That’s just, like, math or some shit.”

“Dash!” Spitfire pinched the bridge of her nose, scrunching her eyes closed painfully tight. “I said stop talking! We need to get our heads in the game and get our plays together. You’ve been off in lala land for weeks now, phoning in your drills and bugging off at the drop of a hat for some ridiculous made-up reason, like needing to get your dick sucked for science! Frankly, I’m tired of it. You have a responsibility to this team now just like you did back in high school!”

Rainbow stood up, grabbing her duffle bag and throwing the strap over her shoulder. “Oops! Sorry coach, but that just reminded me, I gotta go...uh...do a thing for my job. I’ll be back for practice this evening though, so you guys won’t have to suffer without me for long.”

“Oh for the love of…” Spitfire groaned tiredly. “Why didn’t I listen to my parents and go into flight school or something?”

“I’ll be back after getting like...five or so...science blowjobs.”

“Get out!”

Dash spun on her Heelys so fast multicolored smoke came out from under her feet. She half ran, half skated through the dugout toward the hallway and the doors that lead from the field to the parking lot. “It might be six blowjobs! Sometimes Wallflower needs a second opinion and calls in Twilight! Or sometimes she calls in Fluttershy, but if that happens, I’m contractually obligated to film another infopornmercial, which’ll add on at least another twenty minutes! I’ll text you if that happens! I’ll send pics too! But don’t worry, I totally get paid time and half for overtime!”

“I SAID GET OUT!”

“Sheesh, I heard you the first time…” Rainbow rolled her eyes, hopped over the door frame and slammed the door shut behind her as she zipped off to work.

7:29 a.m.

Sunset yawned and rolled her shoulders, hands locked firmly at ten and two on her steering wheel. The taller buildings of Canterlot’s core were already behind her, their glittering glass and chromed steel giving way to brick and concrete structures that rarely topped seven stories. The buildings here were less and less huge corporate headquarters and thinktank research firms, and more real estate offices and ethnic markets with bars on the ground floor windows. The roads here were uneven, pitted and cracked from years of half-assed repavement projects.

At least here the traffic was light enough you could actually drive, and the sun wasn’t trying to burrow into your brain after ricocheting off every other surface. The shade, plus the parks in the area, made the whole section of town popular with monied hipsters and miscellaneous health nuts. She passed another group of joggers before hitting the first of the real potholes that signalled the shift into the more economically rundown part of Carterlot. She grunted along with the bounce of her car’s shocks and veered around the next pothole without signaling or even touching the brakes. Somewhat sadly, there weren’t any nearby joggers to spook with her maneuvering.

“That would be too good, hmm? Start the day off with a little light pedestrian terror?” Sunset mulled over her thoughts darkly. She wasn’t a morning person, never had been really, but as time and her position at Beanis Inc. wore on, her mood had certainly worsened. “You’d think I’d be happy on my last day in.”

Sunset sighed, consciously letting off the gas and slowing down as she turned onto the narrower streets along the parkside before the green space gave way to more businesses and empty lots. She was better than this. She was a professional, and she had one final duty to perform for her company. “Just gotta show my replacement around is all I need to worry about today. Then I’m free from all this bean weirdness.” The thought was oddly depressing, and Sunset slumped in her seat, bunching up her jacket, which caused something to jab her in the kidney.

One hand gripping the wheel, Sunset fished in her pockets, cursing under her breath as she juggled looking at the road and at what emerged from her jacket. Her hand came back a second later with a beanis, its tip just starting to drool out—”EEehaaGah!”—some of Juan’s Authentic White Dipping Cheese with Jalapenos. The beads of mildly spicy goop rolling down the shaft glistened threateningly over her upholstery and she jammed the button on her door to drop the window. Cool morning air rushed in, the beanis rushed out, flopping out over the asphalt, over the curb, the little strip of grass there, and even the sidewalk beyond that. It hit the ground once, bounced skyward and landed with the suction cup end side down on a park bench next to a surprised hipster mom that really only jogged to meet men half her age more so than stay in shape.

Sunset’s car peeled out around the corner with a screech of tires and roar of the engine taking her onward to work where she wouldn’t be party to giving away magical organic sex toys after five p.m.

7:31 a.m.

Twilight ran through the park as fast as her legs and sensible pumps with the flirty little heels would take her. She dodged joggers and dog turds, jumping over a low hedge to hit the sidewalk that lead to the next intersection, right past an attractive older woman with a peculiar look on her face and her fashionable yoga pants tugged down just enough to let her sit on a bench that sported one of the Mark III Beanis models. Twilight flashed her a double set of thumbs up and a wide smile as she flew past toward the obstacle course of socioeconomic awkwardness that was the next street over.

Note to self: reinvestigate beanis enabled furniture with Applejack later! Twilight filed the thought away as soon as it popped up, focusing on her breathing routine and keeping one foot in front of the other. The last thing she needed was to trip and hurt herself on the way to work. The rent might be cheap, but you payed for it in slower response times from emergency services. She glanced up and saw the crossing light change in her favor, so she put on another burst of “speed”.

The quotation marks were there because she knew she wasn’t really going very fast at all, not even by human foot traffic standards. Rainbow Dash could leave her in the dust, of course, but then again, so could Fluttershy. Probably. Fluttershy probably wasn’t in that much better shape, but she had those naturally long legs that didn’t need flirty little heels to draw attention. Not that Twilight wanted attention here and now, quite the opposite. She crossed the intersection without issue, but she skid to a halt on the other side. In front of her, stretching a mere block, was a length of cracked sidewalk containing other humans.

Which was irksome.

I wish walking through here was less time efficient. Twilight set her face to Focused-On-A-Goal and Not-Here-For-Smalltalk, stuffed her hands in her pockets, and leaned slightly forward to transform her shoulders into polite battering rams as she setting into a measured pace that was still quick but allowed her to steer around the humanoid icebergs before her. If this wasn’t the most direct footpath, I could easily argue an alternate route for myself. This area makes me feel far too purple to be walking around. Twilight lowered her head, looking at the sidewalk in front of her by a steady four paces, rather than the horizon, lowering her chances of accidentally meeting the gaze of any other person as she walked.

First she zigged around some guy standing there for reasons unknown. There wasn’t a bus stop nearby, nor was he selling hotdogs from a cart. He was just standing there like a living tripping hazard. He smelt of soap and car fumes. Second she zagged around a woman walking a baker’s dozen of tiny poodles on colorful leashes. The dogs were rather cute, if in need of a good grooming. She hurried on before they caught a whiff of Spike off her and wanted to pee on her shoes. She pirouetted around the next stranger, swerved passed the one after that and finally skirted one last shady looking fellow in a rent-a-cop-esque uniform.

“Oh hey, Twilight, do you walk this way into work too?” He held up a hand in greeting. (She wanted to say his name was...Gash Entry?)

The oddly familiar cro-magnon actually reached out for her, his fingers coming distressing close to touching her sleeve! Decorum and pretending to be a normal person be damned, Twilight broke back out into a run, reaching the next intersection just as the signal flashed from white to red. Her speed carried her through it safely in front of a car and she left the crowded area for the last home stretch of her morning run to the office.

7:32 a.m.

Tempest sucked hot scrambled eggs and melted cheese out of her second flour meal tube of the morning, chewing away at the tasty non-bean based food as she idly noted the pedestrian they’d nearly struck a moment before was, in fact, the CEO of the company for which they all worked. She also noted, similarly idle in analyzing the minute details of her surroundings, that Flash Sentry was still standing on the opposite side of the last intersection, himself watching Twilight run.

She glanced at Fluttershy, the woman chronologically younger than her, that was most likely to become her biological mother. Fluttershy was smiling, humming along with the music on the radio and blithely unaware of the near miss. Ever since Sunset had tugged on the mental blockage holding most of her memories hostage, Tempest had become increasingly aware of how much better this past (and possibly alternate) timeline was compared to when she came from. The details were still foggy, but given her particular skill set and quasi-magical beanthetic leg, she knew it wasn’t a pleasant time or place. It made her feel all the more protective of her new family here, even if there were technically two Tempests and one of them wasn’t much more than a collection of cells at the moment.

She swallowed her eggs and fished out another mouthful with her tongue, putting her hands up in front of her and clenching her fists as if she were holding a wheel. She kept her eyes on the road, watching for threats her innocent mother might miss, but also watching the street signs and lines on the asphalt. She flexed her bean foot to feather a phantom gas pedal. She turned into the curves, tapping the brake to stay safely within the posted speed limits. For that she knew how to pick a mechanical lock with a sliver of banana or how to slip past security cameras, driving was a skill she’d never developed in the future she’d once called home. Probably due to self-driving bean-vehicles or something. Fluttershy noticed her mimicry, pointing that beatific smile her way and slowing down slightly. They came to another intersection, free of any other Beanis employees, and Fluttershy honked the horn just to amuse them both.

The loud sound startled their third carpooler, Wallflower Blush, out of her mid-ride nap hard enough that the girl dropped the burrito Tempest had wedged in Wallflower’s mouth earlier. “Ah! Wha…? Huh? I’m up…’m swear...sknnnnzzzzz…” Wallflower snorted, her gentle snore sucking a bit of dry recomposited scrambled egg down her windpipe and starting a loud, hacking, coughing fit.

7:35 a.m.

Sunset heaved a final sigh as she pulled past the security gate to the employee parking lot, keeping her eyes forward to avoid meeting the gaze of the lunatic cultists that sat in prayer circles just off the property. It was a good safety measure to keep the nutjobs from thinking their silly bean god thing—Beanos—was trying to send them some sort of sign of approval. Plus it let her mentally block out any of the wackos that might be worshipping at their beanis encrusted altars.

“Not my concern anymore. Not after today. Just gotta walk Starlight through the basics and I’m done with this madness and I can go back to just being friends with the nutjobs inside the building.” Sunset pulled lazily into her assigned parking space.

Admittedly, she was going to miss that. And her own corner office too. Neither was something she was likely to find again for a long time once she hit the job market.

Sunset turned off her car and took a deep breath to center herself. “Let’s get one last day of this insanity behind me.” She opened her door, pocketed her keys and yelped when a loud bang yanked her out of her routine. She looked up just in time to see Twilight running away from where she’d slapped Sunset’s car on the roof, Twilight fishing in her purse for the keys to Beanis, Inc’s main doors. “For crying out loud, are we starting first thing in the morning with the pester Sunset crap?”

She stepped out of her car and no sooner than she was standing, a multicolored blur flashed by, Heelys catching on fire as Rainbow Dash tried to skid to a halt before slamming into the building walls. “Hey! Watch it!”

HONK!

“Fuck!”

Sunset spun around, slamming her car door shut and stumbling backward as the space next to hers was suddenly filled by Fluttershy’s car. She barely managed to outpace the grille by scant inches, arms pinwheeling wildly for balance until she caught her boot on the curb and lost her footing. She got a quick look at the morning sky, a bright blue clear of all clouds, before her hair filled her vision and her brain braced for impact with the sidewalk.

“Got‘cha!”

“Bwhuh?!” Sunset asked as her motion toward the ground was thrown into reverse, arms around her middle. The cloudless sky came back, then she was rolled forward, up and over Tempest’s shoulder to see Fluttershy helping a greener than usual Wallflower out of the car. Before she could say anything more, Tempest took off toward the building like Sunset’s weight meant all of bupkis, the other girls rushing to catch up as everyone converged on the front doors of Beanis, Inc.

7:36 a.m.

Sunlight blazed in through the big picture windows and glass door that lead into Beanis Inc’s reception area. The space was open and welcoming in that ulta modern corporate way that bordered on extreme minimalism. There was a tall desk done in warm pastel brown in the corner and a row of plush, but backless, seats against one wall in a cool ice white tone, a single potted bean sprout on a tiny square table by the seats, and plenty of open air for clients to think about bean paste and dollar signs in. It gave the feel of some sort of serious research firm, rather than that of a place that manufactured produce based sexual aids.

Or at least it did during most business hours. Right now, though, it was the center of some highly particular chaos as most of the core employees of Beanis, Inc poured in through the main doors and all came together to crash on the crusty, crunchy, black vinyl pleather of The Couch simultaneously. Then, there was silence again.

It lasted about half a second.

“What?” Twilight blinked from her spot in the middle. “Why did we just do that?”

“Better question,” Sunset held up her hands and lifted her shoulders and lip in disgust, “but why the hell is this thing outside its containment area?” She slapped away Tempest’s grip and shoved her way to her feet. “How does it never fail that something messed up goes on here?”

“We’re just lucky!” Dash smirked and put her hands behind her head, leaning back. “I mean this thing survived all of us on it at the same time again. It’s not just the girls on it that can take a pounding like a pro.”

“Ew.” Sunset shivered. “Okay, I’m going to go use the chemical shower in R&B. Now.” She turned on her heels and marched toward the elevators. She didn’t even look back as she spoke up. “Once I’m fully sterilized, I’ll meet with you, Twilight, later to introduce Starlight.”

“S-sure…” Twilight deflated, remembering how things had turned out with Sunset after running herself ragged keeping weird stuff like this specific situation under wraps. Sunset was still leaving Beanis, Inc. She’d even found a replacement with that signature efficiency of hers. That was something Twilight was going to miss. Among other things.

Around her the smiles and cavalier attitude of the other girls faded. It looked as if she wasn’t the only one saddened by Sunset’s departure. Twilight frowned for a moment. Things aren’t going to be the same, but, she reminded herself, Sunset isn’t going to be completely absent from our lives. She just won’t be part of our little corporate family any longer. I’m going to be the metaphorical seperated father figure, I just know it. At least it wasn’t going to be a messy divorce. But she still had a duty to her team and part of that was taking care of stuff when Sunset wasn’t around. Twilight sighed and stood up.

“Tempest, can you and Dash help me move this back to it’s room?”

“Sure thing, boss.” Tempest saluted and moved to one end of The Couch where she squatted down and lifted the whole thing, upending Dash, Fluttershy, and Wallflower off the cushions.

“Er...looks like I just need Tempest.” Twilight chuckled, but her heart wasn’t in it. “I’ll catch up with the rest of you later, alright?” She got a round of nods, no one wanting to keep up eye contact for long. Wallflower shuffled sleepily off toward R&B while Fluttershy and Dash wandered off toward the call center. Twilight stood there, watching them head off, her guts twisting around inside her.

“Hey, it’ll be okay, Twilight.”

Twilight shook her head and looked up at Tempest, momentarily having forgotten the amazonian beanborg was still there with a museum piece on her shoulder. “What? Oh...yeah. It’ll work out.” Twilight paused, rubbing her arms. “Let’s go lock this back up until Pinkie’s next show. I think I need to get some work done in my office.”

“I think this is good for Sunset’s health.” Tempest fell into step next to Twilight as they moved down the hall toward the back offices. “She’s been really uncomfortable here for a long time. She put up with a lot for your friendship.”

“I know, Tempest.” Twilight sighed again and took off her glasses to clean them as they walked. Thankfully it wasn’t far to reach the offices, Twilight’s magical telekinesis reaching out and opening the door for them. “I tried really hard to make things better. I really did, but it didn’t matter.”

“She’ll still be your friend, boss.” Tempest ducked, turning herself and The Couch to fit through the door. Once inside the sparse room, she flipped the big piece of furniture around and carefully plopped it back into the carpet divots created by its legs. “Sunset will always be your friend.”

“Can you be certain about that?”

Tempest tilted her head to the side, her eyes glazing over as she seemed to search her memories. “Uh...pretty certain. I mean...I think I remember that Sunset was always there for you...surrounded by you...by something like you…?” Tempest groaned and scrunched her eyes shut. “Sorry, I think I’m still a little futzed before my morning coffee. That sounded weird.”

“Yeah.” Twilight folded her glasses closed and tucked them in her pocket. She didn’t need them at the moment. “Yeah, it did sound weird. But in a good way. Thank you for the insight, Tempest. Now go get some coffee, you big lug.”

She smiled back at Tempest and watched her leave before pulling out her phone and touching her note taking app. “Note to self: Tempest is a good friend, but her memories might be coming back. Reward her friendship with an extra shift of ‘product testing.’ Also, tell Wallflower to do some more testing on the Memorynis. That should kill two birds with one bean.” Midnight tapped the app again to close it and tucked her phone back into her pocket. Twilight didn’t want to deal with Sunset or, more specifically, the emotions around Sunset, so she was in charge for the moment. It would be a couple of hours before she would need meet with Sunset’s replacement, so in the meantime, she could bury herself in work.

Blue flames burst into life around her eyes and she flexed her magical muscles, pulling the carpeting back under the one other piece of furniture in the room and revealing a heavy steel plate slotted into the concrete floor. It glowed for a moment and jumped out of the recess to reveal a pitch black hole and the top rungs of a ladder. Midnight closed the office door and locked it with a literal thought before she stepped into the hole and vanished below.

7:43 a.m.

“How’s my favorite 3D printer doing?” Midnight chirped, her smile thin and eyes roving over Fluttershy’s gentle curves. Well, a version of Fluttershy. One I made. Or will make, at some point. The beandroid was just as she’d last seen it, if a little dusty, wearing one of Fluttershy’s dresses and looking just like the real deal upstairs.

“Oh! Uh...he-hello, Twilight! I um...I didn’t see you there.” Fluttershy (Flutterdroid? Flutterbean?) blinked, her life-like features coming to life. “I must have dazed out there for a second and I…” she looked around, “...where are we?”

“The secret vaults. I told you to come here.” Midnight scratched at her chin, narrowing her gaze. The beandroid moved exactly like a living person. It sounded like one. Acted like one. It could even kiss like one according to Tempest’s stolen memories. It was an absolute wonder of magic and technology married together in the best possible way. This, standing before her was her Mona Lisa, her Sistine Chapel, the pinnacle of beanis tech.

“Oh...yes, you did.” Flutterdroid nodded in understanding, but she looked confused.

My orders are conflicting with her acting programming. Neato. Midnight smiled reassuringly and reached out to pat the beanbot on the head. “Don’t worry about inconsistencies in your memory. That’s an order.”

“Um...yes. I understand.” Flutterdroid nodded again, sure in herself once more.

“Now, I need to do some work. You see, I need to advance beanis to the next level, Fluttershy, and you are the key. I just need to reverse engineer you a little.”

“Will it hurt?”

“Oh dear me, no!” Midnight scoffed. “Don’t let the thought enter your exotic beanbrain matrix, Fluttershy! I just need to take a peek under the hood, that’s all.”

“But I’m not wearing a hood.”

“I just need to see inside you.”

“Should I open my mouth...or what?”

“No, I just need to open up an access panel to see your inner workings!”

The Flutterdroid flushed, its eyes going wide and it gasped. “Twilight, I don’t know if I can do that! Maybe if I had Rainbow Dash and a beanis...or three...at once, I could open up enough for you to see, but don’t you have books about this stuff?”

“I wish!” Midnight threw up her hands and paced angrily forward until she was right next to the beandroid. “That’s why I need to reverse engineer you! I demand you give me access!”

“Maybe we could use a strap-on harness?” Flutterdroid smiled nervously. “Am I providing good customer service?”

“No!” Midnight growled. “Why is this difficult? I built you! I left a way to regain control of you if you were ever captured, reprogrammed and sent back in time, why is this part hard?”

“Sorry!”

Midnight sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she paced back in the other direction. The vault wasn’t large. It was roughly the same size as the office space above it, the ceiling low and lit by a set of drop lights she’d installed and connected to the building’s powerlines. Other than the lighting, the space held only the most rudimentary mechanical tools at the moment in a industrial sized metal box. Her telekinesis yanked the lid of the toolbox up as she approached, the glowing aura caressing the tools. It lingered extra long on the hammer.

“No...I need it working. A broken beandroid isn’t going to teach me much.” Midnight’s gaze drifted over to the drills and chisels. “That would work if I had a seam to work at. There’s no way I can get in to her with these tools…”

“There was that strap-on harness idea.”

“...at the moment. But if I order medical grade dissection tools, Sunset will notice and ask about it...unless I wait until she’s gone, but that’ll just mean forcing Twilight to deal with those stupid emotions again. I need more time to figure this...wait.” Midnight lifted a screwdriver out of the toolbox. “Time. I have time. A lot of it, if Tempest’s past is correct! I left a backdoor to regain control, but why, if Beanis had taken over the world? Surely a ragtag group of resistance fighters would be of little actual consequence?”

She turned back slowly, screwdriver spinning in air besides her. Midnight eyed the Flutterdroid. “I must have put the backdoor in because I knew—I remembered!—that you would be sent back in time, where a resistance wouldmatter.”

“Um…” The Flutterdroid took a step back, its eyes on the screwdriver. “You are a smart person, Twilight.”

“Yeah, I am. So,” Midnight chuckled darkly, “if I remembered to include a backdoor, then what else could I remember to send back to myself, because I remembered that I got it?” The screwdriver stopped, pointing to the heavens as Midnight raised her voice enough for the local timestream to hear her. “I would surely remember that I would need access to the beandroid’s delicate interior mechanisms and programming centers, so I would be sure to include an access panel.”

“You did.” The Flutterdroid nodded again, her cheeks starting to flush as her hips twitched, touched by hands in an alternate future timeline that suddenly recalled that there was something that needed to be done because it had already been done, but they somehow missed doing it the first time around.

“But I couldn’t let this access panel be obvious, that would be a security risk.”

“It’s well hidden.” The Flutterdroid shrank back again, her hands going behind herself to grip at the hem of her skirt back there as recursive causality had its way with her.

“It would need to be pretty big though, and there’s no reason to put the processing in your actual head outside unnecessary organic tradition, hmm?” Midnight took a step forward, the screwdriver flipping down to point at the beandroid. “And I happen to know that Fluttershy isn’t a big fan of anal…”

“It would be the perfect hiding place.”

Midnight grinned and snatched the screwdriver out of the air. “I put it on your posterior.”

“Eeep!”

“Turn around...and gimme dat butt!”