Storming Outby MajikkstarChaptersLet's See HereI'm SneakyI'm PatientI'm Outta HereEND!Let's See HereTwilight glared at the bars of her cage and at the mare just past them. “You can sing to me, and I’ll forgive you for everything you’ve done, but you don’t need to keep me in a cage like an animal.” “You are a fool; I don’t need anything from you. We’re gonna meet the Storm King soon, when we do he’s going to suck the magic from your little alicorn body, give me back my horn, and then I’ll be complete,” Tempest stood tall and proud, looking down on the mare in the cage with disdain. “Please, you don’t have to do any of this. Princess Celestia-” “Is more of a fool than you can ever hope to be! She lords over the world and controls everything through fear of destruction. The Storm King, at least, has limits on what he can do and what he wants from all this,” she gestured to a wall. “Well, if there was a window you’d see the other ships in the armada. They’re all working towards the same goal under his hand.” Twilight sat and raised an eyebrow, “And, what might all this be about?” Tempest looked down her snout at Twilight, an air of power and intimidation shadowed off her. Her horn sparked and she sneered, a light shorted out and sent sparks cascading like lightning flashed and the two combined gave Tempest a sinister visage. She looked down her snout saying one word. “Merchandising.” Twilight stayed in her position, waiting for more. “Don’t you see, the world is about money. Nothing is free, not even a free market or open trading. “Taxes, levies, fees. The cage you’re in cost a lot of bits,” her horn sparked and a bolt of unrestrained magical energy coursed across the cage, keeping Twilight safe where she would have gotten some nasty burns otherwise. “The energy I just sent would have burnt every feather off your pretty little wings, your highness, it’s not cheap to get that kind of enchantment. “So, the Storm King buys a single toy factory and makes dolls of himself. He starts playing hero to accidents he’s caused and parents buy them for their children, and it grew until now,” she gestured to the wall again. “Blast it! I’m having a window put in, now. The point is, we’re making more money than you can count thanks to toys, board games, book deals and the like. No one gets hurt anymore, at least not under the Storm King’s name,” she turned to the stairs and ascended them. “Get some rest, Princess. We’ll be back in Canterlot and with your magic the Storm King will-” “Yeah, yeah. I get it,” Twilight snarked, “fix your whatever, rule the world, blah, blah... Hey, how many amps is this cage designed to resist?” she asked tapping a bar. “More than you can make, I’ll check on you later. Don’t escape now,” she laughed darkly, “we wouldn’t want to have to hunt you down again.” Tempest opened the door and left it ajar showing two bipedal guards holding spears guarding her door. Her only exit since she didn’t get to see anywhere to teleport to. Twilight made a point to cast a lightning spell into the bars as Tempest was leaving, cowering to the center when the electricity encircled her. “Okay, that was close. C’mon, there’s gotta be a logical way out of here. Think, Twilight, think,” she tapped her hoof to her temple and time passed, as it tends to do from event to event. “A-ha!” she exclaimed and covered her mouth, looking around cautiously. “That’s all I need to do, patience, Twilight. Just remember books, that’s what’ll make it easier,” she lay down and screamed. “Oh no, my lightning magic has reflected upon my horn and caused a magical recursion that may be fatal in twelve point six percent of the recorded three thousand reported cases over the past four hundred years. And while the studies have not been conclusive about the dangers or chances of occurrence, they seem to be not in my favor. Oh a sham, what foul tidings, that in my time of dire effort, oh what a cruel consequence, to be had upon me. Doth thy heart weep now, Romareo? Thy foalhood friend lay dead at mine hooves,” she then coughed, her horn lit and with both a silencing spell and a cooling spell she used during hot summer days cast she gagged, then kicked the bars several times as the guards watched from the doorway as she ran in a circle with her kicking, adding one final kick to line herself with where she started. She fell down, one last time, with a loud ‘bleuh’ sound and let her tongue fall from her mouth. The guards arrived and looked into the cage, then to each other, then back to the cage. They backed up in unison and cried out to the ceiling in a language Twilight didn’t know. One of them turned and ran up the stairs while the other took his spear in hand and used the blunt end to poke Twilight through the bars. Poke in the stomach. Poke in the foreleg joint that Twilight barely didn’t laugh at. Poke in the nose. She wished she could see what it was going to poke next, then she felt the weapon leave the cage for a second. “Stop what you’re doing, fool!” Tempest’s voice rang through the very large room that was definitely a waste of space for a single cage. “Were you about to poke a princess of Equestria with the sharp end of your spear?!” the sound of electricity crackled and the creature grumbled in shock while being shocked. There was the sound of gears turning, the cage rattled and then there was nothing for a couple of seconds. Twilight felt and heard Tempest’s hooves on the cage floor and felt the mare press her ear to her side. There they stayed for nearly two minutes before Tempest stood. One of the creatures spoke to Tempest and the mare raged. “‘Is this bad’?! A princess of Equestria has just died on my watch. I have to think, we have to think… Oh no,” she stood still and Twilight wished she could see what was happening, “no Twilight means no fourth alicorn’s magic, which means no tempest collectors edition box set with detachable horn and realistic bucking action. “Get her to the medbay, we have to make her presentable before we return. Maybe the Storm King will show us mercy for costing him the rights to certain aspects of the alicorn power.” Two hours later, Twilight lay in a glass coffin on a bed of flowers of all types, a very comfortable pillow was under her head and she was being pulled into the realm of sleep as she waited. She lay in the manner of Snow White -without dwarves-, holding a purple lilac; because these are normal things to have on an airship in the neighboring countries of Equestria. She peeked an eye open just barely and saw the coast was clear. She quickly lit her horn and teleported, aiming for the jail room she was held in. She vanished and reappeared an inch from the ceiling carrying momentum from somewhere in the aether between teleports. The cracking sound was audible through the room and Twilight fell, taking a small piece of the ceiling with her. “Mbwah, I don’t think teleporting works here,” she stood and stumbled over all her hooves and landed on the floor by a sink. “Guhng, water make a better head,” she lit her horn and winced as the faucet turned on and she collected a small bit of water. She turned the faucet off and slurped the water, swallowing it quietly so guards wouldn’t hear her. “What are you talking about?” Tempest’s voice came from the other side of the closed door. “A noise? Get out of my way,” the door opened and Tempest looked around the room, her eyes staying on Twilight for a second before seeing the missing tile and dust on the glass that encased Twilight. “Cheap crap made by the lowest bidder,” Tempest grumbled to herself, only Twilight heard. “Doctor Horse?” “What is it now?” “You did a fine job, she looks like a princess should.” “Well, if she didn’t then maybe she’d be mistaken for an elf,” the doctor replied sarcastically. “Look, you pay me to fix broken ponies. You bring me a stiff and ask me to play mortuary duty, I ask for double pay,” he said popping two pills in his mouth and swallowing them dry, “or maybe you’d like her to be ‘downward dog’ for the Storm King when we arrive?” Tempest flinched back. “You wouldn’t dare.” “Hey, I’m here and not practicing my arts and crafts. My glue is drying, so let’s hurry this along.” “Everyone out,” Tempest said. The room was emptied and Tempest walked over to Twilight. “Princess, I’m sorry about all this. I can’t believe you did what you did to yourself, and I have to go the rest of my life with the death of royalty on my hooves. I only wish the security camera was working, but the monitors broke when I sneezed a bit too hard. “You know,” she sat and looked the princess over, “I have a secret that I want to share, one that no pony knows except maybe my parents if they’re still alive. Oh, and my foalhood friends. My neighbors, schoolmates, doctor… hrm, essentially my whole hometown and some extended family members that probably told a few people over a while… “Anyway, my name; my real name is Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Just, tell the pony of shadows that I was a nice mare that made some mistakes along the way,” she placed a hoof on the glass and stood up, leaving quickly and sealing the door behind her. “Noone enters or leaves, the ship’s still falling apart so don’t call me if you hear a bumping sound again. Got it?” I'm SneakyTwilight burst into laughter while still inside the casket, helping to muffle the noise she was making. She bit onto her hoof and rolled to her side for a few seconds until she calmed down. “I can’t believe that worked,” she giggled to herself, “I’m a natural Nightshade,” she moved to brush her mane back and bumped the glass. “Oh yeah,” she teleported beside the coffin and cleared her throat. “Well, great, now I have to find a way off this ship,” she tapped a hoof on the floor, “without being caught. What else can go wrong today?” Her stomach grumbled and her shoulders relaxed, letting her sag as she looked at the hole in the ceiling with a soft groan. “Of course, why not just make me hungry during my escape from the clutches of evil.” She moved to the primary door and placed her ear against it, the sound of shuffling and noises filled her ears and she quickly turned to look around the room. “Ah-ha, the classic vent escape!” She climbed onto the coffin and used her wings for balance while removing the vent with her magic. She hooked her hooves on the rim and managed a pull up, grinning as she pulled herself in and gagged. She reacted by pulling her legs to her body and she fell from the air shaft with a trail of old dust, lint, and cloth raining over her. She scrambled under the table the coffin was on and coughed quietly to clear her mouth. Her nose started to dribble from the particulates in them now but she ignored it while crawling through the rest of the way. She cast an easy spell and cleaned the mess including whatever was inside her nose, returning it all to the vent; then she resealed it and gave it a frown. “That never happens in books or stories, why don’t they make that more realistic so ponies don’t do that?” she whined while looking around the room. “Oh, duh,” she rolled her eyes at herself and smirked. “Nicely done, Sherlock Mane. Ignore the maintenance shaft against the wall hidden behind the bed,” she moved the bed slightly and grinned when the portal revealed itself. A simple square of metal bolted to the wall, certain to be cleaner than the vent, and when it opened it gave her access to space and areas she couldn’t reach easily or normally. She looked inside with her horn alight and stepped in, pulling her wings tight to her sides. It was tight, but she could move through the walls now, and her first goal was to find a snack. She moved ahead and every few paces stopped and listened to a wall, many times there was nothing, others there was quiet conversation. She reached a cross-section that was wide enough for her to turn around if she moved back and forth between the shaft. Her mouth watered when she sniffed a fruit salad and followed her nose down the path to a hole at her eye height. She looked in, but only saw an empty bed. “Why would anypony want to see somepony sleep?” she resumed her search and came to another peephole. “A shower? This one’s a white room with a black couch… what kind of weird ponies are on this ship?” she chose to stop looking through random peepholes, instead sniffing her way to her prize. She bumped against a pipe that resonated a short deep tone through the hall, stopping her immediately and her ears perked. “Hey, Chef, did you just say something?” A muffled mare's voice asked. “No, why?” another mare responded. “Thought you grunted in disapproval…” “Sous, why would I do that? You’re my bestie and keeps me from being testy.” The two giggled and talked for a short while, finally taking their leave to use the couch. “Finally, I thought they’d never leave,” Twilight grumbled and peeked through the peephole to get a lay of the area. She began to cast a teleport but stopped before she cast it. She looked down at her knees and found the hatch a few paces ahead. In a minute she was inside the kitchen and the whole room was hers. She sat on her haunches and clapped her hooves in glee, then she hopped to her hooves and used her magic to open the refrigerator. A cooked dead bird was the first thing she saw and she blinked at it. “Well, somepony’s had a worse day than me,” she snickered and reached over it with her forelegs to a large box. “They’re not gonna need this,” she pulled it down and set it on the floor. The box, once opened, held the oddest fruit she’d ever seen. She sniffed it and it was sweet, a slight tang told her it was tart, and the outside was as hard as a hoof wall. She bit into it and her mind was flooded with giggles and happiness; for a few manic seconds, she knew what it was to be Pinkie Pie, then she sneezed. And sneezed. And sneezed. She spat the fruit out and pushed it away, noticing something shift at the bottom of the box. She held her nose with her fetlock and lifted a note, Hey, Jerry, you know how you don’t like spicy food? Gotcha! Don’t use my toenail clippers without filling out the correct toenail requisition form next time. -Tom. She lit her horn and cast an anti-sneeze spell that most ponies around Ponyville knew since Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy began pranking together. Her chest tightened as she thought of her friends and how she’d sent them away, shouted at Pinkie and said hurtful things she couldn’t take back. They’d left her, maybe they didn’t need her anymore. She could just turn herself in, maybe talk her way into Tempest’s, or even the Storm King’s, good graces and convince them to turn against their evil ways and embrace harmony and friendship. She snerked at the absurdity of it all. My friends are probably fine, but regardless of anything else, I have to save the princesses and Equestria. It’s still my responsibility and I have to do this, nothing’s changed except now I have fewer friends and more sneaking to do. She stood up and resolved herself to be better and do better. She took a single step forward and onto the fruit she’d spat out, landed face first into the box, and black powder puffed all over her head. She sneezed and reared back, her eyes burning from the pepper she blinked through the pain for the sink and moved in any direction as she cast the no sneeze spell again. She banged her snout against something hard and as she cast the spell she reared up, stumbling aside and into a stack of pans that fell across the floor with a clatter that would make anyone wonder what was the matter. With a final sneeze, just as white flour fell over her, coating her from head to hoof. She stayed standing, her eyes stinging and bloodshot, and she managed to snort her nostrils free. “Gre~at, what next?” There was a pounding and scrambling against the entrance door, finally it swung open and two mares wearing chef whites and four guards fell over each other. “What’s the noise? Who’s messing up my kitch-” the mare wearing the toque screeched to a stop with everypony else and shivered, looking at Twilight in fear. “Huh?” Twilight grunted in her nasal tone that started the group of six into a scream. They all point at her, frozen in fear. “G-g-g-ghost! The princess’ ghost is going to haunt us all!” Twilight thought about what she looked like, standing tall on two legs, covered with flour, wings outstretched, probably red eyes… “O~oooo, I am going to haunt you all! And you’re never going to be rid of me, oooooo,” she whined more than moaned, but it was still effective, “the only hope you have is to read lots of books and donate to local charities… uh, boo!” The group scrambled over each other again, this time to leave while screaming. Twilight shook flour off her body and cast a minor healing spell and a grooming spell to clear herself of everything, then she barked a laugh and pointed at the door that they’d closed behind them. “Ha, don’t even try to catch me, I’m as slippery as an eel and quick as a hummingbird's wings.” She lifted her snout and harrumphed and turned to the hatch. She turned and saw a few apples and pears, so she grabbed them in her magic with a smirk until she realized what they’d do after seeing even a ghost of her. “Aw, fiddlesticks,” she said and quickly climbed back in, closing the hatch behind her. She hurried her way back the way she came, eating an apple and pear on her way. Once back in the room, she closed the hatch, checked herself over, then teleported back into the coffin and settled in. Waiting was agonizingly long and while she waited she began to think of her friends again. She hoped they were alright and that they weren’t captured as well. The clunk of the door being unlatched, which surprised her because she hadn’t heard it latch last time, announced Tempest’s arrival. “Look, you fools. She’s still as dead as a doornail,” Tempest pointed at Twilight. One of the creatures grumbled and Tempest’s horn sparked. “Kicked the bucket? Do you really think it matters? She’s still stiff as a board. Now, get out of here and make sure no one enters this room without my explicit approval. “Try to get a single bath in and then I’m the most popular pony on the ship.” The chef spoke quickly, “But, Tempest, we saw her. She was as see-through as a cloudy window and her eyes were dripping tears of blood! She howled like a dozen tortured souls, she hovered off the ground without a single flap of her wings, and she said she’d devour the souls of everyone on the ship if-” “It’s true, I saw the whole thing,” the sous chef cried out. The group nodded and Tempest’s temper was starting to wear thin. “ “Silence,” Tempest shouted and let sparks fly across the group of six, “I won’t have any more nonsense about our passenger. Leave now or I’ll start counting lashes.” The group stood tall and turned, then quickly left, followed by Tempest, who looked at the mare in the coffin for a second, then nodded and resumed her walk. She stopped suddenly and looked at the flower in Twilight’s hooves. “I swear she wasn’t holding anything a second ago,” she shrugged and left, the door clunking again. I'm PatientTwilight waited nearly fifteen minutes before she teleported beside the coffin with her apple and pears, with a few flowers that tagged along stuck to her back. She giggled quietly and spent a moment to chew her food carefully, making sure to pulp it very well before swallowing. She ate the last stems she’d saved from the fruits and flowers for a final chomp and grind between her flat teeth. She took the time while chewing to think of a new plan that didn’t involve her being caught and having to risk capture, just to pretend to be dead. While it was still funny, she was starting to grow annoyed with her inability to simply walk out the main door and… Twilight groaned. “Why do the best ideas happen when I’m eating, showering, or using the toilet?” She stood and teleported back into the wall, then made her way to the kitchen and looked through the grate, it was empty so she teleported in and moved to the door. She listened closely and didn’t hear anything, just before she opened the door she saw a plaque shadowed against the other side of the doorway. She moved to it and looked at it. “Huh, a map, kind of,” she tilted her head right, then left. It was a top-down map, but nothing was labeled and there were only stairs indicated in the legend. She scoffed and used her magic to open the door, she opened it a sliver and peeked and listened. “Huh, what’re the odds?” she asked herself and opened the door all the way. She stepped into the hallway and turned right. She trotted carefully, pressing her body to a wall and casting a perception spell to hide when she thought she heard something, anything. That is until she cast the spell and six of the bipedal guards walked two by two and down the hall behind her, their large bodies brushing the walls and tilting pictures as they went. She was about to be found and wasn’t okay with that. She moved ahead of them and turned a corner. A-ha! What luck, she thought as a stack of wooden crates were stacked against the wall. She flew up to one, tore the lid off, hid inside, and resealed the cover as the group walked down the other hallway. “Do you hear, ghosts on ship?” “Yeah, no like ghost. Take good dreams, make bad.” “Yes, what she say true. Family see once and not sleep for two nights.” They continued to talk in rough Ponish as they left her hearing and she smirked, knowing she’d sewn the seeds of fear amongst them. She snickered to herself and teleported outside the crates and just behind a guard with a very sharp looking spear. He straightened at the sound of her teleport and just as he began to turn, she bolted around him, staying in his blind spot as he turned fully to look behind himself. She ran into the first door she could and closed the door, pressing her back to it as she looked at the restroom she was in. Her snout scrunched at the myriad of smells, most obvious and some she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Footsteps approached and she chose a stall to fly into, she locked the door and looked behind her at the oddly raised toilet. Something to research later, right now I have to get out of this mess. A voice grumbled from the stall beside her and she froze in place. “N-no?” Twilight whimpered. It sighed. “Pony speak, fine. Neep paper, all out.” “Ohhh, here, have some,” she used her magic to unroll some and pass it to the creature, who’s hand was as large as Twilight’s head. “Hrmph. Magic? Color same as Tempest Commander; meanie boss.” A shuffling and sounds I can’t describe in this story filled Twilight's existence for a couple minutes. The time of unpleasant noises passed and Twilight coughed to clear the sudden silence. “So, uh, what do you do on this ship?” “Bring food to others. Bring towels and clean, too.” “Oh, so you’re a janitor?” “Hrmph. No, I am provider and maintainer of Storm King standard of cleanliness and health maintenance.” “Ri~ght, so, a janitor?” The creature grumbled and huffed, “Well, technically. But, want pee a cook. Tempest commander say no shift change,” the creature growled in the right way to send Twilight’s insides shuddering with fear. She was, luckily, sitting on the raised toilet as she relieved herself. Not out of fear, but because she just had to go at that exact moment. “Wwwwell, ahem, why not tell her you want to be a cook instead of a janitor?” A silence befell them. “You mean, not do only what is teld? No, Blarg no do that.” “Uh, well, Blarg, you can do whatever you want. In Equestria, there’s a lot of compromise and not everypony wins, but they don’t lose either.” “Com-puter-ize?” Twilight pressed a forehoof to her forehead, just under her horn. “Okay, compromise is…” The toilet flushed and Blarg took its leave with a final farewell that it didn’t translate into a phrase that should be repeated, but it did bring a bright blush to Twilight’s face and once she’d made sure to flush as well, she teleported directly to the coffin and lay on the flowers, holding the one single flower in her hooves. Her mind went over the awkward farewell she was given and the proposition it entailed, and how it could have been taught to Blarg so well. Possibly a prank, maybe a real translation issue, or maybe she just read into it too much… She began to wonder what gender Blarg was and if it was quickly getting out of hoof, her attempts to get out and the shenanigans she was getting into, then shrugged. “Meh, whatever. They’re bad guys, what’s the worst I could do having a lecture?” She thought it over and sighed with a shake of her head. “Whatever, the coast should be clear so I’ll just,” she opened the door to the stall and then left the restroom and searched for a while longer taking halls and corridors before running into a dead end. “...Where are the exits?!” she shouted at the ceiling and teleported back to her coffin room and kicked the bottom of a curtain in frustration. The door clunked and she gasped, teleporting back into the coffin and making sure she was holding the flower. It was that moment she passed gas that smelled faintly of pears and despair as she breathed slowly to maintain the ruse. Tempest ran in and slammed the door with her forehooves behind her. “What’s happening on this ship?!” she shouted as chanting resonated through the walls. “Every creature’s going crazy,” she glared over her shoulder at the mare in the coffin. “This is your doing, isn’t it?! You’re haunting me from the meadows beyond! I said I was sorry, what do I have to do to stop this craziness?!” She looked down at the floor and fall to all her hooved. “You’re lucky you’re dead, otherwise you’d have to hear me at my weakest in years. I can’t even quell rumors of unionizing under orders of your ghost, what’ll I tell the Storm King? “This is all your fault!” she turned to the glass coffin. “You and your stupid friends had to escape and start all this! You and your big fat flank are nothing but trouble!” Twilight’s eyes opened and she teleported out of the coffin, coughing and inhaling a deep breath of fresh air while glaring at Tempest. “What’d you say about my flank?!” Tempest stared at the princess and quietly gasped, placed a forehoof to her chest, and her eyes rolled back and closed as she fell to the side with a thunk as her armor impacted the floor. Twilight’s expression turned from anger to concern, to worry, to shock, then terror. “Oh no, I killed her! Oh no, no, no, no, no! What… why… what’ll… I have to hide the body!” she looked around and didn’t see anywhere to hide her. The walls were undignified, the jail room wasn’t being watched so she might not be found until it was unpleasant. The kitchen was a terrible idea, no pony would be able to eat after finding her in that room. Bathroom? She couldn’t imagine using a toilet after seeing that… She found the coffin in her periphery and sighed. “It’s an honor to have known you,” she said and teleported the mare into the coffin and used her magic to lay her on her back, then put a red rose in her crossed forehooves. She looked at Tempest and hoped the mare would be complete in the next world, just as the door rumbled with the shouts of ‘union, union, equal treatment, union!’. “Uh, oh. Tempest, I’ve gotta go, but I’ll tell them of your sacrifice,” she lit her horn and teleported it into the bathroom from before and furrowed her eyebrows. “Wait, what sacrifice? She’s evil!” I'm Outta HereThe door vibrated twice from impacts, then swung open as a guard walked in, then the door swung back into his face and he went down like a sack of potatoes. The next guards moved him aside, saying a quiet prayer for his own sacrifice while marching into the medical room looking for Tempest. The chants of ‘union now, oppression never’ and ‘unite against the ghost’ echoed through the halls and walls of what felt like the whole ship from where Twilight was hiding. She began to walk slowly so she could hear the chanting going between three languages and her body fluffed when she realized she could use Ponish to translate the other two languages. The chanting quieted to a murmur over a few seconds and what she was able to learn from her time aboard the ship already, the new linguistic base she could understand, and a whole lot of guessing; she heard one say something loudly and clearly. “Fellow gumdrops, commentator Tempest is jelly s’more. We are food for beef, god of limes!” There was a lot of cheering that startled Twilight back into the moment, she shook her head and tried to think if her translation was right, but quickly decided to move on since the cheering began to vibrate the walls she was walking between. She yelped when a hot pipe brushed against her hind leg because it wasn’t her fault since she was keeping a very close eye on where she was going and wouldn’t make such a simple mistake. It was the pipe that budged out and touched her other side, right on her cutie mark, that was at fault for the yelp she made. After that, even though they seemed to be in place, the next several paces of pipes made a point to burn her as she stumbled through them. Once past the last one, she looked back and stuck her tongue out at them, a final spite for them attacking her during her heroic escape. It was most definitely a mean-spirited hot water pipe that lowered and swung into her horn when she turned back to look where she was going. The next few burns Twilight might have admitted were actually her fault, if anypony was there to see them happen, but since she was alone with a bunch of stupid pipes that had it out for her, she wasn’t going to bring this part up, ever. The cheering, and now music, seemed to come from all around her. Every room had music vibrating the walls and as Twilight passed peepholes she noticed ponies jumping on the bed, and nodded. “Thought so.” She grinned to herself and peeked into the room with a couch and flinched back, a traitorous pipe attacked the back of her head and she jerked forward, getting her horn stuck in the hole. The music was loud enough to hide her pained whimpers, and she made a point to not look into that peephole ever again… After a minute had passed she looked ahead and behind her, to remind herself of where she was, then with a final glance that lasted a few seconds she gulped and pulled her attention away. “Wow… I didn’t think they could do that,” she said and started to walk again, backwards. “Oops, wrong way,” she rolled her eyes and walked back to the peephole. … Twilight climbed a ladder she finally came across, gaining a level to a new floor and new set of walls to hide within. She stepped over several mouse traps, a rat trap, and a small one wheeled toy that she picked up and introduced itself as Claptrap. She set him on her back and resumed her path, stopping at every peephole she came across to a disappointed sigh each time. Each one was just a normal room, in their own way, until she met a ‘T’ intersection and there was no sound to the right. She quickened her step into an area lit red; the peephole showed a command room with only one short, spiky-haired, ugly, smelly, grey, bug-eyed, poorly dressed, nasally voiced rodent that looked exactly like the rodent she had nothing but respect for. She glared at him, opened the nearest panel, then teleported behind him and threw him out of the open deck door. She slammed it closed and hopped back a little when she met the steely eyes of Tempest. “Wha-, how’d you get here?!” “I walked here and waited. You left me for dead nearly an hour ago! What took you so long?!” Twilight inhaled sharply and looked side to side. “Nothing! I wasn’t watching anypony do anycreature do anything that shouldn’t have been anatomically possible!” Tempest gave Twilight a disgusted look then shook her head. “Anyway, you aren’t getting away that easily. You see,” she gestured to the window with pride, “there is a window! That’s what I’m going to have installed in every room on every ship with my share of the profits, ha! Canterlot is only a few minutes away, princess Twilight. The ghost of future unions past… or whatever! “You turned my crew against me, convinced them they’re being led by a tyrant who doesn’t care about their rights, and you think I’m a bad guy?” she asked condescendingly. Her horn sparked and cast her face in dancing lights and colored shadows that made her grin all the more malicious. “Maybe I’m a little bad.” Twilight leapt to her right and rolled as a ball of electricity flew past where she was, then she leapt up and flapped her wings to dodge over and barrel roll around two more blasts. She lit her horn and blasted out a beam of pure purple magic, which we all know is powerful because it’s a secondary color, as opposed to the bright primary colors Tempest tends to use. Their magicks met and the resulting explosion sent them both flying into the nearest walls with loud grunts and groans of pain. A cracking sound tickled Twilight’s ears and she clenched her eyes just before the shatterproof window -that must have been standard on flying airships because they have to; it only makes sense- shattered, luckily not one shard of glass happened to hit the two fighters. Twilight was the first to stand and shake herself. Pain throbbed at spots around her body and her mane was singed lightly, which she knew was going to get her a stern talking to by Rarity. She looked to the windowless window at the fast approaching castle and looked at the fried controls. The speed gage was climbing and Twilight could see some kind of tall ape standing on the public speaking mezzanine, approaching quickly. “Ah-ha! You see, princesses? We’re on our way to par-tay! Whoo, yeah! Come to papa, little princess; daddy needs a new marketing team,” he whooped as the ship approached. “Yeah, Tempest! Bring her here! Right to me,” he shouted while he hopped between his legs and clapped his hands like a very happy primate. His eyes narrowed and he sneered, speaking as though anyone more than a dozen feet from him could hear him clearly. “Tempest, what’re you doing?” He stood tall and spoke loudly, as though any creature thousands of feet away, inside a ship, in a room full of whipping air, would hear him clearly. “Tempest?! Slow down, papa doesn’t need it that badly! He can, I can wait a few more minutes!” Twilight opened the door she’d slammed closed and ran past Grubber, turned down a hall, then another and kept galloping for all she was worth. Past ponies and other creatures dancing, drinking, and one awkward bipedal creature with thick glasses and an obvious underbite who was leaning against a door frame awkwardly looking into a room with a couch in it. Twilight skidded to a stop and teleported back, shoved herself into the doorway and looked around the room. “How can you two do that?! It shouldn’t be possible that way!” The two creatures dropped their cards that bore six very famous mares’ cutie marks and one pointed to the other. “That’s what I said! There’s no logic to this game, what are we supposed to do with cutie marks that aren’t even ours?” “Hey, I hear it play fun in Equestria. We learn play, we win big gamble money and buy own ship.” Twilight snorted loudly. “I don’t have time for this; that isn’t a real card game, bye,” she stepped back into the hall and resumed her gallop to the back door. Twilight ran to the window beside the door and leapt out, opening her wings just as the ship crashed into the castle because it was way cooler, just as the ship crashed onto the Storm King, luckily causing virtually no other damage to the superstructure of the castle tower he was standing on or anything below it. As luck would also have it, a glowing green orb of power bounced from the Storm King’s satchel -it’s not a fanny pack!- and rolled into the room that conveniently held the three very stoned princesses. With a flash of light, they all breathed a deep breath of fresh air and coughed a couple times, Cadence the most as she tried to get used to it. They looked at the threshold that had part of a smoldering staff and the billowing black smoke that blotted out their vision of everything beyond and looked between one another. “So, Luna,” Celestia said with a content expression, “do you remember when we’d play catch the cockatrice?” Luna giggled and nodded, giggling a lot more. “Yes, dear sister. I recall it was a most relaxing time.” Both elder princesses looked at Cadence who had stopped coughing finally and looked at the others with lidded eyes. “Woah, I can… feel the love in the walls right now,” she turned and moved to nuzzle a wall while her aunts joined her. “Twilight? Are you in the wall?! Sweet Auntie, she saved us and is cursed in the walls, I can feel her!” BACK TO TWILIGHT The shockwave sent Twilight tumbling out of the air end over end. She wasn’t experienced enough to recover from the sheering winds and she knew it, so she covered her face with her forehooves and watched the ground approach, signaling her doom. She impacted and thought for a second, This isn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. At least it only hurts a little, I can’t imagine how bad I look right now, though. Goodbye Rainbow, you were always there for me. Goodbye Rarity, you’ll never know what happened to my mane, and it’s for the best. Goodbye Fluttershy, you smell really bad, like a bunch of gross animals, but I loved your tea. Goodbye Applejack, and all your apples. Everything was apples… everything. Goodbye Pinkie, I can still taste your cake and pie, so warm and sweet. I can imagine it now, even… wait. She moved her legs and felt a familiar resistance, then swam her way in a direction she hoped was up, then felt the cool air against her ears. She opened her mouth and exhaled cake, then inhaled fresh air. A pair of ponies gripped her forelegs and pulled her from the cake and she blinked her eyes open to see the mountain of cake ~~from the beginning of the movie~~ Pinkie was supposed to serve. Her four best friends, and the other one, hugged her and squished cake into her so tightly she thought she could feel the sweet mess getting in places it shouldn’t; like under her horseshoes and to her mane roots. She laughed, ignoring the cake in... places, and hugged her friends. Girls, I did it! I saved the day, the princesses are finally going to approve of me in a way I find satisfying and can finally stop being an overachiever and live a couple years as a relatively normal pony! “Girls, we did it. We stopped them and saved Equestria, together,” Twilight hugged tighter as a lot of love flowed across the city from the princesses and fixed everything except plot holes and the building structure of the utopian city it currently is to what it was when Trixie bought the Alicorn Amulet and dozens of other times. END!The four Princesses of Equestria sat in a square in Celestia’s throne room sharing a moment of silence for the dead a couple days after the festival. “Well, that’s about six seconds, we good?” Cadence asked and picked up a carrot from a bushel between them all. The others nodded and hummed in agreement while taking a few vegetables to munch on themselves. “Twilight,” Celestia began, “I’m very proud of you. You saved us and every pony with your courage and tenacity.” Luna nodded, “Won’t you tell us of your adventure, nay, sing us of your quest!” Cadence giggled. “Over all, I’m just happy everything is alright. I sure hope the close members of our families, friends, reformed villains, and armor-clad military are faring well.” “Psh, of course they are,” Twilight said with a chomp into an onion, “they told me before all this started that-” Tempest sat on a cloud in the sky over an endless green meadow, sporadically small forests could be seen from her vantage point, and she’d happened across lakes as well. She looked down at the white robes she couldn’t take off regardless of how much she tried, and there was always a harp attached to her somehow. It would be in her forehoof, on her back, or dangling from her tail, but she didn’t mind any of it, because when she’d cross her eyes like a search for crossed eyed animals, she’d look up and see the tip of her horn; a little glow from her halo made it shine in her heart. It was enough to distract her from the dozens of clouds around her with creatures that died with her on the ship, all mumbling about unions in deep voices. The familiar voice of the Storm King rang at her from the ground below her, running after the floating group and shouting up at her. “Tempest, the bobbleheads, did the ship make the delivery? There were thousands on that ship, what about the other ship with commemorative dishes of my victory? Tempest, answer me, we have to haunt some investment capitalists, how do we do that?” She smiled, sat back on her cloud, moved her robes so she could be more comfortable, and began to strum her harp while looking into the camera. “I think this is a pretty good ending to the best movie I’ve ever been in.” Cut!
Let's See HereTwilight glared at the bars of her cage and at the mare just past them. “You can sing to me, and I’ll forgive you for everything you’ve done, but you don’t need to keep me in a cage like an animal.” “You are a fool; I don’t need anything from you. We’re gonna meet the Storm King soon, when we do he’s going to suck the magic from your little alicorn body, give me back my horn, and then I’ll be complete,” Tempest stood tall and proud, looking down on the mare in the cage with disdain. “Please, you don’t have to do any of this. Princess Celestia-” “Is more of a fool than you can ever hope to be! She lords over the world and controls everything through fear of destruction. The Storm King, at least, has limits on what he can do and what he wants from all this,” she gestured to a wall. “Well, if there was a window you’d see the other ships in the armada. They’re all working towards the same goal under his hand.” Twilight sat and raised an eyebrow, “And, what might all this be about?” Tempest looked down her snout at Twilight, an air of power and intimidation shadowed off her. Her horn sparked and she sneered, a light shorted out and sent sparks cascading like lightning flashed and the two combined gave Tempest a sinister visage. She looked down her snout saying one word. “Merchandising.” Twilight stayed in her position, waiting for more. “Don’t you see, the world is about money. Nothing is free, not even a free market or open trading. “Taxes, levies, fees. The cage you’re in cost a lot of bits,” her horn sparked and a bolt of unrestrained magical energy coursed across the cage, keeping Twilight safe where she would have gotten some nasty burns otherwise. “The energy I just sent would have burnt every feather off your pretty little wings, your highness, it’s not cheap to get that kind of enchantment. “So, the Storm King buys a single toy factory and makes dolls of himself. He starts playing hero to accidents he’s caused and parents buy them for their children, and it grew until now,” she gestured to the wall again. “Blast it! I’m having a window put in, now. The point is, we’re making more money than you can count thanks to toys, board games, book deals and the like. No one gets hurt anymore, at least not under the Storm King’s name,” she turned to the stairs and ascended them. “Get some rest, Princess. We’ll be back in Canterlot and with your magic the Storm King will-” “Yeah, yeah. I get it,” Twilight snarked, “fix your whatever, rule the world, blah, blah... Hey, how many amps is this cage designed to resist?” she asked tapping a bar. “More than you can make, I’ll check on you later. Don’t escape now,” she laughed darkly, “we wouldn’t want to have to hunt you down again.” Tempest opened the door and left it ajar showing two bipedal guards holding spears guarding her door. Her only exit since she didn’t get to see anywhere to teleport to. Twilight made a point to cast a lightning spell into the bars as Tempest was leaving, cowering to the center when the electricity encircled her. “Okay, that was close. C’mon, there’s gotta be a logical way out of here. Think, Twilight, think,” she tapped her hoof to her temple and time passed, as it tends to do from event to event. “A-ha!” she exclaimed and covered her mouth, looking around cautiously. “That’s all I need to do, patience, Twilight. Just remember books, that’s what’ll make it easier,” she lay down and screamed. “Oh no, my lightning magic has reflected upon my horn and caused a magical recursion that may be fatal in twelve point six percent of the recorded three thousand reported cases over the past four hundred years. And while the studies have not been conclusive about the dangers or chances of occurrence, they seem to be not in my favor. Oh a sham, what foul tidings, that in my time of dire effort, oh what a cruel consequence, to be had upon me. Doth thy heart weep now, Romareo? Thy foalhood friend lay dead at mine hooves,” she then coughed, her horn lit and with both a silencing spell and a cooling spell she used during hot summer days cast she gagged, then kicked the bars several times as the guards watched from the doorway as she ran in a circle with her kicking, adding one final kick to line herself with where she started. She fell down, one last time, with a loud ‘bleuh’ sound and let her tongue fall from her mouth. The guards arrived and looked into the cage, then to each other, then back to the cage. They backed up in unison and cried out to the ceiling in a language Twilight didn’t know. One of them turned and ran up the stairs while the other took his spear in hand and used the blunt end to poke Twilight through the bars. Poke in the stomach. Poke in the foreleg joint that Twilight barely didn’t laugh at. Poke in the nose. She wished she could see what it was going to poke next, then she felt the weapon leave the cage for a second. “Stop what you’re doing, fool!” Tempest’s voice rang through the very large room that was definitely a waste of space for a single cage. “Were you about to poke a princess of Equestria with the sharp end of your spear?!” the sound of electricity crackled and the creature grumbled in shock while being shocked. There was the sound of gears turning, the cage rattled and then there was nothing for a couple of seconds. Twilight felt and heard Tempest’s hooves on the cage floor and felt the mare press her ear to her side. There they stayed for nearly two minutes before Tempest stood. One of the creatures spoke to Tempest and the mare raged. “‘Is this bad’?! A princess of Equestria has just died on my watch. I have to think, we have to think… Oh no,” she stood still and Twilight wished she could see what was happening, “no Twilight means no fourth alicorn’s magic, which means no tempest collectors edition box set with detachable horn and realistic bucking action. “Get her to the medbay, we have to make her presentable before we return. Maybe the Storm King will show us mercy for costing him the rights to certain aspects of the alicorn power.” Two hours later, Twilight lay in a glass coffin on a bed of flowers of all types, a very comfortable pillow was under her head and she was being pulled into the realm of sleep as she waited. She lay in the manner of Snow White -without dwarves-, holding a purple lilac; because these are normal things to have on an airship in the neighboring countries of Equestria. She peeked an eye open just barely and saw the coast was clear. She quickly lit her horn and teleported, aiming for the jail room she was held in. She vanished and reappeared an inch from the ceiling carrying momentum from somewhere in the aether between teleports. The cracking sound was audible through the room and Twilight fell, taking a small piece of the ceiling with her. “Mbwah, I don’t think teleporting works here,” she stood and stumbled over all her hooves and landed on the floor by a sink. “Guhng, water make a better head,” she lit her horn and winced as the faucet turned on and she collected a small bit of water. She turned the faucet off and slurped the water, swallowing it quietly so guards wouldn’t hear her. “What are you talking about?” Tempest’s voice came from the other side of the closed door. “A noise? Get out of my way,” the door opened and Tempest looked around the room, her eyes staying on Twilight for a second before seeing the missing tile and dust on the glass that encased Twilight. “Cheap crap made by the lowest bidder,” Tempest grumbled to herself, only Twilight heard. “Doctor Horse?” “What is it now?” “You did a fine job, she looks like a princess should.” “Well, if she didn’t then maybe she’d be mistaken for an elf,” the doctor replied sarcastically. “Look, you pay me to fix broken ponies. You bring me a stiff and ask me to play mortuary duty, I ask for double pay,” he said popping two pills in his mouth and swallowing them dry, “or maybe you’d like her to be ‘downward dog’ for the Storm King when we arrive?” Tempest flinched back. “You wouldn’t dare.” “Hey, I’m here and not practicing my arts and crafts. My glue is drying, so let’s hurry this along.” “Everyone out,” Tempest said. The room was emptied and Tempest walked over to Twilight. “Princess, I’m sorry about all this. I can’t believe you did what you did to yourself, and I have to go the rest of my life with the death of royalty on my hooves. I only wish the security camera was working, but the monitors broke when I sneezed a bit too hard. “You know,” she sat and looked the princess over, “I have a secret that I want to share, one that no pony knows except maybe my parents if they’re still alive. Oh, and my foalhood friends. My neighbors, schoolmates, doctor… hrm, essentially my whole hometown and some extended family members that probably told a few people over a while… “Anyway, my name; my real name is Fizzlepop Berrytwist. Just, tell the pony of shadows that I was a nice mare that made some mistakes along the way,” she placed a hoof on the glass and stood up, leaving quickly and sealing the door behind her. “Noone enters or leaves, the ship’s still falling apart so don’t call me if you hear a bumping sound again. Got it?”
I'm SneakyTwilight burst into laughter while still inside the casket, helping to muffle the noise she was making. She bit onto her hoof and rolled to her side for a few seconds until she calmed down. “I can’t believe that worked,” she giggled to herself, “I’m a natural Nightshade,” she moved to brush her mane back and bumped the glass. “Oh yeah,” she teleported beside the coffin and cleared her throat. “Well, great, now I have to find a way off this ship,” she tapped a hoof on the floor, “without being caught. What else can go wrong today?” Her stomach grumbled and her shoulders relaxed, letting her sag as she looked at the hole in the ceiling with a soft groan. “Of course, why not just make me hungry during my escape from the clutches of evil.” She moved to the primary door and placed her ear against it, the sound of shuffling and noises filled her ears and she quickly turned to look around the room. “Ah-ha, the classic vent escape!” She climbed onto the coffin and used her wings for balance while removing the vent with her magic. She hooked her hooves on the rim and managed a pull up, grinning as she pulled herself in and gagged. She reacted by pulling her legs to her body and she fell from the air shaft with a trail of old dust, lint, and cloth raining over her. She scrambled under the table the coffin was on and coughed quietly to clear her mouth. Her nose started to dribble from the particulates in them now but she ignored it while crawling through the rest of the way. She cast an easy spell and cleaned the mess including whatever was inside her nose, returning it all to the vent; then she resealed it and gave it a frown. “That never happens in books or stories, why don’t they make that more realistic so ponies don’t do that?” she whined while looking around the room. “Oh, duh,” she rolled her eyes at herself and smirked. “Nicely done, Sherlock Mane. Ignore the maintenance shaft against the wall hidden behind the bed,” she moved the bed slightly and grinned when the portal revealed itself. A simple square of metal bolted to the wall, certain to be cleaner than the vent, and when it opened it gave her access to space and areas she couldn’t reach easily or normally. She looked inside with her horn alight and stepped in, pulling her wings tight to her sides. It was tight, but she could move through the walls now, and her first goal was to find a snack. She moved ahead and every few paces stopped and listened to a wall, many times there was nothing, others there was quiet conversation. She reached a cross-section that was wide enough for her to turn around if she moved back and forth between the shaft. Her mouth watered when she sniffed a fruit salad and followed her nose down the path to a hole at her eye height. She looked in, but only saw an empty bed. “Why would anypony want to see somepony sleep?” she resumed her search and came to another peephole. “A shower? This one’s a white room with a black couch… what kind of weird ponies are on this ship?” she chose to stop looking through random peepholes, instead sniffing her way to her prize. She bumped against a pipe that resonated a short deep tone through the hall, stopping her immediately and her ears perked. “Hey, Chef, did you just say something?” A muffled mare's voice asked. “No, why?” another mare responded. “Thought you grunted in disapproval…” “Sous, why would I do that? You’re my bestie and keeps me from being testy.” The two giggled and talked for a short while, finally taking their leave to use the couch. “Finally, I thought they’d never leave,” Twilight grumbled and peeked through the peephole to get a lay of the area. She began to cast a teleport but stopped before she cast it. She looked down at her knees and found the hatch a few paces ahead. In a minute she was inside the kitchen and the whole room was hers. She sat on her haunches and clapped her hooves in glee, then she hopped to her hooves and used her magic to open the refrigerator. A cooked dead bird was the first thing she saw and she blinked at it. “Well, somepony’s had a worse day than me,” she snickered and reached over it with her forelegs to a large box. “They’re not gonna need this,” she pulled it down and set it on the floor. The box, once opened, held the oddest fruit she’d ever seen. She sniffed it and it was sweet, a slight tang told her it was tart, and the outside was as hard as a hoof wall. She bit into it and her mind was flooded with giggles and happiness; for a few manic seconds, she knew what it was to be Pinkie Pie, then she sneezed. And sneezed. And sneezed. She spat the fruit out and pushed it away, noticing something shift at the bottom of the box. She held her nose with her fetlock and lifted a note, Hey, Jerry, you know how you don’t like spicy food? Gotcha! Don’t use my toenail clippers without filling out the correct toenail requisition form next time. -Tom. She lit her horn and cast an anti-sneeze spell that most ponies around Ponyville knew since Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy began pranking together. Her chest tightened as she thought of her friends and how she’d sent them away, shouted at Pinkie and said hurtful things she couldn’t take back. They’d left her, maybe they didn’t need her anymore. She could just turn herself in, maybe talk her way into Tempest’s, or even the Storm King’s, good graces and convince them to turn against their evil ways and embrace harmony and friendship. She snerked at the absurdity of it all. My friends are probably fine, but regardless of anything else, I have to save the princesses and Equestria. It’s still my responsibility and I have to do this, nothing’s changed except now I have fewer friends and more sneaking to do. She stood up and resolved herself to be better and do better. She took a single step forward and onto the fruit she’d spat out, landed face first into the box, and black powder puffed all over her head. She sneezed and reared back, her eyes burning from the pepper she blinked through the pain for the sink and moved in any direction as she cast the no sneeze spell again. She banged her snout against something hard and as she cast the spell she reared up, stumbling aside and into a stack of pans that fell across the floor with a clatter that would make anyone wonder what was the matter. With a final sneeze, just as white flour fell over her, coating her from head to hoof. She stayed standing, her eyes stinging and bloodshot, and she managed to snort her nostrils free. “Gre~at, what next?” There was a pounding and scrambling against the entrance door, finally it swung open and two mares wearing chef whites and four guards fell over each other. “What’s the noise? Who’s messing up my kitch-” the mare wearing the toque screeched to a stop with everypony else and shivered, looking at Twilight in fear. “Huh?” Twilight grunted in her nasal tone that started the group of six into a scream. They all point at her, frozen in fear. “G-g-g-ghost! The princess’ ghost is going to haunt us all!” Twilight thought about what she looked like, standing tall on two legs, covered with flour, wings outstretched, probably red eyes… “O~oooo, I am going to haunt you all! And you’re never going to be rid of me, oooooo,” she whined more than moaned, but it was still effective, “the only hope you have is to read lots of books and donate to local charities… uh, boo!” The group scrambled over each other again, this time to leave while screaming. Twilight shook flour off her body and cast a minor healing spell and a grooming spell to clear herself of everything, then she barked a laugh and pointed at the door that they’d closed behind them. “Ha, don’t even try to catch me, I’m as slippery as an eel and quick as a hummingbird's wings.” She lifted her snout and harrumphed and turned to the hatch. She turned and saw a few apples and pears, so she grabbed them in her magic with a smirk until she realized what they’d do after seeing even a ghost of her. “Aw, fiddlesticks,” she said and quickly climbed back in, closing the hatch behind her. She hurried her way back the way she came, eating an apple and pear on her way. Once back in the room, she closed the hatch, checked herself over, then teleported back into the coffin and settled in. Waiting was agonizingly long and while she waited she began to think of her friends again. She hoped they were alright and that they weren’t captured as well. The clunk of the door being unlatched, which surprised her because she hadn’t heard it latch last time, announced Tempest’s arrival. “Look, you fools. She’s still as dead as a doornail,” Tempest pointed at Twilight. One of the creatures grumbled and Tempest’s horn sparked. “Kicked the bucket? Do you really think it matters? She’s still stiff as a board. Now, get out of here and make sure no one enters this room without my explicit approval. “Try to get a single bath in and then I’m the most popular pony on the ship.” The chef spoke quickly, “But, Tempest, we saw her. She was as see-through as a cloudy window and her eyes were dripping tears of blood! She howled like a dozen tortured souls, she hovered off the ground without a single flap of her wings, and she said she’d devour the souls of everyone on the ship if-” “It’s true, I saw the whole thing,” the sous chef cried out. The group nodded and Tempest’s temper was starting to wear thin. “ “Silence,” Tempest shouted and let sparks fly across the group of six, “I won’t have any more nonsense about our passenger. Leave now or I’ll start counting lashes.” The group stood tall and turned, then quickly left, followed by Tempest, who looked at the mare in the coffin for a second, then nodded and resumed her walk. She stopped suddenly and looked at the flower in Twilight’s hooves. “I swear she wasn’t holding anything a second ago,” she shrugged and left, the door clunking again.
I'm PatientTwilight waited nearly fifteen minutes before she teleported beside the coffin with her apple and pears, with a few flowers that tagged along stuck to her back. She giggled quietly and spent a moment to chew her food carefully, making sure to pulp it very well before swallowing. She ate the last stems she’d saved from the fruits and flowers for a final chomp and grind between her flat teeth. She took the time while chewing to think of a new plan that didn’t involve her being caught and having to risk capture, just to pretend to be dead. While it was still funny, she was starting to grow annoyed with her inability to simply walk out the main door and… Twilight groaned. “Why do the best ideas happen when I’m eating, showering, or using the toilet?” She stood and teleported back into the wall, then made her way to the kitchen and looked through the grate, it was empty so she teleported in and moved to the door. She listened closely and didn’t hear anything, just before she opened the door she saw a plaque shadowed against the other side of the doorway. She moved to it and looked at it. “Huh, a map, kind of,” she tilted her head right, then left. It was a top-down map, but nothing was labeled and there were only stairs indicated in the legend. She scoffed and used her magic to open the door, she opened it a sliver and peeked and listened. “Huh, what’re the odds?” she asked herself and opened the door all the way. She stepped into the hallway and turned right. She trotted carefully, pressing her body to a wall and casting a perception spell to hide when she thought she heard something, anything. That is until she cast the spell and six of the bipedal guards walked two by two and down the hall behind her, their large bodies brushing the walls and tilting pictures as they went. She was about to be found and wasn’t okay with that. She moved ahead of them and turned a corner. A-ha! What luck, she thought as a stack of wooden crates were stacked against the wall. She flew up to one, tore the lid off, hid inside, and resealed the cover as the group walked down the other hallway. “Do you hear, ghosts on ship?” “Yeah, no like ghost. Take good dreams, make bad.” “Yes, what she say true. Family see once and not sleep for two nights.” They continued to talk in rough Ponish as they left her hearing and she smirked, knowing she’d sewn the seeds of fear amongst them. She snickered to herself and teleported outside the crates and just behind a guard with a very sharp looking spear. He straightened at the sound of her teleport and just as he began to turn, she bolted around him, staying in his blind spot as he turned fully to look behind himself. She ran into the first door she could and closed the door, pressing her back to it as she looked at the restroom she was in. Her snout scrunched at the myriad of smells, most obvious and some she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Footsteps approached and she chose a stall to fly into, she locked the door and looked behind her at the oddly raised toilet. Something to research later, right now I have to get out of this mess. A voice grumbled from the stall beside her and she froze in place. “N-no?” Twilight whimpered. It sighed. “Pony speak, fine. Neep paper, all out.” “Ohhh, here, have some,” she used her magic to unroll some and pass it to the creature, who’s hand was as large as Twilight’s head. “Hrmph. Magic? Color same as Tempest Commander; meanie boss.” A shuffling and sounds I can’t describe in this story filled Twilight's existence for a couple minutes. The time of unpleasant noises passed and Twilight coughed to clear the sudden silence. “So, uh, what do you do on this ship?” “Bring food to others. Bring towels and clean, too.” “Oh, so you’re a janitor?” “Hrmph. No, I am provider and maintainer of Storm King standard of cleanliness and health maintenance.” “Ri~ght, so, a janitor?” The creature grumbled and huffed, “Well, technically. But, want pee a cook. Tempest commander say no shift change,” the creature growled in the right way to send Twilight’s insides shuddering with fear. She was, luckily, sitting on the raised toilet as she relieved herself. Not out of fear, but because she just had to go at that exact moment. “Wwwwell, ahem, why not tell her you want to be a cook instead of a janitor?” A silence befell them. “You mean, not do only what is teld? No, Blarg no do that.” “Uh, well, Blarg, you can do whatever you want. In Equestria, there’s a lot of compromise and not everypony wins, but they don’t lose either.” “Com-puter-ize?” Twilight pressed a forehoof to her forehead, just under her horn. “Okay, compromise is…” The toilet flushed and Blarg took its leave with a final farewell that it didn’t translate into a phrase that should be repeated, but it did bring a bright blush to Twilight’s face and once she’d made sure to flush as well, she teleported directly to the coffin and lay on the flowers, holding the one single flower in her hooves. Her mind went over the awkward farewell she was given and the proposition it entailed, and how it could have been taught to Blarg so well. Possibly a prank, maybe a real translation issue, or maybe she just read into it too much… She began to wonder what gender Blarg was and if it was quickly getting out of hoof, her attempts to get out and the shenanigans she was getting into, then shrugged. “Meh, whatever. They’re bad guys, what’s the worst I could do having a lecture?” She thought it over and sighed with a shake of her head. “Whatever, the coast should be clear so I’ll just,” she opened the door to the stall and then left the restroom and searched for a while longer taking halls and corridors before running into a dead end. “...Where are the exits?!” she shouted at the ceiling and teleported back to her coffin room and kicked the bottom of a curtain in frustration. The door clunked and she gasped, teleporting back into the coffin and making sure she was holding the flower. It was that moment she passed gas that smelled faintly of pears and despair as she breathed slowly to maintain the ruse. Tempest ran in and slammed the door with her forehooves behind her. “What’s happening on this ship?!” she shouted as chanting resonated through the walls. “Every creature’s going crazy,” she glared over her shoulder at the mare in the coffin. “This is your doing, isn’t it?! You’re haunting me from the meadows beyond! I said I was sorry, what do I have to do to stop this craziness?!” She looked down at the floor and fall to all her hooved. “You’re lucky you’re dead, otherwise you’d have to hear me at my weakest in years. I can’t even quell rumors of unionizing under orders of your ghost, what’ll I tell the Storm King? “This is all your fault!” she turned to the glass coffin. “You and your stupid friends had to escape and start all this! You and your big fat flank are nothing but trouble!” Twilight’s eyes opened and she teleported out of the coffin, coughing and inhaling a deep breath of fresh air while glaring at Tempest. “What’d you say about my flank?!” Tempest stared at the princess and quietly gasped, placed a forehoof to her chest, and her eyes rolled back and closed as she fell to the side with a thunk as her armor impacted the floor. Twilight’s expression turned from anger to concern, to worry, to shock, then terror. “Oh no, I killed her! Oh no, no, no, no, no! What… why… what’ll… I have to hide the body!” she looked around and didn’t see anywhere to hide her. The walls were undignified, the jail room wasn’t being watched so she might not be found until it was unpleasant. The kitchen was a terrible idea, no pony would be able to eat after finding her in that room. Bathroom? She couldn’t imagine using a toilet after seeing that… She found the coffin in her periphery and sighed. “It’s an honor to have known you,” she said and teleported the mare into the coffin and used her magic to lay her on her back, then put a red rose in her crossed forehooves. She looked at Tempest and hoped the mare would be complete in the next world, just as the door rumbled with the shouts of ‘union, union, equal treatment, union!’. “Uh, oh. Tempest, I’ve gotta go, but I’ll tell them of your sacrifice,” she lit her horn and teleported it into the bathroom from before and furrowed her eyebrows. “Wait, what sacrifice? She’s evil!”
I'm Outta HereThe door vibrated twice from impacts, then swung open as a guard walked in, then the door swung back into his face and he went down like a sack of potatoes. The next guards moved him aside, saying a quiet prayer for his own sacrifice while marching into the medical room looking for Tempest. The chants of ‘union now, oppression never’ and ‘unite against the ghost’ echoed through the halls and walls of what felt like the whole ship from where Twilight was hiding. She began to walk slowly so she could hear the chanting going between three languages and her body fluffed when she realized she could use Ponish to translate the other two languages. The chanting quieted to a murmur over a few seconds and what she was able to learn from her time aboard the ship already, the new linguistic base she could understand, and a whole lot of guessing; she heard one say something loudly and clearly. “Fellow gumdrops, commentator Tempest is jelly s’more. We are food for beef, god of limes!” There was a lot of cheering that startled Twilight back into the moment, she shook her head and tried to think if her translation was right, but quickly decided to move on since the cheering began to vibrate the walls she was walking between. She yelped when a hot pipe brushed against her hind leg because it wasn’t her fault since she was keeping a very close eye on where she was going and wouldn’t make such a simple mistake. It was the pipe that budged out and touched her other side, right on her cutie mark, that was at fault for the yelp she made. After that, even though they seemed to be in place, the next several paces of pipes made a point to burn her as she stumbled through them. Once past the last one, she looked back and stuck her tongue out at them, a final spite for them attacking her during her heroic escape. It was most definitely a mean-spirited hot water pipe that lowered and swung into her horn when she turned back to look where she was going. The next few burns Twilight might have admitted were actually her fault, if anypony was there to see them happen, but since she was alone with a bunch of stupid pipes that had it out for her, she wasn’t going to bring this part up, ever. The cheering, and now music, seemed to come from all around her. Every room had music vibrating the walls and as Twilight passed peepholes she noticed ponies jumping on the bed, and nodded. “Thought so.” She grinned to herself and peeked into the room with a couch and flinched back, a traitorous pipe attacked the back of her head and she jerked forward, getting her horn stuck in the hole. The music was loud enough to hide her pained whimpers, and she made a point to not look into that peephole ever again… After a minute had passed she looked ahead and behind her, to remind herself of where she was, then with a final glance that lasted a few seconds she gulped and pulled her attention away. “Wow… I didn’t think they could do that,” she said and started to walk again, backwards. “Oops, wrong way,” she rolled her eyes and walked back to the peephole. … Twilight climbed a ladder she finally came across, gaining a level to a new floor and new set of walls to hide within. She stepped over several mouse traps, a rat trap, and a small one wheeled toy that she picked up and introduced itself as Claptrap. She set him on her back and resumed her path, stopping at every peephole she came across to a disappointed sigh each time. Each one was just a normal room, in their own way, until she met a ‘T’ intersection and there was no sound to the right. She quickened her step into an area lit red; the peephole showed a command room with only one short, spiky-haired, ugly, smelly, grey, bug-eyed, poorly dressed, nasally voiced rodent that looked exactly like the rodent she had nothing but respect for. She glared at him, opened the nearest panel, then teleported behind him and threw him out of the open deck door. She slammed it closed and hopped back a little when she met the steely eyes of Tempest. “Wha-, how’d you get here?!” “I walked here and waited. You left me for dead nearly an hour ago! What took you so long?!” Twilight inhaled sharply and looked side to side. “Nothing! I wasn’t watching anypony do anycreature do anything that shouldn’t have been anatomically possible!” Tempest gave Twilight a disgusted look then shook her head. “Anyway, you aren’t getting away that easily. You see,” she gestured to the window with pride, “there is a window! That’s what I’m going to have installed in every room on every ship with my share of the profits, ha! Canterlot is only a few minutes away, princess Twilight. The ghost of future unions past… or whatever! “You turned my crew against me, convinced them they’re being led by a tyrant who doesn’t care about their rights, and you think I’m a bad guy?” she asked condescendingly. Her horn sparked and cast her face in dancing lights and colored shadows that made her grin all the more malicious. “Maybe I’m a little bad.” Twilight leapt to her right and rolled as a ball of electricity flew past where she was, then she leapt up and flapped her wings to dodge over and barrel roll around two more blasts. She lit her horn and blasted out a beam of pure purple magic, which we all know is powerful because it’s a secondary color, as opposed to the bright primary colors Tempest tends to use. Their magicks met and the resulting explosion sent them both flying into the nearest walls with loud grunts and groans of pain. A cracking sound tickled Twilight’s ears and she clenched her eyes just before the shatterproof window -that must have been standard on flying airships because they have to; it only makes sense- shattered, luckily not one shard of glass happened to hit the two fighters. Twilight was the first to stand and shake herself. Pain throbbed at spots around her body and her mane was singed lightly, which she knew was going to get her a stern talking to by Rarity. She looked to the windowless window at the fast approaching castle and looked at the fried controls. The speed gage was climbing and Twilight could see some kind of tall ape standing on the public speaking mezzanine, approaching quickly. “Ah-ha! You see, princesses? We’re on our way to par-tay! Whoo, yeah! Come to papa, little princess; daddy needs a new marketing team,” he whooped as the ship approached. “Yeah, Tempest! Bring her here! Right to me,” he shouted while he hopped between his legs and clapped his hands like a very happy primate. His eyes narrowed and he sneered, speaking as though anyone more than a dozen feet from him could hear him clearly. “Tempest, what’re you doing?” He stood tall and spoke loudly, as though any creature thousands of feet away, inside a ship, in a room full of whipping air, would hear him clearly. “Tempest?! Slow down, papa doesn’t need it that badly! He can, I can wait a few more minutes!” Twilight opened the door she’d slammed closed and ran past Grubber, turned down a hall, then another and kept galloping for all she was worth. Past ponies and other creatures dancing, drinking, and one awkward bipedal creature with thick glasses and an obvious underbite who was leaning against a door frame awkwardly looking into a room with a couch in it. Twilight skidded to a stop and teleported back, shoved herself into the doorway and looked around the room. “How can you two do that?! It shouldn’t be possible that way!” The two creatures dropped their cards that bore six very famous mares’ cutie marks and one pointed to the other. “That’s what I said! There’s no logic to this game, what are we supposed to do with cutie marks that aren’t even ours?” “Hey, I hear it play fun in Equestria. We learn play, we win big gamble money and buy own ship.” Twilight snorted loudly. “I don’t have time for this; that isn’t a real card game, bye,” she stepped back into the hall and resumed her gallop to the back door. Twilight ran to the window beside the door and leapt out, opening her wings just as the ship crashed into the castle because it was way cooler, just as the ship crashed onto the Storm King, luckily causing virtually no other damage to the superstructure of the castle tower he was standing on or anything below it. As luck would also have it, a glowing green orb of power bounced from the Storm King’s satchel -it’s not a fanny pack!- and rolled into the room that conveniently held the three very stoned princesses. With a flash of light, they all breathed a deep breath of fresh air and coughed a couple times, Cadence the most as she tried to get used to it. They looked at the threshold that had part of a smoldering staff and the billowing black smoke that blotted out their vision of everything beyond and looked between one another. “So, Luna,” Celestia said with a content expression, “do you remember when we’d play catch the cockatrice?” Luna giggled and nodded, giggling a lot more. “Yes, dear sister. I recall it was a most relaxing time.” Both elder princesses looked at Cadence who had stopped coughing finally and looked at the others with lidded eyes. “Woah, I can… feel the love in the walls right now,” she turned and moved to nuzzle a wall while her aunts joined her. “Twilight? Are you in the wall?! Sweet Auntie, she saved us and is cursed in the walls, I can feel her!” BACK TO TWILIGHT The shockwave sent Twilight tumbling out of the air end over end. She wasn’t experienced enough to recover from the sheering winds and she knew it, so she covered her face with her forehooves and watched the ground approach, signaling her doom. She impacted and thought for a second, This isn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. At least it only hurts a little, I can’t imagine how bad I look right now, though. Goodbye Rainbow, you were always there for me. Goodbye Rarity, you’ll never know what happened to my mane, and it’s for the best. Goodbye Fluttershy, you smell really bad, like a bunch of gross animals, but I loved your tea. Goodbye Applejack, and all your apples. Everything was apples… everything. Goodbye Pinkie, I can still taste your cake and pie, so warm and sweet. I can imagine it now, even… wait. She moved her legs and felt a familiar resistance, then swam her way in a direction she hoped was up, then felt the cool air against her ears. She opened her mouth and exhaled cake, then inhaled fresh air. A pair of ponies gripped her forelegs and pulled her from the cake and she blinked her eyes open to see the mountain of cake ~~from the beginning of the movie~~ Pinkie was supposed to serve. Her four best friends, and the other one, hugged her and squished cake into her so tightly she thought she could feel the sweet mess getting in places it shouldn’t; like under her horseshoes and to her mane roots. She laughed, ignoring the cake in... places, and hugged her friends. Girls, I did it! I saved the day, the princesses are finally going to approve of me in a way I find satisfying and can finally stop being an overachiever and live a couple years as a relatively normal pony! “Girls, we did it. We stopped them and saved Equestria, together,” Twilight hugged tighter as a lot of love flowed across the city from the princesses and fixed everything except plot holes and the building structure of the utopian city it currently is to what it was when Trixie bought the Alicorn Amulet and dozens of other times.
END!The four Princesses of Equestria sat in a square in Celestia’s throne room sharing a moment of silence for the dead a couple days after the festival. “Well, that’s about six seconds, we good?” Cadence asked and picked up a carrot from a bushel between them all. The others nodded and hummed in agreement while taking a few vegetables to munch on themselves. “Twilight,” Celestia began, “I’m very proud of you. You saved us and every pony with your courage and tenacity.” Luna nodded, “Won’t you tell us of your adventure, nay, sing us of your quest!” Cadence giggled. “Over all, I’m just happy everything is alright. I sure hope the close members of our families, friends, reformed villains, and armor-clad military are faring well.” “Psh, of course they are,” Twilight said with a chomp into an onion, “they told me before all this started that-” Tempest sat on a cloud in the sky over an endless green meadow, sporadically small forests could be seen from her vantage point, and she’d happened across lakes as well. She looked down at the white robes she couldn’t take off regardless of how much she tried, and there was always a harp attached to her somehow. It would be in her forehoof, on her back, or dangling from her tail, but she didn’t mind any of it, because when she’d cross her eyes like a search for crossed eyed animals, she’d look up and see the tip of her horn; a little glow from her halo made it shine in her heart. It was enough to distract her from the dozens of clouds around her with creatures that died with her on the ship, all mumbling about unions in deep voices. The familiar voice of the Storm King rang at her from the ground below her, running after the floating group and shouting up at her. “Tempest, the bobbleheads, did the ship make the delivery? There were thousands on that ship, what about the other ship with commemorative dishes of my victory? Tempest, answer me, we have to haunt some investment capitalists, how do we do that?” She smiled, sat back on her cloud, moved her robes so she could be more comfortable, and began to strum her harp while looking into the camera. “I think this is a pretty good ending to the best movie I’ve ever been in.” Cut!
