Derpy Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap!)

Chapters

Chapter 3: At the Horse Doctor
Chapter 4: Birds and the Bees
Chapter 5: Job Offer
Chapter 6: Pool Colt Time
Chapter 7: Applesauce
Chapter 8: Derpy the Murderer
Chapter 9: The Mayor
Chapter 10: The Upstart
Chapter 11: Catching the Rainbow
Chapter 12: The Shaved Mare
Chapter 13: The Buckets
Chapter 14: Horns
Chapter 15: Death to Fluttershy
Chapter 16: Failure
Chapter 17: The Unicorn
Chapter 19: Sparkler Leaves
Chapter 20: An Obvious Realization
Chapter 21: Derpy at the Bank
Chapter 22: Killing Derpy
Chapter 23: Boutique
Chapter 24: Getting the Mail
Chapter 25: The Last One
Chapter 1: Setting the Bar Low
Chapter 2: Finally Starting the Story
Chapter 18: Harassing the Locals

Chapter 3: At the Horse Doctor

Derpy quivered and let out a high sigh. Her rear legs started to shake and grow weak. At the same time, her wings involuntarily extended.

“Oh, Doctor Horse!” she gasped.

Doctor Horse the horse doctor was standing behind her, and he looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Is something wrong, Ms. Doo?”

“Not wrong, exactly…” Derpy smacked her lips. “But I’m pretty sure I can taste your gloves. Are they…bubblegum?”

Dr. Horse emitted a distinctly horse-like noise of surprise. “Oh my,” he said. “My apologies, but I’m almost done.”

“No, no, take your time. I like bubblegum. It tastes bubblegummy.”

It only took him a few more seconds to complete his diagnostic task. He then righted himself, leaning back and removing his shoulder-length rubber glove. Derpy let out a tiny gasp as he did, which made him deeply uncomfortable.

“You did quite well, Ms. Doo. Most mares don’t tolerate that nearly as well as you did. There’s usually quite a bit more screaming.”

“Screaming?” Derpy chuckled. “Oh, no, doctor, I’d NEVER do that! After all, I’ve gotten used to it.”

Dr. Horse’s eyes widened. “You…have?”

“Oh yes. I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“Well…um…yes,” stammered the doctor, looking at his patient’s chart and trying not to dwell on what she had just told him. This was a legitimate test for horse doctors, after all, albeit an unpleasant one- -but it was infinitely more unpleasant when the mare enjoyed it.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Derpy paused. “Actually, I lost an eggbeater recently. And a spoon. And a small rock out of my garden. Did you find those?”

“We can address that later,” said the doctor. He smiled at her. “But I did discover the cause of your condition.”

Derpy gasped, suddenly looking terrified. Her butt was still up in the air, facing him, but she quickly turned around and sat on the examination table. “It isn’t swamp fever, is it?”

“What? No, of course not- -”

“Oh, good!” Derpy looked immensely pleased. “I’m so glad! I’d hate to turn into a swamp! It sounds damp!”

“That’s not what it does. You’d be a tree, not a swamp- -”

Derpy frowned. “Well that’s stupid.” She suddenly gasped gain. “Oh no! Is it equine encephalitis?”

“No- -”

“Equine encephalosis?”

“No, that would be very rare- -”

“Strabismus?”

“Well, yes, but we already knew that- -”

“Chicken Gunya?”

“That’s ‘chikungunya’, and no- -”

“Glanders?”

“Are you dead?”

Derpy gasped. “AM I?!”

“NO! You’re PREGNANT!” cried the doctor, finally losing his patience. That was something he was not used to; no doctor ever grew accustomed to losing his patients.

Derpy stared at him for a moment. She seemed to be processing what he had just said, with one eye looking at him and the other seeming to contemplate the nearby jar of tongue depressors. Then, suddenly, she squealed with joy, clapping her hooves to the side of her face.

“I’m PREGGERS?!”

Doctor Horse cleared his throat. “Yes, your constellation of symptoms does seem to be indicative of it. And the uterine palpitation confirms my suspicions. Congratulations!”

“Oh, thank you doctor! I’m so happy!” She giggled, but then her mirth seemed to fade. A look of cold realization came to her face, and a dark shadow seemed to cover it. Doctor Horse did not like the look of that expression. It made him very sad, although he did not consciously know why.

“How…how far along am I?”

“Two months at most. I was able to detect the fetus but without an ultrasound, I do not yet know the sex or race.”

“I…I can’t afford an ultrasound.”

Doctor Horse nodded. He suddenly understood the dread that had contaminated the mare’s happiness. He flipped through the chart, not really looking at it but pretending to. “I see. Well, it is important to know the race of the child. Cross-racial pairings can lead to…complications. It is why interracial mating is very rarely performed.” He looked up at her over the chart. “It would help if we could know who the father is.”

Derpy looked back at him, and then looked away. Doing so was not hard, because half of her face was already doing that anyway. “I…I don’t know who the father is…”

“I see,” said Doctor Horse, after a moment. “Well, as unfortunate as that is, there’s no reason to be ashamed. We’ll do our best to take care of you.” Assuming you can pay, of course, was the next part. Healthcare was not free in Equestria. It was actually quite expensive, and Doctor Horse knew that there was no way the town muffin mare could afford it.

“Thank you, doctor.” Derpy pressed her hooves against her belly. “But…I don’t know. Maybe it’s dumb, but I kind of like the surprise.”

Doctor Horse smiled. “I suppose that is something,” he admitted. “He or she could be a Pegasus like you, or an earth-pony, or even a unicorn I suppose, but that would be almost impossible.”

“My other daughter is a unicorn.”

Doctor Horse gasped. “You have ANOTHER daughter?”

Derpy pointed. At the chart. “I thought you were reading that?”

The doctor sputtered and set the chart down. He made a mental note to yell at a nurse later.

Derpy suddenly gasped. “Maybe it’s a GRIFFON!”

Doctor Horse winced and looked up, sure that she was joking- -until she saw her face. The look of joyful seriousness was terrifying, if only because of what it implied.

“You- -you didn’t- -did you- -”

“I just LOVE griffon COCKS!”

Doctor Horse nearly fainted. She had yelled it loud enough for the whole hospital to hear, but to him, it sounded as though she were on the far side of a hill. Sure, if the child she was carrying was actually that sort of half-breed, he would have one heck of a case report to present at the next annual Horse Doctor’s meeting in Canterlot, but he did not think he had the stomach for it. Not at all.

“You…do?”

“And the hens too,” admitted Derpy. Then, whispering, “but not as much, they’re mean sometimes.”

Doctor Horse blinked. “Excuse me? Hens?”

Derpy nodded. “Lady griffons are called ‘hens’, and the boys are called ‘cocks’. Unless they’re little baby griffons, then they’re ‘pullets’ or ‘cockerels’. Or chicks if they’re just little chirpy-babies. All featherless and blind and expecting their mommies to vomit in their mouths…” Derpy sighed and tilted her head, reflecting on how cute baby griffons were. She hoped she was having a griffon.

“Oh…oh!” Doctor Horse laughed at his own foolishness. “Of course, of course. I knew that!”

“Yeah,” said Derpy. “I just love griffons! They’re like cute puffy birds on the front, and adorable kitties on the back!” She lifted her front legs and spread them as wide as they could go. “And on the cat side, the boy griffons have MASSIVE- -”

“I do not need to know!” shrieked Doctor Horse, suddenly clapping his hooves over his ears. “I’M NOT A VETERNARIAN!”

Derpy stared at him, confused. “You’re not?” She looked around, her expression falling. “Oh no…did I go to the wrong doctor again?” She looked at him. “You’re not a dentist, are you?”

“Was my hoof in your mouth a moment ago?”

“Almost.” Derpy shrugged. “I don’t know medical stuff, doc. Maybe you’re just a really bad dentist.”

Doctor Horse sighed. He was almost glad that she did not have enough money for any follow-up visits.

Chapter 4: Birds and the Bees

It was dark by the time Derpy got home. It was not the fault of her appointment at the hospital, which had only gone until three; rather, like most days, she had gotten lost on the way back to her house.

Her house was small. Not modest: small. It only had one bedroom on the rickety second floor. Derpy herself slept on the couch. Or under the table, as the case may be. Seeing it late at night, one of the windows still blazing with dim light, made her sense of unease grow.

The doctor had said a great many things. Things that Derpy had understood perfectly and already known. That proper development of a foal required certain nutritional requirements, as well as plenty of rest and care. She fully comprehended the role of folic acid in development, and could calculate the exact number of calories that needed to be added to her diet. She also knew that there was no way she could afford those things. This visit to the hospital had already eaten a month’s muffin profits, and she strongly regretted going.

She wished it could be different. The only bad part of having a foal was the extreme pain associated with the actual birthing (especially for unicorns, which had pointy bits on their heads; this was something Derpy knew first-hoof). She was supposed to be happy. Yet she could not be, for reasons she wished she was not smart enough to understand.

Upon entering the house, Derpy paused to smell the scent of stale muffins that she had baked the night earlier. She set down her saddlebag, the contents of which were all that was left of her stall. To one side of her was a narrow staircase leading upward, and to her left was a small hall illuminated by dim gaslight. That was the hallway that Derpy went down, because it was the only one she could. Short of staying outside and sleeping in the garden. Which she had done, especially on days where she could not find the door to her home.

That hallway led to the kitchen. Derpy stopped, looking at the well-worn appliances. And at the table, where her daughter was sitting.

Sparkler looked up from her books. Her mouth was stuffed with cereal, the sort that normally consisted of something very similar to boxboard mixed with a small number of marshmallows. Except that Derpy could not afford the kind with marshmallows, so it was just the other bits. As per usual, Sparkler had separated the almost-letter shaped pieces and alphabetized them.

“Hey,” said Derpy.

Sparkler swallowed. “Hay is for horses.”

“Do we have any?”

Sparkler pointed. There was, indeed, hay, stacked next to the icebox and the muffin-flavoring cabinet. Derpy looked at it with a pang of sadness. It was new. Sparkler had bought it, with her own money.

Derpy sighed and walked over to the hay. She proceeded to start eating it. Her life had not yet come to the point where she would have to graze in the fields outside of town, but now that she had a muffin in the oven that would probably become necessary.

Sparkler pushed aside the book she was reading. A large but battered textbook, one that bore the Golden Oaks Library insignia on its spine. Sparkler was still on the first part of it, the same part she had been for weeks. She was up late each night studying- -but never got very far. She was almost entirely incapable of reading.

“Mom?”

“Whuf?” Derpy’s mouth was fully of hay. “Nuffing’s wong.”

“I didn’t say anything was wrong. It’s just that you hate raw hay.”

Derpy swallowed. “Well…I…it…” she sighed, and lowered her head.

Sparkler put her hoof on her mother’s shoulder and smiled. Derpy remembered when Sparkler had been tiny, but now she was slightly taller, although she still had the gangliness of a teenager. Because she was one. Sparkler smiled, and the braces on her teeth were visible. Braces she had not needed for at least six years, but that Derpy could not afford to have removed.

“Is it something you want to talk about?”

“No.”

“Well too bad. If you don’t get it out, you’re not going to sleep. Then you’ll fall asleep in the muffin mix again. Do you remember what happened the last time?”

Derpy nodded, feeling ashamed. “I woke up with blueberries in my ears. And…other places.”

“Exactly. So come on.”

Sparkler led her mother to the living room. It was a small room filled with various chairs that Derpy had managed to find on the sides of various roads. Sparkler had, of course, cleaned each and every one and then set up the room so that all furniture was organized by color. It took on the appearance of a sallow, grimy rainbow.

Derpy sat in her favorite chair- -and Sparkler’s least favorite, because it was plaid and that defied categorization by color- -and Sparkler sat on an ottoman across from her.

“So,” said Sparkler, levitating a glass of milk to her mother. Milk that she had no-doubt bought herself, Derpy was sure, using what was left of her meager earnings from working at the local diner that were not already spent on hay. Derpy took it and looked at it. She could see her reflection in the top. She looked pale, but that might just have been the milk being white.

Derpy produced a muffin and began to eat it slowly. Sparkler watched patiently.

“I’m preggers.”

Sparkler stared, wide-eyed. “You’re pregnant.” It was not so much a question as a statement.

Derpy cringed. “Please don’t yell at me and call me names!”

“Mom, why would I do that?” Sparkler looked hurt.

“Because that’s what my dad did when I was pregnant with you.” She sighed and looked at the few shreds of carpet that made up her floor. “Then he threw me out.” She looked up. “You’re not going to throw me out, are you?”

“I’m not going to yell at you. And I’m not going to get angry. And I can’t throw you out because you own this house, not me. Not that I would want to anyway.” She sighed and put her hoof against the bridge of her nose. Derpy cringed again. When Sparkler did that, it meant that she was thinking. Her unicorn mind was vast- -much vaster than Derpy’s, anyway- -and her thoughts were oddly organized. But it still took time for her to process things.

“You ARE mad at me.”

“No. This isn’t something to get mad about. I’m going to have a little sister, or brother, and I’m going to love and cherish the heck out of the little filly or colt.”

“Or cockerel or pullet,” mumbled Derpy.

“What- -never mind. I don’t want to know. Nor do I want to know how this happened in the first place. I really, REALLY don’t want a description. But other than that, I’m really happy.”

Derpy waited for it.

“BUT,” said Sparkler, her eyes growing stern. “This makes everything a lot harder.”

Derpy closed her eyes. “I know, I know,” she said, nearly on the verge of tears. “I can barely support the two of us, let alone send you to school next year- -and now I’m going to have a baby- -”

“Forget about school, I just won’t go.”

Derpy gasped. “But you HAVE to!”

“No, because the only way you’re going to manage this is if we’re both working. It doesn’t matter if I can’t read, I’ll get by.”

“But- -”

“It’s a moot point anyway. There’s no way we’re going to be able to pay for the school, or for secondary education anyway. Especially not taking care of a baby.”

Derpy lowered her head. She herself had spent almost a decade in college, first at university and then in graduate school, and it had been the best time in her life. She had hoped to give Sparkler the same opportunity. Doing so would require a remedial school, of course (as the town only had a one-room elementary school that lacked the equipment necessary), but it had been Derpy’s dream to see her daughter graduate from college.

“Even then,” said Sparkler, rapidly recalculating their household budget based on averages of ordinary consumables, “we probably wouldn’t have enough money anyway. Not with my current job.” She paused, but did not seem to find a solution. She sighed. “This is a tough one.”

Derpy curled up on her moldering plaid couch. “I just don’t know what went wrong…”

Sparkler raised an eyebrow. “Are you just saying that, or do you seriously not know?”

Derpy looked at her, confused. “What don’t I know?”

“You know.” Sparkler paused, but saw that, as per usual, Derpy was not getting it. “Where foals come from?”

“My mom said a stork brought them.”

“So…you have a stork in your uterus?”

Derpy gasped and looked at her belly. “How did it get in there?”

Sparkler groaned and put her hoof over her face. “You know, I always imagined we’d have to have this talk eventually, but I always figured it would go the other way.”

“What talk?”

Sparkler sighed and sat back, leaning against the armrest of a hideously olive-green sofa. “Right. Before you go to bed, let’s talk about the birds and the bees.”

“I love birds!” cried Derpy. “But bees are a bunch of meanies! It’s not my fault that their bee-juice tastes so good…” She trailed off as she suddenly became aware of what Sparkler was saying. It, in fact, had nothing to do with birds or bees- -unless cute griffons counted as birds.

Derpy blushed a shade of scarlet.

“No!” she cried. “No, no, I don’t want to know! You can’t make me!”

She began to run, trying to get to the stairs. She did not get far. In seconds, she felt herself being lifted off the ground by a plume of blue light. Derpy cried out and struggled, flapping her wings hard, but it was too late and Sparkler’s magic was too strong. There was no escape.

“NOOOOOO! I don’t want to know!” she wailed, even as she was pulled back into her chair.

“Two PhDs and you don’t know this,” groaned Sparkler. “Right. Pegasus version. When a mare sees a stallion who she thinks is attractive, her wings spread out. Then he grabs them and holds on tight…”

The conversation finished. By the time it had, Derpy no longer needed to be held by magic. She had instead curled up into the fetal position in a pool of her own tears.

“My innocence,” she squeaked. “My innocence is gone…”

“You know I was born, right?” said Sparkler. “As in, you’ve gone through this before. Twice, actually?”

“I feel so dirty…”

“Yeah, that’s pretty normal.” Sparkler levitated a blanket over Derpy. “Just be glad I didn’t have to explain to you the unicorn version. Horn-rubbing is involved.”

Derpy shuddered, momentarily wondering how her daughter was an expert in all of this.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“There’s nothing to apologize for.” Sparkler tucked her in. “I’m on night-shift at the diner tonight. I’ll be back by eleven in the morning, okay?”

Derpy nodded. “Okay.”

Chapter 5: Job Offer

Under normal circumstances, Derpy tended to dream. Usually her dreams were strange: of strange worlds devoured by crystal, or of chaotic lands filled with clones, or perhaps endless icy wastes populated by unspeakable creatures of perverse flesh and even more perverse machinery. And muffins. She also commonly dreamed of muffins.

On this day, however, she did not dream of those things. Instead, she was standing in a largely blank, unfurnished room. A small gray unicorn filly was standing beside her, staring up with golden eyes.

“Sup,” she said.

Then Derpy awoke with a gasp. Her head ached, and she felt as if she had just been punched hard in the side of the face, probably with a blow that would have knocked her out if she was not already asleep.

She sat up just in time to see a mare backing away from her, shaking her wrist and wincing. A pink mare with violet hair, wearing a teal blouse.

“GAHHHHH!” screamed Derpy, recoiling to the armrest of the plaid couch. “THE BOOGEYMARE!”

“What?” said the mare, looking both insulted and confused. “I’m not- -”

“The boogeymare! THE BOOGEYMARE!” Derpy clapped her hooves over her nose. “Don’t take my bogeys! I need them!”

The mare stared at her agast, now insulted and furious. “How dare you imply- -even the thought of it!”

Derpy stared at her suspiciously, still covering her nose. “Then…are we going to dance?”

“Dance?”

“You are the boogeymare, aren’t you?”

The mare half-closed her eyes and rolled them, seeming to give up. “I wish I could hit you again,” she said. “But your head is, as expected, unnaturally hard. I already ruined the manicure on one hoof, I don’t want to ruin the other.”

“You could just use the first hoof a second time,” suggested Derpy.

The mare looked down at her hoof, and then raised it, preparing to strike the derp sitting before her. She paused, though, when Derpy did not even flinch. Then she shivered, realizing there was a strong possibility that this mare actually enjoyed it.

“Never mind,” she said, lowering her hoof. She sighed. “You’re probably wondering why I’m here, aren’t you?”

“It’s because I don’t have money for door locks.”

“I’m actually here for- -wait, what?”

“Yeah,” sighed Derpy. “The doors don’t close. Last week I almost got carried off by a raccoon. And before that a tiny orange Pegasus with no parents and useless wings snuck in to eat my muffins. Sparkler chased them both off with a broom, but I think they’re living under my porch.”

“Right…” The mare took a step back. “Let’s try this differently. Do you know who I am?”

Derpy looked up at her. “Well, if you’re not the boogeymare, then you’re probably Spoiled Rich.”

Spoiled Rich blinked. “Oh. Of course. Well, I am well known throughout the town- -”

“You’re Spilt’s daughter!”

Spoiled stammered. “Spilt? How- -”

“I was her TA when I was in college! She was so cute. Her horn was MASSIVE!” Derpy spread her hooves as wide as they would go, unconsciously performing the same action as she had when asked to describe a particular portion of griffon anatomy (the tail, of course). “Oh wow…” she sighed. “If she was a boy unicorn, I’d probably be your daddy right now.”

“Of course,” said Spoiled, gritting her teeth. “Because she was a UNICORN.” A thought suddenly occurred to her. “But she went to school in the late sixties, so you would have to be- -”

“Late sixties.”

Spoiled Rich stared. Derpy was at least close to her age, but probably at least a decade younger. She was, in fact, infuriatingly adorable, with soft straw-colored hair and exorbitantly fluffy wings that now stood fully erect from her back. Spoiled assumed that Derpy was just confused- -which, with her being a known derp, was likely.

“I also saw your daughter yesterday,” said Derpy. “At my muffin stand.”

“You didn’t give her any, did you?” snapped Spoiled, so suddenly that Derpy jumped back a little bit.

“She didn’t want any.”

“Good! That little porker is on a strict diet. Unlike you, we actually have standards. She’s already ugly, but I can’t have ponies saying that I of all ponies raised a piggish little fatty.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“You don’t get as wealthy as I am by being NICE.”

“Oh.” Derpy looked around. “Um…about that? Why are you in my house?”

“Believe me, I don’t want to be here.” Spoiled winced at the tacky décor and the peeling paint on the walls- -and most of all at the hideous popcorn ceiling. No pony liked a popcorn ceiling. “But I felt I had to come in person.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Do you ever?”

Derpy shrugged. “Not usually, no.”

“Fine.” Spoiled approached one of the least soiled couches, contemplated it, and then decided that it was best to stand. “I hear your irresponsible behavior has landed you in trouble.”

“Irresponsible behavior?”

“Yes. But I suppose it is to be expected. You Pegasi can’t really control yourselves. You’re like rabbits.”

“Bunnies?” Derpy sat up and gasped. “Do you have bunnies? I love bunnies!” She looked around. “But…you don’t have any. So this isn’t about them.”

“No. Do you have the mental capacity to close your mouth and let me finish?”

Derpy contemplated for a moment. “Probably not?”

Spoiled sighed. “Then I’ll lay it out quickly. You are pregnant.”

“I am?”

“Yes. And you barely have enough money to support yourself…oh, why bother kidding? You don’t have enough money to support yourself. If it weren’t for you other daughter, you would have starved already, or be living in the street with the other trash.”

Derpy felt a pang of sadness.

“Now you have another one on the way. You can’t pay for this. You know that, right?”

Derpy nodded slowly.

“In other words, you’re in dire financial straits. Your only hope would be to get a better job, but seeing as you likely never even graduated kindergarten, I don’t think that’s likely.”

“I actually have two PhDs.”

Spoiled blinked. “Excuse me?”

“The first one’s in inorganic chemistry, the other in synthetic.”

“But then how- -why- -what?”

“How do you think I make the muffins so darn tasty?”

“But if that’s true, you could get a job- -” Spoiled stifled herself. That was counterproductive. Most likely, Derpy had just never thought of it, and she was not about to give her the idea. “Never mind. My point still stands. You have one daughter on her way to remedial school, and another on the way. You can’t pay for either.”

“I know…”

“So I’m willing to give you a way out.”

“Out?”

“Yes. I’m willing to offer you a job.”

Derpy blinked. She hoped that Spoiled had not yet noticed that she had morning-wings. Or, perhaps, her wings thought that Spoiled Rich was kind of hot. Derpy hoped that was not the case, as she did not agree. Mares were not her favorite.

“What kind of job?”

Spoiled smiled, and actually did sit down on a couch. The dingy olive one, the same one Sparkler had sat on the night before. “Well, something quite specific.”

“How specific?”

Spoiled thought for a moment. “How to put it delicately…” she paused again, and then spoke. “When you’re as rich as I am,” she began, “you need certain things done. Certain things that ponies sometimes frown upon. For the sake of advancing business, of course.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m looking for a pony to do my dirtywork.”

Derpy blinked. “Like…a maid?” She pointed at her closet. “Because I have a maid outfit ready to go.”

“Not a maid!” snapped Spoiled Rich. “The OTHER kind!”

“Ohhhhhh,” said Derpy, seeming to understand. “I haven’t done THAT kind of dirty work since college.” She paused. “Actually, that’s why I got the maid outfit in the first place…”

Spoiled blushed heartily. “Not THAT kind of dirty deeds!”

“Then what kind? “

“Do I need to spell it out?”

“Probably, yeah.”

“I need an assassin.”

“But I’m not a donkey.”

“What the- -no! NO! A hit mare! A triggermare, a wetworker, a contractor, my backdoor-mare!”

Derpy raised a yellow eyebrow. “All of those things sound an awful lot like the second kind of dirty deeds you wanted me to do.”

Spoiled sighed, and chucked a folder into Derpy’s face. It hit her in the nose, and then fell open, revealing a number of pictures of naked ponies.

“Oh my!” cried Derpy. She picked one up. “Oh wait, this one’s not naked! He has a hat!”

“Exactly. This is your first job. Consider it a test. See those ponies in the pictures?”

Derpy stared at the photographs hard, and both her eyes went out to either side. “No.”

“They’re apple farmers from outside of town. They are the only known producers of zap-apple jam in all of Equestria. My husband’s father made a fortune marketing that jam, and it’s still one of our chief products.”

“It tastes like rainbows,” said Derpy. She shivered. Rainbows tasted bad.

“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never had it. It’s bad for my complexion, but that’s not the point. The point is, the pair in charge of producing it have insisted on raising the price. Which will cut into our profit margins greatly. And if we refuse the contract, they’re going to open exports to a unicorn company out in Canterlot.”

“So?”

“So? SO? So my idiot of a husband is going to go along with the high prices, even if we’re going to be taking a loss! He says ‘it’s the customers that matter’. Blah. Stupid. It’s the MONEY that matters. When I finally manage to pump out a son, I don’t want him inheriting some fading hick storefront! I want a corporate empire!” She leaned forward. “And you don’t get an empire if you let ponies stand up to you.”

“So…what do I need to do?”

“Make them go away. Permanently. Their eldest daughter is their heir, and she’s barely fifteen. She’ll be easier to control.”

“Um…”

“If you pull it off? I’ll give you a hundred- -I mean ten bits.”

Derpy’s eyes widened. “TEN? That’s more than I make in a month!”

A strange expression crossed Spoiled’s face. As if she had no idea that there were ponies that poor. It was a look of grave disgust.

Chapter 6: Pool Colt Time

The next day- -in the afternoon, in fact- -Spoiled Rich reclined in a designer outdoor woven chair. Except that this particular chair was not used outdoors; rather, it was one of many that sat at the side of the Rich’s indoor pool. “Pool”, of course, was something of a misnomer: it was actually more like a small lake, or perhaps a pond. It filled an area at least four times the size of the average Ponyville citizen’s house (and eight times Derpy’s). The edging of it was marked by numerous large marble columns, and more notably by a floor made of ornately arranged pink marble quarried and in and imported from Griffenstone. The grout used was almost pure gold. Spoiled Rich rather liked that floor, except for the fact that by definition it had at one point been touched by filthy griffons. That was something she regretted greatly, and often considered having the whole thing torn up for that very reason.

She was dressed in clothing- -or in something that was almost clothing. It was teal- -her favorite color- -but extremely tight, the sort of bathing suit that showed off every curve of the body she had spent thousands to maintain even after Diamond Tiara had tried to ruin it by being born (although, of course, those curves would be entirely visible had she not worn clothing at all, which was entirely reasonable for a pony).

Ostensibly, she was reading the paper. Specifically, a copy of an obscure lifestyle periodical that was distributed only to the socialites of Canterlot. It had to be hoof-delivered, of course, as Spoiled Did not live in Canterlot. She lived in a tiny, pointless town brimming with hicks.

She was not paying all that much attention to the paper, though. Instead, she was looking past it. On the other side of the pool, the most recent in a long line of pool colts was working on skimming the water’s surface. This one was enormous, a veritable mountain of muscle; Spoiled was so impressed that she could almost ignore his tiny, atrophied wings (although it made her feel better to have a Pegasus serving her; an earth-pony would have felt hollow and a unicorn would probably be smart enough to try to steal stuff).

Of course, this pool colt was not completely an idiot. In fact, the pool colts had been growing clever as of recent. They had learned to stay out of Spoiled’s reach, usually on the opposite side of the water, knowing that she was entirely unable to swim. Not that it mattered. It was only a matter of time: she always managed to get them in the end, no matter how clever they thought they were.

Spoiled leaned back and lifted a crystal goblet filled with sparkling apple juice- -imported, of course. She lifted it carefully and sipped it, relishing the fact that a single bottle of this vintage cost more than Derpy would see in ten years. That made her feel very happy. Otherwise, though, she hated it. She hated apples and everything made with them, even if they were imported. They tasted like dirt. Or like sweaty flesh-colored farm fillies. But the drink was expensive, and that was what really mattered.

She looked out one of the massive glass windows that overlooked the Rich mansion’s vast land holdings. Outside, several unicorn gardeners had assembled flawless topiary sculptures in her image. She was very pleased with their work, and she would take even greater pleasure and berating and then firing all of the gardeners later in the day.

“Stupid rod-heads,” she smirked.

Suddenly she heard a set of hoofsteps behind her. She immediately prepared to yell, assuming that it was either Randolph or Diamond Tiara. They were interrupting her pool-colt time. On their approach, though (Spoiled liked to wait until they were real close to scream at them), she recognized the cadence of the hoofsteps as those of her husband, Filthy Rich. She contemplated yelling at him for a moment, but decided not to.

“Spoiled!” called Filthy, his voice echoing off the ornate pink marble. From his tone alone, it was apparent that he was smiling. He always seemed to be smiling, and it was something that Spoiled Rich actually admired. She wished she was simple enough to find everything so very amusing and pleasant.

“Filthy,” she said, turning the page in her paper and seeing yet another page of tall, twig-like unicorns that stood double her height. For a moment she could have sworn that one of them had wings.

“The mail just came!”

“Yes, dear. It does that. Every day.”

“Not on Sunday.”

“Yes. And today is not Sunday.”

Filthy paused and looked at the mail he was carrying. He laughed to himself. “Well, I suppose it isn’t!”

“Is there something you needed?”

“The only thing here I really need is you.” He leaned down and kissed Spoiled. She kissed back. Despite being from a wealthy family of various Milks with a station paramount to any unicorn noble, Filthy was the only pony who had ever kissed her, and the only one who seemed to want to. Spoiled could not really fathom why.

“Is that all you came for?”

Filthy paused. He recognized that that question was probably a trap. Although simple, he was prudent; the marble floor was evidence of that, as it had been bought with his money.

“Yes,” he said, after a moment. “But while I’m here, I received a very interesting postcard and letter today. Look!” He showed it to Spoiled.

It was not a consumer postcard. It was an actual photograph, one professionally staged. The image made Spoiled’s jaw clench so tightly that she was pretty sure at least one molar cracked. It was a photograph of a mossy-green mare with emerald eyes, a unicorn even taller and thinner than those in any of the lifestyle pages. One with a curved horn and slightly pointed ears.

She was dressed in a lavish open robe, one woven of pure silk- -no doubt recluse silk, by the look of it, and woven with gold in the parts that were not died purple. Not with normal purple die, either: it was Tyrian Purple. In addition, her body was covered in jewelry, all matched perfectly. And not the normal kind, either. Spoiled knew this pony, and knew her well- -and hated her with intense passion. This pony did not order from jewelry shops or simple auctions. Nothing she wore was less than five centuries old, and most of it was probably more than a thousand.

To further exacerbate it- -and that was what she was doing, Spoiled knew; she could see it in the mare’s ridiculously youthful face and in her laughing eyes- -she was lying on a pile of live, exotic cats- -which were in turn on the deck of a yacht. In the background, an entire fleet of yachts was visible- -and beyond that, an exotic and beautiful coastline.

“WHAT IS THIS?” growled Spoiled through gritted teeth.

“Why, that’s Wun Perr-Synt. You know, we met her at the last Merchant’s Society Gala.”

“I know who she IS. Why do we have a picture of her?” She glared at Filthy, wondering if he was aiming to replace her. Filthy hardly seemed to notice. Although Spoiled could not have known, the idea of replacing her with any pony at all had never once occurred to him since they had married.

Filthy unfolded a letter written in the swirling script that only a unicorn could accomplish using their special magical organ. “She recently went on a lovely trip to Mareocco in celebration of her two hundred and eightieth birthday.”

“TWO HUNDRED…EIGHT…”

It came out more as a hiss than as words. Spoiled, who was beginning to undergo the changes a pony did as she approached middle-age (not to mention having given birth to a surprisingly massive daughter)- -Spoiled, who was not even thirty years old- -was staring at a photograph of a unicorn who had lived nearly three centuries and looked like a girl of barely nineteen. Because she was a unicorn- -a nearly pure-blooded unicorn- -and Spoiled was not.

There were few ponies as hateful and spiteful as Spoiled Rich. One of them enjoyed antiques, endangered animals, and yachts.

“Well isn’t that nice?” said Filthy, smiling. “Out on her birthday and she took the time to write to us? That’s just lovely, isn’t it?”

Spoiled could not answer. There was no way to do so without screaming. Here she was, the wife of a pony who had proudly opened six new locations of Rich’s Barnyard Bargains in addition to the already existent four- -looking at the image of a pony who owned Equestria’s most extensive and powerful sea-trade company, one that moved a hundred times RBB’s annual sales in a single day. A mare who was wearing single pieces of jewelry that cost more than Spoiled Rich’s entire house.

It was simply not fair. Not fair that she was not that rich. That, after everything she had done, it still came down to UNICORNS.

“I think I’ll write her a nice note back,” said Filthy. “She took her time to think of us, so it would only be right.” He paused, thinking. “Maybe I’ll set up a meeting, she seems like a nice pony. She reminds me a little bit of you, Spoiled.”

Spoiled glared so hard that the pool-colt squeaked in terror, even though she was not looking at him. Filthy, though, seemed immune.

“Hmm,” he said, smiling slyly. “She’s single, too. Do you think she would like your brother?”

“Chunky?” Spoiled Rich paused. She would actually find it mildly enjoyable to strike back at Wun, and to eliminate Chunky in the process. She shook her head, though. “Don’t bother.”

Filthy shrugged. “Oh well.”

The pool-colt approached them, still quivering.

“Mrs. Rich, the water…it’s done…”

“NOT NOW YOU STUPID- -”

“Oh MY!” cried Filthy, looking up at the mountain of a Pegasus. “Look at the muscles on you!”

The Pegasus looked surprised, and then smiled, flexing as he did so. Spoiled was not at all in the mood, and had he been smaller, she would have kicked him into the water.

“Say,” said Filthy. “I’ve been trying to bulk up too, a little. You know, fill out my suits, give the board a real impression. I have a little time, while you’re here…maybe you can show me a lift or two in the gym?”

The Pegasus stallion’s weird red eyes lit up, and he nodded vigorously. Spoiled also seemed overjoyed, and the two of them walked off together.

“I’ll see you at dinner, Spoiled!” called Filthy, waving. “I saw the cooks bringing in hay! Maybe it will be hayloaf!”

Spoiled watched them go. As she did, she seethed. She often seethed, but this was an especially vigorous seething.

Logically, she knew that it was a good thing that Filthy was trying to get fit, and that forming a close friendship with a shipping heiress would give their company a huge advantage when it came to importing foreign goods- -but she was angry none the less. Partly because he had stolen her pool-colt during pool-colt watching time.

And partly because she hated being so very poor.

Chapter 7: Applesauce

The floor was expensive; the wood was technically antique, and the rugs that covered it were of a fine wool spun from the coat of some sentient furry species or another. Shaved against their will, Spoiled hoped. Regardless, she stomped on it, walking hard over the sort of precious carpets that ponies normally hung on their walls.

She was angry. Which, of course, was not unusual for her. This type of anger, though, was. Normally she was just constantly annoyed with everything. Moments before she had been furious. Now she was just hateful, and would stew like this in her own various juices for perhaps several weeks, festering more and more as she did. Like old milk that had soaked a mattress and been left to ferment. And, like a rotting mattress, the only way to deal with this problem would involve purifying fire. Physical or metaphorical- -or both.

Spoiled Rich was, to put it simply, not in the mood to be spoken to. It was under these very conditions that Diamond Tiara poked her head out of one of the parallel hallways.

“Mommy,” she said, “I- -”

“EXCUSE ME?!” spat Spoiled, causing the girl to recoil. “WHAT did you just address me as?”

Diamond Tiara stiffened, but any expression faded from her face. “My apologies, mother. I was only wondering- -”

“Can’t you see I’m BUSY?”

Diamond Tiara blinked. Although she could assume a blank expression, she was not very good at it. Spoiled found it disappointing. She would never get far if she could not suppress any and all of her emotions and let them be subsumed by what was correct. “I- -it will only take- -”

“And WHERE is your tiara?! You realize it’s the only thing that keeps you from looking like a pig, right?”

Diamond Tiara began to tear up. “I- -I didn’t know I needed to wear it in- -in the house- -”

“You need to wear it AT. ALL. TIMES! We have standards, Diamond Tiara, STANDARDS! And if you don’t like that you can go live in the dirt like the rest of the yokels in this idiotic town!”

She then promptly shoved Diamond Tiara out of the way and continued walking. Perhaps Diamond Tiara would cry, or perhaps not. Spoiled did not care. The girl needed to learn. Life was not easy, especially for the wealthy.

Except it was not supposed to feel like this. Spoiled was SUPPOSED to be on the cusp of victory. After a great deal of work, she had finally acquired her assassin. Her assassin was, granted, an impoverished pregnant derp, but a derp for an hit mare was better than no hit mare at all. Probably. Either way, it was supposed to give Spoiled power, which was something she desired endlessly and desperately. Had she the capacity to grow both a horn and wings, she would have become an alicorn long ago. Except that doing so was impossible; it was well known that there was only one alicorn- -despite rumors to the contrary.

Then, of course, the assassin part might not work. Derpy was an ideal candidate for motivation, but not for skill. She could barely make a muffin without burning down half the town and causing an outbreak of scabies; Spoiled had begun to doubt that she would be able to actually kill anypony. And, most importantly, she would probably never be able to take down as secure a target as Wun Perr-Synt.

Randolph appeared beside her, almost silently.

“Randolph,” she said, “I am NOT in the mood for it, whatever it is. Go comfort the girl. She’s probably crying.”

“She is, madam,” said Randolph, his tone practiced and precise. “However, I have prepared the News.”

Spoiled stopped walking and put her hoof on her head, moaning angrily. “Do we have to do it now? I’m not in the mood.”

“Whether you are in the mood or not, madam, every time you have avoided the News you have regretted it later. And that is when vases get broken. Very expensive vases, I might add.”

“And I have the money to break them if I want to.” She took a deep breath and inhaled the mansion air. Million-air, as Filthy called it. It calmed her well enough- -or, rather, the thought that Wun Perr-Synt never broke vases, and that she never became angry enough not to hear important information (she could not have known, of course, that when Wun Perr-Synt got this angry, ponies got hung. Usually by their wings, or horns…or in the case of earth-ponies, something else entirely).

“Study. Now.”

“Of course, madam,” replied Randolph, bowing.

Filthy Rich had a study. Not that he had ever really used it. Perhaps, for all Spoiled knew, he did not even know it was there. It had belonged to his father, Stinking Rich, and the odor still lingered. Perhaps that was why Filthy avoided it.

Spoiled, therefore, had adopted it as her own. The smell had been troubling at first, but it had quickly been replaced with the sour, milky smell that had dogged Spoiled for her entire life. No matter how many times Spoiled bathed, it never left her. She supposed Stinky must have understood the feeling.

She closed the door behind her and sat down at what she now considered her desk. She paused for a moment, leaning forward on her hooves. “Is it good news at least?”

“Madam, I am far too old to believe in ‘good’ news.”

Spoiled shook her head. “What is it, then?”

Randolph did not even reach for notes. He had already memorized the necessary data and compiled the report. “Our newly elected mare is due to return from her meeting with regional and provincial leaders. Although the proceedings are of course confidential, our contact has indicated that our mayor is spearheading a bill that will restructure income and sales tax. Here are the rates.”

This time he did produce a piece of paper, and gave it directly to Spoiled. She put on her glasses- -something that no pony other than Randolph knew she owned- -and scanned quickly through the document. He eyes widened.

“You have to be joking.”

“I never joke, madam,” sighed Randolph.

“Do you know what this will do to our profit margin?” She slapped the papers. “It torpedoes our five year growth plan! We won’t have the assets to have a controlling share during the incorporation!”

Randolph raised an eyebrow. “So, madam, you have spoken with master Filthy about transitioning out of private ownership?”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. I don’t intend to let my son inherit a chain of run-down Podunk farm supply shops. I expect a NATIONAL chain!”

“Of Podunk farm supply shops?”

“Don’t do that,” she said, pointing at him. “I want an empire.”

“There is something else concerning the mayor.”

“Something to leverage? Deleted letters, collusion with the Horrsians? Even dying her mane would be enough!”

Randolph shook his head. “She has proposed a property tax in Ponyville.”

Spoiled froze, and her teeth gritted so hard that this time she really did shatter a tooth. She barely even noticed the pain.

Randolph sighed. “I’ll send a messenger to the dentist,” he said. “But madam, please. Your blood pressure.”

Spoiled held out her hoof. Randolph knew exactly what to do. He stepped gracefully over to the bar where Stinking had kept various forms of pony beverage (cider, pony wine, scootch, distilled rainbow, and so forth) and produced a tray with a glass and, instead of an exotic drink, a bottle of Pony-Bismol.

He brought it over. Spoiled did not even bother with the glass. She took the Pony-Bismol and chugged the entire bottle of pink fluid. It tasted like drinking a unicorn, but she withstood it.

“A property tax?” she said, sounding deceptively calm as she threw the empty bottle into the waste bin with the others. “So she doesn’t just want to steal from our company, she wants to steal from US. The money that WE made that I DESERVE.” She looked up at Randolph. “Why do we even need taxes anyway?”

“For the school, madam. It is currently…small.”

“What do I care about the school?!” spat Spoiled. “What do I need a school for?”

“You do have a daughter.”

“A daughter who will be shipped out to whatever private school I can find that will take money instead of grades. Not that I expect her to finish, she just needs to be there long enough to find a husband.”

Randolph looked over his shoulder at the door. It was cracked. Diamond Tiara was staring in.

“The young miss is listening, madam.”

“Of course she is, I wouldn’t have said it otherwise.” She pointed at Diamond Tiara. “YOU. Don’t be a disappointment! At least TRY to get Ds! And make sure your husband is RICH! And NOT a filthy UNICORN!”

The door slammed as Diamond Tiara ran away. Quietly, at least.

“Perhaps you are too hard on her, madam?”

Spoiled looked up. “My mother loved, tolerated, and cared for me deeply. And what did that get me? Seven deadbeat, entitled donkeys of siblings. I’m not going to make the same mistake.” She leaned back, thinking back with intense hatred about her own mother, who she considered a profound failure.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“Just this.” Randolph placed a sealed folder on Spoiler’s desk. “From your journalist friend.” His expression grew grave. “It seems there has been an...incident…at Sweet Apple Acres.”

Spoiled shot forward and tore the envelope open greedily. She knew exactly what Randolph had meant, and her mind connected the ideas together: that if these pictures were happy news, then it meant she had a mechanism to solve her tax problem very neatly.

When she saw the photographs, though, all the color drained not just from her face but from her entire body. For a moment, her mind did not allow her to comprehend what she was seeing. She was only able to force it to understand through sheer force of will.

Spoiled was, despite her lifestyle, something of a hardened pony. She prided herself on her coldness, as well as the fact that she had not a single scruple or ruth. She was ruthless. It had been her, after all, who had been standing at the top of the stairs in her father’s house while Spoiled Milk lay very, very still at the bottom in the seconds just after her unfortunate accident.

This, though, was an entirely different level.

“Celestia’s cellulite,” she whispered. Then, immediately, she turned and released pink, flavored vomit into her trash can.

The pages fell onto the desk, and Randolph was able to see them. In his many years, he had seen far, FAR more than Spoiled ever would. In his long military career, he had spent years on end hunting furries in the badlands, and served two tours of duty during the war in YakYakistan- -the latter of which he had been captured in and only narrowly managed to escape the goulash. He had seen many, many horrible things, but the images before him made even him swoon.

“Don’t pass out on me, Randolph,” said Spoiled, pulling her head up and wiping her mouth on her hoof.

“Was that…is that…is that a hay bailer?”

Spoiled nodded grimly.

“Oh Celestia, the fence, it’s…no, no, I can’t, I- -”

“In the trees too.” Spoiled pointed with a shaking hoof. The trees were ripe with bright red fruit. Which was why it had been hard to notice, at first.

Randolph took a step back. “That…that…”

Spoiled nodded, and picked up some notes attached. “Well,” she said, her voice dry, “the fetus survived but…but…” She dropped the pictures. They were too gruesome and horrid to look at. This was a thing that no pony was meant to see.

Randolph tried to regain his composure, but found that he could not. “What- -what kind of pony did you manage to hire, Spoiled?” he choked, holding his hoof to his mouth.

Spoiled spread out the pictures- -there were many of them, because of the size of the mess- -and shook her head. She had no idea. But what she did know was that the job had been completed.

Applejack’s parents were dead.

Chapter 8: Derpy the Murderer

Upon returning home, Sparkler was bone tired. Not only was she tired, but she was covered in grease. As would be expected from a pony who had just worked a double shift at a diner.

Of course, she had mechanisms to mediate this element of her unpleasant job. Namely, the fact that she had absolutely no body hair. She shaved it. With magic. Apart from her mane and tail, she was as hairless as an alicorn. Nopony seemed to notice; her skin was roughly the same color as her coat would have been, and no pony could tell that she was naked unless they physically touched her or got very close. Especially while she was wearing a uniform.

Which was not to say she did not get greasy. She did. In fact, the combination of being a teenager and having no protective fur meant she manufactured a fair amount of her own grease just by default. Because of this, as tired as she was, the first order of business was a shower, if only to get the smell of hay burgers out of her mane and tail.

She entered the kitchen and paused. There had been a two hour break between her night-to-morning shift, which had ended around noon, and her next shift, which had started at two. She had stopped at home to alphabetize and then eat her cereal. When she had come home, Derpy had been aflutter with excitement, preparing muffins as usual.

When Sparkler had left, Derpy was just taking a set of fresh apple muffins out of the oven and putting them on a cooling rack. And they were still there, exactly where Sparkler had seen them eight hours ago. That was extremely unlike her mother, she thought; Derpy would normally lovingly store muffins after the cooling stage.

That was odd, but not necessarily worrisome. Derpy tended to forget things. Sparkler knew that; she had been living with her for seventeen years. Her mother was probably intelligent, but Sparkler suspected that she had experienced severe brain damage at some point. She could not help herself.

Still, she supposed that Derpy had gone out for some reason. So, Sparkler continued on her way, passing the kitchen to the house’s only bathroom. She was greatly looking forward to a shower.

Except that when she opened the door, she was faced with a profoundly discouraging sight.

Derpy was in the bathroom, standing in the center. With her head firmly stuck in the toilet.

“MOM!” cried Sparkler, angrily. “Not AGAIN!”

“Huh?” Derpy’s voice echoed from within the porcelain bowl. “Sparkler? Oh…um…” She struck a pose that would have been casual, save for the fact that her head was inside a toilet. “Everything’s fine! I’m almost- -ugh!- -finished!”

She tried to pull herself out, but her head was clearly quite stuck.

“Stop, STOP!” ordered Sparkler. “Pulling makes it worse!” She face-hooved, and knew that she would get no shower on this night. “Mom…”

“I’m not stuck,” insisted Derpy.

“Really? Mom. Why is your head even in there?”

“Well…I woke up, and Spoiled Rich was there, and I thought she was the boogeymare, and we talked and she said a bunch of stuff, so then I went and made some muffins, and I took them out to cool…”

“I was there for that part.” Sparkler raised an eyebrow. “Wait, Spoiled Rich? The hot older mare? I wasn’t here for that part.”

“…and then I went to the bathroom,” continued Derpy, “because I needed to pee. But I dropped a muffin the toilet, so I reached in to get it and I couldn’t get my head out and- -and I ate the muffin- -and now I don’t have a muffin- -” She was starting to sob. “And I’m pregnant and hormonal and- -SNIFF- -Sparkler, please call the fire department!”

“I can’t,” groaned Sparkler. “They won’t come to our house anymore.” She grabbed her mother and pulled. Derpy squealed and her wings flapped wildly.

“Wow you’re really in there. Hold on, I’ll go get the butter.”

“But I need that butter for muffins!”

“Well it’s not going to do you any good with your head in the pot!” Sparkler groaned. Butter was expensive, but there were few other options. If she herself had gotten her head stuck in the toilet- -which had only happened twice- -the restraint grease on her body would have made getting herself out easy. But Derpy was not greasy, or at least not anticipated to be. She also did not have a horn, which would make this easier. Maybe.

“Do you need anything else?”

“Well my legs are numb. But no. There’s plenty of water, so I’m not thirsty. Just don’t flush, I tried that and I almost drowned. Twice.”

Sparkler raised an eyebrow.

“Okay fine. It was three times. But I was sure it would work the last one!” She sighed. “I just don’t know what went wrong…”

It took the better part of twelve hours to extricate Derpy. By the time they were done, both of them were very greasy- -and Derpy was still not free. Rather, the toilet seat had come loose and hung around her neck.

Both of the mares sat on the floor, leaning against each other and breathing hard.

“Dang, mom,” said Sparkler at last. “Does pregnancy make your head swell up or something?”

Derpy thought for a moment. “Not usually. I think. Just my middle bit. And whatever part of me makes pony-milk. That part swells up too.”

Sparkler winced, but thought for a moment. “Um…do we even have a part like that?”

Derpy and Sparkler looked at each other, and then looked themselves over. Only Sparkler was successful, as Derpy could not look past the toilet seat that surrounded her head. As it turned out, they did not have milk-generating organs of any sort. They were ponies, after all.

“Huh,” said Derpy. “I was sure I had an udder.”

Just then, they both heard a sound. There were, of course, a number of sounds in the old house: namely the fact that it creaked, that the walls were full of mice, rats, and- -so Derpy claimed- -a “muffin-stealing nutria”. There was also, of course, the raccoon under the porch as well as the tiny Pegasus who lived there with it- -but those were all familiar sounds.

This one was familiar too. It was the sound of the front door opening.

Derpy and Sparkler looked at each other.

“What was that?” asked Sparkler, already knowing.

“The…door?”

“I didn’t lock it. Because the lock is broken.”

Derpy gasped. “And…you’re already here. And I’m here. So…” She suddenly clapped her hooves on the sides of her face. “It’s a BURGLER!”

“A burglar? Who the heck would want to rob US?”

“She’s gonna steal my raisins!”

Sparkler stuffed her hoof in her mother’s mouth, silencing her. The hoofsteps were now climbing the stairs. Derpy’s eyes widened and she muttered against Sparkler’s hoof.

“I know,” whispered Sparkler. “We just need to stay quiet. Then she’ll- -”

The door suddenly slammed open, nearly torn from its rusted hinges- -or, in its case, one hinge and two pieces of masking tape.

“GAH!” screamed both Derpy and Sparkler, holding each other tightly. “THE BOOGEYMARE!”

Spoiled Rich stared at them, annoyed as she was confused as to why a mother and her daughter were lying in the center of the bathroom covered in butter and hugging one another- -all while smelling strongly of toilet water. She suspected some manner of perversion was afoot.

“For the last time,” she groaned. “I am NOT the boogeymare!”

Derpy and Sparkler stopped screaming.

“Oh. Hi there,” said Derpy.

Spoiled Rich stared at her. There was a strange look in her eye, beyond the normal reproach and contempt. Sparkler noticed it, but Derpy did not, mainly because one of her eyes was focused firmly on the faucet of the bathtub while the other stared longingly at the sink.

“Derpy,” said Spoiled, her voice totally neutral. “I need to talk to you. Alone.”

“Oh,” said Derpy. She stood up. The toilet seat was still around her neck. “Sure. We can go downstairs. Sparkler needs to take a shower, she’s covered in bubber.”

Sparkler sighed. “I can’t. I’m already late for my next shift. I’ll sleep on Thursday, I guess.” She sighed. “Next Thursday.”

Spoiled stood by the door as Sparkler left. The two eyed each other suspiciously. Spoiled was as neutral toward the girl as she was to anypony, which meant she hated her only slightly…for now. Perhaps it was because although Sparkler was a unicorn, she was known to be virtually illiterate through the town. Nothing more than a lowly, shaved, ignorant eccentric.

When Sparkler was to the end of path leading from the house, Spoiled slammed the door behind her. One of the hinges snapped and it listed sideways. Spoiled found herself wishing she had brought gloves (or boots, as the two were roughly equivalent for ponies), as she had just touched a cheap door. She never touched cheap doors. That was what she had a butler for, after all, but speaking to an assassin was like playing with one’s cutie mark: it was best done alone and in private.

She quickly returned to the kitchen. Derpy was waiting for her.

In fact, Derpy was attending to the apple muffins she had baked earlier. Part of it was stress. She had understood- -if only vaguely- -that Spoiled had asked her to do a job, but it had never come to fruition, whatever it was. After waking up, she had started her muffins, gotten them out of the oven, and then promptly gotten her head stuck in the toilet. For at least twelve hours.

Spoiled approached and sat at one of the lawn chairs at the far end of Derpy’s table. It was the best chair, as it had all four of its legs and a cushion, unlike the other chair. Derpy sensed that Spoiled was disappointed with her, and that made her sad- -or at least thought that was what she was sensing. In fact, Spoiled looked at her with an odd expression of fear and interest, always staying back a considerable distance and never looking away. Her motions were rigid, as if she might bolt at any second.

Derpy had to improve the situation. The only way she knew how to improve a situation was with muffins, so she plated one and held it out to Spoiled.

“Muffin?”

Spoiled looked at it. “What’s in them?”

Derpy smiled broadly and chuckled. She loved talking about muffin ingredients, especially since- -and this was something she was very proud of- -these muffins had been made just in time, saving their ingredients from the verge of expiry. “Apples,” she said, still smiling. “Cut into little, tiny pieces. Sorry they’re a little cold. I had to work quickly. You know, while the ingredients were still fresh.”

Spoiled seemed to become very pale, and her sapphire eyes widened.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh.” Derpy stared at the muffins. Perhaps there was something wrong. She picked one up and unwrapped it, then took a large bite from it. She chewed. It tasted fine. Appley. Unfortunately, she was so enthralled by its deliciousness that she inhaled part of it and began coughing.

“Derpy?”

Derpy held up a hoof. “Eh…it’s not a problem.” She grabbed a glass of water and laughed softly. “Just some bones in the muffin…”

Spoiled grew very still. Derpy wondered what was wrong, but decided not to ask. It was probably a rich-pony problem that she would not understand. Instead, she waited until she stopped coughing.

“About the job,” she said. “I wanted to apologize, I just don’t know what- -”

Spoiled raised a hoof. “No apologies are necessary. I never specified the technique, and although excessive I have to say I’m impressed. After all, they deserved it. No story with star-crossed lovers should have a happy ending.” She produced a sack. It was made of brown cloth and had a money sign on the front. “I was so impressed, in fact, that I gave you a bonus. And that is something I very rarely do. Here is your fee. Twelve bits.”

Derpy gasped and, with a shaking hoof, took the bag. She opened it and saw more gleaming gold coins inside that she had since her childhood. “Oh wow!” she said. “That’s almost halfway enough to by one whole CHERRY!”

Spoiled continued to stare at her, wondering if Derpy was being sarcastic. Internally, though, she already knew that Derpy had no such capacity- -unless every joyous little thing she said was, in fact, sarcasm. That would change everything.

“Well. Don’t expect so much next time. Unless you’re as efficient as you were yesterday.”

“Efficient?” Derpy paused. “Next time?”

Spoiled stood up and walked across the table. “Don’t move.” She reached her hooves into the toilet seat surrounding Derpy’s neck and with one quick motion snapped it half. Derpy squeaked. Spoiled, as an earth-pony, was terrifyingly strong.

“There.” Spoiled went back to her chair. As she did, she set a folder on the table, allowing it to fall open. Pictures of a khaki-colored earth-pony with a gray mane spilled out.

“Wait a second,” said Derpy, trying to look at the picture but in fact having one eye focus through her whole house and on Carrot Top as she walked by, humming to herself and probably reeking of orange taproots. “I know that mare! That mare’s the mayor!”

Spoiled sat in the four-legged chair and nodded. “She is. I’m surprised you remember. I hope you didn’t vote for her.”

“Wait,” said Derpy, her eyes going wide. “We VOTE? And wow, those sure are some fresh carrots!”

“Of course we vote,” said Spoiled. Then she paused. Not only because she had no idea what carrots Derpy was talking about- -although had by this time realized that the mare was far more likely to be outright insane rather than stupid, as evidenced by what had once been Pear Butter and Bright Macintosh Apple. It occurred to her that she herself had never voted, or heard of a vote being called.

“I just thought we made her the mayor because it was her name. Like how Doctor Hooves isn’t really a doctor.” She leaned closer. “Don’t tell him I said that, it’s a secret!”

“That couldn’t be…”

“I know! He’s so smart too!”

“No. I mean the election…”

“Oh. It’s hard to tell, you know? We definitly don’t live in a democracy. Because Celestia. I think it’s more of one of those potato-ships.”

Spoiled paused, raising an eyebrow. “You mean a dictatorship.”

“Oh. I didn’t know that.”

Spoiled thought for a moment again. She supposed it was. Except with an immortal goddess-queen. She supposed that meant it was a kind of autocracy.

“Regardless.” Spoiled put her hoof on the photograph. “The mayor needs to go. I want her gone. ASAP.”

“Gone?”

Spoiled nodded. “However you want. Whatever method, but don’t go overboard this time. You already impressed me, keep this one neat. Otherwise, I don’t care. Just put her on ice by the end of tomorrow before the next town council meeting.”

Derpy’s gaze hardened for a moment. Then, suddenly, she giggled. That sound made Spoiled nearly ruin the cushion of the chair she was sitting on. How she had even managed to even enter this house was beyond her, and being alone with this madmare- -this mare with a perverse talent for murder, who seemed to take so much joy in it- -now terrified her. She felt bad for Sparkler. It was the first time she had felt bad for anypony at all.

“Sure,” said Derpy. “I can do that.”

Chapter 9: The Mayor

Mayor Meyer Mare IV arrived back from the summit already feeling horrible. Initially, she had suspected that she had simply over-exerted herself during the trip. It had, after all, been held in the swampy vicinity of the Gelding Grotto (even though only three of the twelve delegates had been geldings), and the scenery, though moist, had been excellent. Mayor Mare had spent a great deal of time hiking through the foreboding but beautiful forest, often with others, forging friendships that would help stabilize the regional union of towns. She was especially partial to the geldings; they were happy, cheerful ponies with remarkably sunny dispositions. Perfect for small-town politics but terrible for the large-scale sort.

In the process, she had been bit by countless hundreds of mosquitos.

The mayor ascended the stairs of her townhouse to the upstairs bathroom, and nearly collapsed when she went through the door. She grabbed for the sink, sending a pile of mane-dye bottles clattering to the floor. The whole room still seemed to spinning, so she held on to the sink as if she were trying to hold on to tax revenue.

It had not been the first time she had clung to porcelain. In her younger years, she had spent a great deal of time hugging the toilet, usually to prevent it from flying away. A substantial amount of time and money had been spent redacting her wild, youthful past, and her old habit of licking unicorns. Sometimes, she still had flashbacks, where the familiar hallucinations would begin to creep in.

For a while she had thought that this was one of those time. Except, when she saw herself in the mirror, she knew that it was not. She looked terrible. Her skin was pale, and her eyes were bloodshot. Adding to that, she had the worst headache of her life and had begun to shake violently with fever.

She wondered if it had been something she had eaten, or from bad water. The water of the Gelding Grotto was said to have unusual effects on ponies, but not on mares. It never occurred to her that the only reason she had made it this far was because of her absurd earth-pony durability. That a Pegasus or a unicorn would long since have ceased breathing with this level of infection.

Mayor Mare was a simple mare of a small-town hamlet with a population of barely fifty, known only for its apple production and for being the residence of the founder of Rich’s Barnyard Bargains. The mayor herself had been born a simple farm girl, the youngest daughter from a long, long line of especially sour lemon farmers. She knew nothing about the equine encephalitis virus, or that it was almost invariably fatal.

The sink slipped from her grip as her body went weak. Her mind collapsed into delirium caused by immense fever, and then as she lay convulsing finally into complete unconsciousness. The last thought she had was that she had not snuggled enough stallions in her life.

Then she lay still, her unconsciousness slowly progressing to coma as the virus cooked her brain.

It was at that particular moment that her bathroom window opened- -or rather, was pushed off its sill so that it fell loudly into the room and shattered. Outside, Derpy winced.

“Sorry,” she whispered. Then, with all the grace and elegance that could be expected of a pregnant mare whose first name was “Ditzy”, she began to push her way through- -only to get stuck.

Her front legs and head had gone through, but she had gotten stuck on her midsection. Because she was pregnant.

“Well great,” she said, allowing herself to fall limp. She then squealed. A passing stallion- -probably- -had slapped her rump, which was sticking out of the mayor’s window. Derpy muttered to herself. “This hasn’t happened since I was pregnant with Sparkler…and that one time eleven months before that…” She laughed to herself. That time had been fun.

Now was not fun. She had a job to do, but could not because she had not calculated her level of fatness properly.

She looked down at herself, specifically at the part of herself that was stuck. “Hey! Little baby! Sorry to bother you. I know you’re growing legs and stuff, but Sparkler used all the butter to get me out of the toilet. If we suck it in at the same time, we might just- -”

Derpy’s body was suddenly enveloped in pale yellow light. She was shoved through the window with such force that, even without butter, she made a suction popping sound. Then, promptly, she fell into the bathtub.

“Oh wow!” she said, sitting up and holding on to her tummy. “You ARE a unicorn! And- -” She paused, frowning, and looked at the ceiling (at least with one eye). “But how did I get a unicorn this time? I didn’t…” She thought for a moment, then gasped. “Am I a unicorn?!”

The mayor groaned. Derpy jerked upward, slamming her head into the bathtub spigot.

“Oh right,” she said, looking at her target. “The mayor.”

She reached up to the window and pulled her supplies through. They, not being pregnant, were much easier to fit through the gap. Several large bags of ice came through, landing in the bathtub.

“Put her on ice!” whispered Derpy, trying to repeat Spoiled’s exact words in the most threatening, assassin-like manor she could come up with.

She emptied the ice into the bathtub, which nearly filled it.

“There. Ice. Nice.”

Derpy then proceeded to descend onto the mare, trying to lift her up. Almost as soon as she touched her, she cried out and jumped back.

“Wow! She’s hot!” Derpy paused, realizing what she had just said. “I mean temperature wise. Well, I guess she’s hot the other way too. Sorry, mayor, I wasn’t trying to be mean. I’m just here to kill you.”

She ignored the extreme heat coming off the mayor and, with a great deal of effort (earth-ponies were heavy), Derpy chucked her into the tub of ice. She fell in with such force that she was nearly buried.

“Ha!” she said, wiping her brow. “On ice!”

The mayor frowned and groaned. She shivered in the ice, causing it to rattle. Derpy gasped.

“Oh wow, mayor, you don’t look so good!” She thought for a moment, derping heavily during the process. “I know! I should probably call a doctor!”

Without thinking, Derpy left the room and walked down the hall to the mayor’s at-home office. It was largely empty and used for storage; the mayor, despite having no friends, nearby family, or special somepony, made it a point to do work at work and have a home-life at home. Which mostly meant sitting and sighing as she thought about where she had gone wrong.

The office was a relic of the last mayor. He had lived here before he had been impeached and thrown in pony jail for having cantered and whinnied after the legally allotted cantering and whinnying curfew. That, and for embezzling. A LOT of embezzling.

Derpy knew this house well. She had been here many times. In fact, she had been to every house in Ponyville many times (although the owners of the houses probably did not know this). She had no idea how she got into them, but it happened a lot.

This particular room had an old telegraph port, left over from the last mayor’s administration. The technology of telegraphy was considerably new-fangled, and considered heresy by a number of earth-ponies. Despite this, telegraphs were notoriously unreliable; this one could only reach a few places in town.

“Let’s see,” said Derpy, leaning in and brushing a significant amount of white powder off the surface. The telegraph itself was connected to a large dial, with the locations of the contact written on them. Derpy focused her eyes, trying to get them both to look in the same direction so that she could read.

Of course, she could only barely read; it was the primary effect of her dyslexia, something her daughter had inherited. Still, if she focused hard enough, she could get the words eventually.

“Cemetery? That’s not it.” She turned clicked the dial to the next one. “Garbage dump…no…waterfront…not that one either…” She paused, wondering where exactly the waterfront was in Ponyville. Then she clicked faster. “Cleaner…Heavy Hoof’s Concrete…Laundry…Mistress #1, Mistress #2, Mistress #3…Spoiled Rich…” Derpy paused, but that was not the one she was looking for. “OH! Here it is!” She clicked the dial. “Hospital!”

With the entry dialed in, she rapidly tapped out a message on the telegraph in Horse Code. She then paused for a long moment before hearing a reply. Derpy could understand the code mentally, even as fast as it was, but she did not bother to stay for the rest of the message.

She left, feeling good but otherwise having forgotten what she had come to do in the first place.

Chapter 10: The Upstart

As far as Spoiled Rich knew, the mission had been a success. Not that it was published in the news, of course. Ponies, being a prey species, were prone to panic, and no doubt the political structure had circled their wagons both figuratively and literally. All Spoiled knew was that the vehicle she mentally referred to as the “meat wagon” had appeared at the mayoral house and had driven away quickly. Nothing more had been released to the public, and even the contact in the organization did not know exactly what Derpy had done. After what had happened to the Apples, though, Spoiled imagined that whatever it had been had been quite gruesome.

So she rejoiced in this fact. The tax bills would die with the mayor, and she would make sure that the next one could be bought off as the previous one had. Ideally for a low cost. Perhaps even she herself could be the mayor, and rule with an iron hoof.

This thought appealed to Spoiled. The whole thing appealed to her. She liked power, and the idea of having a useful idiot who could solve her problems made her tingle in places that not even pool colts ordinarily could. No pony could stand against her, because she was best pony- -because she could make any detractor disappear.

She contemplated this, staring out at a vista visible from one of the more empty parts of town- -part that was technically property of the Apple family, but that Spoiled now fully intended to buy. After all, she had seen the teenage heiress, Jaqueline Apple. No doubt she was a meek, shy, easily manipulated thing. Spoiled was sure of it.

Then, suddenly, her perfect view of her future holdings was ruined as a vast shadow fell over her.

This offended Spoiled deeply, as she had specifically ordered the town weather control to make today sunny. She looked up at the offending cloud, intending to berate the mayor responsible to tears. Her words stuck in her throat, though, when she saw that that object over her was not a cloud- -or at least not technically.

It was a house. A house made of cloud. And not just any house. It was enormous. Bigger than Rich Manor by far, and built with exquisite attention to architectural detail. The tingle that Spoiled Rich felt vanished, and was replaced by a different and less positive tingle. Somepony was trying to rival her.

Something swooped downward from the sky. To Spoiled, it looked like a group of fluffy white clouds moving at incredible speed, leaving a rainbow-colored contrail behind them as they moved. In an instant, they touched the house and the rainbow contrail surrounded them, swirling around it and forming a new wing onto the structure.

“HA!” cried a voice above, and a mare appeared out from the clouds. Or, rather a filly. The ugliest, gaudiest filly that Spoiled Rich had ever seen.

She was blue, which was already a horrible color for a pony. She was thin, and had not yet grown out of her childhood fuzziness. Worst of all, though, her mane and tail were died into the most gauche rainbow pattern conceivable.

“And mom said I’d never get anywhere by stealing office supplies!” laughed the filly.

“YOU!” shrieked Spoiled. “You! PEGASUS! What in the name of Celestia’s obesity do you think you are DOING?!”

The mare-filly looked over the edge of her cloud yard. “What do I think I’m doing? I think I’m being awesome! Why? What did it look like I was doing?”

“You- -you can’t have a house like that! It isn’t ALLOWED!!”

“Really?” The rainbow-mare-filly-fuzzy-usurper lay down and tilted her head, putting it on one hoof. “Says who?”

Spoiled bristled. “This land is NOT zoned for buildings greater than two bedrooms!” In fact, the only region that was zoned for that was the land on which Rich Manor was built; Spoiled had made sure of that.

“Oh really?” The mare looked down at the bottom of the cloud on which her cloud house was constructed. “Cuz my house isn’t on the land. So…I don’t care?”

“WELL! The- -the building permits- -”

“It’s clouds. Like, the whole thing. As in water vapor. I’m literally living in compressed water vapor. You don’t need a permit to live in vapor. Just to inhale it.” The filly-mare snorted part of her house. “And I have that permit in spades…”

Spoiled Rich had darkened to the point that fruit bats were beginning to arrive from the orchard below and surround her, thinking she was an apple. She brushed them away.

“Wow,” laughed the rainbow mare. “Keep it up! With all that vapor your sweaty forehead is putting off, I’m going to be able to build myself a second living room!” She paused, stroking her chin. “Or maybe a walk-in closet…”

“YOU ARE RUINING MY TOWN YOU DIRTY PEGASUS!” screamed Spoiled Rich. “YOU CAN’T HAVE A HOUSE THAT BIG!!”

“But…I do.” The Pegasus shrugged. “So there. Unless you want to come up here and stop me?” She slid off the cloud and hovered for a moment. “Oh wait. You can’t. No wings. Sorry. Well, maybe if you eat your vegetables, wish reaaaaalllly hard, and pray to Celestia’s butt you’ll get some. Until then?” She kicked the cloud-base of her house, and something inside ruptured. The internal rainbow circulation system failed and began to squirt the acrid fluid out of the structure.

It struck Spoiled Rich, drenching her and nearly washing her away. Some of it got in her mouth and she screamed. It tasted terrible. Worse than apples.

“Oops,” said the rainbow mare. “Sorry. That was the supply line for my water feature. Or RAINBOW feature, I guess. Because I’m Rainbow Dash. Weather technician, level one. And I live here now. And consider yourself lucky, I could totally have peed on you from her. Trust me, I’ve practiced.” She paused. “But then again, if you think about what Rainbows are actually made of? This is probably worse.”

Spoiled stood up, finding that her entire body and clothing- -clothing that cost more than most ponies would make in a year- -had been dyed a rainbow of colors. Screaming with rage, she shook her hoof at the sky. “You dirty little girl! You’ll regret this! Do you have any idea who I am- -”

The mare did not answer, as she had gone to sleep. She was snoring so loudly that the resulting force had caused her house to move, and it was drifting off toward the far side of town. Where, no doubt, everypony would see that there was a pony- -a dirty, rainbow-maned Pegasus of barely fourteen- -who had a house larger and far more beautiful than the one that Spoiled Rich lived in.

Spoiled could not tolerate this. She could not tolerate this at all. She vowed on her mother’s grave that Rainbow Dash would be dead by the time the moon started to rise. Derpy would see to that- -just as she had with the Apples and with the mayor.

Chapter 11: Catching the Rainbow

Derpy had had a hard night of murdering. Even though she had iced the mayor at probably three in the afternoon, unknowingly witnessed by at least half the town with her butt stuck out of the mayoral bathroom window. As such, she was tired.

Sparkler was at work. Which was probably good. Derpy had no idea how to tell the girl that her mother was a hitmare, and a highly successful one at that. Still, she felt sad whenever her daughter was away. Her daughter (and, she supposed, her future daughter) were all she had that mattered at all in her life. She loved them even more than she loved muffins, which was a lot.

Thinking about muffins made her stomach ruble. Derpy groaned and turned on her side.

“No! I can’t eat! Not yet! I don’t have the money!”

She curled up in a ball and tried to resist the hunger. It was something she had grown familiar with, first in graduate school and then later when her life had fallen to ruin. If hunger were muffins, she would have been obese.

Then something hit her in the back of the head. “No,” she said. “No, go away.”

It hit her again, and Derpy sat up angrily- -only to have her eyes widen in awe. A muffin was floating over her, supported in a pale yellow field of magical energy.

“Magic muffin!” she cried. “MAGIC MUFFIN!”

Without thinking, she immediately leapt up and grabbed the muffin in her teeth. It held still for a moment, suspending her in the air, dangling from bite force alone. She did not mind. Even hanging in the air, she ate the muffin in three long bites.

She of course did not have the money for it. Those muffins were for sale, not for her. But it was a MAGIC muffin; there was no way that she could resist it.

Then another muffin entered the room- -and another. Soon, they formed a chain of marching muffins, a veritable parade. Derpy watched in awe, eating each one as it came. They were, after all, magic.

When she was done, something was thrown at her hard. It hit the bridge of her nose and fell into her hooves, the yellow aura fading around it.

“Huh?” she said. She looked down- -or rather at both sides of the room- -and read the lable with great difficulty. “‘Foalic Acid’? But I’m not a foal…” She looked down at her belly, and suddenly realized who had been levitating the muffins. “Oh. This is for you?”

She felt the fetus nod. It was a horrifying feeling, especially considering that this particular fetus (despite not having a complete heart or limbs yet) had a fully functional (and very pointy) horn. Still, Derpy squealed with delight. She was going to be giving birth to a prodigy.

Before she could even take the pills, though, her door was hit with such force that it was thrown off its hinges- -or, at this point, the masking tape that held it in place in all but the most windy of days.

Spoiled Rich then entered the room. It was apparent that she had attempted to dry herself, but the rainbows had already set: she stood before Derpy frazzled and died into every color that was conceivable- -and a few that were not.

Derpy’s eyes widened, and just as Spoiled started to speak, she screamed.

“NOOOO!” she cried. “They really WERE magic muffins! Colors! Colors EVERYWHERE!!”

She fell onto the floor and began writing, eventually foaming at the mouth, sure she was poisoned.

“Would you SHUT UP?!” cried Spoiled, stamping her hoof so hard it broke through part of the floor.

Derpy stopped writing and sat up. She blinked. Neither eye was looking at Spoiled. “But- -”

“NO BUTS!”

“But then how will I sit on things?”

Derpy cocked her head, and Spoiled groaned, putting her hoof to her face. Her headache was growing worse, and she reeked like rainbows.

“You’re not poisioned,” she said.

“I’m not?” Derpy looked around. “But you’re all rainbow! You look like ponies looked like when I used to lick unicorns!”

“I’m not- -wait. You used to…lick them?”

Derpy nodded vigorously and chortled. “Oh, yeah. I’ve licked soooooo many unicorns. I used to be great at catching them.”

“Well then lick your daughter or something, I have work- -”

Derpy’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, I couldn’t lick Sparkler! Not ever! I only did that once and by accident, because I thought that was how you cleaned babies! I had to go to the veterinarian!” She sighed paused. “Or was it the dentist?”

“Shut. You’re. CAKE HOLE!”

Derpy was not sure what that meant, so she shut her mouth, took a seat, and crossed her legs.

“There is a Pegasus outside of town,” said Spoiled, slowly.

“You mean Fluttershy?”

Spoiled frowned, clearly confused. “Who? No, I mean Rainbow Dash!”

Derpy exhaled. “Oh thank Celestia’s butt! I don’t know if I could do Fluttershy.” She leaned forward and whispered. “She terrifies me!”

“No. Rainbow Dash. Stupid little girl pretending to be rich, strutting like she thinks she owns the place. A stupid strutting strumpet.”

“That’s a bad word!”

“I don’t care. Blue. Pegasus. Rainbow mane. You can’t miss her. Take. Her. OUT.”

Derpy blinked. “Take her out? Just like that?”

“Do I have to ask twice?”

“No,” said Derpy. She crossed her front legs. “I know what to do.”

Rainbow Dash was working on setting up her bedroom (with a combination of clouds and Wonderbolt posters) when a knock came at her door. She paused, wondering how a pony had managed to knock on clouds. That must have taken some skill.

Exactly nine seven hundredths of a second later, she was standing at her door, and she opened it. As soon as she did, an enormous bouquet of flowers was shoved into her face. Not store-bought flowers either, but ones that had been picked from the wild.

“Huh? What?”

A mare leaned out from behind the flowers. She stared at Rainbow Dash intensely. Or, at least, she tried to. One eye was lazily examining the statue in Rainbow Dash’s extravagant entryway, while the other seemed to be contemplating one of the columns beside the door.

“Tonight. Eight,” said the mare. “Wear a dress. Semi-formal if you have it.”

“What? WHAT? Why?”

The mare leaned forward, and Rainbow Dash was suddenly terrified. Then she whispered.

“Because I’m taking you out.”

Then she promptly lost her footing, slipped, and plummeted through the clouds, leaving and extremely confused Rainbow Dash behind hanging onto an enormous bouquet- -and very slightly blushing.

Rainbow Dash did, in fact, on a dress. She owned many. Although ponies who knew about it often got beatings of various sorts (except for Fluttershy, who Rainbow Dash could never beat, as she was secretly terrified of her), it was true nonetheless. Rainbow Dash liked to wear dresses. Often frilly ones. With lots and lots of lace.

Of course, she would never wear her frilliest of things in public. It would simply be too embarrassing. She had an image to maintain, after all (or an image to develop; she had only transferred to Ponyville two days earlier, after having set a number of clouds on fire while simultaneously flying too fast and taking a nap on the job).

The dress she chose was an ordinary type, not short enough to be considered a “butt-funnel” but not long enough to trail. All the while, she had no idea why, exactly, she was doing it. Perhaps it was because Pegasi were a type of bird, and therefore had a strong flock instinct and tendency to acquiesce- -although Rainbow Dash thought it had to do more with the fact that there might be free food involved. Clouds were a great building material, but although edible they were neither filling nor healthy. They tended to go to the hips.

Or, perhaps, she just wanted friends.

Then eight came, and Rainbow Dash heard her doorbell ring. That gave her pause, as she was one hundred percent sure she had not installed a doorbell. Perhaps the house had started to build itself- -or perhaps the several bottles of triple-distilled cloud vapor she had snuck out of her father’s cabinet and hidden in her cloud-walls had affected her memory.

In a flash, she was at the door. She reached to open it- -and it fell in on her, crushing her.

Derpy stared through the gap. “Oops.” She looked down at the door, which lay flat on the floor. “Oh noes, I killed her.” She paused, thinking hard for a moment. For some reason, she was not sure why that was a bad thing.

“No, you didn’t,” said a muffled voice. Rainbow Dash hauled herself out of the cloud-floor. “I’m pretty much immortal.”

“Really? So am I!”

“You are?”

“Yeah! That’s what my dad said when I got pregnant the first time, anyway.”

“Pregnant?” Rainbow Dash pulled herself out of her floor and stared, wondering how a mare who looked almost younger than her had managed to be pregnant. She was still not entirely clear on how that process worked herself; she would have to ask Fluttershy later.

She gave pause, though, when she realized just how adorable this mare was. She was not wearing a dress but rather a skirt-suit, and she had somehow managed to apply limited makeup. Doing so must have been very difficult, considering her eyes were looking two completely different directions. Rainbow Dash felt an odd tingle in her wings that she had never felt before, and blushed imperceptibly.

“So, hey- -”

“Hair flower!” the mare poked her hoof forward and put a flower in Rainbow Dash’s mane. It matched the one she wore on her lapel. “Perfect! Come on! I have the reservations for…” She looked at her wrist, where a watch had been drawn on, “...almost now!”

She grabbed Rainbow Dash and absconded with her.

The flight was quick, if only because Rainbow Dash’s house had begun to drift toward town. An easy flight, of course, for Rainbow Dash- -but not for Derpy. Under normal circumstances, her flight skills were approximately that of a bloated cockroach- -and being pregnant did not improve the situation, what with the added ballast to her midsection and the ever-present craving for pickle-flavored ice cream muffins dipped in refried beans. Pregnancy was a strange thing indeed.

Eventually, however, and after a minor amount of property damage, the pair arrived at one of the restaurants on the central street of Ponyville. It was the nicer of the two. That was one of the main reasons Derpy had chosen it. The other was that she was banned from the other one after several events of uncontrolled combustion and one substantial detonation, plus having gotten herself lodged in a tub of fondant.

This restaurant apparently was not aware of her transgressions, and an especially fancy pony seated her and Rainbow Dash quickly. Derpy even pulled out the chair for Rainbow Dash, and Rainbow Dash did- -all the while feeling every pony in the place looking at her.

“So, uh,” said Rainbow Dash, leaning over the table. “Is this like…a date?”

Derpy looked at her over a menu. Or, more precisely, stared off into the distance in two entirely different directions over a menu that she was not able to read.

“Part of it. Afterward we can go for a walk in the park and look at the stars. It’s the full moon, and you can see the Mare in the Moon perfectly.”

“Right, right,” nodded Rainbow Dash. “And who, exactly, are you?”

“What?” Derpy derped. “Oh! I’m Ditzy Antigone Doo VIII. But most ponies call me Derpy.”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow that was curiously not rainbow-colored. “Isn’t that a slur for being mentally challenged?”

Derpy shrugged. “Probably.”

“Oh. Okay.” Rainbow Dash sat with her hooves against one another, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. “So, what is it you do?”

“I’m a hitmare. I kill ponies for money.” She leaned forward. “But don’t tell anypony, it’s a secret!”

Rainbow Dash laughed uncomfortably, thinking it was a joke. Hoping it was a joke.

Derpy blinked, and her eyes seemed to focus for a moment. Or at least one of them did. “Hey…you were a fuzzy-filly, weren’t you?”

Rainbow Dash gasped and blushed. “NO! No I wasn’t!”

“Yes you were! Look at you, you’re just so adorable!”

“I was never fuzzy at any point in my life! I was always smooth and sleek! AND I NEVER MADE OUT WITH A GRIFFON!”

Derpy frowned. “I didn’t say anything about griffons.”

Rainbow Dash tried to retract into her chair. “Sorry, I got carried away,” she muttered.

“There’s nothing wrong with being fuzzy. I wasn’t, but I’d just love if my daughter were fuzzy.”

“Oh. Why, is she still young?”

“No, she’s older than you. I’m actually old enough to be your mommy.”

Somehow, this made Rainbow Dash’s wings start to tingle even more. The sense that other ponies were staring at her intensified.

“So she’s too old to be fuzzy,” continued Derpy. “But I mean my new daughter. This one.” She pointed at belly.

“Oh, wait!” cried Rainbow Dash. “You’re pregnant?! I thought you were just fat!”

Derpy chuckled “I get that a lot.”

Rainbow Dash’s spirits suddenly fell when she realized the implications. “So, like, you’re married, then.”

“Oh no. No pony wants to marry me because my eyes are weird.”

“Wait…” Rainbow Dash had to think for a moment. “Is it even possible to get pregnant if you’re not married?”

“Apparently,” said Derpy. “But only with stallions. Or that’s what Sparkler told me anyway.” She laughed. “So it’s okay with mares.” Rainbow Dash blushed profusely. “Not that I could get pregnant a second time! Unless….unless I could…” Derpy seemed to contemplate this for a long moment, wondering if she could get twins. Of course, that would probably make her expenditure problem even more severe, even if it increased her chances of one of them being born fuzzy.

“Um…yeah…well…oh look BREADSTICKS!”

Rainbow Dash tore a plate of breadsticks free from a passing waiter and put them on the table. She immediately shoved on into Derpy’s mouth. “Breadsticks are good for babies!”

Derpy shrugged and swallowed the breadstick. Watching a mare swallow a long, hard piece of bread without even chewing only made Rainbow Dash’s situation worse. She mentally cursed her teenage hormones.

“Mmm, salty,” said Derpy, wiping her mouth with her napkin. She then pushed the plate toward Rainbow Dash. “Go ahead. Give one a lick.”

Rainbow Dash took one of the breadsticks with shaking hooves and began to slowly eat it. Normally, she greatly enjoyed carbohydrates- -especially when they were deep fried and slathered in butter- -but right now, she was focusing her mind on not thinking sexy thoughts.

Derpy was not making this easy. Derpy leaned forward, gazing at least roughly toward Rainbow Dash’s eyes. Hers were big and yellow, and looked oddly innocent- -but also almost predatory, as if she really were a hitmare and were expecting that taking Rainbow Dash out to a restraint would somehow cause her to keel over dead. For all Rainbow Dash knew, though, she probably would.

She was older, but firm and adorable. Clearly a little slow, but that was okay. One did not need brains to snuggle.

NO. Rainow Dash refused to think about snuggling. It was an absurd through. She was a mare- -barely- -and mares were meant to snuggle stallions. Otherwise it would be weird. As such, she tried to imagine Derpy as a stallion- -as Zephyr Breeze, specifically, because there was no known turn-off to any pony larger than him- -but it was impossible. She was too cute, and her wings- -her exposed, naked wings- -were too fluffy and soft looking. Rainbow Dash suddenly had a strange thought about whether or not it was possible to bury her face between a pair of wings and motoprop them. Not with Derpy, of course. That would be weird.

A waiter arrived. He held out a tray of baked goods.

“Appetizers, Madame and miss? Or are you just going to eat the free breadsticks again?”

“I have a company credit card this time!” Derpy produced it. “Because my magic fetus stole it why my new boss wasn’t looking.”

The waiter looked at her as if she were insane. Derpy did not notice, and took a baked good off the tray at random- -and gasped when she realized that it was a muffin.

“And you?” he said, offering the plate to Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash did not reply, but took a pastry.

“Oooh!” said Derpy, looking at it as the waiter left. “Cream-filled!”

“What?! I’m not- -GAH!” Rainbow Dash threw the éclair she had taken away. It hit somepony in the eye.

“I got a muffin,” said Derpy. She suddenly smiled in a way that might have been meant to be seductive. “I just love muffins. But I don’t really get enough time to eat them…properly.”

“Properly?”

Derpy nodded. She leaned in close to the muffin. She smiled. “Let me show you how.” She brought the muffin close to her mouth. “First, I have to undress her. Slowly.” She opened her mouth and grasped ahold of the muffin’s paper wrapper. Rainbow Dash had never seen a mouth so dexterous in her life, and began to sweat as Derpy slowly removed the muffin peal. All the while, she became increasingly aware that she was wearing nothing beneath her own dress.

It took several seconds, but when Derpy was done, she turned her head and threw back the muffin wrapper- -but paused to smell it. “Ah…fresh…” One of her eyes met Rainbow Dash’s. The other stared at the muffin. She then sniffed the whole of the muffin, moaning as she did. “Ohhhh,” she moaned. “That’s a nice smell.”

Rainbow Dash, by this time, was shaking. Derpy hardly seemed to notice.

“Then,” she said. “I give her a little taste. Just around the muffin-top.” She extended her little pink tongue and gently ran it over the edge of the muffin, into the crease between the top and the bottom, and then gently over the top. Rainbow Dash was panting at this point.

“Oh, so hard,” said Derpy. “I want it inside me…but it’s bad to hurry. You need to take your time.” She smelled the muffin one last time and ran her tongue directly over the top, the whole while staring Rainbow Dash in the eye. “You have to wait…until the time is just…right…”

She then opened her mouth and just barely pinched the muffin with her teeth, taking out the tiniest crumb.

“GAH!” screamed Rainbow Dash as if she herself had been bit. There was a deafening POMF! sound as her wings extended with such force that a nearby table was completely upset and one unfortunate waiter was knocked completely unconscious. Rainbow Dash at this point was soaked in sweat and blushing profusely.

“Oh my!” said Derpy, looking up from her muffin and at the fully erect appendages. “Ms. Dash, your wings!”

“What wings? I don’t have wings!”

“You…don’t?”

“Nope! NO WINGS! I’m an earth-pony!”

“Oh…okay?”

“BREADSTICK!” Rainbow Dash shoved a breadstick down Derpy’s throat, picked her up, and leapt out the nearest window.

When they pair of them got back to Rainbow Dash’s house, Rainbow Dash was more embarrassed than she ever had been in her life. But Derpy hardly seemed to notice. And the moon was quite beautiful; it was so clear that it really did look like it showed the head of an ancient, demonic mare trapped within it. Which was of course a legend made up to scare little fillies that had no basis in truth whatsoever.

The pair touched down on Rainbow Dash’s cloud front yard.

“Well that was fun!” said Derpy.

“Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash. “Fun.”

“And I can definitely note down that you have, indeed, been taken out!”

Rainbow Dash laughed softly. “Yeah. Sure.”

Her wings were still stiff, and her heart was beating quickly. She opened the door to her house and turned back to Derpy. “So…do you want to come inside?”

“Come inside?”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “I have some cloud vapor…but that’s probably bad if you’re pregnant, sorry, I’m being stupid. But we could…you know…”

Derpy swept Rainbow Dash off her hooves and, in a low dip, kissed her. Rainbow Dash’s wings shot out again at full force, destroying part of her entryway.

“Sorry,” said Derpy. “I never do that on the first date. And you shouldn’t either.”

“But…”

It was too late. Derpy had already fallen through the clouds and vanished. Perhaps not intentionally. Rainbow Dash was left standing alone with fully erect wings that she would no doubt spend hours upon hours preening.

“Well,” she said, after a few minutes. “I think I learned something about myself tonight.”

Chapter 12: The Shaved Mare

Now that Rainbow Dash was dead, Derpy had fallen asleep in her cereal. Not that this was especially unusual; the substance was generally warm and soft, and she had a tendency to fall asleep in it. It was not exactly cereal, either, but rather the semi-edible foam that came out of damaged sofas. Still, it was squishy and better than eating rock soup. Even Derpy was not that poor.

The sound of a book slamming down in front of her caused Derpy to awaken suddenly and aspirate on her bowl of foam rubber. This, too, was unfortunately not unusual.

She coughed and wheezed until she managed to pass the chunk of foam- -and to regurgitate and entire unchewed breadstick. When she was finished, she then ate it and looked around. The book belonged to Sparkler, who had put it down to study in the half hour between her shifts at the diner.

“Sparkler?”

“Hey mom.” Sparkler produced spreadsheets. Derpy sighed. She knew what spreadsheets meant. “I’ve been reviewing out finances.”

Derpy laughed. “Trust me, you don’t have to worry about that.” Although she did not want her daughter to know that she was a murderer, Derpy knew that she could fund her family with the money she was making. Spoiled Rich had paid her a whole five bits to take out Rainbow Dash.

“But I do worry about it. And I deal with worry by organizing. And starting fires, but that’s beside the point.” She passed the spreadsheets to Derpy. They were mostly in numbers, which both she and Sparkler could read very efficiently; the rest was written in crystallic, the only language that Sparkler could read and write in efficiently- -and one that was completely and totally extinct, what with the complete and utter destruction of the Crystal Empire thousands of years ago.

“See, I’ve calculated it out. I’m pretty sure that we can operate on three hundred and fifty bits a month. That’s the absolute minimum. I can make up most of it if I get a second job, but…well…I’m going to be blunt.”

Derpy flipped through the notes. “What part of the budget is for that?”

“Not what I mean. What I mean is, we can’t make up the slack with muffin sales.”

“Heresy!” squealed Derpy.

“TRUE heresy. Like the fact that alicorns are a myth. Not that that matters either. That’s not important, so let’s ignore that.”

“That’s a lot of that.”

“It is, because ‘that’ is free. Unlike the ingredients you spend on muffins.”

“You’re- -you can’t!”

“Curtail your muffin budget? No. I can’t. But you need to get a job.”

“I already told you! I have a job!”

“Does it pull in a hundred and twenty five bits per month?”

Derpy paused, trying to calculate how many ponies she would have to murder to make that much. Her math skills were impeccable; she would deplete Ponyville in a matter of weeks. She supposed Canterlot would probably come next, but then there would be travel expenditures.

“I’ve set up a list of job applications,” said Sparkler, passing them to Derpy. “They’re organized by a combination of pay and likelihood of acceptance, and then alphabetized.”

“But- -”

“Your best option is applying to work for the Cakes. They’ve been looking for an assistant baker.”

“I already tried,” sighed Derpy. “I lit Mrs. Cake on fire.”

“Yes. But you light most ponies on fire at least once.”

“But they said they already gave the job to somepony. A young, pretty girl from a sheltered background who likes to party. Mr. Cake seemed really, REALLY happy about it.”

“Okay then.” Sparkler took the pile and reshuffled it. “Then your next option is working at the cemetery.”

“I tried. I woke up in a grave. I think I died.”

“Was the grave occupied?”

“Yes. By me.”

“Okay.” Derpy shuffled the pages again.

“Sparkler. I have a job. I’m working for Spoiled Rich.”

Sparkler’s eyes flashed. “Doing what, exactly?”

“Doing…thing?”

“What kind of things?”

“Important…things?”

“Are you a pool filly?”

“What? No! Spoiled doesn’t even have a pool, she can’t swim!”

“Well, then we need to consider your W2 or 1090, depending on- -”

Derpy stood up suddenly, causing her foam-rubber meal to drift out into the rest of the room. It fell very slowly and unenthusiastically. “Sparkler…um…middle name…DOO!”

“I don’t have a middle or surname.”

“Really? That’s so sad! Whoever named you must be a big meanie!”

“You named me!”

“Oh.” Derpy shook her head, trying to get her mind back on track. “That’s not the point! The point is, you shouldn’t be worrying about this! You’re still just a kid, and I’m your mom! It’s my job to take care of you!”

“I don’t care about me. I care about YOU, and my brother and/or sister.”

“I’ll handle it! I raised you all alone, didn’t I?”

Sparkler seemed to realize something. As if a conclusion she had never considered that solved all problems suddenly occurred to her.

“I have to go to work,” she said, suddenly standing up and instantly organizing her piles of spreadsheets. She had never even got to her book. Not that it mattered. She would no longer be studying. College was now firmly beyond her reach. Her brain had dismissed it and moved on, seeking new routes to organize and plan.

“So…we’re good?”

“I will fix this,” said Sparkler.

“No. No, you don’t have to.”

“If you can come up with a solution, then I won’t have to.”

Sparkler then left, going on her way back to work. Derpy turned and stared at her, at the textbook she had left behind and the pile of foam rubber that was still drifting in the air. She sighed. Because the only solution she saw was to kill more ponies.

The sun was already mostly up when Flim and Flam rolled into Ponyville. They were not literally rolling, but rather travelling on the top of a cart.

“Ah,” said Flam, looking out over the town. “What a wonderful place it is, don’t you think, brother? How very quaint!”

“Indeed!” replied Flim. “And no doubt filled with various rubes, yokels, rednecks and marks of every type!”

“Clean country air.”

“And the smell of profit!”

Flim lifted the whip at his side and whipped the cart pony. “ONWARD!” he cried.

“GAH!” cried the cart pony as she was whipped. She immediately jumped free of the cart, looking up and around. “Who dares to whip the GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE?!”

“Um…”

Her attention was brought to the top of her cart. “ACK! Who are you?! What are you doing on my cart?!”

“Oh…we were…um…”

“GET OFF! And did you just whip Trixie? TRIXIE IS NOT A MULE!”

“She could have fooled me,” whispered Flam to Flim. Flim chuckled.

“You get down here or I’m going to make one of your heads disappear! Up the other’s BUTT!” She started shaking the cart, trying to knock them free. She was reasonably successful.

“My word,” said Flam, landing gracefully on the ground. “Such horrible service!”

“I see the public transportation in this town needs work,” scoffed Flim.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is not public!”

“And this is not stated?”

“Indeed, brother! Public and private transportation must be differentiated! I believe it is a royal decree!”

Trixie looked confused. “Wh…what?”

“Oh yes! The fines for operating a transport service without the proper markings…oh my.”

“Is it…is it big?”

“VERY big.”

“Tremendous!”

“Enourmous! Throbbing!”

“Throbbing?”

Flam motioned to his brother to tone it down. Then they circled and advanced. “We could report you, you know.”

“For- -for what? I didn’t do anything wrong!”

“You were operating an unregistered taxi!”

“No- -I’m- -I’m a magician- -”

“But we were transported? Weren’t we, Flim?”

“Indeed we were, Flam.”

“That means the law applies, I’m afraid. And Celestia does not take kindly to scofflaws!”

“The Great- -the Great and- -Trixie has never once scoffed!” scoffed Trixie. Still, she looked terrified. “She…I…I don’t have any money, though, my tricks aren’t…well…perfected?”

“Of course, of course. We understand.”

“You do?”

“We do. And will look the other way…for a small fee.”

So Flim and Flam arrived to town with all of Trixie’s cash. They had not taken her cart, only because it was a hobo cart and smelled like cheese and powdered gun.

“If the unicorns are that thick, I can’t imagine what the earth-ponies are like,” chuckled Flam.

“She didn’t seem to have filled out at all to me,” shrugged Flim. Then, realizing that his brother meant mentally thick, he sighed. “Oh. Yes, indeed.”

They paused in the middle of the street, examining the podunkest podunk that either of them had ever borne witness to. Dusty streets, quaint houses, ponies wandering around left and right with their pouches jingling with bits. Flim and Flam could almost taste the profit.

“The first order of business?”

“Assembling a base of operations, from which to build our…business.”

“And acquiring an adequate stooge. We mustn’t forget the stooge.”

They looked around. There were a preponderance of potential stooges. They had already considered Trixie, but in silent twin-telepathic-debate, they had decided she was far too much of a pain. And although a certain level of mental (and, ideally, physical) thickness was required for the job, Trixie was perhaps overqualified in at least one of those categories. And not the physical one.

While contemplating this, Flim suddenly grimaced. “Do you smell fried food?”

Sparkler came around the corner, her eyes still distant as she planned what would inevitably be a difficult process. She was the source of the smell (because she had not had time to bathe in the last six months), and she was too deep in thought to notice Flim and Flam fall into step beside her, boxing her in.

“Why, hello there,” said Flim.

Sparkler jumped. “Huh? Where am I?”

“Why, you’re right where you need to be,” said Flam, chuckling. She was between them. Unable to escape. And she smelled like a perfect stooge.

“Our first trip to this town, and as soon as we arrive! Imagine our luck!”

“Luck?”

“Yes! To find such a rare jewel of a mare as soon as we enter town.”

Sparkler looked at them. Her vision was distant and, to both Flim and Flam, rather disturbing. She was organizing mentally. One eye started to slowly deviate from the others, but was quickly pulled back.

“Say,” said Flim, ignoring that. “We’ve come here to start a new business.”

“An entirely legitimate business,” added Flam. “One meant for only the most upstanding of ponies, mind you.”

“Of course, of course, we are very selective about who we are intending to let into our organization.”

“And entering our organization early is, of course, a rare opportunity.”

“A once in a lifetime opportunity!”

“Indeed, brother, indeed! To get in on the ground floor and rise with the company.”

“Now, if you could answer a few questions.”

“Questions?” asked Sparkler.

“Yes.”

“Firstly: have you ever worn a maid’s outfit?”

Sparkler paused. Her eyes became slightly more clear. “No. But my mom has one. And I’m pretty sure it fits me.”

Flim and Flam gasped and looked at each other, astounded that they had found a stooge that already had one of the necessary costumes.”

“Excellent, most excellent!”

“Here,” said Flim, producing a heavy document. “This would be the contract dictating your duties and responsibilities, as well as compensation.”

“And absolving Flim and Flam industries of any responsibility for loss of limb, grievous injury, death, medical insurance or any sort of compensation.”

They shoved it in Sparkler’s face. She looked at it for a moment, then gave it back. “I can’t read this.”

“Well, some of the terms may be complex, but we can summarize- -”

“No. Literally. I can’t read. I don’t know how.”

Flim and Flam gasped. She was an idiot- -and perfect for them.

“Well, then,” said Flam, producing a pen, “if you would just sign here, we’d be glad to read it to you in our new and luxurious office.” He put his foreleg around her and immediately recoiled, crying out.

“Wh- -what is it?” stuttered Flim, confused at his brother’s reaction.

“She- -she- -are you hairless?”

“I have a mane and tail,” said Sparkler, looking up at them. “But otherwise, yes. No body hair. At all.”

Flim and Flam shuddered. She was like a warm, slightly wrinkly leather sofa- -but neither of them had noticed until they were up close. Still, they knew that it would be okay. The costumes would cover her freakish hairlessness anyway.

“I am interested, though. I’ve been considering a second job. What are the hours?”

“Oh, well, that would have to be somewhat flexible. I suppose we can discuss- -”

“I currently work one hundred sixty six hours per week. Can we work around that?”

Flim and Flam blinked.

“Is that even legal?” asked Flim.

“Legal? Is that even POSSIBLE?” He looked at the mare. A mare who still had braces and filly-like thinness- -but knew where her mother’s maid costume was and apparently did not blink. “When do you sleep?”

“I don’t. I’ve been using a stimulant spell for almost eight years.”

“Stimulant- -but that would take an incredible amount of power- -”

“It does. But I’m a unicorn. So I’ve started feeding on the life force of virgins.”

“You- -what, WHAT?!”

“See? Watch.” Sparkler pointed past Flim and Flam. Trixie was entering the town, heaving her cart up the path. “She’s about to enter my proximity…and…”

“Attention ponies!” cried Trixie, oblivious to what was about to befall her. “The Great and Powerful- -” Her voice suddenly faded as she began to shrivel slightly. Then, in an instant, she keeled over, wrinkled and unconscious. Sparkler began to vibrate slightly.

Several more ponies nearby fell as well. A couple of young mares passing, a stallion, and a white unicorn. The pastel yellow Pegasus standing beside the white unicorn squeaked in surprise.

“Oh, hey Fluttershy!”

“Oh. Hi Sparkler.” Fluttershy waved, and then proceeded to haul Rarity away.

“See? Virgin life force.”

“Are they…dead?”

“Generally no.”

Flim and Flam looked at each other. “Um…then why are you not draining us?”

Sparkler looked up at them. She shrugged. “My guess? Twincest. I mean, have you two seen your cutie marks?”

Flim and Flam looked at each other’s rumps and, realizing what was there, they both blushed profusely.

“Additionally, I compiled this list of points.”

Flim and Flam stared at the list that Sparkler suddenly produced, gaping. “When?”

“Just now, while you were talking.” Sparkler unfolded the immense scroll and scanned through the crystallic text that covered it. “Ahem. Point one: vision insurance deductibles. Or maybe you use a flex plan?”

“Um…”

“Never mind. Point two: temporary versus long-term disability…wait, will I be a contractor or is this something that would use a W2? Because then I’d have to file both and it would be better if…” Her voice hitched. “…if I emancipate myself and don’t declare as a dependent. Oh. And did you know we’re getting a new property tax next year? Come to think of it, I’ve assembled a list of buildings for our new business, organized by floorspace and land value ratios taking into account the six proposed tax bills that are on the mayor’s desk right now…”

“I don’t…”

“We’re not so sure…”

“What should it be called, though? ‘Sparkler, Flim, and Flam’ doesn’t ring well.”

“You would be an employed, you wouldn’t get top- -wait a minute, how do you know our names?”

Sparkler stared up at them with unblinking, penetrating violet eyes. “I know the names of everypony that enters or exits Ponyville. I keep it on a LIST.”

Flim and Flam were backing up by this point, but the hairless mare was advancing. She was not as good of a stooge as they had expected. In fact, their situation was degrading rapidly.

Then it degraded further. Flim and Flam both shuddered, as though Satin herself had just poked them in the flanks. They looked up simultaneously, and wished they had seen they HAD seen Satin- -or perhaps they had. Staring at them from down the street with a look of absolute fury was none other than Spoiled Rich.

“WE HAVE NOW GO!” sputtered Flim and Flam at the same time. Then they vanished. Sparkler stared, blinking, confused as to why. She could not have known that it was already too late, and Spoiled Rich had planned a horrific death for them at the hooves of Ponyville’s most successful assassin. Not only did the twins know too much, but they had spurned her request. They had dared to deny Spoiled Rich something she had asked for- -and for it, they would die.

Sparkler just shrugged, and continued on her way to her job. She wonder if she could catch up to Fluttershy. She had been meaning to talk to the filly about her younger brother, and if he would be visiting Ponyville anytime soon. If she wanted to avoid turning to outright blood-feeding, she would need a long-term source of energy.

Chapter 13: The Buckets

Derpy was munching on the breadstick when the phone rang. Derpy picked it up. “Hello?” she said.

There was no answer. The phone continued to ring. The main reason for this was that Derpy had mistaken a banana for the telephone receiver. She was not sure if that was how it normally worked; telephones, after all, were new technology. And therefore witchraft. But Spoiled Rich had given it to her, and therefore it was probably cursed and had been (literally) given birth by Satin herself.

“Just like Fluttershy,” reasoned Derpy, setting the banana down- -and saving it for later. She picked up the phone.

“Derpy here.”

She paused, listening. “Two unicorns,” she said. “Flim and Flam. Youngish. Probably cute- -” Yelling in her ear. “Okay, not cute. How do you want it done?” A response. “Any way I want, as long as they kick the bucket? I can do that.” Another order. “And take their horns for trophies. I can do that too.” Derpy picked up the banana beside her phone. “What are your throughts on bananas?”

She heard shuddering on the far side of the phone, and then a click. Derpy set it back on the cradle and stood up. She had work to do.

Flim and Flam had no idea that they were about to die when they arrived at a structure near the outskirts of town. It was- -or had once been- -a barn. Or a bar. Or both. Not that it was really possible to tell, considering the state it was in.

Although it was rare, some ponies had their cutie marks in dust. Not dusting, just dust. They loved the stuff. Not even they would dare approach this place. The wood on the exterior had rotted, and the wood on the interior had joined it; parts of it had collapsed, but only remained standing because the construction was so poor that there was no logical way for them to fall. There was not only black mold, but blue, green, red, and a curious type that was striped with black AND white. There were also rats. Real big ones.

Yet Flam still stared at this wreck and whistled. “Excellent. Most excellent.”

“I know,” said Flim, brushing the feathers off his shoulders that had previously belonged to the former owner of this dilapidated husk. A mare that he had just finished snuggling.

“Did you get her to drop the price, or do we need to use all of our ‘Great and Powerful’ money?”

“I did one better,” said Flim, slyly. “I actually got HER to pay US!”

Flam blinked. “Then you must be a far better snuggler than I thought!”

“No, no, that was just to up the pay.” He held out the bits he had acquired.

“How, dear brother, did you manage this one?”

“I managed to convince her that we were from a remediation company and are willing to do the cleanup work on this place.”

Flim and Flam looked at each other and burst out laughing. “Clean up! Teehee! CLEANUP!”

“I know! Apparently it’s a superfund toxic waste site! And where an orphanage burned down! And built on a cervine burial ground!”

“Wait a minute,” said Flam. “Burial ground?”

“Don’t worry, they moved the headstones.”

“Oh. Excellent!”

“Most certainly!” Flim poked at one of the walls. His hoof passed through easily. “Why, with a little paint and some boards, nopony will even know it’s condemned!”

“And since it’s zoned as ‘condemned’, that means no inspections!”

“So we don’t have to build to code!”

“And we can probably trick some earth-pony rube into painting the whole place for us!”

“Just like when we were kids!”

The two laughed. Hard. Flam took a step back, and only stopped when his hoof very nearly hit something shiny. He looked down, confused, and saw a pail sitting on the floor. One that had not been there previously.

“Flim…did you buy a bucket?”

“A bucket? No, not that I can recall. But it does look nice. I’m sure we can find a use for it.”

Flam picked it up. “Strange, it doesn’t seem rusted at all…” He sniffed it. “And it smells like…muffins?”

“Well, I suppose we can put it with the others.”

Flam raised an eyebrow. “Others?”

“Of course.” Flim pointed. Flam felt a shiver run up his horn. There was a small herd of buckets surrounding his brother. Buckets that he was absolutely sure had not been there a minute before.

“I think something’s wrong,” he said. “Flam. I think we ought to go back to town. Survey the clientel, and perhaps find some more girls.”

“It’s too early,” said Flim. “We already saw that with that weird shaved…vampire…thing.” He shivered. “We ought to prepare the office first.”

“Flam, I’m not joking, I really must insist- -”

Their oil lamp flickered and nearly went out- -despite their having been no breeze a moment before. For a moment, the room was swathed in pitch blackness.

Then the light came back and Flim screamed like a little filly who had just gotten her horn stuck in a knothole. The room was now completely filled with a veritable army of buckets. Not all of them were nice and new, either. Some were large. And rusty.

“Sweet Celestia in tight leather tack!” cried Flam, jumping back but gracefully avoiding the buckets. “She was right! It IS haunted!”

“Now, brother, we have to think of a rational explanation for this- -”

That was when Flim saw his brother’s eyes widen, not staring at the buckets- -but at a partially collapsed section of the building. Flam had started to weep tears of horror.

Flam slowly turned. At first, for a brief, blissful moment, he saw nothing. Then his eyes focused, and he knew in that instant that he would die horribly.

A face was poking out from behind the debris. A mare’s face, dotted with two yellow, cat-like eyes that reflected in the light of the lamp and somehow managed to focus on both of the twins at once. The gray mare was barely visible, but she was breathing heavily. Panting in anticipation.

“Kiiiiiiick iiiiiitttt,” she whispered. Then she giggled. “Kiiiiiiick iiiiiitttt…”

This time, both of the stallions screamed as though they had been gelded in infancy. Then they ran, plunging into the night with reckless abandon.

They were tall, and they sprinted quickly for unicorns. Yet they could not have picked a worse night. The moon was not full, but almost was- -and the face of the Mare in the Moon glared at them, as if watching them. Both could not help but suddenly be aware of the legends that their mother (who hated them both) had told them during their childhood of an immortal, cannibalistic mare trapped in that moon, a mare whose evil was only rivaled by her sexiness. A mare that would now watch them and see that they receive their punishment due for scorning something or other.

Then something passed over the moon. Something dark and feathery.

Flam screamed and ground to a stop, barely managing to pull his brother back by his withers.

“LOOK!”

The entire dirt-paved street was lined with buckets. And endless sea of them. Silent. And waiting.

“We have to go back, we can’t- -” Flim turned, and screamed, for the buckets had encircled them. Both paths of the road were completely full.

“Kiiiickkk iiiitttt,” whispered a voice from the trees. The pair looked to see the mare with the golden eyes peeking out from a shrub, now with neither eye looking at anything in particular.

“Into the woods! QUICK!”

The pair of stallions leapt off the path and into the forest. It was not the first time they had been chased through a forest, although it certainly ranked in their top ten. Somehow it was worse when the entire population of a town was not behind them with pitchforks and torches. They had no idea who- -or WHAT- -was pursuing them, or why. Nor did they know which direction it was coming from.

They suddenly burst into a clearing and screamed, nearly running into a mare- -but not the one chasing them. That one was gray and made of pure, muffin-scented evil. This one was a thin orange teenager with freckles and a hat. And a shovel. Standing over a hole that she was digging. In the dead of night.

“You- -you have to help us!” cried Flim. “We’re being chased by- -by- -um…what are you doing?”

She leaned in so close that they could smell her freckles. “Ahm’ digging a HOLE.”

Both the twins whinnied, wept, and ran, leaving the mare alone with her hole. They disappeared once again into the woods.

“It’s happening just like dad said it would!” said Flim through his tears. “It’s a town full of crazed rednecks! They’re going to put yokes on us and force us to plow fields!”

“Or make us dance at a hoe-down! I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT IS!!”

The two suddenly burst into the edge of town. They slowed.

“Okay, okay,” gasped Flim. He was not a fit pony. At all. “We’re here! Somepony will help us here!”

Except he was wrong. No pony would help them. When they arrived, they found the town completely and utterly deserted. It was barely ten o’clock- -but every pony in this particular well-behaved small town had long-since gone to bed.

This left the streets empty, dusty, and silent. As Flim and Flam walked quickly through the moonlit darkness, they began to grow more and more nervous. Their panting filled their ears- -as well as the heavy, excited breathing of a third pony.

“Where…where is everypony?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know!” Flam looked around. “There- -there has to be a constable! A police station- -”

“There isn’t! That’s why we chose this town!”

“Then an all-night diner- -Celestia’s shivering withers, I’d even take the one where that hairless weirdo works!”

“I think- -yeah, I think I know where that is! It HAS to be open!”

They started- -but were suddenly driven to a halt at the top of a long main road. There, standing at the far end, partially obscured by mist, was a single bucket.

Flim grabbed Flam. “Did…did it see us?”

“It’s a bucket!” whispered Flam. “It can’t see!”

“No,” said the gray mare snuggled between them. “But it does want to be kiiiiiickkked…”

They both screamed and ran down a side alley.

“Help us! HELP! Won’t sompeony PLEASE HELP!”

Yet nopony did. In fact, the situation promptly grew worse as the alley was blocked off by a horde of buckets- -and, lying between them, two dead ponies.

Flim squealed. Flam squeaked. Both had not known what the buckets were for, but now they knew: they were for death. And nothing else. As had befallen this blue, rainbow-maned mare, and the purple mare a few meters from her.

They ran, this time in the opposite direction, yowling all the way, the volume of their shrieks drowned out as they trampled through a small horde of buckets, upturning them loudly.

As they did, Rainbow Dash snorted and woke up. She sat up slowly, rubbing the back of her head. “Ugh…” she said. “Why is my bed…hey wait a second, where am I?” She looked up at the dark sky and the moon. “GOSH DARN IT! I knew I should have reinforced my floor! Now I’m gonna need to steal cloud joists…” She sighed and turned to the purple earth-mare nearby. “Hey, why are you here?”

The mare responded by raising a shaking hoof and shaking a now almost completely empty bottle of “punch”.

“Oh-ho! Neat! Are you gonna finish that?”

Berry Punch shrugged and threw the bottle to Rainbow Dash. She sipped it as she became aware of Derpy picking up the buckets.

“Hey there,” mumbled Rainbow Dash, unable to look directly at there.

“Hey there Rainbow Dash,” said Derpy. She eyed the bottle, or at least tried to. Then she frowned. “If I was your mother, I’d spank you for drinking that.”

Rainbow Dash thought about that for a moment, and her wings immediately pomfed. Berry Punch laughed at her.

“Great,” she grumbled as Derpy vanished into the night. “Just great…”

Chapter 14: Horns

Somehow- -as if fate itself hated them, which was a very real possibility- -Flim and Flam ended back at the shack they had started at. This time, though, the buckets were gone, and they intended to keep it that way. They very quickly- -with the help of magic, what with being members of the master-race of ponies- -boarded up every entrance, exit, mouse hole, and toilet they could find. With their amount of adrenaline, it only took a matter of minutes.

“There,” said Flam, wiping his brow and being careful not to prick himself on his horn-organ. “There’s no way she could get in.”

“But what if she’s a ghost?”

“There’s no such thing.”

“NO. There literally ARE. We live in a magical realm of COLORED HORSES, of course there are GHOSTS!”

“Don’t be silly. Ghosts are made-up fiction. Every unicorn knows that.”

“So then WHAT WAS THAT THING?!”

“I would suppose a very large bat.”

“A BAT? And ghosts are made up- -”

“I literally snuggled a bat-mare to get these shirts,” snapped Flam. “They EXIST.”

“But- -but- -what about the buckets?”

“Probably some kind of redneck ritual. For all we know they pray to them.”

“The bucket lord,” whispered Flim.

“Not that it matters now. We’re safe. This place could withstand a hurricane. A FLAMING hurricane, even.” A slight breeze blew, and the whole place creaked wildly, nearly toppling. “As I said. We’re safe.”

“Well…”

“Even if we weren’t, there’s not much we can do.”

“Do you think she’s waiting out there?”

“I don’t know. But I know we’re in here until morning.” He picked up a moldering blanket. A rat larger than him began to scurry out and he grabbed it, laying down on it as though it were a pillow. It being a gentle Ponyville rat and naturally starved of attention (as all ponies other than Fluttershy tended to hate rats) it hugged his head back, feeling great affection.

Flam pulled the blanket up, and it promptly disintegrated into cockroaches, which made up well over ninety percent of its mass. Flam just stared at it and sighed, and then pulled up the hoofful of fibers left over that were not wiggly and moving. “I’m going to bed.”

“But, she could be there- -”

“I just got chased through an obscure pondunk town by BUCKETS. I’m tired. I’m taking a nap. Tomorrow we can find employees. Who knows, maybe we can tie the hairless girl to a stick and use her to find virgins. I have no idea.”

In a huff, he rolled over and hugged his rat-pillow. Flim looked on, terrified but willing to accept what his brother was saying. He sighed, and took off his shirt and lay down on the far side of the room near the toilet where the ground was the softest. He had no idea how he would get to sleep.

Ten seconds later, both were snoring loudly. And Derpy was standing beside them.

Flam rolled over in his sleep, growning as he was awakened. He closed his eyes and winced. It was still dark; the whole reason he had become a con-pony instead of getting a real job was so that he never needed to wake up this early.

“Come on, Flim,” he muttered groggily. He picked up his rat and threw it at his brother. “What are you doing, sawing logs over there? We’re going to have to get you checked for apnea…” He yawned, and then went back to sleep.

And it was indeed a good sleep. He dreamed that a mare was on top of him, her wings flailing wildly as she pawed at and stroked his long, hard horn. He could almost feel teeth against it, grinding down in the rough way he only wished mares would treat him. A mare on top of him…a mare that smelled like MUFFINS.

He awoke screaming. By this time, the sun was out.

“GAH!” cried Flim, also awakening suddenly. “WHAT WHERE WHEN MONEY?”

“Oh my,” said Flam, putting his hooves on the side of his face. He had a crushing headache, as though he had been licking other unicorns the whole night before. “What a dream…it started out good but then it…”

“FLAM!”

Flam turned and saw his brother staring wide-eyed- -but then found himself staring at his brother with equal horror and surprise.

“YOUR HORN!” they both cried at once.

Both of them could see it clearly. In the night, while they slept, their horns had been sawed off, very nearly to the quick- -and they were nowhere to be found. They had both been uncorned.

Chapter 15: Death to Fluttershy

The food was expensive. Unfortunately, not nearly expensive enough. Spoiled Rich sighed. There was very little reason to bother eating out in a town so minor that it only had a diner and one marginally different restraint. The food she could eat at home- -delicious, juicy steak, largely- -was far superior.

Of course, she had been busy and not had a chance to go back home. As such, she had rented out the entire restraint and decided to have a meal. She was in a good mood, so she had brought her assassin with her to make it a business lunch. Derpy, of course, got no food. Neither did Diamond Tiara- -who was accompanying, even though Spoiled was deeply ashamed to be seen in public with her- -apart from a small amount of kale.

Diamond Tiara looked up. “Mom, can you pass the dressing?”

Spoiled swatted her hard in the back of the heat, nearly knocking her tiara off. “YOU will address me as ‘Mother’ or ‘Mrs. Rich’, and I do not ‘PASS’. DEMAND from the weight staff.” Spoiled at another piece of delicate, rare sliced truffles. Deep fried, of course, because she hated mushrooms. “Not that you need it. You’re already downright porcine. Lose some weight. And fix your tiara, you slob.”

Diamond Tiara suppressed her tears, stiffened, and straightened her tiara. “Yes, mother.”

“And don’t talk. I’m busy and your voice is annoying.”

Spoiled turned to Derpy, who was derping with extreme vigor. One eye was looking out the window at the passing ponies, and the other was watching Diamond Tiara intently.

“Are you eying my daughter?”

“I’m eying lots of things,” replied Derpy. She blinked, and her eyes were facing two entirely different directions. Neither were toward Spoiled Rich. “Sometimes, if I look hard enough, I can see…things.”

“Things?”

“Tall alicorns that never blink. The void beyond reality. Sometimes the Eye of the Th’oth, but only on humid days. Oh! And muffins. ASTRAL muffins…”

Derpy began to drool. Spoiled made a disgusted face, although she was not sure if Derpy was joking. She in fact seemed to be looking just over Spoiled’s shoulder- -as if something was standing there.

Spoiled avoided turning. Instead, she produced a small silken kerchief from her purse. She contemplated it for a moment, speaking to Derpy. “Your work on the twins was…efficient.”

“Both have kicked the bucket,” said Derpy, proudly.

“And you got the proof. Just as I asked.” She opened the kerchief, revealing two identical, perfect unicorn horns. Diamond Tiara saw them and went pale. Spoiled wished she would stay that color instead of piggy-pink. Perhaps, she realized, she should remove all traces of iron from the girl’s diet to see if that worked.

“An excellent cut, even if you missed the quick.”

“Thank you,” said Derpy, blushing. “I’ve had a lot of practice! I used to have to cut Sparkler’s horn every month when she was a filly.” Derpy sighed. “She kept poking herself in the eye with it.”

“That’s the trouble with having useless appendages.”

“Like ears.”

“Exactly, like- -wait, what?”

“Ears. What are they even for? No matter how hard I listen, I can never hear them! On the same note, though, I CAN smell my own boogers.”

“Great,” muttered Diamond Tiara, pushing her kale away. “Now I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Good,” said Spoiled. She wrapped up the horns again, intending to have them made into decorative fountain pens later on. Or she would grind them up and snort them. It hardly mattered, since the ponies who they had come from were largely of no real consequence.

“Derpy,” said Spoiled.

“Yes I am,” said Derpy.

“Do you know what I like about this?”

Derpy squinted, thinking hard. “No?”

Spoiled smiled. “I like the power. It makes me tingle.”

“When I tingle I have to go to the doctor, because it might be another blood clot.”

“I don’t care. I like being able to kill ponies. I like being in control. I’m a god, and you are my tool to accomplish my will. Those idiotic farmers, the mayor, that dirty upstart, and now those twins who defied me.”

“I killed a lot of ponies, didn’t I?” Derpy looked at Diamond Tiara, then pointed. “Is she supposed to know about this?”

“Yeah. I probably shouldn’t be hearing this.”

“Why? She needs to learn. The only way to get ahead in life is to be willing to do ANYTHING. Including murder. That’s why you’re an impoverished failure who has to do manual labor for money, while I’m able to determine the fates of every pony in this town.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that,” said Diamond Tiara.

“You feel EXCELLENT about it. Now shut your cake-hole before some flies in and ruins your complexion.” She looked back at Derpy and smiled. “If I chose a random pony, would you still do it?”

“I forget who everypony is a lot, so it’s all the same to me.”

“So you’d off a pony that did nothing wrong, that has no reason to die except for my will…just because I offered you a couple bits?”

“I need money. I have one daughter, and another on the way.”

Spoiled Rich laughed. She was extremely tingly, and was panting with excitement. A pony who had no reason to die, who would die ONLY because of her will, not for any crime against anypony at all- -THAT would make her powerful. It would make her truly like a god, going even beyond Celestia herself, who was rumored to at least have some semblance of a sense of justice.

Spoiled looked out the window at the passing ponies. They could not see her through the glass- -Spoiled barely allowed herself to be seen with her daughter, let alone with her hitmare- -and Spoiled knew that none of them were aware that she was deciding their fate. They were walking around like sheep, not knowing that one of them was going to die.

Then she saw one. The perfect target. A young mare, barely a filly, one of astounding adorableness. Her very presence infuriated Spoiled: how there was a pony would could appear so innocent and so perfect, so young and so beautiful without being rich at all. A pony who was soft and pleasant, kind and perfect- -a pony less guilty than any of her peers, but still worthy of Spoiled’s deepest contempt.

“That one,” she said, pointing. “I want you to murder that one.”

Derpy looked, and her eyes widened. She immediately jumped back and began shaking her head in terror. “N- -no! I can’t do THAT! That’s Fluttershy!”

“I didn’t ask what her name was. I want her dead. You have to do what I say.”

“But- -but she’s FLUTTERSHY! I can’t hurt Fluttershy! She’s…”

“Too adorable?” asked Diamond Tiara.

Derpy looked at the girl aghast. “You don’t know what I know,” she whispered. She turned to Spoiled, shaking. “Mrs. Rich, I just can’t! You know what they say! ‘If you make Fluttershy cry, THEY make you DIE!’”

Spoiled’s eyes narrowed, and she stood up suddenly. She put her pointed nose in Derpy’s face. “Are you refusing me?”

“I- -I- -maybe?”

“Derpy,” sighed Spoiled, sounding disappointed. “Maybe you never stopped to think about your position. No, of course you didn’t, you’re a mentally challenged moron. So let me explain it to you. You KILL ponies. Is that correct?”

Derpy thought for a moment. She actually started to wonder, but her mouth seemed to answer before her brain. “Yes,” she said, doubtfully.

“And do you know what they would do to you if they caught you? If somepony realized what you do? What you’ve DONE?”

Derpy gasped. She did not realize, but she knew it would be bad.

Spoiled smiled cruelly. “I know. They’d build a gallows in the middle of town. They’d string you up by your WINGS, and then beat you like a piñata until all your candy falls out. Then they’d send you off to the GLUE FACTORY.”

Derpy squealed. “Not the GLUE FACTORY!”

“YES! That is EXACTLY where you’ll go!”

“But- -but- -I’m only doing what you’re paying me too!”

“So? Did I ever hurt anypony? No. Not at all. I’M not guilty of any crime. YOU are.” She let that sink in, and then continued, now quietly. “And if you don’t keep doing your job, I’m afraid I’ll have to report you. That it was you and you alone who killed all those ponies. I would just have to, it’s a matter of business. No loose ends.”

Derpy was sweating and sunk back into her chair. “But…but I’m pregnant…”

“It won’t stop them at all. So think about that before you say ‘no’ to me. I’ll let it slide once because I WAS in a good mood. Now. Get up. Get out of my sight. And KILL. FLUTTERSHY.”

Derpy sniffled, and then stood up. She moved to leave, but Spoiled called out.

“Wait,” she said, smiling wide. “I have another request. For a method. Are you familiar with a Catrillian necktie?”

Derpy blinked, and then shivered. “Y…yes.”

“I want you do to do her that way. Give her a necktie. Make sure she isn’t so pretty when they find her.”

Derpy was crying now, more out of fright than anything else. She nodded. “Y…yes, boss.”

When she had left, Spoiled turned to her daughter, who was now thoroughly scarred for life. “See? Manipulation. Learn it well. With looks and brains like you have, that’s the only way you’ll get anywhere at all in life.”

Spoiled then went back to eating her truffles, still feeling tingly knowing that a pure and innocent pony would meet a most gruesome fate soon enough, just like all the others

Chapter 16: Failure

Derpy moved swiftly and silently- -or, by “swiftly”, as fast as a pregnant mare could waddle, and by “silently” it meant hitting every twig, branch, tree, hole, muskrat, and bucket that the forest had to offer as she moved through it.

She knew where Fluttershy lived. Fluttershy, after all, was a witch. She live on the outskirts of town in a strange shack where she communed with various familiars, sending them forth to cause misdeeds and torment in Ponyville (there was also a witch who lived in the swamp, but she was a zebra, and a swamp-witch, and Derpy had always had good relationships with swamp-anythings).

The deed had to be done. Derpy, though shaking and terrified, knew that there was no other option. Spoiled was right: it was either this or the glue factory. She had already killed too many ponies, and it was too late to go back. Fluttershy would be difficult, but easy enough.

She paused and produced a cravat. A gaudy, ugly one. She shivered. Derpy did not actually know the rather gruesome nature of a Catrillian necktie (which was not a tie at all), so instead she had acquired a necktie from Catrillia. It was the most gaudy and hideous rayon thing she had ever seen, and just looking at it made her want to turn her muffins. After all, Spoiled Rich had been very specific: when they found Fluttershy, she would indeed not be pretty. Not pretty at all.

Suddenly she came to a clearing and ducked low. Peering through the bushes- -bushes that, unknown to her, a great many stallions had stared through on a regular basis- -she saw a river. Fluttershy was just emerging from it, dripping and shimmering with water. Several birds immediately descended on her, bringing a towel. Other animals were present too, of every type: a bear, some large spiders, rats, mice, rabbits, a goat, and even a group of trash-pandas. Derpy sighed with relief; at least there were no churpos.

Unfortunately, apart from the animals, Fluttershy was not alone. Sitting at the river-bank, slowly munching on a sandwich, was none other than Rainbow Dash. Apparently, the pair were friends, despite Fluttershy being quite obviously far older. Perhaps even immortal and ageless (in a demonic sense), at least in Derpy’s eyes.

“…and then my wings went out. AGAIN. Flutters, I don’t know.” Their eyes met. “I know it sounds really weird…but I think I dig mares.”

Fluttershy stared back, and then rolled her eyes. “Oh my!” she said, feigning surprise. “I would never have guessed!”

“I know, right?” laughed Rainbow Dash, clearly not observing the sarcasm. “So weird!”

Fluttershy laughed humorlessly. “So…um…I wouldn’t want to be pushy, but…I’m all wet and vulnerable, so…”

“What?” Rainbow Dash’s eyes suddenly lit up. “OH! Ha, sorry! I didn’t realize I was making you feel uncomfortable! No, you don’t have to worry about anything, Flutters! I don’t find you attractive at ALL!”

Fluttershy’s expression fell. “Of course,” she said. “How very…comforting.”

“I was built for speed, not comfort! But then again I am really, REALLY soft…not as soft as you, though. You’re like a sack of butter wrapped in dryer lint. I just don’t know how you do it.”

“I don’t know if that was as much of a compliment as you meant it to be. I mean, I wouldn’t want to think you would be trying to ruin my fragile, sensitive feelings but- -”

Derpy leaned forward and stepped on a small oak twig. It snapped loudly.

The resulting scream was deafening. The intensity of the shriek was so loud that Rainbow Dash was thrown backward into the river, clearly not having realized that Fluttershy had that capacity for volume. Fluttershy, meanwhile, was writing on the ground in abject terror.

“Somepony’s trying to kill me!” she shreaked. “Help, HELP! I’m being murdered! Bloody murder! BLOODY MURDER! BLOOOODDDDY MUUUURDER!”

Derpy had been had. She had no idea how Fluttershy had seen her, but she had, and she knew exactly what Derpy was trying to do. This had never happened before, and Derpy was suddenly terrified (and somewhat deaf). As such, she immediately scurried away, knowing that she had to run- -because now THEY would be after her. Visions of piñatas filled her head as she fled, and she knew she must run.

Rainbow Dash, meanwhile, poked her head out of the stream. “Fluttershy! COME ON! What in Celestia’s treetrunk pasterns was THAT?!”

Fluttershy squeaked and then blushed heavily. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I heard a noise, and I got scared.”

Rainbow Dash stared at her for a long moment. “What?!”

“Oh my! I’ve made you deaf! I’m so sorry!”

“WHAT?!”

Fluttershy smiled slyly. “Dummy says ‘what’?”

“WHAT?!”

Fluttershy chuckled to herself, and wondered for a moment what she had actually heard. She supposed it was probably just a branch falling or something. Nothing of consequence at all. And certainly not something worthy of the piñata treatment.

Derpy fled into town. When she got there, though, she instantly knew that the stories were true: that whoever made Fluttershy cry was sure to die. And horribly, although “horribly” did not rhyme well with “die” or “cry”.

Ponyville did not have a police force, nor did it have any guards of any sort- -but on this particular day, the entire town was flooded with tall, gold-clad white and gray ponies. The Royal Guard had come, and Derpy knew why. It was because she had been had, and now they were after her.

She let out a lout “eep!” as several passed by her, and she ducked into an alley, diving under a drunk and hiding as a pair passed. She held her breath, knowing that being caught was a one-way ticket to having her “candy” beaten out, and then to the glue factory.

Two white unicorns stopped at the end of the alley. Derpy had to try her hardest to keep her wings from pomfing open and throwing the berry-scented drunk off her back; white unicorns were, after all, the most pure and genetically perfect race of ponies. And, as evidenced by her daughters, Derpy liked unicorns even more than she liked griffons.

Then, to her horror, they walked into the alley. Derpy felt tears rolling down her face, but she remained still.

“Huh,” said one of the guards. “You know, it smells like muffins in here.”

“All I smell is horses,” said the other. He gasped. “Do you think they make muffins…out of HORSES?”

“The captain already went over this. They’re probably not cannibals.”

“P- -probably?”

“I don’t know, this is the backside of nowhere. And trust me, I was on Celestia’s personal retinue last rotation, and I KNOW backsides.”

“Why did you leave?” The guard gasped. “Did you flop a cake?”

The other guard looked horrified, then angry. “Don’t even joke about that!” he hissed. “That’s how you end up getting hung by your horn and having the candy beaten out of you! Then you get transferred to somewhere bad!”

“Like…where?”

The guard leaned in close. “If the legends are true? TO THE MOON!”

Both guards shuddered.

“Come on,” said one. “We have to get back to work. The captain said we have to search the whole town.”

“But why?”

“You know why. For…HER.”

The guards shuddered again. “Hey,” said one, looking around. “You know what I heard about her? That’s she’s some sort of monster. Like, burned with acid or all full of dark magic and stuff. Glowing eyes and everything!”

“I heard that she’s the worst of the worst, so dangerous that Celestia wants her kept away from everypony and everything. Forever. I mean, if ponies were to find out about her, what she does? The whole of Equestria would collapse from panic alone!”

Derpy shivered, absolutely sure that they were talking about her.

“I think she’s some kind of wizard,” said one, whispering.

“No. No way. She’s got to be a WITCH.”

The drunk that Derpy was hiding under snorted and sat up. “Excuse me,” she slurred, pointing at the guards. “I’m trying to be passed out here! It isn’t easy- -HIC- -sleeping in an alley, let alone on a pony!” She pointed to Derpy beneath her. “So either buy me some punch or shut yer pie-holes!”

Derpy screamed and fluttered out from under the drunk. “Don’t take my candy! DON’T TAKE MY CANDY!”

She flew down the alley, ramming into several trash cans, a dumpster, a wall, and the ground several times. She was absolutely sure that the guards were following her. They were, however, not. Instead, they were watching, confused.

“Who was that?” asked one.

“A resident,” said a third voice, and both the guards stiffened. From the shadows, a large auburn Pegasus in golden armor suddenly appeared.

“L- -Lieutenant Spearhead!” they both cried, standing at attention. The drunk tried to stand at attention too, but she fell over and passed back out.

“We talked about this, guys,” he said, a smile on his face, as if he were about to chuckle. “We’re not supposed to frighten the residents. You got that?”

“Yes sir!”

“And…” He put his front hooves on their shoulders, and they gulped. “That ‘which’ is the captain’s sister. And Celestia’s personal student. And the reason we’re here. To see if this town will really resonate with her personality. And be safe. Do you guys understand that?”

They nodded. Both were sweating.

“Good, good. I can totally forgive you. Or I will. After you two check the sewers.”

“For…for what?”

“For what else? Monsters. Snakes specifically. The big, long, biting ones. But also drowners. There’s ALWAYS drowners.”

The guards gulped, and began to cry- -but they knew better than to disobey.

“Excellent,” said Spearhead, smiling. “Totally excellent.”

Derpy, of course, heard none of this, because she was already halfway across town. By this time, she had fully lost control of her wings, and they were incredibly stiff. Part of that was out of fear- -that could happen, sometimes, due to the stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system- -but also because the town was so very fully of muscular, glistening unicorn stallions. Derpy wanted them to be put into a single large pile for her to jump into on a cold night. Of course, she knew that these stallions were not interested in snuggling. They were interested in catching Ponyville’s most notorious murderer.

With her wings stiff, Derpy was unable to fly. Instead, the best she could hope for was to waddle quickly between buildings. She had an impression that she was being stealthy. In fact, she was sure of it, despite the fact that the majority of guards she passed did, indeed, see her, and dismissed her as a local weirdo. They were, after all, busy inspecting the town for snakes, drowners, handsome stallions, and other potential threats to the Princess’s most favorite student. The student that they all “knew” she was secretly snuggling every night.

Derpy hid behind a large crate of apples and peaked out, watching a small group of extremely sexy guards passing, their perfectly shined golden armor gleaming as they went. Derpy stared at them, and then hid behind the box completely. She looked down at her belly, which contained a partially-formed unicorn foal.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered, starting to cry. “I wasn’t thinking! I didn’t think of the consequences! If they get me- -then they get you TOO! I can’t let that happen!” She rubbed her belly. “But don’t worry. I’ll find a way out of this, I promise.”

A voice sounded in her head. “Mom. You’re way overreacting. They’re not even after you.”

“Shh, shh,” said Derpy. “What do you know anyway? You’re just a voice in my head. Or maybe a telepathic fetus? Are you a telepathic fetus?”

There was no answer. Derpy assumed she was hallucinating out of fear, and from having all of her blood in her wings.

She peeked out from behind the crate again. The guards had stopped for lunch. They were eating apples, as would be expected. It was the primary food source in Ponyville, apart from the carrots that nopony ever talked about.

“I have to get past them,” she said. She stroked her chin, thinking, all the while derping severely. “But to do it, I’ll need a distraction…”

“So,” said one guard. “These are apples.”

“Yeah.”

“They taste like…fruit.”

“You taste like fruit,” said a third.

“Oh, burn!”

“Well your mother tastes like fruit!”

“We have the same mother, idiot!”

“Wait- -we do?”

“Yeah. I mean, we’re all siblings, right?”

The group looked at each other. They were all identical.

“Well, great. That’s just great! Because I was stallion-snuggling that guy, and now you made it weird!”

Suddenly, a gray pony leapt into the street.

“DISTRACTION!” she screamed as she thrashed about in the dust. “Distraction! DISSSSTRACTION!”

The guards stared at her, not understanding and a little bit afraid. The gray Pegasus continued to roll and scream, until eventually she stopped and sat up. She looked at them- - her eyes could encompass the entire group without moving, as they faced different distances- -then she got up and ran.

Simultaneously, the group of guards looked at each other- -and then set their apples down.

Chapter 17: The Unicorn

“That was close! I was sure they’d see me!” Derpy laughed as she ran through the town. Her attempt at distraction had worked, and now the path was clear.

Then it occurred to her that although the path was open, she was not sure where it went. Derpy immediately ground to a halt and derped as she thought. There really had been no plan. She could not exactly go home, because that would be the first place they would look- -and it would possibly endanger Sparkler. Likewise, she had no friends that she was aware of that would hide her. She supposed the only option was to go to Spoiled Rich, but that would require going all the way back through town in the opposite direction.

Except that this plan would never come to fruition. Barely sixteen minutes after Derpy had stopped to think, a guard came around the corner- -but not just any guard. A white unicorn with a long blue mane, dark hooves, and one dressed in amethyst armor. He was the leader, and he was the sexiest of them all- -or would have been, had he not been standing next to an immensely tall pink unicorn in a green sweater. The unicorn’s horn was so immense that it made the captain’s look tiny by comparison, and he seemed short next to her.

“GAH!” cried Derpy. “No! Not the piñata!”

She did not watch where she was going, and stepped over and embankment on the edge of the road. With a loud squeak, she fell, rolling down the rocky precipice and into a muddy river below.

Derpy landed hard in the mud and gasped, inhaling quite a bit of it. She began to choke and drown, but out of sheer will managed to pull herself onto shore. Coughing and sputtering, she tried to escape- -only to have a long shadow suddenly cast over her.

Derpy looked up to see the tall pink unicorn mare looming over her. Her tricolor hair was tied back, and her eyes were enormous and strangely shaped. Derpy had heard that there were tall unicorns in Canterlot, but she had never known that they were THIS tall- -or this terrifying.

So Derpy curled up, trying to protect her unborn foal. “Please!” she wept. “Not the glue factory! Don’t make me go to the glue factory! The hours are terrible- -and they don’t let you unionize- -and the dental insurance is TERRRRIBLE!” She began to sob, knowing that it was all over.

“The glue factory- -why would I- -what are you- -” The unicorn sighed, and lowered her horn. Derpy squealed as she was picked up in magic- -but was confused as she was brought to one of the drier portions of the shore.

“Wh- -where are we going?”

“You’re all covered in mud. Are you okay? I’m sorry, we must have startled you when we came around the corner- -”

Derpy stared at her, shaking with pure fright. She kept expecting to see the mare produce a rope to begin the piñata process. Or maybe she was just going to beat Derpy here and take all the candy for herself. Derpy thought that was probably most likely.

“It’s all the gross kind! Licorice! Those little wafers that taste like antacid! Unlabeled hard-candy!”

The mare stared, looking concerned. She put her thin hoof on Derpy’s forehead. “Did you hit your head?”

“At some point,” admitted Derpy. She coughed, producing more mud as well as a second unchewed breadstick. “Oh,” she said. “I didn’t even know I ate two to start with!”

The mare sat down, and put both hooves on Derpy’s shoulders. The hooves, like the rest of mare they attached to, were weirdly hairless, like Sparkler was. Her horn glowed, and suddenly Derpy felt slightly more addled than normal.

“There,” said the unicorn. She adjusted her sweater. Derpy found it odd that she was wearing it, considering how warm it was outside. “My name is Cadence. I’m pleased to meet you.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“Thank you. Do you have a name.”

“Yes.” Derpy paused as Cadence waited.

“Can you tell it to me?”

“Also yes.” Another long pause.

“And…”

“And? Oh! My name is Ditzy Antigone Doo VIII. Or Derpy, because I have drain bramage and my eyes are messed up.”

“Ditzy Doo? That’s strange.”

“Not really. I think my parents hated me.”

“No, not that. It’s just that that’s the same name of the scientist who invented the aurous ceramic used to make armor for the Royal Guard.”

“Ceramic?”

Cadence nodded. “Yes. As light as cloth but harder than steel, and resistant to magic- -”

“- -and edible in case of emergencies.”

Cadence’s eyes suddenly narrowed, and Derpy squeaked with fright. This mare, though adorable, was double her size- -and could be very scary. “How did you know that?” she demanded. “That’s a state secret!”

“How did I- -because it’s me!”

“It’s- -what?”

“It’s muffinite! I invented it!” Derpy pointed at herself. “After I graduated university!”

Cadence stared at her, and then smiled. “I KNEW I recognized that name! So that big mansion outside town must be your house, then!”

Derpy derped. “What? No. I can’t afford a mansion, I don’t have any money.”

Cadence looked confused. “Well that’s weird…because we pay a royalty to the patent-holder every month. A ROYAL royalty. Transferred directly into her bank account. It’s something like a hundred thousand per payment.”

“Bank account?” Derpy was confused. “I had a bank account once. But it’s gone now.”

“Gone?”

Derpy nodded. “I forgot the PIN.”

Cadence stared at her for a long moment. “You know you can just walk in and have them give it to you, right?”

Derpy gasped. “I can?”

“Yes?”

“Oh. No, I didn’t know that.”

“Well, you can. You might want to check that, too.”

“If I can even make it,” sighed Derpy.

“Why wouldn’t you be able to make it?”

“Because the Royal Guard is trying to catch me! They’re going to hang me by my wings and beat the candy out of me, and then send me to the glue factory! Spoiled Rich told me so!”

Cadence looked up at the precipice, and then swore. “My own sexy flank- -I told him this would happen! I said ‘Shiny, why don’t you just send me? I blend in’. But nooooo, he just haaaaad to send a whole platoon of uniformed guards. ‘I have to be sure it’s safe for Twily’! Safe my tight cheeks, it’s Ponyville! You couldn’t get much safer if you wrapped her in bubble-wrap!” She groaned and put her hoof to the base of her enormous throbbing horn. “Right,” she said to Derpy. “They scared you. I’m really sorry about it. But trust me, Shiny’s not scary, he’s like a marshmallow. A marshmallow with a ridiculous voice.”

“You think he’s cute.”

Cadence blushed. “Well…maybe…um…”

“Don’t worry, I think he’s cute too! But…so…are the guards not trying to send me to the glue factory?”

“No. Nopony’s trying to…um… ‘send you to the glue factory’.

“Good! My telepathic fetus will be so happy!”

Cadence looked at her. “You’re pregnant?”

“Yes!”

“Great. So we just scared a pregnant mare into a mud pit and almost drowned her. Just great.”

“Well, great I didn’t drown to death.”

“Oh, no, I didn’t- -never mind. Come on. How about I take you to lunch? If you promise not to sue us?”

“Can we have muffins?”

“Yes, but only AFTER you eat your meal. Desert doesn’t come first!”

“But- -”

“No buts! You need nutrition or your baby will be slow!”

“Like me!”

“Sure, like- -” Cadence grimaced. “Sure. Come on.” She levitated Derpy, as well as herself, carrying them out of the pit. Her magic was substantially more powerful than that of a normal unicorn, and felt different. Derpy was not sure why.

“So,” said Derpy. “How did you know all that stuff bout muffinite?”

Cadence sputtered. “I- -uh- -I know the Minister of Conquest personally.”

Derpy gasped. “You know Minister Mi’Amore Cadenza?” She whispered. “Is he as scary as they say he is?”

Cadence chuckled. “Only sometimes.” Then she frowned. “Hey, wait. Who says I’m- -I mean the Minister- -is scary?!”

Chapter 19: Sparkler Leaves

Very rarely in her adult life- -which was unnaturally long due to the power of the Derp- -had Derpy been so stuffed. In fact, she felt so swollen that she might be carrying two foals at least- -to the point she was concerned that all the food she ate might push out the foal that was actually inside her.

Cadence, it seemed, was fabulously wealthy, as all unicorns were. Supposedly. She had bought Derpy a great deal of food. All of it, of course, was exceedingly healthy. There had been no muffins at all. In addition to being rich, Cadence seemed to be highly knowledgeable about what was good for pregnant mares, stating repeatedly that the foods she was filling Derpy with were necessary the development of large, healthy wings. Derpy had not even had a chance to say that her daughter was a unicorn, and that if she did come out with wings, that would be a case of divine birth.

Today had been a strange day indeed. Derpy had failed to murder Fluttershy- -unless the mare had died of a heart-attack, which with how loud she had screamed was probably likely- -and then had almost got sent to the glue factory, only to be stuffed with beans and carrots by a tall pink unicorn who was weirdly hairless.

She turned the corner in her house and nearly tripped over something warm and relatively soft. She looked down to see a pale, sickly blue unicorn in a cape and hat. The unicorn stared up at her with sunken eyes and reached out weakly, trying to stand but finding herself unable. “Help…me!” she whispered.

“Oh. Hello there! You must be one of Sparkler’s friends! Let me just- -step over you- -there!” Derpy walked past the young mare and into her living room. She almost jumped when she saw Sparkler there; she had grown used to Sparkler never being home.

“Sparkler!” she said. “You’re here- -wait. What is that?”

Sparkler had tried to hiding a pamphlet, but Derpy, despite her eye condition, had seen it. She had excellent peripheral vision.

“Nothing.”

“No, I’m not falling for that again!” The pale unicorn grabbed her rear hoof, pleading quietly, and Derpy shook her off. “Nothing unusual happens in this house without me noticing!”

Sparkler sighed, and then produced the pamphlet. “It’s literature.”

“You read literature? Oh, I’m so proud!”

“Not that kind of literature, mom.” Sparkler paused, and then sighed deeply. “It’s from the captain of the soldiers that were going through town. It’s about how to enlist in the Royal Guard.”

Derpy gasped, and Sparkler levitated the pamphlet. Derpy took it, and saw that it was filled entirely with pictures and no words, apart from the front. The title was “So You Want to be Cannon Fodder”.

“Sparkler! You- -you can’t!” cried Derpy, suddenly terrified. “Why would you- -you don’t want to- -”

“I wouldn’t be able to be part of the castle guard,” said Sparkler, her eyes not wavering from her mother’s. “I’m not white. So I’d be in a colored battalion.”

“And you’d get stationed out at the border with YakYakistan! No! You can’t! Do you know what they do to mares they catch out there?!” Derpy shivered. “They’ll through you in the goulash!”

“You mean ‘gulag’.”

“No! The goulash! It’s like a big soup! Made of snow! Trust me, I’ve seen it, when I was stationed there!”

“That’s not- -wait. When were you- -”

“Up until my forties, before I went to college and had you. My little muffin!” Derpy approached Sparkler and put her hoof on the girl’s face. She was so young- -and yet taller than Derpy was by several inches. She smelled like fried food, because she worked so hard- -and thinking about that made Derpy very sad.

“Mom. I’ve done the math, and I’ve worked it all out. The diner won’t give me any more hours. I’m making at best four bits a day. I consume more than I produce. All simulations and contingencies indicate that I am an economic burden.”

“Don’t say that! DON’T!”

“Even if it’s true? If I go there, you won’t need to support me, and the money I make will be almost double what I make at the diner. I can send it back. To help you and my sister.”

“But- -but- -Sparkler! You can’t!”

Sparkler was emotionless. Or at least appeared that way. To her, this was math. It was the only option, and there was no point in feeling sad about it. Yet she did. This was not at all what she wanted, but there was no other way. “I have to.”

Derpy wrapped her front legs around Sparkler’s side. “NO! I won’t let you!”

“I don’t need your permission. Not technically. But…” She sighed. “I had hoped…”

“NO!” Derpy was crying now. “You can’t!”

“You’re hormonal,” said Sparkler. She was gaslighting, and knew it. But that was the only way to get this done. “The emotions you are feeling aren’t real. If you think about this, we can approach this calmly- -”

“Don’t leave me!” Sobbed Derpy. “Don’t leave me alone! I don’t want to be alone!”

The logical, organized hierarchy that made up Sparkler’s mind suddenly began to break down. This path was correct. She had done the math, consulted the lists- -but hearing the pain in her mother’s voice made her realize that it was also wrong. This was not something she had ever encountered before, and it terrified her.

“Mom- -”

“You’re all I have!” wailed Derpy. “Everything else in my life is horse plops! Because I messed it all up! And now I messed this up too- -and you’re leaving because of me- -and it- -it’s ALL MY FAULT!”

Sparkler slowly raised one hoof and hugged her sobbing mother. “It’s not your fault,” she said. “It’s just the way it is.”

They hugged for several minutes, both crying. One had killed to save her family, and one would leave that family behind to try to save it.

Then a knock came at the door. Both the mares looked up, confused, and slowly walked to it, stepping over the anemic mare that Sparkler was using as a living battery, with Sparkler only stopping to move her a few feet back in the house to make sure she could not crawl her way to the door.

“I see you fixed the hinges,” said Derpy, sniffling slightly.

“Yeah,” said Sparkler, her voice sounding distant. “I managed to find some glue.”

Derpy shivered, knowing how close she had come to making glue herself- -and opened the door.

Cadence was standing there, smiling, and holding a veritable crate of healthy food in her magic.

“Hi there!” she said. “I thought you might get hungry later, so I got some extra vegtables so your daughter grows some nice big wings and- -and…” She trailed off, looking at the two red-eyed, puffy mares. “Am I interrupting something.”

“No. We were just crying,” said Sparkler. “What with our lives being destroyed by poverty and all.”

Derpy elbowed her.

“Oh,” said Cadence. Her expression fell. Neither Sparkler nor Derpy knew it, but in that moment Cadence vowed that when she finally slew Celestia and claimed a kingdom of her own, she would create a world where no pony would experience deprivation. “Oh…well…” She lifted the box. “I have vegetables? Nothing dries tears like…an eggplant…” She sighed. This was not working at all.

Yet Derpy still smiled. “Sparkler, this is Cadence. She’s a really nice pony!”

“Hello,” said Sparkler, extending her hoof. “I’m Sparkler. I’m her daughter.”

Cadence blinked. “Wow. Sparkler? You know, you look a LOT like another Sparkle that I used to babysit.”

“I know. The pervert I met earlier seemed to be implying the same thing.”

Cadence did not know what this meant, but she extended her hoof in greeting. Their appendages tapped, and Cadence immediately felt her magic falter. Suddenly, she felt extremely weak, as though something were draining her (unlimited) life-force.

At the same time, Sparkler suddenly started vibrating. Small blue sparks began to rise off her.

“What the- -no- -NO!” Her eyes went wide and she pointed at Cadence in pure terror. She screamed. “VIRGIN!”

At that moment the life force of an immortal alicorn virgin overloaded Sparkler’s harvesting spell. She sped backward so fast that she left a set of blazing hoofprints through the front hall of her house, impacting the walls of space-time with so much force that space itself buckled and snapped. In an instant, she was gone, leaving only a scent of ozone and fried food.

Still feeling weak, Cadence blushed. “Well, you don’t need to announce it to the entire town,” She muttered. Then she blinked, watching as the temporal distortion puckered back up and closed. “Um…is that normal?”

“I don’t think so,” said Derpy, watching where Sparkler had been and the flaming tracks she had left. “But she’ll be fine. She’s a good kid.”

Derpy was suddenly pushed to the side. With Sparkler gone, the blue unicorn mare was making her escape, clawing her way forward on her front hooves while the back were apparently still mostly paralyzed.

“FREEDOM!” she wheezed, pulling her way down the front stoop and pat the garden to the street. “Trixie has her FREEDOM!”

Cadence and Derpy both watched her go in silence, very confused.

“So,” said Derpy at last. “Do you want some muffins?”

Chapter 20: An Obvious Realization

Spoiled Rich was, of course, busy being spoiled. Which she was every day. It was a full time job, to the point where it was almost tiring. But somepony had to do it, and she- -in her own opinion, which was of course the most informed- -was the only one qualified to do it.

She had already received her weekly pedicure at the local spa for the unfortunately low cost of three hundred bits, and now sat in what she supposed (incorrectly) to be her conservatory, watching the sun outside and drinking the most expensive coffee known to ponies. It was the kind that had gone through a civet. A TALKING civet. Spoiled could not help but wonder if she could somehow find the fur of said civet, to wear to fancy parties. Like the Canterlot Gala that she was sure to be invited to next gala season.

Considering that a great idea, she wrote it down with one of her new unicorn-horn fountain pens. Then she leaned back and looked at her Canterlot paper. By now, she was sure, Fluttershy would have been brutally terminated, meeting the end of her short but adorable life screaming and covered in various secretions. Spoiled rejoiced deeply in that thought, for no other reason than because she could afford to.

Her husband entered the room, humming to himself and dressed for a workout. He paused to smell several of the exotic flowers that grew in the “conservatory”. Spoiled supposed they were a kind of rose, but she did not know or care. All that mattered was that they were expensive.

Filthy jumped. “Spoiled!” he squeaked. “Oh my Celestia, I didn’t see you there! You just blend in so very well with all these beautiful flowers!”

He leaned over and kissed her. She tolerated it. He was, after all, quite wealthy.

Filthy looked down at the paper. “The Canterlot Column?” he said. “I always liked the comics in that one! Unicorns can be so witty!”

“Because their brains aren’t good for much else.”

“Oh Spoiled!” laughed Filthy, thinking it was a joke. “But hey, have you seen the local paper? What happened to the mayor? It’s just terrible!”

Spoiled smiled, but carefully. “Oh yes,” she said, coolly. “Terrible indeed. I’ll have to send a card with our condolences. After all, she was so very young.”

“I know! If she had died it would have been such a shame!”

“Yes, it certainly- -wait, WHAT?”

“Oh yes. You didn’t read about it? It was in the morning news! A headline on the front page! It turns out she was saved by some anonymous hero!”

“Saved- -what- -NOT- -DEAD?!”

“Yeah!” Filthy sounded almost in awe. “Somepony put her in a tub of ice and called the hospital! Why, they said that if she had just been left lying there, the fever would have left her with the brain of an eggplant- -or worse!” He laughed, sounding relieved. “But because she was packed in ice, she narrowly made it, thank Celestia’s hindquarters. She’s recovering in the hospital.”

Spoiled gawked at him. This was inconceivable.

“I guess that means the property tax will go through.” Filthy sighed, but smiled. “Oh well. I suppose it would be nice to have a better school. And paved roads. And oh! I hear we’ll be getting an airmail depot! But isn’t that our duty as wealthy ponies, to help those below us rise to our level?” He paused for a moment. “Of course, even with our income, we won’t be able to afford this house. But that’s okay. I was thinking of moving into my dad’s old townhouse. That way we can be nice and close with our customers, really understand what they need and want.”

“You- -YOU- -” Spoiled sputtered. If any pony besides Filthy had told her this, he or she would probably be in the processes of meeting Celestia’s divine rump in the pony afterlife. Something had gone wrong, but Spoiled just could not fathom it.

“Well, we can discuss that later, of course,” said Filthy. “I’ve got some cardio scheduled. Got to keep in shape! I’d hate to end up like my dad and not live long enough to show Diamond Tiara how to run the company!” He checked his extremely expensive watch (one that had been a gift from his father). “I actually hired a trainer, she should be here any- -”

Something swooshed by with such force that Spoiled was nearly knocked out of her chair; her expensive haircut was immediately ruined by the breeze. A rainbow contrail swooped by and landed next to Spoiled. Spoiled, on the verge of screaming, gawked, because standing right in front of her was a familiar Pegasus- -except that she was not dressed in a track jacket and exceedingly tight spandex shorts.

“Wow! Talk about punctuality!” exclaimed Filthy, laughing.

“I know, right!” Rainbow Dash laughed, and then turned to Spoiled. “Hey, it’s you!”

“Oh, you’ve met my wife!”

“Wife?!” Rainbow Dash looked exceedingly surprised. “Whoa. My admiration for you just went WAY up. You must be the most patient stallion in the whole world!”

“Well, you don’t get anywhere in business by being too hasty! Or in personal life, I suppose.”

“Hopefully you don’t have that attitude on the track. Are you ready to run?”

“I sure am!”

“Well I hope you like looking at my spandex-covered underage flank! Because I’ll bet you a whole bottle of cloud that you’ll be spending the whole two hours looking at it!”

“Oh ho HO! You’d be surprised, I was quite a runner in my day!” Filthy had already started to jog excitedly. “Spoiled, care to join us? Not that you need exercise at all, seeing as your figure is excellent, but I’d love to spend time with you.”

“She’s…not…dead…”

“Eh, she’s busy,” said Rainbow Dash. She dropped to the ground and broke into a trot right through the conservatory. “Come on, Filthy! Get that wealthy flank MOVING!”

“It’s Rich, please!” called Filthy, following after Rainbow Dash on her path to the garden. He paused only to blow his wife a kiss.

Spoiled, however, hardly noticed. There was a strong possibility that somewhere, somehow, she had burst a blood vessel. And a big one.

Then the situation grew worse. Filthy was barely through the door when it was thrown open with such force that it shattered several hideous vases stashed through the room, and a pair of tall, thin, hornless unicorns pushed their way in.

“No,” said Spoiled. “NO.”

“I’m sorry, madam,” said Randolph, looking ragged and tried. “I tried to hold them back, but they were very insistent! And I think they’ve been greased!”

“Grease? Why, you insult us!”

“We are legitimate salesponies, not greasy at all!”

“Even if we slather ourselves with bubber.”

“So the cops can’t get a grip on us, mind you.”

“Simply a professional precaution!”

“We only break the law when it’s unjust!”

Spoiled stood up. “WHY ARE NEITHER OF YOU DEAD!?”

They turned to her, both about to speak- -when their eyes fell on the pair of horn fountain pens she had in her possession. They immediately looked angry, but Spoiled took little comfort in their impotent, hornless rage.

“Why, you dirty pink- -”

“We suspected you had something to do with it, but this, THIS- -”

“You had us uncorned!”

“Yes. I did. And you were supposed to be DEAD when it happened!”

Flim picked up his horn. Or perhaps his brother’s. His eyes widened. “Did you- -did you turn this into a pen?”

“Yes. So what?”

“So you’re an earth-pony,” said Flam.

“So?”

“So,” said Flim, “you’ll be sticking our horns in your mouth whenever you right.”

Spoiled, having not realized this before, blushed deep crimson. It had not occurred to her that she had been giving them post-mortem horn licking.

“You filthy PERVERTS!” she cried, swatting at Flim. Luckily, he was fast enough to dodge, as a blow form an earth-pony probably would have pulverized his fragile unicorn bones.

“Why would you do this? What did we ever do to you?!”

“You refused to help me! Then you had the nerve- -the HORN- -to show up in MY town to laugh at me- -”

“We were NOT laughing at you!”

“Well, not to your face.”

Spoiled laughed, and Flim and Flam both suddenly felt afraid. The earth-pony butler sealed the door behind them, and they realized that they had been locked in a room with a mare who had cut off their horns and would probably do far worse to them. Both of them knew that even with their generous coating of butter, the situation was grim.

“I was generous, you know. I offered to let you help me. To be partners. I don’t extend that to filthy, inferior races that often, but I did to you.”

“Because you wanted a fall pony!”

“Shut your pie-hole before I shut it for you!” snapped Spoiled. “You will LISTEN when I’m talking, and talk when I TELL YOU TO.” She burst out in laughter again. Flim and Flam started to shake.

Spoiled approached them, picking up their horns and rolling them in her hoof. They made a horrible, dead scraping sound.

“You wanted to form a business, didn’t you?

Flim and Flam looked at each other. “Is that…is that permission to speak?”

“YES.”

They cringed. “We did. We came here to start it.”

“Except I already did. I beat you to it. Do you know why? Initiative. Skill. Charisma.”

Flim and Flam looked at each other again, clearly not understanding.

“Business?”

“Yes. The same one you wanted to start, probably to have me wake up in a pool of my own juices. COLD juices.”

“Um…” They were blushing at this point.

“But I did it first. You wanted to make a business to ‘solve certain problems’? I already DID. I hired the hitmare, and I sent her out. To ‘solve’ ponies…by killing them! And I sent her to turn both of you into strawberry pudding. But it looks like she only managed to get your horns.”

Flim and Flam’s jaws dropped. “You- -you’re a MONSTER!” they cried.

“Murder?” squealed Flim. “M- -murder?”

“Ponies can’t murder!” shrieked Flam. “Just the thought of it- -”

“Oh please,” said Spoiled, rolling her eyes. “You were trying to do the same thing. To start a hitmare business.”

“We were trying to start a sexy maid service!”

“What?”

“What kind of pony do you take us for?! That we- -that we would even think- -Oh, Flim, I need to be sick!”

“NOT ON MY CARPET! It costs more than you do!”

Flam turned green, but managed to hold it in.

“Now,” said Spoiled. She had begun to pace. “You mean to tell me that this whole time, you weren’t planning an hitmare agency at all?”

“No pony in their right mind would- -”

Spoiled shot Flim a look. Flim recoiled.

“Yes or no. ANSWER.”

“No.”

“And you led me on anyway that you were?”

“NO!”

“I don’t appreciate being LIED TO,” snapped Spoiled. “But you’re perceptive. The reason I wanted to hire you was to act as middleponies, so that if my hitmare got caught, you would take the fall. Do you know what the punishment would be?”

Flam gulped. “N…no…”

“The glue factory. And before that, hung by your horns.” She smiled. “Except you don’t have any anymore.”

“They’ll grow back.”

“Yes. But I think the courts would rather hang you by…well, something else instead.”

Flim and Flam gasped, but they both knew that she was serious. The penalty for running an unregistered sexy maid service was to be tickled on the wheel, but to run an assassination agency was probably worth something far worse indeed.

“But now, I have a bit of a problem. My assassin, apparently, is an idiot.”

“Or she didn’t want to kill ponies.”

“No. She is an idiot. A mental defective. I have proof. That’s the whole reason I hired her, because she’ll never amount to anything else in life. I didn’t imagine that she was so stupid she couldn’t even figure out how to actually do the deed.”

“It’s harder than you would expect,” said Randolph.

“Really?” Spoiled hefted one of the horn-pens and threw it suddenly. It whizzed past Flim’s face by millimeters and imebbed itself six inches in a stone column. “Because one more inch, and I think I would have done it.”

“I…I think I peed,” whispered Flim.

“Randolph will take care of it. It’s not the first time.”

Randolph sighed. “Of course, madam.”

“Now,” said Spoiled. “Here’s my problem. My hitmare has gone rogue. And that’s a problem. Mainly because she hasn’t killed anypony- -except maybe those stupid Apples, and I don’t even think that was her- -but that’s not even the biggest half of it.”

“A half is…half, though…”

“Stop talking. The PROBLEM is that she knows I was soliciting for ponies to die. Even if she didn’t do the deed, I’m guilty of a felony.”

Flim and Flam looked at each other and smiled, their eyes twinkling with realization.

“Well, then, it would certainly be helpful- -”

“If I paid you to keep your mouths shut? No. I don’t have time to play games. You two are going to help me find her. And get rid of her.”

Flim laughed. “Mrs. Spoiled, I don’t think you realize what position you’re in. You did just admit- -”

“No. If you don’t help me, I’ll go to the guards right now and tell them that the both of you held me down and snuggled me without my consent.”

Flim and Flam gasped, but only slightly- -although it was too late. Spoiled now smiled, knowing that they were beat.

“Preposterous!”

“We would never!”

“Especially not with you!”

“It doesn’t matter if you did or not. Two penniless vagabond con-ponies against the richest mare in Ponyville? Who do you think ponies will believe?”

“But- -you can’t!”

“But you already did. Don’t you remember? Poking me with your filthy, stupid horns.”

“But we don’t even have horns! You uncorned us!”

“It doesn’t even matter! I paid for the reelection campaigns of every judge in the reason! Facts? Who cares about facts?! I could basically write the conviction myself and have you thrown into a mare’s only prison tomorrow. You’d be snuggled flat by morning. Maybe by a Bertha, or an Agnes…”

Flam shivered. “Not a Bertha! Anything but a Bertha!”

“TWO BERTHAS!” laughed Spoiled. Then she calmed herself. “Unless you help me.”

Flim and Flam conversed telepathically, what with being twins and all. One of them, they found, was slightly turned on by this whole endeavor.

“That is,” continued Spoiled. “I’m willing to let you leave. In peace. And never be bothered by me again.”

“Right,” said Flim. “What do you want from us?”

“Kill Derpy. Kill her until she is very, VERY dead. And her eldest daughter too, just in case. No witnesses. Then you can go.”

Flim and Flam paused for a long moment. Knowing there was no other option, though, they nodded, and the deal was made. Sparkler, who was in the process of phasing through the room at an eight-dimensional orthogonal pattern, found it all terribly amusing.

Derpy would die soon enough.

Chapter 21: Derpy at the Bank

Ponyville had a bank. That was not a widely known fact, but it did, because every town needs at least one bank. Especially one where the residents never, ever left. Not many ponies knew about it, of course, as most kept their money under their respective mattresses- -and if they did not have a mattress at all (such as Trixie, who was a magical hobo anyway, and only a temporary resident of the town), then they probably did not have any money worth hiding.

Derpy did not have a mattress. Despite this fact, she had only gone to the bank once, and she could not remember why. As she approached it, though, she found that it had grown vastly in size since she had last been there. What had once been a tiny shack (actually a refurbished outhouse) was now a grand building, complete with real wood siding (not unfinished Flyvek paper like on Derpy’s house). In fact, it was the grandest building in town, short of Rich Manor. Derpy wondered what had happened to make it grow so quickly. It was almost as though somepony had been transferring tremendous amounts of money into an account without ever taking it out.

Upon entering, Derpy immediately went to the very back of the long row of velvet-rope cordoned rows and began to systematically walk through them. The bank was otherwise empty, so she probably could have gone to the front, but she was absolutely sure that if she broke the rules even slightly, she would be thrown out. After all, she was poor, and banks did not like poor ponies.

The teller saw her doing this, and gasped. Derpy froze, preparing to flee and knowing that this was a bad idea. She then saw the teller run to the back, and knew she was probably about to get tased.

The bank manager- -a tall stallion in a fancy suit, complete with buttons made of real metal- -appeared just as Derpy was starting to flee.

“Why, if it isn’t our VERY BEST customer EVER!” He immediately leapt over the counter, sprawling on the floor and quickly unbuckling the velvet ropes. Derpy, now terrified, froze. She might even have peed a little, but that was probably because of the combination of fear and pregnancy.

“I- -um- -I- -”

“This way, this way! To the front of the line!”

“But…there isn’t a line…”

“Do you want a cookie? We have cookies! CHANGEJINGLER! Get the cookies!”

The teller vanished suddenly. Derpy was not sure if “Changejingler” was her name or her title. It was sometimes hard to tell with ponies.

“You’re being very nice,” said Derpy, still confused and feeling strange.

“Well of course!” The manager pointed at the high, painted ceilings and the glimmering brass that made up most of this bank. “All of this is because of you, after all! I mean, of course we handle the Rich accounts, but only the parts they don’t have offshore- -but you! Why, this bank wouldn’t be here without you!”

Derpy was pushed to the front of the non-line and the teller presented her with cookies. Fancy ones, too. Derpy took one and ate it.

“Now,” said the manager. “Ms. Doo, what can we do for you today?”

“I…forgot my PIN.”

The manager and the teller looked at each other.

“Oh,” said the teller. “When was the last time you used it?”

“Um…never?”

“Changejingler!” hissed the manager, pointing at Derpy.

“Oh. Oh! Of course. Let me look that up.” She did so by checking a list. “Ah. I see. You’re PIN is- -”

“Wait! I’m going to write it down this time!” Derpy produced a used muffin wrapper and pulled out one of her feathers for a quill. The manager immediately presented her with ink. Fancy ink, probably made from wild inkbeasts milked by the last living Inka.

“Are you ready?”

“Ready!”

“Your PIN is…one….two…three…four.”

“Oh wow!” gasped Derpy. “It’s the same as the combination on my luggage!”

“Would you like to see your account balance?”

“Sure!”

The teller produced a slip. From where, Derpy did not know. She was not sure she wanted to know.

Derpy pulled a pair of reading glasses out of her mane and looked closely at the numbers. When she saw them, she gasped in surprise.

“Oh wow!” She beamed at the teller. “It’s so much!”

It indeed was. The code written on the statement was “29.8759M, 5.25 bits”.

“I know. It’s why we’re very proud to have you as a customer!”

“Can I make a withdrawal?”

“Of course! Actually…” The manager trailed off, looking at the teller. “You…never have. It’s somewhat strange, actually, considering how much is in the account.”

“I just assumed you were travelling the world,” said the Teller.

“No. I live down the street. In the house with the Flyvek.”

“In the- -wait, THAT house?”

Derpy nodded. “I’d like the five and a quarter bits please!”

The teller and manager both looked confused, but the teller processed the transaction, producing a hoofull of coins.

“Oh wow!” laughed Derpy, having not seen so much money in a long as she could remember (which was not very long). “That’s enough money to buy food for two months!”

“Um…my weekly food bill is fifty bits,” said the teller. “And I make minimum wage.”

“Oh, well I’m not good enough to do that,” sighed Derpy. She still smiled, though. “So. I guess I can close the account now.”

The manager and teller looked as though Derpy had just said that she wanted to put their pet dogs on buns and eat them with mustard. The manager very nearly fainted.

“But- -but- -you’ve had it for so long, and you’re in such good standing- -”

“But I don’t need it anyomore. Close it please.”

“But- -but without the money, the bank will go under, we can’t draw- -”

Derpy cocked her head, and the manager, now crying, acquiesced.

“Of course,” he said, his voice wavering. He took a deep sigh. “How would you like the rest of the funds? I’m afraid we don’t have that much in cash…we’ll have to liquidate the building…”

Derpy frowned, confused. “What rest? I already took out all the money!” She held up the five and a quarter bits. “See! It’s right here! I haven’t lost it yet.”

The manager and teller looked at her as though she were insane. For all they knew, she probably was.

“No. The other part.”

“You mean the ‘M’?” Derpy looked at the deposit slip. “Oh. Well, I don’t know. Sparkler says I’m bad with money. But I don’t think I can buy food with ‘M’. All the food stalls only take bits. Except that one where the guy gives me food if I preen him.”

The manager had no idea how to respond. The teller, however, did.

“Do you know what the M stands for?”

“For ‘M’. But I only wanted the bits. I can’t use the ‘M’.”

“It’s megabits. As in, a million bits.”

“What?”

“As in, your account has almost thirty million bits in it. And you get paid almost a hundred thousand a month in direct deposit. I mean, I shouldn’t even say this, but since you don’t have any debt, in terms of net worth, you’re the richest mare in Ponyville. By far. And you have been for twenty years.”

Derpy blinked. “Oh,” she said. She thought for a moment. “Thirty million?”

“Twenty nine point eight.”

“That’s a lot.”

“Yes it is.”

“So…with that much money, I could buy muffins?”

“Um…yes?”

Derpy frowned and derped for a long moment. “Well, this changes things.”

Chapter 22: Killing Derpy

So, Derpy went about her day, doing ordinary Derpy things, as she did each and every day. The first order of business was, of course, making the muffins, both in the euphemistic and literal senses of the phrase. Derpy made several flavors (although only in the literal sense) and packed them into a box. The only change that her newfound money brought was that Derpy was absolutely sure that these particular muffins would be enjoyed, and they would not suffer the insult of going stale (uneaten muffins were something that made Derpy cry). The reason was that she was not selling these particular muffins. With all her money, she could not give muffins as a gift.

As she left her house, though, she did not see the pair of black-clad stallions waiting in the bushes- -or the mare with them, who had learned that it had unfortunately become necessary to watch her employees. VERY closely.

“There she is,” whispered Spoiled, her voice dripping with hatred. “Well? Are you just going to sit here? Shoot her!”

“With what?” snapped Flam.

“With a gun!”

“We’re ponies!” retorted Flim. “Guns haven’t been invented yet!”

“Then use a crossbow! Or a regular bow!”

“We can’t. You can only use those things if you have MAGIC.”

“And you had our horns cut off!”

“Well SHE’S the one that did it! So shoot her! Shoot her now!”

“Shots! Shots! Shots!” chanted Derpy. Then she paused. “Wait…I’m pregnant. Sorry, I can’t have shots right now. Maybe later? How long does it take the foal to pop out?”

Spoiled and the twins ignored her. If they were to acknowledge the fact that Derpy saw them, the whole jig would be up and they would have to start all over. Derpy saw them- -the hedges were not all that thick, and Derpy had grown used to identifying ponies by scent alone. Spoiled had a very distinct aroma (she smelled spoiled), and Derpy could smell the familiar scent of fear from the twins. Still, not understanding, she shrugged and carried on.

“We won’t use a method so crude as arrows,” dismissed Flam when Derpy was ostensibly (but not actually) out of earshot.

“Not at all!” Flim smiled.

“Then what?!” hissed Spoiled.

Flim and Flam grinned in unison. “Poison.”

Derpy at that moment discovered a muffin in the middle of the road, sitting on a plate and looking delicious.

She gasped. “Ground muffin! GROUND MUFFIN!”

She then ate it, as well as part of the plate.

“Wait a minute- -that’s my fine china!” cried Spoiled.

“And a poisoned muffin.”

Derpy finished eating the muffin and licked her lips. “Mmm…poisonberry flavor!” She then began to wobble. “Oooh,” she moaned, growing pale. “That might have been a bad idea…”

Spoiled smiled. “Is there any way she’ll survive?”

“Oh no!”

“Guaranteed success!”

“Why, the only possible antidote is with an exceedingly complicated spell!”

“Even we wouldn’t be able to manage it, and by the time she gets to a doctor- -”

Derpy suddenly glowed with yellow magical light. She immediately perked up, and her hair poofed out on end. The paleness and wobbliness vanished, and she broke out into laughter.

“Stop! You’re tickling me!” She leaned back and patted her belly. “Oh, you!” She then picked up her box of muffins and continued to trot down the street, humming the Derpy song to herself.

Spoiled looked at Flim and Flam, who were both exceedingly confused.

“Well?”

“Well…no refunds!”

“Yes! We take no responsibility! We simply can’t give you any money back!”

“That would be no way to make money, none at all!”

“We’d be destitute!”

“And you signed the return agreement!”

“Enormous throbbing horn!”

Spoiled slapped them both. One of them enjoyed it.

“Sorry,” said Flam, rubbing the side of his face. “Force of habit.”

“Well I’m about to force a habit into a place where you don’t want anything forced,” snapped Spoiled. “Follow her! MAKE HER DEAD!”

Derpy continued to derp throughout town, and eventually into the outskirts to where there were nothing but apple trees and (supposedly) aggressive hillbillies. Then at some point she got lost and very nearly wandered into the EverFree Forest (where there was a magic striped pony, dampness, a weird demon-shrine to Nightmare Moon, and supposedly a house made entirely of muffins where the muffin-witch lived) but avoided it only because she tripped and rolled down a hill. At that point, she decided that it would just be easier to fly to her destination.

Flying only took a matter of minutes and only caused a few hundred bits in property damage. Derpy was quickly able to arrive at the doorstep of the terrifying hermit who lived on the edge of town. The smell of many, many cats filled the air. This was the house of the Fluttershy.

Derpy approached the door, mildly terrified. She had heard rumors that Fluttershy subsisted entirely on a diet of pony flesh. Not that she made pony steaks or pony burgers, but rather she just held them down and licked them. Supposedly, Fluttershy was the spawn of Satin herself, sired by the Pale Horse of death- -or at least so Derpy had been told.

Still, by the power of muffins, she knocked on the door. It was promptly answered- -by a spider so large that she had to look up to see its eyes (and its fangs, which were dripping with venom).

“Um…is Fluttershy home?”

The spider did not reply, as it was a spider and did not have a mouth apart from fangs. Yet, it leaned to one side, and Derpy saw a face- -but not Fluttershy’s.

“Fuzzy filly!” she cried upon seeing Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash blushed. “Oh. Hey.”

“You’re less dead than I thought you’d be!”

“Um…thanks? I guess I am pretty lively.”

“Is Fluttershy home?”

Rainbow Dash turned behind her. “Fluttershy! It’s for you! Mainly because it’s your house! And ponies get weirded out by having a giant spider answer your door!”

“Does she have any weapons?” squeaked a voice from inside the house.

“Hold on, I’ll check!” Rainbow Dash turned back to Derpy. “Do you have any weapons?”

“The only weapon I need is my body. My smooth, soft, muffin-scented body.”

Rainbow Dash’s wings extended suddenly. “Well, great,” she sighed. “Flutters! She’s got no weapon except her sexy body!”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

“Eh. Eight for the body, maybe seven in the face?”

“Woo-hoo!” cried Derpy. “Above five!”

“Alright.”

There was a sound of exceedingly soft hooves on hardwood, and Fluttershy appeared. The spider and Rainbow Dash moved out of the way, and Fluttershy looked out her door nervously. It was fortunate that Derpy had, though a lifetime of muffin-based gluttony, developed a titanium pancrease- -because seeing scared, vulnerable, young Fluttershy would otherwise have instantly given her diabetes. Far behind her, in fact, Flam suddenly doubled over from the surge in blood-sugar, nearly falling out of the tree he was hiding in.

“H…hello,” she said.

“Sorry,” sighed Rainbow Dash. “She’s been really nervous recently. Something made a sound in the woods, and it took me HOURS to convince her that somepony wasn’t trying to kill her. And it was probably just an animal- -”

“Oh no! It wasn’t an animal! An animal wouldn’t be that mean, that CRUEL! To scar me like that…but…” She took a deep breath. “You’re probably right. I need to be more confident, and feel safe to leave my cottage. Nopony was trying to kill me, that’s ridiculous.”

“Oh no. I definitly was.”

“You- -you what?”

“Yeah. Sorry. That was me. I was coming to assassinate you.”

“Like a donkey?” asked Rainbow Dash.

“Yes. Extra messy, too. Catrillian necktie.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened, and she squeaked in terror, realizing that she had been right- -every pony in all of Equestria was trying to murder her in the most bloody, brutal way possible, because all of Equestria hated her.

“You…you were…”

“Going to myrtle you. Real hard. But I didn’t, and now I don’t have to! Look!” Derpy opened the box of muffins. “See! Muffins!”

“Awe mane, free muffins!” cried Rainbow Dash, grabbing several and shoving them into her mouth. Derpy beamed, glad that her muffins were being enjoyed.

“But what if they’re poison!”

“Oh no, I already ate that one on accident,” said Derpy. “It tasted exactly like you’ expect. These are just ordinary, regular muffins. To say sorry for not finishing my job.”

“Um…apology…accepted?”

“Well it’s nice to meet you! If you need anything, just ask! Us Pegasusesses need to look out for each other! In fact, with all three of us, we could make a Derpy sandwich! With me being the Derpy!”

“GAH!” cried Rainbow Dash, her wings extending once again. She normally would have smooshed them down, but her hooves were full of muffins. Muffins that were probably not poisoned.

“I have to go now,” said Derpy, shaking hooves with the mute giant spider. “My daughter is jumping across time and space right now, so I need to put down sticky paper. A LOT of sticky paper.”

She turned to leave. Fluttershy faced Rainbow Dash, her adorable face filled with panic. “See! SEE! I told you! My life is in danger! I’m never leaving my house AGAIN!”

“Come on, Flutterbutter, you’re overreacting.”

“OOP!” Derpy slipped suddenly, landing on a trip line that Flim and Flam had set earlier. A well-disguised trap sprung, and a bent sapling covered in barbed, sharpened stakes suddenly slammed through where she had just been. Derpy tumbled, rolling over and nearly into a pit filled with jagged pieces of metal, and stood up just in time to avoid several poison-dipped arrows shot by a concealed crossbow linked to a pressure plate.

“Oh wow!” she said, turning and pointing to the traps. “Look at that! You were right! Somepony really IS trying to kill you!”

“Eeeeeeeeep,” moaned Fluttershy.

“Well, try not to die!” Derpy took off, suddenly veering and falling just in time to avoid a pair of tree trunks that slammed together over where she had just been moments before.

Fluttershy watched this, then glared at Rainbow Dash before going back inside.

“Fluttershy, come on- -”

“NO. It’s TOO DANGEROUS. I’m never leaving my house again.”

And it was, in fact, almost five years before she set hoof outside of her cottage even once. On that day, she would meet a purple unicorn who was at this time probably snuggling Celestia.

Spoiled Rich stood up just as Fluttershy slammed her door closed. “COME ON!” she screamed. “How in the name of Celestia’s furry bum did that not WORK?!”

“She’s good,” said Flam.

“REALLY good,” said Flim.

“And kind of hot.”

“I AM HOTTER!” shouted Spoiled. She put her hoof on her face and moaned. This was oddly hard; she might have expected too much from her hitmare. Sourcing one from the many available hicks of Ponyville had probably been a mistake. “Well. At least the next time the traps go off, it will probably take town that dirty horse Fluttershy.” She looked up, seeing that Flim and Flam were staring wide-eyed, their expressions fixed in silent screams.

“What?”

The twins, now hugging each other, pointed. Spoiled looked back and saw that Hairriam Webster (Fluttershy’s friend and a member of a rare genus of giant spiders) had sunk is fangs into her neck.

“Well that’s just great,” sighed Spoiled. “It’s going to leave a hicky.”

“But the venom!”

“It- -it’s not affecting her! She’s already got too much venom in her!”

“No you moron, it’s affecting me. I’m about to pass out. I expect you to fight this spider and get me back before he drains my bodily fluids. Then, take me to the town boutique. You two are clearly incompetent, so I’m going to do this myself.”

“And if we just leave you?”

“Then my ghost is going to haunt you. Every second of every day. You wake up at night? You’ll roll over and see me staring at you. Gazing right in your stupid unicorn eyes.”

At this point, Flim and Flam’s scream of terror was no longer silent. It was so shrill that it almost reached the level where only dogs and Fluttershy could hear it. Fortunately, Spoiled did not hear it, as she passed out. Her last thought before going was that she hoped she did not swell up.

Chapter 23: Boutique

She did swell up. Badly.

Interestingly, though, Flim and Flam did bring her to where she had intended to go. Woozy and slightly confused from the venom, she hardly noticed that they had also stolen her wallet and necklace. Both of the twins were nowhere to be found, and Spoiled assumed they had abandoned her. Just as every pony eventually did.

She rose from a heap on the doorstep of a newly constructed building in the center of town. Built on prime real estate, too. It was called ‘Carousel Boutique’, and of course Spoiled had never been there. The designer was a local, and therefore a rube that would never amount to anything more than making basic clothes out of flour sacks. Spoiled only got her clothing from real designers. Specifically with a successful young mare heading the Polomare brand. A mare who was an earth-pony and not a filthy unicorn, as the owner of Carousel Boutique supposedly was. Very, very filthy.

Yet desperate times called for desperate measures. Spoiled forced herself to enter the yokel establishment. Immediately, she was faced with a sight that she was not at all expecting.

The boutique was filled with ponies. Specifically, white unicorns, members of the Royal Guard who had come for some reason or another to Ponyville. In fact, it was well over ninety percent of Shining Armor’s forces, although Spoiled did not know this.

Most of the Royal Guard (perfect white unicorns, custom bred in Celestia’s personal stables to be as manly and handsome as possible, their bodies glistening with sweat and scented with a combination of vanilla and the strange muffiny scent of their golden armor) were assembled into a large pile. On top of it sat a white unicorn who (and Spoiled would not have thought it was possible) was even more white and perfect than any of them. Although she was still just a filly, she sat proud on a throne of stallions, with one feeding her grapes while a small group polished her hooves and several took turns filing her horn.

“What is this?!” exclaimed Spoiled Rich.

“Exactly what it looks like,” said the filly-mare. “These stallions are such dears, aren’t they! Although of course I AM an all-white unicorn, the most cherished and beloved type of pony. And oh my, you’re puffy. You look like you got bitten by a very large spider.”

Rarity clapped her hooves, and the pile of stallion shifted. She was pushed forward and slowly placed on her feet. She gave the pile a winning smile. “Thank you, dears.”

“Your welcome, Miss Rarity,” they said in unison.

“Are you serious?” asked Spoiled. “That is NOT your name.”

“Yes it is!” whined Rarity. She stamped one hoof. “I had it legally changed!”

“I don’t care. You make clothes?”

“Does Big Macintosh snuggle sheep? Of course I make clothes. Hence the boutique.” She smiled and stretched out a rear leg toward her admiring pile of Royal Guards. “Of course, I very, very rarely wear clothes myself…I prefer by far to just wear some perfume…”

The crowd howled and cheered- -until Spoiled gave them a look that fully counteracted Rarity’s flirtatiousness, and with great effect.

“I need shoes.”

“I also make shoes, yes. And frankly pink is a terrible color, so it’s probably better you cover as much of yourself as possible.”

“Excuse me- -”

“Darling, I only state the facts. It may be brutal but it works. Just as teal was a nice choice, bottomless is so…uncouth.”

Spoiled blushed angrily. “I need you to make a set of concrete shoes.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Concrete?”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“Well, it’s just that concrete is so…last season. If you want a set of boots…” Her horn ignited, and a curtain moved in front of her. After only a second, it shifted past, and now Rarity stood in the center of the floor wearing black boots covered in buckles that reached nearly to her shoulders and hips, worn over striped socks. Her makeup had also been changed to be heavy and dark. “Goth is the fashion right now.” She struck a pose, and several of the Royal Guard fainted.

“Are you joking?”

“Hmm…yes, I admit, it’s a bit gloomy. And just the boots may be too provocative. And because of your advanced age, something a bit more mature would probably be more appropriate.”

“I’m not mature!”

“It’s not a bad thing! It just means I’ll need more fabric!”

Spoiled was turning crimson at this point. “They’re not for me,” she said through gritted teeth. “They’re for…a…friend.”

“Oh. Well. I’d hate to see your friend dressed in something so unfashionable.”

“You can’t refuse me. I’m the customer. I can drive you out of business- -”

Rarity smirked. “No you can’t. This is all financed through the bank. Which you don’t own.”

“I hold the only account worth mentioning- -”

“No. Your husband holds the SECOND largest account. By far. I know, because I made the manager’s suit. And I…well…made him talk. Because you can never have too much information in this business, can you?”

Spoiled Rich sputtered. “I’M SPOILED RICH!”

“Yes. It’s quite apparent.” Rarity sighed. “Regardless, yes. I’d hate to have you leave a bad review of my service. I can make you a pair of shoes. For five hundred bits.”

“FIVE HUNDRED- -”

“Well, if you can’t pay we can work something out- -”

Spoiled sputtered. “Of course I can pay! That much money doesn’t mean a thing to me!”

“Well, then.” Rarity smiled. “I’ll be on it right away. My knights!” She clapped her hooves together. The Royal Guard swarmed around her. “To my bedroom!”

They immediately carried her away, and Spoiled fled. She assumed that Rarity’s workroom was in her apartment on top of her boutique, but she was not sure about that, and did not want to be around if she was wrong.

Chapter 24: Getting the Mail

Derpy actually nearly passed Spoiled. Of course, her eyes were occupied with different things, largely because the muscles meant to focus them were almost completely atrophied despite numerous surgeries to try to fix the damage. Although she missed Spoiled, though, she saw a newt. That, she assumed, was auspicious. Had she looked closer, she would have seen that for just a moment, the newt was violet and had both a violet horn and a cutie mark consisting of three crystals. And that it vanished in after several seconds, leaving a trail of flame behind it.

After getting lost again, Derpy began to find her way to her second destination for the day. This particular destination was Spoiled Rich’s house. She intended to bring her boss muffins to apologize for having quit. Derpy was quite proud of what she had been able to accomplish- -what with Rainbow Dash and the twin ponies she had seen in the bushes outside her house and in the trees near Fluttershy’s house very, very dead (as well as the mayor, but Derpy had forgotten about that one by now). Still, the job was no longer necessary. Such a situation required apology muffins. Because EVERY situation required muffins of some kind.

Upon approaching Rich Manor, though, Derpy spied Parcel Post, the town’s young- -and only- -mail pony (and one of the only male ponies). He was struggling up the hill with a large, heavy looking box labled with numerous stickers reminding him that it was fragile and not to be tilted.

“Hi there!” said Derpy.

Parcel Post squealed. It was not at all a dignified sound for a pony. “I can’t do it!” he squeaked. “I can’t, I just can’t!”

“Oh my. Is it too heavy?”

“NO! I- -I can’t go there! Not to HER! I just can’t!” He collapsed, shaking, into the fetal position. “She…she throws bits at me…and tries to grab my flank…and I’m the only mailpony, so I don’t have any superiors to report the harassment to!”

“Oh. That sounds terrible.”

“It is,” he sniffled.

Derpy picked up the package. It was indeed heavy, but not too heavy for her. “I’m headed that way anyway. I can take it.”

“You- -you can?!” Parcel Posts’s face lit up, but then he grew dismayed. “But…you’re not qualified for mail delivery…”

Derpy set the box on her back and set her muffin box on top of it. “I was a military courier for twenty years,” she said. “I’ve been delivering mail since before you were born.”

“You- -you were?”

Derpy smiled and nodded. “I’d still be there, too, but I got a shrapnel in my head.” She pointed to her face, and her eyes that looked in different directions. “There’s so much metal in my brain that I can feel when anypony opens their refrigerator! Because of the- -” She suddenly stiffened, and her ears pricked.

“What is it?”

“Berryshine just opened her ice box. She’s out of milk.”

“Wow. You can tell that?”

Derpy nodded. “And sometimes I can see tall, ghostly alicorns performing experiments on ponies. There’s one behind you right now…with a saw…”

Parcel Post blanched and looked behind him. Seeing nothing, though, he began to retreat. He hated coming to this house anyway, and although Derpy was being very generous, she scared him.

He left, and Derpy continued, humming as she climbed the hill and hopped over the electrified fence that was meant to keep ponies like her out- -but only after touching the fence twice to learn that it was, in fact, electrified, and licking it once just to be sure.

When she reached the door, she rang the bell, and it sounded with a distinct “DING DONG”.

Derpy gasped. “What did you call me?”

She pressed the bell again. It responded with the same “DING DONG”.

“How dared you!” squealed Derpy. “I dare you to say that again!”

Another press. “DING DONG”.

“Oh, well two can play at that game! You’re- -you’re- -a BELL! HA! How do you like that?”

She pressed the button again- -except that this time the door was already open, and she instead booped Diamond Tiara’s nose.

“Don’t touch me, weirdo,” said Diamond Tiara, pushing away Derpy’s hoof.

“But it called me a ding dong!”

“Because you are one.”

“Oh.”

Diamond Tiara looked up at her, and her expression suddenly became distant. “Ah,” she said.

“Ah?”

“Yeah.” Diamond Tiara sighed. “I know why you’re here.”

“You do?” Derpy paused, finding that she herself had forgotten. “Why?”

“Mom ordered you to kill me. Because I’m a fat and ugly failure.” She sat down, spread her hooves, and closed her eyes. “Try to make it quick. And don’t you dare touch my face, I want an open casket. Not that anypony will come, anyway. They’re all too busy or hate me.”

“Diamond Tiara?” Filthy Rich appeared behind her. “What are you doing?”

“Making your and mom’s lives better.”

“Oh. Well. Could you close the door? You’re letting the cold air out.” He looked up and saw Derpy. “Oh! There’s a pony here! Come in, come in!”

He gestured for Derpy to come in, and Derpy did so, derping the whole while.

“My, what’s that on your back? And why does it smell so good?”

“I made muffins!” Derpy produced the box, and Filthy gasped.

“I love muffins!”

“So do I!”

Derpy gave the box to Filthy, and was glad. She also took down the other box, the one that she had taken from Parcel Post.

“And this is your mail.”

“Oh, I had no idea you were working for the post office! My, I thought the air-mail operation wouldn’t be hiring for at least two months!” Filthy took the box, and gasped. “I know what this is! Diamond, this is for you!”

“For me?!” Diamond Tiara looked confused. “Presents?”

“Indeed it is! I’m so sorry I missed your birthday again, so…”

“So you’d buy my affection with fancy gifts? Oh daddy, I love you!”

“I love you too my little diamond! Here! Open it!”

Diamond Tiara tore at the tape that held the cardboard box closed, and then popped it open. At first, nothing happened, and then thin, pale, gray-colored pony poked her head out of the box, blinking and squinting against the light.

“Oh my Celestia! You got me a PONY!”

“I know, isn’t she adorable! And surprisingly affordable, too!” Filthy produced a pair of glasses and a pearl necklace. He slid the glasses onto the young filly’s face, and then dropped the pearls on her. “There! And now she’s not naked!” He chuckled. “I know I’m not always there for you, so I’d figure I’d get you a friend of your very own!”

The silver filly blinked, confused and terrified. Diamond Tiara pulled her out of the box. “Hey. Do you want to watch me play with dolls?”

The silver filly’s eyes lit up. “Sure,” she said, softly. The two ran off into the mansion.

Derpy watched them go, confused. “So…am I a mother now?”

“I wouldn’t overthink it,” said Filthy.

“Oh, don’t worry. I don’t overthink anything at all.”

Filthy just shrugged. Then, he slowly began to realize that Derpy was in his house. Filthy was not exactly the fastest pony in Ponyville, either physically or mentally. He was the richest.

“Where are my manners!” he exclaimed.

“I think we’re in one of them,” replied Derpy. “And it’s an awfully nice manor.”

“No, I mean, do you want to come in?”

Derpy derped in his general direction. “Is Spoiled home?”

“Not at the moment.” Filthy paused, stroking his chin. “It’s very unusual for her to get visitors, though. I can’t fathom why, she’s an absolute angel. Are you her friend?”

“Yes. And I also work for her.”

Filthy raised a bushy eyebrow. “Work? What kind of work?”

“I’m her backdoor mare.”

The other eyebrow went up. Then Filthy shrugged. “Well, Spoiled always did have strange tastes. It’s why she married me!” Filthy laughed at his own joke while Derpy tried to comprehend it. “And it’s not cheating if it’s with a mare! Ha! Well, come in, come in! We can compare notes!”

Derpy smiled and derped her way into his foyer. As she did, though, she spied something. A display case, one laid out proudly amongst various pottery and decorative items (and a truly massive picture of Filthy, Spoiled, and Diamond Tiara, placed at the top of the stairs and clearly executed by an earth-pony as it was not very good).

It was the display case that caught Derpy’s eye. She trotted over to it and saw that it was full of rings. But not just any rings.

“Those are unicorn-league hoofball championship rings!”

“Good eye!” Filthy joined her. “A gift from my lovely wife, of course, and something I’m quite proud of. My father took me to that game when I was just a colt.” He sighed. “He was a very busy pony, and early on, we didn’t have all that much money yet. But that day, he made time. It’s one of my most beloved memories of him. I think Spoiled knows that, in her own way.”

“Is this the ’71 championship?”

“Yes it is. All rings from that year. Except one.”

Derpy reached into her messy blond hair and fished around for a moment. Then, after some searching, she produced a ring. She paused for a moment, distantly aware that having a ring in her hair meant there might also be a horn to wear it on (and consequently the possibility that she was, in actuality, a derpicorn), but that did not matter so much.

When Filthy saw the ring, he gasped and let out a slight cry. “Why, that’s the last one! Where in Equestria did you get it?!”

“From the pony who won it.” Derpy paused, then let out a sigh. “And if what Sparkler told me about where foals come from is true, there’s a good chance he’s her father.” She paused again. “He said my eyes were cute…but…he didn’t ever come back.” Derpy looked at Filthy. “Do you think he was lying? That if I had more surgeries, he might come back?”

Filthy hugged her. “I think if he hasn’t come back yet, it’s his loss.” He released her. “So. Do you follow hoofball?”

“Of course! I even used to pay Pegasus-league in college! They used to call me Ditzy Butterhooves! And it was true! Because I kept getting them stuck in things, so we needed a ton of bubber.”

“Well then, how about you stay for lunch! We’d have so many things to talk about!”

“Oh, I couldn’t do that. I tend to break things.”

“Nonsense! You can wait for Spoiled to come back, and Diamond Tiara and her new friend can join us.”

“Well, that little pony did look a little thin.”

“Oh no, Diamond is quite fat for her age. But that’s okay, she’s five. She’ll grow out of it, just like Spoiled did.” Filthy gasped with an idea. “Do you want to see Spoiled’s baby pictures? They’re just adorable!”

“Sure! I love babies!”

The two of them walked off together.

Outside, though, death awaited Derpy. In the form of Flim and Flam.

Flam shook his head. “We should have run. I don’t like this.”

“And have her ruin our fine reputations with her dirty lies?”

“Brother. It would hardly be the first time we’ve been run out of a town. We could probably even make it out without being tarred and feathered this time. These ponies seem more kind than most.”

“Which is exactly why we need to stay. After all, don’t forget, we just poured all the money we had into a property here! I even had to snuggled a Pegasus!”

“I thought I was the one who snuggled her…”

Both of them looked at each other. Neither was actually sure which one had done that. At this point, they had become largely indistinguishable.

“It doesn’t matter who we snuggled.”

“Do you think we could snuggle her?”

“Spoiled? NO! Are you daft?”

“No, I mean the gray one. She’s kind of hot.”

“Agreed. But unless you intend to snuggle her to death, we don’t have the time.”

“True, true.”

Flam held up a net. “Here’s the plan. When she comes down the path, I’ll throw this on her. Then you beat her with a stick.”

“Why do I have to be the one with the stick?”

“Because I’m older. I have seniority.”

“By half a minute! And I’M the older one!”

Flam rolled his yes. “Did you get the stick?”

Flim nodded and held it up. It was a tiny, narrow, green twig, the sort of thing that one would sag badly if one tried to roast marshmallows with it.

“What is that?”

“It’s a stick!”

“For what?! Are you going to caress her rump with it?”

“I thought you said we didn’t have time to snuggle her!”

“YOU were the one who said that!”

“I did?”

Flam face-hooved. “You couldn’t get a stick that’s a little, perhaps, larger?”

“Larger? Do you know how hard it was to get this without a horn?!”

“An earth-pony could have gotten a larger stick!”

“Do I look like an earth-pony to you?!”

“Without your horn, YES!”

Just then, something appeared in their peripheral vision. Flim cried out in surprise and threw the net. It landed on something- -and promptly vaporized. Whatever they had caught was certainly not a derped Pegasus, although they were not sure exactly what they had caught- -or failed to. Neither of them had the perception necessary to see the glow of the unicorn blasting her way across dimensions, hurtling through time and spaced based on purified alicorn virginity.

Sparkler materialized beside Flim and on both sides of Flam, vibrating at the speed of light. The smell of fried food filled the air. Also ozone, and something vaguely like a rental car (a byproduct of jumping across numerous realities and timelines).

“HIT HER WITH THE STICK!”

They had no chance to do so. Their plan to murder Derpy might have worked (although probably not), but Sparkler intervened. In an instant, Flim and Flam were no longer hiding in the bushes around Rich Manor. Instead, they found themselves somewhere else entirely.

They quickly realized that it was a kitchen. All the furniture was oddly tall, but this was not what either of them noticed. Instead, their eyes focused firmly on the starry rump of a violet unicorn dressed only in a frilly apron. She was standing in front of them, facing away- -and toward a precarious pile of opened and organized cook books.

“Okay,” said the young mare, levitating one of the thick volumes in her violet magic. “It says we need apple sherry…and something called ‘stallion oysters’. Hmm, I’ll have to cross reference…does that just mean male oysters? Because I’m pretty sure they’re hermaphrodites…”

The mare turned and eeped loudly when she saw the pair of tall stallions standing over her. Immediately, her eyes went to their foreheads. She gasped. “You’ve been uncorned!”

The twins smiled and were about to advance, when suddenly a large shadow was cast over them. They felt a presence, and their blood ran cold. Both Flim and Flam were both tall ponies- -far taller than most, even amongst unicorns- -but the pony now standing behind them dwarfed even them, both in height and in sheer girth of rump.

They looked up and saw a pair of massive wings suddenly become erect- -and a horn far longer and far harder than any that they had seen in their lives, or would again.

Both twins cried out and tried to run- - only to be trapped in a sudden surge of warm, vanilla-scented magic.

“Shh,” whispered a voice as an enormous pony head with hyperbolically large (and coldly terrifying) violet eyes leaned next to them. “You’ll flop the cake!”

Flim was weeping quietly, but Flam turned slowly, and his eyes moved from her vast rump to her enormous body. A body that was perfectly and entirely devoid of hair, that would no doubt lay greasy stains wherever it sat. This mare’s eyes met his, and she smiled.

“B…Bertha…” he wailed, instantly knowing his fate.

Chapter 25: The Last One

All was quiet in Ponyville. Of course, all was ALWAYS quiet in Ponyville. As far as anypony knew, it always would be. It was, after all, a place where nothing important ever happened. Nothing important whatsoever.

Even the visitors had come to be parasitized by the unique and possibly supernatural lackadaisical bucolity of the community. Shining Armor, who had been enumerating the number of sharp angles on counters throughout the town, had started to become sleepy. Cadence, who had already submitted the Royal Report to Celestia approving the town, sat behind him, watching his rump. She was also tired, although largely because Sparkler- -who was at present drifting through a dimension of pure itchiness- -had absorbed part of her virgin-energy. Cadence reflected on this, and wondered if she would have more energy if Shining Armor was not an exceedingly handsome moron.

Somewhere, Applejack was digging a hole. Fluttershy was quivering in a puddle of tears, as per usual. Rainbow Dash was asleep. Rarity had inadvertently bedazzled herself. The mayor was re-learning how to walk, and intending to meet the delegation in her hospital room to sign the new tax bill into law. Pony law. Other ponies were probably doing other things as well.

Derpy, as expected, was derping. This was something she did quite often, and to great benefit, as it repelled Harvestor. To him (or her, depending) it was repellant. In addition to her normal derp, Derpy was quite full and happy. Filthy Rich was almost as nice as Spoiled Rich was, and they had had many fun conversations. Even Diamond Tiara was reasonably cute, despite being slightly porcine. The other girl (who, supposedly, had been bought from furries on the black market) had now been named Silver Spoon, and Derpy legitimately wondered if she was actually her own daughter. Except that she was not a unicorn, which meant the answer was probably “no”.

Yet Derpy did not contemplate this, as her shrapnel-filled brain was not capable of introspection. Only of muffins and incredible technological innovations, as well as muffins. She did not even think about the route she took, or how it brought her close to the Ponyville bond- -and Spoiled Rich, hiding in the bushes with a set of freshly cast concrete shoes.

At least until it was too late. Just as the sun was setting, Spoiled emerged, blocking the only path. Derpy took a moment to see her (her vision was not good, and she was focusing heavily on the strange dimensional distortions that were wandering through her peripheral vision), but she slowed.

“Oh! Spoiled! There you are! I was looking for you!”

“I was looking for you as well. You’re not good at hiding, are you?”

Derpy laughed. She was not. “No. But I wasn’t hiding! I was at your house, with your husband.”

Spoiled’s expression darkened. “Filthy? Why were you in my house?!”

“Oh, you know. Exactly why you would expect. Filthy and I had a lot of fun together!” They had talked about sports, eaten food that was not at all fancy, and then played volleyball, with Derpy and Silver Spoon on one side and Filthy and Diamond Tiara on the other. Derpy, of course, was far to clumps to play normally, but against earth ponies she was almost god-liked, what with being able to (marginally) fly. “Of course, now my wings are so tired! He really gave them a workout!”

Spoiled’s complexion as well as expression suddenly darkened. “What did you do?”

“Exactly what you would expect.”

“If you touched him- -” Spoiled trailed off. “Never mind. It’s about to not matter.”

“Um…why?”

“Derpy. You know I can’t let you leave here, right?”

Derpy paused. “Are we…going camping?”

Spoiled stared at her. “I never thought I’d be saying this to you, but you know too much.”

“I…do?”

“Yes. See, you’ve put me in a very unfortunate position. Unfortunate for you. See, I freely admit, you tricked me. You tricked me hard. I’ve lost leverage.”

“I think there’s a cream for that. Or maybe an ointment?”

“You never did anything illegal. Well, apart from an uncorning, but what little kid hasn’t broken into their stupid unicorn rival’s house and sawed off their horn, or had the cheerleading captain tied down to completely pluck her wings? That’s just a normal prank.”

“Somepony once told me to pluck myself. So I did.” Derpy paused. “It was a mistake. A really bad one. Wings look weird without feathers.”

“ARE YOU EVEN AWARE?!”

“No, not generally.”

Spoiled face-hooved. “You never ONCE killed any of those ponies, did you?”

“Yes I did!” protested Derpy. “I killed them real good!”

“And it never occurred to you that THEY’RE STILL ALIVE?”

“But they…can…wait…” Derpy thought for a moment, and her eyes grew wide. “What? They…they aren’t dead?”

“Yeaaaaah…”

Derpy gasped. “I just don’t know what went wrong!”

No one laughed.

“But that puts me in a bind,” continued Spoiled. “Because I solicited hits. So I could go to jail. Maybe even be given the piñata treatment, who knows? I have the lawyers in my pockets, but there’s too many ponies willing to bring me down. Who knows? Maybe you work for one of them.”

“I work for you. Well, worked. I think I have a job at the post-office now. And I want to start a print shop.”

Spoiled chuckled. “Too bad. Because you don’t have much of a future, do you?”

“Yes I do. As soon as Sparkler gets back from her vacation, and I have my other daughter, we’ll be a happy family!”

Spoiled threw something at Derpy’s feet. It was a bag. Four very well made concrete shoes fell out. “Put them on,” she said.

“Um…I don’t like shoes. They make my hooves hurt. Plus, horseshoes have to be nailed on. I mean, we’d be nailing stuff to our hooves, it’s weird- -”

A large rock was sitting next to Spoiled, minding her own business. Spoiled lifted one of her hooves and punched it. The rock crumbled to dust. Earth ponies, despite getting the short end of the evolutionary stick, had one tiny advantage over the other more genetically superior races: they were exceedingly strong.

“Put them on. Or the next one goes in your head.” Spoiled smiled. “Or maybe in your uterus.”

“I have a uterus? I’m a pony. I don’t even have genitals.”

“PUT THEM ON.”

Derpy winced. She did not like being yelled at. It reminded her of her parents. So she slid the concrete boots on. Instantly, though, she recognized the material, and it brought her back.

“Hey, I know what this is! It’s fauxcrete! I helped invent this stuff!” She smiled at Spoiled. “I had no idea that you were so environmentally conscious!”

“The environment can ride an obese griffon cock, and so can you!”

Derpy gasped. “Do you actually have one, or are you just getting my hopes up? I love riding cocks! And hens, but only if they’re not very mean.”

Spoiled pointed at the lake. “Walk.”

“But I’m not headed in that direction- -”

“Walk, or I throw you.”

“But- -”

Spoiled did not hesitate. She picked Derpy up- -concrete shoes and all- -and lobbed her right into the center of the pond. Ideally, there would have been no witnesses for this, but only a few minutes earlier Rainbow Dash’s bedroom had disintegrated in a stiff breeze and her cloud-bed had drifted into the area. She had just started to awaken when Derpy splashed into the water.

Rainbow Dash gasped and immediately rushed to the water. Below, she saw Spoiled Rich cheering and racing to the end of an eroded dock that led out over the water.

“Ha! HA! I did it! I KILLED HER!”

“What did you do?!” cried Rainbow Dash.

Spoiled looked up. “I just told you, you moronic homosexual- -”

At that instant, the dock beneath Spoiled, already badly decayed from years of disuse, buckled under her weight and collapsed. She did not even have a chance to scream. She just dipped into the water with barely a splash.

Rainbow Dash stared for a moment. “Great,” she said. “Now I have to decide which one I save. I mean, it’ll totally be Derpy, but this is SO going to traumatize me…”

Something bubbled in the water, and suddenly Derpy floated to the surface. In fact, she did more than float; she emerged upright and floated for a moment on the top of the water, standing, stabilizing herself with her wings.

Rainbow Dash gasped. “It’s a miracle!”

“It is?” Derpy looked down, then up. “Oh! Rainbow Dash! Are you about to go for a swim? I never took you for one who’d be skinny dipping!”

Rainbow Dash did not even notice her wings suddenly extending. “But…you’re wearing concrete shoes.”

Derpy looked down. “Oh no, this is fauxcrete. I used to make boats out of this stuff. I mean, you couldn’t form real concrete into boots like this.” She smiled. “And these are REALLY nice boots! Real quality!”

“They are pretty sexy.”

“And boyish! Just like you!”

Rainbow Dash blushed heavily. “You mean ‘buoyant’?”

“Maybe!”

Derpy looked around. “Um…where’s Spoiled?”

“Oh. She fell in the water.” Rainbow Dash pointed. “Actually, she didn’t come up yet. Which is weird. I mean, doesn’t water usually reject witches? Like, they float right up to the surface?”

Derpy gasped. “Spoiled doesn’t know how to swim!”

“Oh, well, she’s done- -HEY!”

Derpy had kicked off her concrete shoes sand chucked them at Rainbow Dash. One had pegged her in the head.

“Go get help!” she called.

“Wait, help? I mean, morally, this probably isn’t okay, but shouldn’t we just- -”

Derpy took a deep breath and dove. Without the concrete shoes, it was easy to sink. Even after many decades, she was still able to recall her extensive military training, which included water landings. Derpy had in fact made a water landing with shrapnel in her face and one wing nonfunctional, and survived that. This was easy in comparison.

Except that the pond was surprisingly deep, and surprisingly cold. Still, Derpy forced herself downward, flailing her legs but primarily guiding herself with her wings. The whole lake was full of water and associated water weeds. Derpy saw some bladderwort going by, and almost became distracted. Then she remembered that the life of her best friend was counting on her, and she dove even deeper.

The water became dark, but Derpy forced herself deeper. She was already running out of air when she saw a glimmer of jewelry. Derpy accelerated and realized it was Spoiled.

Derpy tried to call out, only to suddenly remember that she was under water. She inhaled some, and found it tasted exactly like she expected it would.

Ignoring the pain, she grabbed Spoiled- -and Spoiled immediately grabbed back.

Derpy knew what this was. She recalled that sometimes drowning ponies would grab on to their rescuers so tightly that both would be pulled to the bottom. What she had not expected was that the drowning party would be so very strong, and that would wrap her hooves exclusively around the rescuing party’s throat.

The world began to fade to black. Derpy felt sleepy, but supposed that was probably okay. A little nap, and she would get right back to work. Just a little underwater sleep with Spoiled hugging her neck…

Then, suddenly, the darkness was filled with light. Sparkler cavitated next to her, causing the water to vibrate as her body flickered with the last of the life force she had stolen from Cadence. The water was acting as a neutron modulator, so she did not have much time.

Sparkler began to circle, pushing the water out of the way as she did. The water formed a vortex, and Derpy- -now largely unconscious- -was lifted up by the growing waterspout. Spoiled was almost left behind, but Derpy gained just enough consciousness to grab onto her by her shirt and haul her up into the vortex.

They rose quickly, rising through the air, and then were deposited hard onto the grassy shore. By this time, Rainbow Dash had acquired most of the town, largely by grabbing them and carrying them very rapidly to the shore (and throwing some right in, expecting them to know what they were doing). Fortunately, several of those were pulled up by Sparkler’s vortex as well.

Derpy was thrown onto the ground and immediately coughed, expelling water, bladderwort, and a small fish- -as well as a whole, unchewed breadstick.

“Huh?” she said, groggily looking at the bread. “But I only ate two…”

Her throught was interrupted by a sudden blow to the head. The crowd screamed, but Derpy did not. She was just confused as to why she suddenly had moved, or why Spoiled was standing over her with a broken piece of the dock in her hooves.

“My head…oh, wait!” Derpy gasped. “I can SEE! My eyes aren’t Derped! And- -and I feel my mind clearing- -”

Another blow to the face. “Oh. Ow.” Derpy blinked. “Oh. I’m back. Derped again. Oh, hi Spoiled! I had muffins, but I ate them!”

“Why won’t you DIE?!”

The next blow went right into Derpy’s gut. This time, Derpy screamed a word that ponies were not allowed to say, and then doubled over. “NO! Not my baby!”

“Stupid derped baby, I don’t even CARE! It would be born an idiot anyway, it’s better this way!”

Spoiled raised the board again. There was a nail in it. Derpy was done for- -or would have been, if Spoiled was not suddenly trapped in a shell of golden magic.

“Don’t do that,” sighed a very, very tiny voice.

Derpy blinked, confused. The voice was not in her head like usual. She looked behind Spoiled and gasped. Standing behind the earth-mare was the world’s tiniest filly, a gray one that was no more than six inches tall. She looked extremely annoyed, and her tiny horn was holding Spoiled in a suspension field.

“You- -you got born!” cried Derpy. She paused. “But…you’re like a month old. You’re not ready! Get back in!”

“Um, no. For the record, being inside you is harrowing. The most harrowing part of my life. I figured you had a fifty-fifty chance when she threw you in the water, so I decided to screw it and, you know, get born.”

“Well, you’re very adorable and well-spoken for a fetus!”

“Thank you. I had to use an age spell.” She looked at herself. “Needless to say, it didn’t go so well, but I’m like five minutes old. Give me a break.”

“I think you’re ADORABLE!” Derpy scooped her up, and Spoiled dropped onto the ground. “You’re so little! I shall name you Dinky!”

“That’s not a real name.”

“Then Dinkamena!”

“Also not a name.” Dinky sighed. “But close enough, I guess.” She looked up with her huge (relative to body size) eyes. “Hi, mom!”

The crowd, formally somewhat disturbed, now released a pleasant “aww”- -at least until Sparkler materialized with a detonation that threw several wet ponies right back into the lake.

“Sparkler!” cried Derpy. “You’re back!”

“Yes,” said Sparkler. “I finally managed to synch my dimensional frequency. I’m back. By the way, Starlight Glimmer say’s ‘hi’.”

“Oh. Do I know who that is?”

“Not yet.” Sparkler paused. “I think I was time-travelling. So, just for full disclosure, I think I might have become my own grandmother.”

Derpy gasped. “So THAT’S why you look so much like my mom.” Derpy held up Dinky. “Look! I gave birth!”

Sparkler waved. “Hello. I’m your sister. And probably also your grandmother.”

“Greetings. I am a tiny filly. She named me Dinky.”

“You can change it later. I was named Sparkly-Butt until I could talk.” Sparkler took a deep breath. “No, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to be uncioncious now. Nice meeting you Dinky.”

“You as well, sister!”

Sparkler then promptly collapsed. She was not breathing at first, but then loud snores filled the town. It was the first time Derpy had seen Sparkler sleep in over a decade. Mainly because, by instinct alone, Rainbow Dash had not fetched her any virgins.

“Aww,” said Derpy. “She looks so cute!” She turned to Dinky. “So. Do you need milkies or something? Because I don’t have breasts.”

“I only crave the blood of the innocent.”

“Oh. Well, I don’t have any of that.”

“Then I will tolerate baked goods.”

“Like…muffins?”

Dinky rolled her eyes, but Derpy looked so very excited. “Yes,” she sighed. “I will accept muffins. But not too much sugar! And bring me foalic acid!”

“Of course, as soon as we get back- -”

Derpy was promptly hit in the side of the head with a rotted dock-plank.

“Hey!” cried Dinky. “That’s not fair, you can’t- -”

Spoiled kicked Dinky hard in the face. The crowd gasped, as Spoiled had literally just kicked a baby.

Spoiled, now insane with rage, dropped onto Derpy and began to strangle her.

“YOU LITTLE HORSE!” she wheezed. “JUST DIE!”

“Gah…choking!” choaked Derpy.

Spoiled squeezed harder. “THEN CHOKE!”

Then, in an instant, Spoiled screamed as she was forcibly peeled away by blue magic. As she was turned in the air, her rage only increased when she saw that she was getting lifted by a tall, perfect pink unicorn in a ridiculous green sweater.

“Put me down you fat horse!” she screamed. “You think because you have that grotesque organ sticking out of your head you have the right to meddle in the affairs of REAL ponies? Do you even know who I am? I’m SPOILED RICH! I could buy and sell you, if you weren’t so ugly that nobody would buy you for anything except slapping your skinny rump! Now put- -ME- -DOWN!”

Cadence glared at her. “You know what? I just can’t do this anymore.”

Spoiled smirked. “That’s a good girl. Of course you should recognize your superiors- -”

Cadence tore off her sweater and stood before the town naked save for a hair bow. She spread her massive, grape-scented wings. “BEHOLD THINE GOD!” she screamed in (although she had sworn she would never use it) the Royal Canterlot Voice.

Spoiled blanched to gray, and the entire town began to scream in absolute terror.

“They’re real!” screamed somepony. “They’re actually REAL! ALICORNS ARE REAL!!”

“GAAAAH! Don’t punish me for my sins! I didn’t mean to!”

“Don’t eat me!”

“SIILENCE!” demanded Cadence, and the entire town went silent. “NOW BOW TO YOUR ONE TRUE GOD!”

The town, shaking and weeping, did so. By about this time, Shining Armor had ran up.

“Oh come on- -Cadence, you’re doing the divine intervention thing again!”

“SILENCE YOU SEXY MORTAL!”

Shining Armor gasped. “You think I’m sexy?”

Cadence sighed, and dropped the Royal Canterlot Voice. “Shining, you’re adorable, but you couldn’t be more thick.”

“She wants to have your babies!” whispered Derpy.

“Dude, even I could tell that,” said Dinky. “Before I was born.”

Shining Armor darkened several shades. Cadence, however, turned her attention toward Spoiled.

“No. I suppose I ought to make a demand.”

“I have money! I can pay you!”

Cadence shook her head. “The last mare that insulted me was named Twilight Velvet. I demanded her firstborn son for compensation.”

“Would you take a daughter? I’m sure she’d be delicious! Lots of bacon!”

“I do NOT eat ponies!” snapped Cadence, stamping her hoof. “That is a MYTH! And anyway, that’s Celestia, not me! I am Cadence, the living embodiment of LOVE!”
The ponies before her cringed and wept.

“Now,” continued Cadence, “I just witnessed you beating a mare. A mare who did nothing wrong- -”

“She refused me!”

“Because YOU tried to force her to KILL. Which, mind you, is illegal. I would know, I wrote most of your laws over the last four centuries.”

“Wait a minute!” cried Shining Armor. “How old are you?!”

“I’m- -” Cadence turned her head and let out an exasperated sigh. “Shining! Put her down! NOW!”

Shining Armor blushed, embarrassed that he had been caught attempting to abscond with Sparkler’s unconscious body. He had already slung her over his back and hauled her almost out of the group, but upon being seen, he slowly dumped her into a sleepy heap.

“Now,” said Cadence, “as I was saying. Were I Celestia, I would probably have you frosted and plated. Unless you were male, then I would snuggle you indiscriminately. Or, at this point, just send you TO THE MOON.” Spoiled cringed at the last one, but Cadence smiled. “But I’m not Celestia. I am Best Princess. So I am willing to give divine forgivness to all parties present…under two conditions.”

“You can’t pardon her! She’s nothing but a dirty Pegasus! Look at her, she has WINGS!”

“I also have wings.” Cadence rubbed the appendages in Spoiled’s face until she coughed. “Fuzzy, aren’t they?”

“Get them out of my face- -”

“TELL ME THEY ARE FUZZY AND SOFT.”

Something dripped beneith Spoiled, and she was suddenly glad that she did not wear pants. “They are fuzzy! And soft!”

Cadence smiled. “There. Now, my two conditions. First, you and Ditzy will kiss and make up. Second, I will get to hug that freaky talking baby.”

“I do not agree!” squeaked Dinky, waving her hoof. “Send her to the moon! Punish her in the name of Divine Glory!”

Derpy quieted her. “I agree,” she said. “I don’t want to go to the moon, I hear there’s some sort of horrible monster there. A terrifying beast!”

“Not for much longer,” said Cadence, darkly.

“What?”

“Never mind.” She set Spoiled down. “Bring me the baby!”

Derpy approached and passed off Dinky. Cadence giggled and laughed, and as she stated, hugged the baby. Dinky tolerated it for her mother’s sake.

“Oh! She’s so soft!”

“I am indeed soft,” agreed Dinky. “But don’t squeeze so hard, I haven’t developed proper bones yet.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“I’m sure your babies will be just as soft! Softer, even!” Derpy giggled.

“Well, if Shining Armor would- -SHINING! I told you to put her DOWN!”

“But she smells like French fries!” whined Shining. He had already affixed false wings to Sparkler’s back and was in the process of combing her fluffy hair into bangs.

“Do it again and I’ll uncorn you and parade you through the street. AGAIN.” Cadence turned back to Spoiled and Derpy. “Now. Unless you want me to throw you the royal dungeon- -and not the fun one- -kiss and make up.”

Spoiled stared at Cadence, then at Derpy, and then finally sighed. She stretched out her hoof, and spoke through gritted teeth. “I apologize.”

“It’s not an expression,” snapped Cadence. “I meant to kiss. Literally.”

Spoiled made a horrified face. “I will NOT! Not if you were Celestia herself! Send me to the moon! Bake me into a cake! I will NEVER kiss a filthy, dirty, foul Pega- -”

Derpy leaned forward and swept Spoiled off her feet, dipping her low- -and kissed her. Deeply. With a great deal of Derpy-tongue. Rainbow Dash, who had been flying, suddenly cried out and crashed into a pile of mares due to her wings suddenly growing incredibly rigid. The rest of the crowd was somewhat disturbed, and wondered if they should be watching this.

Then Derpy disconnected. “Wow!” she said. “No wonder Filthy likes you so much!”

“I…I kissed…I kissed the derp…”

“And all is forgiven! YAY!” Derpy raised her hooves over her head, and Spoiled fell to the ground. “Oops! Sorry! But Ms. Cadence says our fight is over now, so we can be friends!”

Derpy extended her hoof to help Spoiled up. Spoiled looked at it, and perhaps because the whole town was watching- -or perhaps the goddess of love, the second most vengeful alicorn- -was watching, she did something she never thought she would. She wiped her mouth and reached up, taking Derpy’s hoof.

And Derpy helped her up. And all was well.

Chapter 1: Setting the Bar Low

The stallion shifted his hoof, gesturing to yet another photograph in the seemingly endless reams of ribbon-photos that had somehow been compressed into his wallet. This particular picture showed a teenage filly- -a white unicorn, not unlike the owner of the photos, who was apparently completely unaware of his rather auspicious genetics- -and she was wearing a surprisingly elegant dress.

“And see, this is my eldest,” he said. “She got her cutie mark in geology. Her mother and I were so proud. We thought she would go off and get her rocktorate. But then she never got past the sixth grade. So, yeah. No rocktorate on that one I guess. Turns out she wants to make dresses. I know I’m supposed to be supportive, but her talent is literally for gemstones- -look! It’s gemstones! Right there, on her rump!”

One of the two unicorns flanking him looked closely- -perhaps too closely. His brother cleared his throat, causing the other to suddenly pull back. “Ah,” he said. “Yes. Those certainly are gemstones, aren’t they?”

“That’s what the doctor said, yeah.” Before either of the twins could interrupt, the stallion flipped the photos again. The next ribbon contained pictures of another, younger white filly- -indicating that his genetics were virtually flawless, having sired not one but two of the most beloved coloration and type of pony.

“And this is my youngest, she’s just three! Isn’t she adorable!” He grinned through his thick mustache, a white face beaming out from beneath a shaggy mullet. “Her mother and I have high hopes for this one! She might even make it to high school! Wouldn’t that be something?”

“Of course it would,” said the elder of the twins- -even if he was only ‘elder’ by a fraction of a second. “But, if you don’t mind, if we could get to the business at hoof…”

“Oh?” the stallion looked confused. “I still have ten more rows. Don’t you want to see the one of my wife? I think I have one in here where she’s not wearing any clothes…”

Both the stallions at his sides blushed. It ought to be recognized, of course, that ponies did not ordinarily wear clothes, nor did they explicitly have anything to cover by them; however, all three of the unicorns who now found themselves sitting at the especially salty counter of Captain Pony’s Salt Bar and Saltier Grill were wearing at least some amount of clothing. The central stallion- -the mark- -was wearing the greatest known sort of garment of them all, the Hawaiian shirt. The other two, a pair of gangly stallions just out of their teen years, were dressed in matching blue and white striped shirts complete with bowties. They were presently saving up to buy hats.

“See? Completely and totally naked. Naked as the day she was born. And that body after two foals…I mean, you just can’t beat that, can you?” He looked up. “Am I making this awkward?”

“No,” lied both twins at once.

“But,” said the more mature twin. “It seems to me that by raising two daughters, you’ve been depriving yourself.”

“You try raising two daughters and you’d be depraved too!” He guffawed, although it was not clear if he actually knew that this was a joke- -or meant it as such. Carefully, he bent his neck and addressed his salt-lick gracefully in a way that was (unconsciously) distinctly couth.

“Well, we have an offer for you,” said one twin.

“A once in a lifetime offer!” added the other. The two of them were completely and utterly indistinguishable. For poor Hondo Flanks, this was endlessly confusing; he could barely tell his daughters apart half the time, let alone two suave strangers who both smelled oddly of peppermint and apples.

“And as a pony clearly versed in sports and sports memorabilia, we can see that you can fully appreciate this opportunity. Flim, if you would do the honors?”

Flim nodded and produced a box. It looked fancy, but was not. They had bought it in a rummage sale after a great deal of rummaging followed by the use of their fully bargaining powers to weasel it out of an old mare for a matter of half of a Goat Grote. One that they had carefully counterfeited, of course.

The elder twin- -Flam- -opened the box with his magic. The stallion looked inside and gasped at the object held within.

“Why, that’s a championship ring!” he said, almost in awe. “Hoofball, unicorn league, ’71, the year the Colts won!”

“An excellent eye, my good stallion!” Both twins smiled, knowing that he had swallowed the bait- -metaphorically, at least, not like the last mark who had taken a much more literal approach. “The only one not currently in private collection!”

“And we are willing to part with it.”

“Although only barely!” Flam feigned lament. “But at least we will know it is going to a good home!”

Flim leaned in close. “It can be yours, with just three easy payments of, oh…five hundred bits?”

“Five hundred- -do you know how many college educations I could buy for that?”

“About one five hundred thousandth of one.”

“And, really, do you think you’re going to be paying for any of those?”

Hondo paused for a moment. “Well, no. But still…”

“Trust me, my dear stallion, the market price for these rings is well over one hundred thousand each! This isn’t a bargain that comes by every day!”

“Or ever! If you have remorse, just sell it back! You’ll make a hundred times what you put in, no risk!”

“A hundred times? That’s a lot!” He paused. For a moment Flim and Flam were wondering if he would catch on to their fudging of the numbers, but his daughters had apparently inherited both his coat color and his astounding intelligence. “I don’t know, though…my wife gets angry when I spend money, and when she’s angry she doesn’t make me any cookies.” He looked at them. “And by ‘cookies’, I mean- -”

“We don’t need the details,” assured Flam while Flim shuddered. “But how about this? Why don’t you try it on?”

Hondo’s eyes widened. “Oh, no, I couldn’t, I’m not- -”

“Nonsense!” Flim clasped his hoof around Hondo’s back. It was meant to seem like a friendly gesture, but he was in fact pinning the stallion to his bar stool. So he could not get away. Flam lifted the ring and gently placed it on the stallion’s horn. Hondo looked so happy he almost seemed as though he was going to jump out of his mullet (which, for the sake of all Equestrian fashion, would have been a good thing).

“Oh wow,” he said. “That does look good, now doesn’t it?” He paused. “But it doesn’t it make my horn look a little…small?”

“Not at all!”

“Quite the contrary!”

“Yes, yes! In fact, your horn looks massive!”

“Positively enormous!”

“Gloriously long and ever so hard!”

“Downright engorged, and throbbing with vitality!”

One of the twins leaned close, breathing heavily. “If had a horn like that…well…heh heh…”

“I- -um- -”

“If I had a horn like that, I’d go home and strip your wife naked.”

Hondo had suddenly begun to sweat, and at the last line grew rather pale, which was itself impressive considering that he was an all-white pony.

“This is making me very uncomfortable,” he squeaked. He took the ring off his horn, and Flim and Flam gasped.

“Wait!” cried Flim.

“Yes, I believe there’s been a misunderstanding!”

“I have to go- -somewhere!”

With that, he departed with utmost haste, leaving the ring still spinning on the salt-strewn bar. Flim picked it up.

“Well,” he said. “That didn’t go well.” He paused, and then looked at his brother. “I believe we may have oversold it, dear brother.”

“Possibly. Hmm…” Flam made a note of it in a small book. “I suppose it helps to improve our sales tactic,” he sighed, “let’s see…reference to horn size seem to only work on unicorn mares, not stallions.”

“Indeed.” Flim put the ring back in the box and tucked it away. “Well. On to the next one.”

The two of them giggled as they approached the door. Just before they reached it, though, both of them were shoved back into the bar suddenly when a pony came through the door and impacted them at chest high.

“Excuse me!” said Flim, bowing gracefully.

“Yes. Excuse you.” Replied the mare.

Flam opened his mouth to retort at the rudeness of her tone, but when he and his brother saw her, they both fell speechless.

Although they were relatively young, both Flim and Flam had snuggled many a mare- -and in a few cases even a stallion or two- -almost invariably in pursuit of sealing a deal that otherwise might be sunk by a pony in a more rational state of mind. This mare, however, was unsuggleable. Both of them mentally agreed, even without speaking. It was apparent from her poise and expression, and neither of them could conceive- -no matter how hard they tried- -of this mare ever being snuggled by anything up to and including a pregnant manticore- -let alone a stallion. Even one who had been paid very well.

It was not that she was unattractive. She was, at least in an objective sense: her face was well-formed and aristocratic, although marred slightly by an oddly pointed nose that the twins suspected might be the byproduct of a certain surgery. Her eyes were deep and teal, but they were harsh and cold, and seemed to stare into the very souls of the ponies before her- -all the while literally looking down her pointed nose at them. This face was the one that they had both unconsciously imagined as belonging to Nightmare Moon or King Sombra when their mother had told them bedtime stories (their mother, of course, had hated them and only told them the most traumatizing of stories). This was the face of pure evil.

“My- -my apologies, ma’am, we were just leaving- -”

“No,” she said, coldly. “No you were not.” Her cold eyes moved from one of them to the other. “You are Flim Skim and Flam Scam?”

“That depends on who is asking,” said Flam, desperately trying to smile but finding it impossible to do well, even for a professional fake-smiler like him.

“I am,” she snapped. “And I came to this filthy den of the lower class to speak specifically to you two.”

“Well, ma’am, we are in a bit of a hurry- -”

Her eyes flashed and Flim recoiled. “When I ask for something, I never do so twice. Because no pony I’ve ever met is stupid enough to deny me the first time. Now. SIT.”

The pair of twins gulped, and they did as she told them, moving to the nearest booth and sliding in next to one another. The entire process took only a fraction of a second.

The mare moved more slowly, at an almost leisurely place. It was more than apparent that she did not belong in this place and treated it with abject disdain. Despite it being summer, she was dressed in a long fur coat that nearly trailed on the wooden floor below.

She paused and looked at the bench, and then sighed. “Of course. Why would there be anypony here to take a lady’s coat?”

“I would be more than happy to,” said Flam, standing suddenly. He was rapidly regaining his normal confidence, and doing so faster than his brother.

The mare yanked the coat away and glared at him. “Keep your filthy horn off my coat! Your kind are almost as bad as those dirty Pegasi, you’d steal the buttons off it even if they WEREN’T made of solid gold!”

Flim and Flam looked at each other. Almost as if they were communicating telepathically. Whether that ability came from the magical organs embedded in their foreheads or them being identical twins, neither knew.

The mare folded her coat neatly and with exacting precision.

“Chinchilla fur,” marveled Flim. “My, a great many chinchillas must have had to be shaved to make that.”

“Shaving the vermin is one way to make a fur, yes,” replied the mare. Then, with a little smile, “the cheap way. But I never do anything cheap. It’s beneath me.”

“So that means- -”

“It means that this coat costs more money than the two of you will ever see in your lifetimes.” She set the coat down gingerly on the vinyl seat. “So don’t touch it.”

They both nodded, and both of them were able to get a good look at the mare. Neither liked what they saw. The illusion was perfect: she was, arguably, attractive. Still perhaps in her twenties, or maybe approaching thirty, but in relatively good shape. She was also an earth-pony.

What bothered the pair the most, though, was that she was wearing a teal blouse- -to match her eyes- -along with an almost absurd quantity of gold jewelry, but had neglected to put on pants. That bothered them greatly. Of course, they themselves were not wearing pants; neither had Hondo, or any of the few ponies lying around the bar who had been salted into oblivion. For a mare, though, it was downright scandalous to go bottomless: they ordinarily wore skirts, even perfunctory ones, or trousers of some sort. This one, however, was nude from the waist down.

She stared at them. Or, rather, glared- -or even glowered. It was apparent that she hated them even more than their mother had. Which was a lot.

“Well,” said Flim, clearing his throat. “While you’re here, we actually are in the process of attempting to sell a rare trinket. You seem like you would be very interested in that sort of valuable thing.”

“We are?” asked Flam. Flim elbowed him. “OH! Yes!”

Flim placed the box on the table and opened it. They both gestured in unison toward the ring inside.

“Now, granted, it is obvious that you can’t actually wear it,” said Flim, “but I hardly think that is the point, now, is it? You seem like a mare far more interested in collecting the finer things in life.”

“And this is a one-of-a-kind item. The only one not currently in private collection.”

“You would not believe the things we had to do to get it.”

“There was snuggling.”

“Oh yes, lots of snuggling.” Flim shuddered at the sudden and unwanted thought of snuggling the mare across from him. “Though mostly for warmth!”

“It’s not weird if it’s for warmth!”

“Is there a point to this?” sighed the mare.

“Why yes, yes there is!” said Flim. “Interested in business, I see, just in business- -well, here it is!”

He pushed the box to her. She stared at it for a moment, and then gently lifted it from the box. She examined it carefully.

Flam leaned forward. “The value is well over one million bits. But we’re willing to accept a fraction at fifty thousand. Payable in a single payment, of course- -”

The mare set the ring on the table and looked Flam in the eye. Then she put her hoof over the top of ring and crushed it into powder with one swift motion.

Flim and Flam both screamed. Only partly because their ring had been destroyed. They had rarely dealt with earth-ponies, although they were distantly aware of legends of unnatural strength. Her actions had only reinforced it and revealed that, like all her kind, she was preternaturally strong. This terrified both of the twins and strongly aroused one of them, although neither of them knew which.

“Our championship ring!” cried Flim, grasping at the dust.

“Our one of a kind ring! Our rare and uninsured valuable ring!”

“One that we’ll now have to collect money on in exchange for the damages- -”

“It was fake,” snapped the mare.

Flim and Flam gasped in unison and in offence. “How dare you!” they cried.

The mare stood up on her seat and gestured to her bare rump. Flim averted his eyes and Flam cried out in surprise. Neither of them wanted to look at her rear.

“Please, we do not need to see that!” wailed Flim.

“Oh please. You’re kind are all leches, you know you like to look. But try not to get distracted. Note that my cutie mark is a RING.”

“Which…is strange,” trailed Flam. “…seeing as you can’t wear one, seeing as you lack- -”

“I lack NOTHING,” she snapped. “YOU have hideous growths coming out of your stupid faces. Although for a second you were almost as smart as your race likes to think it is. Yes. I can’t wear them. But I do collect them. Assess them. Accumulate them. Purely as status symbols, mind you.”

“Even if you can’t use them?”

“ESPECIALLY since I can’t use them.” She pointed at the pile of dust. “And I happen to know that my husband owns a complete set from ’71-’74. Minus one ring. Which that one was not. I gave him those sets for his thirtieth birthday.”

The twins looked at each other, then at her, then at each other again. “Husband? You- -actually got somepony to marry you?”

“Got? No. I assure you I had MANY candidates. I married the richest.”

“Did…the place your from…not have any other female ponies?”

“I don’t even think that would work,” whispered Flam.

“Of course it does. But none are as rich or as well-bred as I am.”

The twins shivered. “Please refrained from mentioning yourself and breeding in the same sentence,” said Flam, holding back his nausea.

“Only because we would like to have a purely professional relationship.”

“Do you think a pony as wealthy and beautiful as I am would have any OTHER kind of relationship with a pair of impoverished swindlers?”

“Swindlers!” gasped Flim. “Why, we’ve never swindled once in our lives!”

The mare simply pointed at the powdered fake ring.

“Well…once. But we needed money!”

“Of course you do. Which I am willing to help with.”

Flam frowned. “It doesn’t involve snuggling, does it?”

“I would rather sprout a pair of wings than even get within touching distance of either of you. Get near me and I will have your horns removed and turned into fancy fountain pens.”

This was a grave threat to a unicorn, one that was never taken lightly- -and both of them believed her with absolute certainty.

“So it’s business,” said Flim, his air of joviality vanishing when he saw that it would be meaningless in the face of this mare.

“It is.” The mare clapped her hooves together. A young Pegasus waitress appeared as quickly as possible by her side. “Your establishment has horrible service,” she said, addressing the filly. “What does a pony have to do to get some salt?”

“Oh! Sure! Yes! What would you like, ma’am?”

“Himaneighan. On the rocks.”

The serving filly’s eyes widened, and she began to write on a small pad. “And what would you like that cut with?”

The sound of the earth-mare’s teeth grinding as her expression suddenly sharpened was so loud that Flim and Flam recoiled. When they saw the look on her face- -her suddenly flaring nostrils in her pointed nose, and her tiny teal pupils- -they stiffened. One of them quite vigorously.

“Cut?” she said, her tone icy. “CUT?!”

“Well, it’s just that- -the Himaneighan Pink is very expensive, and- -”

“And I look like I can’t afford it? Because I’m an EARTH PONY?” She moved with surprising speed, suddenly putting her face inches from the now terrified Pegasus filly’s nose.

“N- -no- -it’s just that- -just- -”

“Well I HAVE money! Here!” The earth mare opened her purse and began to literally throw bits at the serving filly- -at full force. She cried out as they bounced off her, leaving bruises as they did so.

“Please stop!”

“Why? Tell me WHY I should stop! I’ll stop when you get me my CELESTIA-DARNED SALT!”

The filly burst into tears and started to run away. As she did, Flam projected his magic. The young mare was levitated in a green sphere, her legs still pumping wildly as she sobbed and tried to escape. She barely seemed to notice that she had been lifted.

“And of course,” said Flim, “as a mare of such profound wealth, you would be more than rich enough to pay for our salt as well?”

“Why would I pay for your salt? You’re clearly not worth it.”

Flim and Flam both shrugged. “Well, if you don’t have the cash, we can go without.”

The mare’s nostrils flared, and she rolled her eyes. “Fine. Order your weight in it for all I care. I can afford it.”

The twins smiled. “Add two saltinis to that,” said Flam.

“The deluxe kind.”

“With IODIZED salt!”

“To prevent cretinism!”

“I think it’s a bit late for that,” muttered the violet mare.

Flam then released the serving filly. Her hooves caught the ground and she began to run- -still sobbing and bruised- -back behind the bar.

The twins silently smiled to each other. They were making headway.

“So,” said Flim. “You seem to be familiar with us.”

“After all, our products and salesmanship are known far and wide across the land!”

“But we’re afraid we aren’t terribly sure who, exactly, you are.”

The mare leaned back in her seat. She stared at them coolly. “Of course you wouldn’t,” she said, at last. “You two are not exactly near me in terms of social station. My name is Spoiled Rich. I’d say it’s a pleasure but it’s not.”

Flam giggled. His brother let out a small snort. Spoiled raised an eyebrow. “What’s so funny?”

“Your parents hated you, didn’t they?”

Spoiler’s brow furrowed. “And why would you think that?”

“Well… ‘Spoiled’?”

Spoiled rolled her eyes. “Sure. Coming from a pony named ‘Phlegm’.”

“One, it’s ‘Flam’. Two, I’m ‘Flim’. He’s Flam.”

“How am I supposed to know that, you look the same.”

“You can check our cutie marks,” they said, raising them.

Spoiled turned her head to one side and held up her hoof. “NO. I don’t want to look at your skinny rumps. And I’ve already seen your cutie marks. You’re lucky I don’t call you ‘Pitcher’ and ‘Catcher’.”

“Then what do you propose?”

“I don’t know, grow a beard or something. It can’t make you look any more ugly.”

“Hmm,” said Flim, taking it to heart- -although a beard might be a bit overboard for a suave salespony. “Maybe…”

“And for the record,” continued Spoiled, “my name was not always this moronic.”

“Oh really?”

She nodded. “Before I was married, I was Spoiled Milk.”

Flam nearly died. As in, he was actually very close to rupturing from stifling his laughter. Had he been ten years older he probably would have. Flim, however, gasped.

“Spoiled Milk? As in the daughter of Spilt, nee Beans?”

“Spilt Beans?” said Flam, suddenly managing to control himself. His eyes were wide. “You mean the famous Canterlot Socialite?”

“Yes,” said Spoiled, darkly.

“Oh my,” said Flim. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss! I mean, it was all over the newspapers, the whole of Canterlot was abuzz for months on end!”

“A terrible shame!”

Spoiled grimaced and shook her head. “She was a terrible mother. I’ m not going to shed a tear. There’s no sense crying over Spilt Milk.”

The salt arrived. Spoiled shot the stupid horse delivering it a withering glare, and the girl cowered like the cow she was. The salt, at least, looked tolerable. It consisted of several pink rocks set into a simple glass. It was expensive, but horribly rustic for Spoiled’s taste. After all, she did deserve nice things- -but she supposed that since nopony of any importance was around, she could forgo asking for something more suited to her station.

Two salts were given to the twins. Girly salts. Spoiled Rich had not respected either of them- -they were, after all, unicorns- -but any wisp she might have had for them vanished when she saw that they could not even handle proper stallion salt.

Yet the pair seemed overjoyed and started licking their salt immediately. The serving filly started to retreat quickly, but not quickly enough. Spoiled was able to peg her directly in the back of the skull with a well-placed twenty-bit coin. The really heavy kind. The girl squealed in pain and ran.

She lifted her drink- -using her hooves, the way their maker had intended ponies to- -and pulled a piece of salt out of the glass with her tongue. She crunched it loudly in her teeth, watching Flim and Flam cringe at the sight. She enjoyed seeing them uncomfortable.

“So,” said Flim after a long moment. “You came…looking for us?”

Spoiled did not answer. She just turned over a fragment of salt in her mouth. She hated the taste, but it was expensive.

“Do we owe you money?” whispered Flam. Flim promptly elbowed him.

“No,” said Spoiled. “Not yet.”

“Well, if it’s refunds, I’m afraid we don’t accept- -”

“And I never bought anything from you. I don’t buy cheap things.”

“Ow…my self-esteem…”

“I’m here because I have a business proposal.”

Both the brothers perked up suddenly as if she had suggested that she were offering to remove her blouse. Which, of course, would have revealed nothing; as a pony, nudity was normal an inoffensive. However, only poor ponies did not wear at least one article of clothing. Spoiled had several, including her jewelry.

“What kind of proposal?”

“Do…do we have to snuggle you?”

Spoiled and Flim both looked at Flam as though they were about to turn their salt. Flam blushed. “Sorry, I just- -”

“That’s all you unicorns can think about, isn’t it?” She shook her head. “No. Of course not. Give me that image again, and I’ll have you arrested!”

“For what?!”

“For disturbing the rich!” Spoiled stood up suddenly, causing the twins to shrink into their seats. Seeing that they were afraid- -but not realizing that at this point they were only pretending- -Spoiled sat back down. “No.” She straightened her blouse. “I’ve heard word that you two are trying to start a business operating in Ponyville.”

Something glimmered in Flim’s eyes. “Then you heard right. It’s a tiny, obscure town, perfect to start a business.”

“One where debt collectors won’t be looking, I’m sure. And where earth-mares outnumber unicorn stallions ten to one.”

“It’s nothing like that!” protested Flam. “In fact, we have a set of distant relations there! We actually have a rather fetching young cousin residing in town!”

“Really? Who?”

“Applejack,” said Flim.

“Big Macintosh,” said Flam.

Flim and Flam looked at each other in surprised. Both of them had learned something new about the other that they rather would not have known.

“My point,” continued Spoiled, “is that you two were looking to start a certain business. The kind that helps ponies deal with…certain problems.”

Flim and Flam smiled. “Indeed,” said Flim. “We were.”

“Well, I’m a pony with a number of problems. Problems that need fixing. Quietly, and quickly.” She leaned forward. “Efficiently.”

Flim and Flam smiled. “Well,” said Flam, “I suppose that is possible…”

“But of course neither of us have the expertise required.”

“No, no, not us, we’re just simple salesponies.”

“We would need to hire an agent.”

“One with the ability to… ‘fix problems’.”

“But one dense enough not to lead the authorities back to us- -”

“- -if the authorities suddenly become interested. In other words- -”

“- -a pony to take the fall, if need be.”

Spoiled wrinkled her pointed nose. “Stop that. That twin stuff, don’t do it. It’s weird. And yes. I figured that was the case.”

“So you have somepony in mind?”

“I do.”

“And is that what you came to offer? Because we don’t need help recruiting, at the moment.”

“No. I came to offer investment capital.”

“Really.”

“Is that unreasonable? I have an interests in your business flourishing. To help me with what I need done.”

Flim and Flam looked at each other, and then at Spoiled. They both smiled.

“I’m afraid the answer will be no,” said Flim.

Spoiled, for the first time, looked completely taken aback. As if she could not comprehend what was going on. “Excuse me? I’m offering you money.”

“You are,” said Flam. “But that’s not all you’re offering.”

“I’m here to help you.”

“No,” said Flim. “You are here to help yourself. You have the capital. A candidate in mind. And you need…us?”

“Your husband made a fortune selling retail goods at wholesale prices. Cutting out the middlemare, so to speak.”

“How do you- -”

“Because we study hard. This job is not easy.”

“And a middlemare always increases the cost. So why exactly would she want one, Flim?”

“Because the agent wouldn’t be the ONLY patsy, Flam. It would be us. The ones providing the service. Not the client, as Ms. Rich would be.”

“‘Ms. Rich’ is my failure of a daughter. Address me properly if you’re going to address me at all.”

“We don’t intend to be addressing you for very much longer.”

“We hate to be rude, of course, but what you are offering is NOT a benefit. You are trying to dupe us.”

“And we should know. We normally do the duping.”

Spoiled stood up suddenly. “Fine. I’ll keep my money, then.” She became quiet. “But I promise you: you’ll regret this. Ponies do not deny me what I want.”

“We just did.”

“For now. But you two will NEVER do business in Ponyville.” She grabbed her coat, turned, and began to leave, and whispered to herself. “Or business at all for much longer.”

Flim and Flam watched her go, trying very hard not to look at her rump. Then they turned to each other. Flim nodded, and Flam picked the pink salt out of her unfinished glass. They would resell it later at ten times the market price to the right mark, and it would net them a substantial profit.

“Well, brother, I do believe we dodged the proverbial bullet with that one.”

“Of course! Honestly, I don’t know what she expected from us. But…”

Flam smiled. “Oh, indeed. She was so angry she didn’t even notice.”

He held up a number of solid-gold buttons in his magic. Buttons that had formerly been attached to Spoiled Rich’s extravagant coat.

“We really ought to have thanked her, brother.”

Flam laughed. “Indeed! After all, she did just provide us with all the investment capital we need!”

The both of them laughed, not realizing that vengeance would find them soon enough.

Chapter 2: Finally Starting the Story

Somewhere, somehow, Derpy was derping.

This in itself was not unusual. It was something she did quite often. On this particular day, she was doing it in Ponyville, a pointless backwater near Canterlot that nopony at all cared about. It was also where she lived.

At this particular point in time, in addition to derping, she was also vomiting into a bush. She felt terrible: nauseous, dizzy, and overall unpleasant. But she needed to work. She had been vomiting every day for almost two weeks, but taking a single day off of work would be far too costly. She simply could not afford it.

“Gah,” she said, sticking out her tongue and staring down at the base of the newly fertilized shrub. “When was the last time I ate a pistachios?”

The answer, of course, was the night before, in muffin form. That was the one advantage of repeated vomiting: she always got to taste her muffins a second time. That was a good thing for at least a third of the flavors, and only a bad thing for one in ten. She had learned to avoid those muffins- -or would have, if she had actually bothered to stop eating them. But doing so felt bad, as she did not want to leave any of them out. It would hurt their little muffin feelings.

When she had finished, she wobbled back to her poorly assembled stall. Derpy- -which was not, in fact, her real name- -was the town muffin mare. She sold muffins and muffin accessories.

A mare was standing at the stall. An earth mare, to be exact, and one with green hair. One of the numerous secretive carrot-ponies who lived outside the city.

“Sorry about that,” said Derpy, wiping her mouth again and smiling. “What can I get you?” She reached into her muffin box. “I have carrot, if you- -”

“NO!” cried the mare, stepping back. Her eyes were wild. “You- -you have MUFFIN POISONING!”

“I do?” Derpy looked down at herself, and then suddenly frowned. “Hey wait a minute! That’s not a real disease!” She paused again. “Is it!”

“It is!” gasped a passing mare, a unicorn. “I read it in a book!”

“And I had it once!” said a stallion accompanying the unicorn. “I got it at this very stall! Don’t eat her muffins, they’ll poison you too!”

“No they won’t!” pleaded Derpy. “I changed the recipe, they don’t do that anymore! At least not most of the time…”

The ponies all screamed and ran away as Derpy crossed into the front of the stall, producing a tray of adorable mini-muffins as she did so. It had been at attempt to convince them not to flee, but that seemed to be oddly hard to do.

“Oh,” she said, watching them go. “Maybe…maybe they had a full breakfast?”

She turned suddenly. One of the advantages to having eyes that faced opposite directions was an unexpectedly large peripheral vision. The violet pony who had tried to sneak past her would have been able to get by any other pony unseen, but not Derpy. That was the power of the derp.

“Cheeri!” cried Derpy, recognizing the newly hired town teacher. “You like muffins! Here! You can have one half price!”

Derpy produced a muffin and held it out. Cheerilee ducked for cover behind a nearby bale of straw.

“No, wait!” she cried. “I still have burns from the last one!”

“Oh my!” gasped Derpy. “Did I serve it too hot?”

“No. Well, not at first.”

Derpy was confused, until the question answered itself. The muffin she was holding burst into flames.

“Wha?” she said, confused. Her confusion turned to strong annoyance. “Oh, come ON!”

She dropped the muffin. It landed in the dirt and fizzled and popped. Derpy wondered if replacing powdered milk with powdered gun had been a good idea. She did not know what a “gun” was, but assumed that if it had a powder it was probably a type of milk.

“Well,” she sighed. “At least it didn’t land in all that straw. That would have been really bad.”

The straw promptly burst into flame, even though the flaming muffin was nowhere near it. Cheerilee screamed; the profuse quantity of hairspray she used in her mane- -and tail, to a lesser extent- -caught fire. She began running down the street.

“Stop drop and roll!” called Derpy. “You have to…oh, she didn’t hear me.” She sighed, and then shrugged. She stared at the still smoldering remains of the flaming muffin. “I just don’t know what went wrong!”

She slumped. Which was appropriate, as she was in a slump. Muffin sales had been terrible as of late, and her business was dying. Ponies were just not interested in muffiny goodness anymore. Even the ones with raisins.

The streets were growing empty. Derpy sighed, then jumped as she saw two ponies rounding a corner. One was an aging earth-pony with puffy white hair, while the one walking beside him was a pink filly who must have been no older than five. The stallion was wearing a vest and an oversized cravat, while the pink filly was wearing a tiara.

Derpy gasped, because she knew this pair. At least vaguely. The mother of the filly was fabulously wealthy, and sometimes would throw bits at Derpy when she saw her. Derpy had always thought that it was very nice of her, and was sure to send her best muffins to that mare’s family.

“Hey there!” said Derpy, producing a chocolate muffin. Chocolate muffins were the best flavor- -although she never let the other muffins know that, because they would have been discouraged. She held it out to the little girl. “Do you want to buy a muffin?”

The girl stared up at her. Not with surprise or girlish wonder, but an expression that Derpy was too naïve to realize was actually grave but bored contempt.

“Seriously?” she said. She could barely pronounce the “r” sound, as she had apparently only learned to do so recently.

“There is nothing more serious than muffins,” said Derpy, solemly. She then proceeded to wiggle the muffin. That always worked for her; food looked so much more tasty when it was moving.

“Um, how about no?” The filly made a disgusted face. “My mom says muffins make you fat.”

“Fat?” Derpy could scarcely comprehend the word. She had never known a fat pony. Although rumor had it that Celestia herself was of enormous girth, measured solely of course by the supply of cakes, frosting, and pastries (but, to Derpy’s eternal chagrin, not muffins) that the Royal Solar Palace demanded.

“Uh, yeah. You know. Eat a muffin top, grow a muffin top?” The filly’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, look at you. You’re downright obese.”

Derpy looked down at herself, as she had been commanded to do. She was aware that she had been growing fatter and fatter recently, but it had only recently become noticeable. She wondered if it really was because of her diet of solely muffins.

“I’m not fat…”

“Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.” The filly reached up and slapped the muffin out of Derpy’s hoof. It landed softly in the dirt of the street. “Gross, I can’t believe I touched it.” The girl clapped her hooves together. “Come, Randolph. We’ve wasted enough time talking to this fatty. I have shopping to do.”

“Of course, Miss Tiara,” said Randolph.

They left. Derpy watched them go, and then sat down in the dust and the dirt. She looked at her spilled muffin and sighed.

“I know how you feel, little guy. But it’ll get better. It has to.”

She was not sure if she was lying. Not that it really mattered, at least not on this day. The sun had passed its zenith, and that meant that it was time for Derpy to pack up. Normally, of course, she would stay on the street selling her muffins until long after dark, and be out at three the next morning- -but on this day, she had a doctor’s appointment (to find out why she kept throwing up and was getting fat). That meant there would be at least a brief reprieve from wondering what had gone wrong in her life.

She picked up the spilled muffin- -it would be her dinner, breakfast, and lunch for the next two days- -and moved to her ramshackle stall. She was less good at building things than she was at making muffins, so it was a bit flimsy. Upon approaching it, she unhooked one of the lines that held up the sign. It immediately dropped too rapidly as the cord pulled itself out of derpy’s teeth.

The sign swung, and Derpy ducked. The stallion passing behind her did not, and he was smashed in the face. He wailed in pain.

“Oh no!” cried Derpy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t- -”

The sign came back around like a pendulum. She ducked again, and it struck the stallion again, this time sending him reeling backward and into a ditch. He went in with a splash, and did not move.

“Oops! Sorry again, I didn’t- -”

The sign came back down and hit her in the forehead. She fell backward into the stall and the whole thing collapsed, covering her in boards and the scent of muffins. The process left her battered, bruised, and covered in splintered wood that had moments before been the only thing that allowed her to make any sort of money.

From underneath the pile, she sighed. The day was going about as well as all of them did.

Chapter 18: Harassing the Locals

Shining Armor did not weight for Cadence to come back out of the ravine. In fact, he left as quickly as possible, breaking into an outright run. When they had come around the corner, he clearly saw that they had scared a mare, and in her fright she had fallen into the town river- -and then Cadence had turned to him and given him THE LOOK.

THE LOOK was a very, very bad thing. It terrified Shining Armor deeply. There would be chastisement. Much chastisement indeed, for having frightened a helpless local so badly, especially after Cadence had told him that it would be better to run this as a covert operation. She herself had even worn a sweater to cover her large, soft, fluffy, grape-scented wings. Shining Armor, being a stallion, had of course insisted that he knew better (a trait that within five short years would be entirely crushed out of him). Now he was sure that would be his undoing.

With his tail between his legs (literally, as he was a pony and had a tail), Shining Armor moved to an entirely different part of town. This part he liked better, because it smelled like food. There was a diner nearby, and he wondered if he should stop for a hayburger.

Something fluttered beside him, and Shining Armor stiffened, thinking that it might be Cadence. He often stiffened when Cadence was around. Instead, though, Spearhead landed beside him. Spearhead did not tend to make Shining Armor stiffen at all.

“Lieutenant,” he said, smiling and glad to see his friend.

“Captain,” replied Spearhead, saluting.

“At ease,” said Shining Armor, returning the salute. Even though they were friends, there were certain formalities that needed to be observed, like saluting or bowing to the Royal Rump when it passed. “So. How’s it look?”

Spearhead smiled. “Dude, this town is amazing!” he gestured out at the streets full of happy ponies. “It’s so clean, but quaint at the same time…like, it strikes me on a deep emotional level, how it’s old, and happy, and peaceful. Like home, but like the home you read about in books, you know?”

Shining Armor had no idea, but nodded.

Spearhead sighed. “I dig it. I dig it real hard. Let me tell you this right now: when I finish my tour, and I start up that art gallery- -”

“Not the art gallery again!”

“- -I’m going to do my first showing here, in this town, because it really matches what I’m trying to say! Like, in spirit, you know?”

Shining Armor rolled his eyes. “Sure, but is it safe for Twily? I mean, compared to the other towns on the list…” He produced the list. It rolled out and unfurled a considerable distance, tripping a pony in the process and sending her headfirst into a cart of cabbages. Neither Shining Armor nor Spearhead seemed to notice. “Celestia asked us to find a place to send her, and I just don’t know…maybe that rock-town is better? Less stallions…”

“You mean the one that’s empty except for that weird rock-cult family with the hot daughter? Yeah no. They’ll probably sacrifice her for a good harvest. Of rocks.”

“I didn’t think of that.” Shining Armor crossed that one out. “But then…”

“What? Would you want to have her locked up in Fort Sox with the royal gold and/or cake supply?”

“Well she’d be safe- -”

“She’ll be safe here. I mean, the guys down in the sewer didn’t even find ONE drowner! And by the way, one of them’s stuck, so we’ll need to requisition some bubber.”

“I’ll put in an order,” sighed Shining Armor. “But, Spear, I don’t know…”

“Dude. This town has a library. Enough said.”

“You know, she does things other than read books.”

“Really?”

Shining Armor stared at him for a moment, and then sighed. “No. Not really. Not at all.”

Shining Armor’s Royal Guard sense suddenly tingled. Or at least something tingled. He looked up and around, and saw a suspicious purple mare standing at one of the vendor-stalls set up on the street. His mind backtracked: he had seen her coming out of the diner a block away (not the front door, but the back), and walking down the street. The owner of that stall had gone to extricate the mare that the town-list had tripped from her cabbagey tomb, leaving her stall unattended. Now the suspicious mare was standing at it, grabbing things in her magic.

“Hey you!” cried Shining Armor, running to the mare. “Get away from there!”

He pulled the mare away, and realized three things. The first was that this mare smelled very heavily of fried food. The second was that apart from her mane and tail, she was completely and utterly hairless. The third and most important was that she had not actually stolen anything. Instead, she had taken the entire supply of ornaments that the vender was selling and organized them by size and color. All three of these things made Shining Armor tingle even more than he had been.

“Oh wow,” he said, poking her repeatedly. “You have no body hair.”

“No, I shave it,” replied Sparkler. “And don’t poke me, I’ll bruise.”

Spearhead arrived. He was slower than Shining Armor. “Hey! Were you trying to steal stuff?”

“If I was trying you wouldn’t have seen it. No.” Sparkler gestured at the display. “Sometimes I sneak into places and organize them when nopony’s looking. I really, REALLY like organizing things.”

Shining Armor felt himself breathing hard. Purple mare. Hairless. Liked organizing things. He was suddenly very glad that Cadence was not here to see this. He had had a crush on her for years, but there was of course no way he could ever ask a Princess out. This mare, though…

“Say,” he said, leaning close and smelling her mane deeply. It smelled like French-fries. “Weird question. Do you ever wear your mane in…bangs?”

Spearhead put his hoof over his face. “Shining, no,” he groaned. “You’re making this weird…”

Shining Armor ignored him. The mare did, also. “No,” she said. “I don’t have the money for haircuts. I usually just fire cutting magic at a mirror and see what happens. There were a few months where I was completely bald. Did you know we have short little rat-tails under our normal ones?”

“What about false wings?”

Sparkler raised an eyebrow. “I think that’s technically racist. But yes. I have. In the school play. I played Inky Nebula, so I got to be an alicorn.”

Shining Armor was drooling at this point, in part because she smelled like fried food an in part because with her off-purple color she could be either Twilight OR Cadence. Or close enough. And since she was not actually Twilight, that made it not weird. Not weird at all.

“Dude,” said Spearhead. “You know she’s, like, fifteen, right?”

“Stop ruining it, Lieutenant!” hissed Shining Armor.

“Lieutenant?” Sparkler blinked. “You’re in the military?”

“Yes,” said Shining Armor, puffing himself out. “I’m a captain!”

“So you have your own ship?”

Shining Armor deflated. “Well, no…actually, the infantry captain is quite a bit lower in rank than a naval captain.”

“Oh. Well, for the record, I’m seventeen. And I was actually thinking of joining the military.”

Shining Armor’s eyes lit up. “You were? You are? Oh, well- -yes. I think you have a greaaaaat future there!”

“Really?”

“Yes! I would love to have you under me! I mean serving me! I mean holding a spear! I mean firing my cannon- -I mean- -”

“Dude,” said Spearhead. “Put down the shovel and stop digging.” He looked up at Sparkler. “You know you’d never get into the Royal Guard, right?”

Sparkler nodded. “It doesn’t matter. Anywhere you want to put me. Even with the pervert, if necessary.”

Shining Armor blushed, but Spearhead nodded gravely. Her response was rare, because she already knew what it had taken him almost ten years in the service to learn: that Celestia only loved white unicorns.