Keep Your Eye on the Birdie…
“Alright, we’re in!” Sunset Shimmer announced, her words dripping with equal parts rage and determination.
Twilight Sparkle had rarely felt as much dread in her entire life to this point as those three little words— well, two little words and one contraction of two small words— had made her feel. Sure, there had been plenty of moments of genuine terror facing down foes much stronger than Twilight thought herself to be. However, that was, more often than not, in the heat of battle and for all the fear she felt, adrenaline and the constant reminder that her friends and Equestria were counting on her to overcome that fear. But this? This was like hearing the teacher announce a pop-quiz in a subject Twilight had never studied before.
The day had started innocently enough. Twilight had found herself with a relatively free Sunday for a change; and upon hearing this, Sunset elected to hop through the portal to hang out. Starlight Glimmer and Trixie - the two increasingly becoming something of a single unit - had decided to stick around. This meant that Twilight had gotten to spend the day with her favorite magic users, and also Trixie.
However, this also meant that Twilight was the only set of brakes in a group mostly composed of mares who thought 'de-escalation' was a nasty type of fruit that should never be touched. So, as it turned out, one thing led to another aaaaand…
Trixie gave Sunset an untamed smile. “Very well! First pony pair to abandon their rocket loses!”
Twilight felt a cold sweat break out like hives across her entire body. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t too late to intervene. “Uh, girls? This sounds dangerous… in a potentially fatal sort of way.”
“Of course it does!” Sunset replied. “This isn’t Monopony where the only risk is a broken friendship or somepony getting shanked, Twi.”
A thought seemed to occur to Starlight, “Oh, Twilight, that reminds me. I made another ‘I’m super-ultra-mega sorry and also get well soon!’ card for Moon Dancer and thought you could maybe take it to the hospital in my stead so she doesn’t try to jump out the window this time!”
“Not right, now, Starlight!” Twilight exclaimed.
Sunset continued and made a circular motion with a raised forehoof, “This here? This here is a good old fashion game of chicken.”
Trixie smile turned in a smug smirk. “I prefer a game of ‘flightless unicorn’,” Trixie went in for the kill, “you winged try-hard.”
Sunset grit her teeth together hard and gave Trixie a look as if she was wondering if her pseudo-Princess status gave her enough clout to make murder legal in specific cases.
Twilight watched her chances to defuse the situation fly up into the night sky above her balcony and explode brilliantly into reds and yellows.
Starlight just tittered to herself. “I’m glad my best friends get along so well…” she murmured to herself without the least hint of sarcasm or irony.
“So, how do you want this to go down, Bargain Bard?” Sunset exclaimed. “Is this a BYOR event? Because I will bring a rocket that will knock your bucking head off its shoulders which have likewise been vaporized.
Twilight took a sharp breath as she witnessed her hypothetical chances to avoid a catastrophe wiped out as the sun went supernova.
Trixie giggled triumphantly to herself. “Trixie is an expert fireworks maker, so bring it! Whatever ugly shape ‘it’ happens to—”
Sunset’s horn blazed a fiery red that danced across the faces of those present. Sinister-looking red tendrils suddenly shot out in all directions, the energy bolts dancing like a flame across the night’s sky. The magic flew fast and far from the ponies and seemingly reached down into the very ground itself. Nearly as quickly as these magic beams of flame fired off from Sunset’s horn, they retracted, bringing with them powders both dark and colorful as well as paints, brushes, and massive sheets of corrugated paper. In a flurry of magic and a fury of anger, the sheets took shape around the powders as the paints and brushes went to work creating a gradient red-yellow column that was quickly adorned with a massive red-yellow sun to match Sunset’s cutie mark as a burnt-orange colored cone was added to the top along with matching fins at the end.
The other ponies present stared up in awe at the rocket that looked like it might double as one of Canterlot Castle’s towers. Or rather, one pony stared up in awe, one glared at the rocket in jealousy, and the other fought hard against the urge to soak the floor she was currently sitting on without moving from the spot.
“Overcompensating much?” Trixie spat out.
“I don’t need to take those horse apples from you,The Attention Crrrrrraving and needy Trixie!” Sunset countered.
“Trixie’s not that bad!” Trixie snapped. “I just like people’s eyes on me. It’s not like I need it.”
Starlight giggle snorted.
Trixie’s left eye twitched. “Something you’d like to share with Trixie’s audience, assistant?”
Starlight giggled. “Oh, nothing much.”
“That’s what Trixie tou—”
“Except for, you know, you literally almost killed yourself in front of an audience.”
“Oh, like Trixie is going to die without lots and lots of ponies there to see…” Trixie trailed off for a moment. “Okay, I guess Sunset might have something of a point.
Having long learned to tune Trixie out, Twilight’s attention laid elsewhere. She swallowed as she examined Sunset’s most recent project. “… Sunset?” she began. “How big is the explosion going to be when that thing goes off?”
Sunset thought for a moment “How attached are you to a ‘rolling-hill landscape’ when you look out your castle’s balcony, Twilight?”
Twilight winced.
Starlight’s forehead creased as she examined the bottom of the rocket. “Where’s the fuse?”
Sunset’s face tightened and she tilted her head to examine her own rocket. “A minor detail!” Sunset insisted.
Starlight looked up at Sunset. “Not really? Without a fuse, it’s more bomb than rocket.”
Trixie let out an exaggerated groan. “Oh, this is taking forever! I have a spare you two can borrow.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Do you think you’re getting your rocket back?”
Trixie smirked. “Maybe you can make me a replacement or two when you two lose horribly.”
Sunset grit hear teeth. “And maybe you can suck on my teats when YOU two lose horribly!”
Trixie chuckled. “Threaten Trixie with a good time…”
“Ghah! Stupid bi-sexual ponies!” Sunset exclaimed.
Twilight gave Sunset a long, hard stare. A stare that Sunset took quick notice of. “Okay, okay! So that statement might sorta apply to me, too… maybe.”
Twilight looked at Sunset and Trixie in turn. “How about instead of almost killing ourselves with rockets, you two can just take all this obvious tension to the bedroom… Take Starlight with you.”
Starlight gasped. “Is this some sort of post-graduate friendship lesson? Like task on friendship threesomes?”
Twilight stared at Starlight for a moment. “Yes.”
Starlight let out a squee of delight.
Trixie frowned. “Will you be joining us at any point, Twilight?”
“Hard pass,” Twilight said.
Trixie nodded. “Yes, that does seem to be what’s going on at the moment. So, was that a yes?”
“No!” Twilight snapped.
Trixie stuck her nose up in the air. “Well, then I’m slightly less interested.”
“Well I’m not interested at all, rude!”
Twilight winced. “I’m sorry Sunset. That was awfully presumptuous of me.”
“I was talking to Trixie!” Sunset exclaimed as she motioned to the hatted and caped unicorn. “Sunset Shimmer is no one’s silver medalist.”
Twilight groaned and rubbed her horn. “Girls, I’m pretty sure I’m coming down with a case of crippling horn migraine…”
Trixie spoke up. “I feel we’ve lost sight of what’s important: Trixie proving she’s better than the princesses present and what I’ll get upon my inevitable win.”
Sunset narrowed her eyes. “I can give you an advance of one of my hooves up your ass.”
Trixie smirked. “Well, with enough lube, that might work.”
Sunset’s entire face twitched. “Oh, mom damnit!”
“How about we just have a Gentlemare’s Bet?” Starlight suggested.
Trixie and Sunset both responded with noises of protest.
“What’s the fun if Trixie doesn’t win anything?!” Trixie asked.
“Yeah, what gives, Starry?” Sunset added.
Starlight smiled. “The winner gets the knowledge that the loss will eat the loser up inside!”
There was a brief beat of silence.
“… Am I the only pony here worried just how solid the insight Starlight has into personality types?” Sunset wondered out loud.
Starlight chuckled. “Thanks for the compliment.”
“It wasn’t intended as one,” Sunset said dryly.
“Sometimes those are the best ones!” Starlight countered in a chipper tone.
“Again,” Sunset said, “is it just me who’s a little terrified about Starlight’s social perceptions?”
“I’m terrified we might all be exploded and die!” Twilight cried.
“Not everything is about you, Twilight!” Sunset snapped.
Trixie let out a delighted guffaw at Sunset’s comment before her expression sobered up. “I’m likewise concerned that Twilight has created a monster.”
Twilight pivoted to face Trixie. “How is Starlight’s personality my fault?!” she demanded.
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “You’re the one with the mare-boner for saving every deranged unicorn with a sob-story. How is it not your fault?”
Starlight nodded. “Sunset is making some good points.”
“Well, she didn’t try to save me,” Trixie pointed out. “Pretty massive ball drop there, if anyone asks Trixie.”
Starlight nodded again. “Trixie is, also, making some good points!”
Twilight simply let out an annoyed sigh and glared at Trixie: “Maybe if, just once, you’d stayed put after storming into town, I might have. We’ll never know now, will we?”
“Trixie only ran after you and your stupid town destroyed her livelihood!” Trixie spat back.
“I kept checking the newspapers to make sure you were okay, you idiot. I thought we could help you rebuild your wagon, get back on your hooves, maybe let you borrow a spare room in the library—”
“Well, Trixie might have liked that!”
“Well, good! I might have liked that too!”
Sunset threw a forehoof into the air. “Why were you getting on my case for sleeping with Trixie to reduce tension, again?!”
“Asking the real questions here,” Trixie interjected.
Twilight buried her head in her forehooves and groaned. “Okay, fine! No pony here is sleeping with anypony else tonight, alright?”
“Don’t tell Trixie how to enjoy her evenings!” Trixie snapped.
Twilight found herself rubbing her horn once more. “Does anyone know if horn migraines are potentially fatal? I’m starting to hope they are.”
“Hey! Look on the bright side!” Sunset said as she draped a foreleg over Twilight’s shoulders. “You also get to take credit for me, and it doesn’t get much brighter than that!”
Twilight rolled her eyes and gently removed the foreleg with the soft magenta glow of her magic. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but can we focus on the contest that’s probably going to kill one or more of us? To be honest, any pony involved in this dying or at least being put in a coma for a bit seems like a net positive, right now.”
Sunset threw a foreleg over Twilight’s shoulder. “I knew you’d come around!”
Twilight just shrugged. “‘Come around’, ‘had my spirit slowly crushed into apathy’. Whatever. Let’s just get Trixie’s rocket’s ready and blast off towards oblivion together.”
Trixie snorted. “Oh, like a victory of two alicorns over us mere unicorns would even matter.”
“I can’t help that I’m objectively better than you, Trixie!” Sunset cried.
Twilight frowned. “Not going to include me in that statement? Okay, fine. It doesn’t matter…” she uttered in a tone that suggested that it did, indeed, matter.
Starlight thought for a moment. “Well, I don’t know if being an alicorn has made Sunset much stronger magically speaking, but the extra sets of wings you two posses might help with stability…”
“Why would that matter?” Twilight asked. “The plan is literally to fire ourselves off and away and ride these things until a pair of us bail or all four of us combust!”
“You know, what?! IT’S FINE!” Sunset’s horn flashed red for a moment and just like that, her wings flashed out of existence leaving Sunset in her previous unicorn state. “No wings!”
Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Sunset, how in Equestria did you do that?”
“Pure spite, Twilight. Pure Spite.”
“Er, okay… That makes an odd amount of sense coming from you,” Twilight said. Twilight glanced behind her shoulders. “If it’s all the same to you, I still haven’t convinced myself I’m that ready for death that I’d go without my ‘back-up plan’ in case I forget how to teleport out of pure fear.”
“It’s okay, Twilight,” Trixie said. “You can keep your wings as compensation for my much greater talent.”
Twilight found her eyes narrowing, then turned to Sunset. “Sunset, a word in private if I may?”
“It’s fine!” Starlight said chipperly. “Trixie and I will grab the rockets!”
Trixie lips pursed into a tight frown. “Okay, but if Sunset and Twilight make out before the competition, I want detai—”
With an electric blue flash of lightning that seemingly tore through reality itself, Starlight and Trixie were gone.
Twilight huffed out a sigh.
Sunset huffed out a sigh of her own. “Alright, Chief of the Fun Police. I know that sound. Let me have it.”
Twilight sneered. “This is insane even by your standards. You know that, right? Heck! This is insane even by Pinkie Pie standards! I know Trixie is, well, Trixie, but how could you let her goad you on like this?!”
“Twilight, it’s fine! Like you said, it’s Trixie! She’ll chicken out way before it gets too dangerous!”
“Okay, but she’s paired with Starlight!” Twilight pointed out. “Do you think Starlight will let her chicken out?”
Sunset took a long sharp, inhale then let it out. “Okay, so it’s about even odds, then…”
“Sunset!” Twilight snapped.
“What?!” Sunset protested.
“I have a pretty solid investment in continuing to live!”
“It’s just a bit of a catastrophic explosion, Twilight! I’m sure you’ve had plenty of experiments literally blow up in your face!”
Twilight’s left eye twitched slightly. “You’re not wrong, as infuriating as it is to admit, but I’ve never straddled a beaker before it exploded!”
Sunset found herself clenching her back thighs together. “Er, okay… that’s a really good point! Maybe, I don’t know, Applejack has a few spare chastity belts we can wear or at least we can prep some soothing lotio—”
With another tear and electric blue flash, Starlight and Trixie reappeared with two rockets. Both roughly double the size of a pony.
Trixie wasted no time doing what she does best; opening her mouth and letting nature take its course, “Are you two ready? Or did Twilight successfully convince you, Sunset, that your all talk and no action, completely unlike the Grrrrrrrrreat and Powerful Trixie!”
Sunset tossed Twilight right behind the light-blue cone decorated with white and dark blue stars of the purple rocket with white speckles before jumping up after her. “Times up, Sparkle! Let’s do this!”
Twilight’s face somehow turned several shades lighter despite her purple coat. “I just saw my life flash before my eyes…” She frowned slightly. “It occurs to me I should have probably spent more time outside as a child, but at least I got to read every book I ever read one more time…”
Trixie likewise clambered behind the yellow blast-motif cone of her white and purple striped rocket as Starlight teleported herself behind her. She turned and gingerly placed her hat atop Starlight’s head. “Lovely assistant, please take care of that.”
Starlight giggled. “Of course, Trixie.”
Trixie smirked at Twilight and Sunset. “Prepare to lose horribly…”
“PREPARE NOTHING!” Sunset screamed as her horn glowed red briefly in the fuses on the rockets lit up. “IT’S GO TIME!”
Twilight watched the fuse on Sunset and her rocket dwindle down to nothing in mere seconds as she cast a glance at the MASSIVE rocket - correction, BOMB - Sunset had created. Her horn flashed magenta and engulfed the orange rocket just as sparks and flames fired from behind BOTH rockets, bathing the bombstrocity in fire. With naught but nano-seconds to spare, Twilight teleported the giant rocket away before she, Sunset, and their ride were propelled from the castle at an alarming speed.
Twilight heard an ear-splitting screaming and felt a heavy tug on her hindquarters. She turned to see a panic-stricken Sunset Shimmer holding onto her tail for dear life. This was followed by her stomach doing somersaults as she could feel her tenuous at best grip on the rocket’s cone begin to slip. She glanced to her right.
Trixie had her head down and look of mirthful determination as her own rocket sped forward, meanwhile, Starlight simply smiled gleefully as she held onto the hat on her head.
And, again, Twilight felt her grip loosen.
She took a moment to glance back at Sunset who, likewise, seemed to be holding onto Twilight’s tail for dear life. At that moment, Twilight thought about the decision she had to make. Sunset may never forgive me for this… Twilight closed her eyes and her horn glowed magenta. But at least we’ll both be alive for her to be mad at me.
‘Pomff!’
“HAH! I KNEW IT!” Trixie gloated. “Trixie wins again as she does in all things!”
Starlight let out a good-natured laugh. “Nice work! Now we should maybe leave before this thing explodes.”
Trixie let out another laugh, terse and haughty. “What? These rockets won’t explode! Do you think Trixie has a death wish? They’re designed to simply run out of fuel and fall harmlessly to the ground.”
The smile dropped from Starlight’s face. “Oh… that wasn’t a design flaw?”
“Of course not!” Trixie said. “Why would I…” Trixie trailed off as an all too familiar pit opened up in her stomach. “Please tell me ‘wasn’t’ was NOT A deliberate word choice on your part, Starlight.”
Starlight shot Trixie a nervous glance. “Well, you were so busy pre-gloating that I had time to inspect the rockets using a simple x-ray spell and noticed a key difference from how Sunset made hers so—”
“FOR THE LOVE OF CELESTIA! STOP EXPLAINING AND JUST TELE—”
And then the world was naught but fire, noise, and then deafening silence.
‘Pmoff!’
With another magenta flash. Twilight and Sunset were back on the balcony. The surface of which was now slightly scorched, but nothing Spike couldn’t buff out or lap up, or so Twilight thought. What concerned her FAR more was the earful she was about to get from one hot-headed Sunset Shimmer.
On that note, Sunset shot Twilight a look of pure, unadulterated rage and opened her mouth to scream at the pony of friendship.
‘KA-BOOOOOOOM! ‘KA-BOOOOOOOM!!’
Twilight and Sunset turned, and Sunset could only stare blankly at the massive double explosion that left the sky awash in blues, yellows, purples and whites as the colossal double explosionsshook the very ground itself. “Oh yeaaaaah… rockets do that. Why’d I agree to do that again?”
Exasperated nearly to the point of violence, Twilight threw a forehoof into the air. “Why do you do any of the stuff you do?!”
Sunset pursed her lips and thought for a moment. “You know, I ask myself the same question every day.”
Twilight just sighed and looked over at Sunset. “Well, I guess your punishment is you lost the Gentlemare’s Bet.”
Sunset winced. “I know this sounds awful hypocritical of me, but maybe we can turn back time and give this another sho—”
With a magenta glow, a newspaper appeared and was smacked against Sunset’s snout.
“Ow!”
“Bad Sunset Shimmer!”
“I was just—!”
‘Swat!’
“Again, ow!”
“No time travel!”
“Just a few min—"
‘Swat!’
“I said, ‘No Sunset Shimmer, that’s a bad Sunset Shimmer!’”
“Okay, okay!” Sunset said as she rubbed her snout. She looked behind her shoulders and with a red glow of her horn and twin tiny ‘bamffs!’ her wings reappeared. “I guess growing more responsible is part of becoming a princess.”
Twilight’s forehead creased. “How is ‘not abusing time travel so you can win a stupid competition and maybe get yourself and a friend killed’ a pertinent lesson in becoming a princess, exactly?”
“Hey, some princesses have to make peace with their new responsibilities and some princess have to learn how to take on their new responsibilities with as few casualties as possible!” The color drained from Sunset’s face. “Speaking of casualties, we should see if Starlight and Trixie are okay…”
Twilight just sighed. “There’s simply no way Starlight would allow herself to die like that and I’m not lucky enough for the explosions to have killed Trixie.”
“… Okay. Just. What?”
Once again, reality cried out as it was torn open, and just as quickly it was brutally silenced as a pair of blackened and smoldering unicorns reappeared, the hat and cape that travelled with them only slightly on fire.
“T-Trixie wins!” Trixie woozily stuttered out. “Eat it Sun-Sunlight Shim…kle and Twiset Spark-er! I accept victory in the form of an emergency room visit!”
“O-okay, ass-as-suming I heard ‘emer-GEN-ncy room’ o-Over the sound of all those m-m-m-osquitos buzzing in my ear all at once, d-don’t worry, Trixie!” Starlight stammered while wibbling on her hooves, “Th-they keep a ro-ro-wing empt-empty just for me and my victims! Away!” The purple mare thrust a forehoof out, forgetting how bad of an idea that was in her concussed and charred state. She promptly collapsed into a smoldering heap alongside an equally unconscious Trixie.
Sunset looked down at the burnt pony pile and couldn’t help but smirk to herself. “Be grinning tonight…”
Twilight thought for a moment. “I honestly feel a lot better about all this than I thought I would.”
Sunset guffawed. “You know what? I’ll take it!” She looked around the balcony. “Say? What did you do with that rock—”
“Bomb.” Twilight corrected gently but resolutely. “You made a bomb.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Sunset dismissed as she waved a foreleg in front of her. “What you do with it.”
“I had to think fast,” Twilight said, “so I teleported it to a reinforced underground bunker deep beneath Canterlot I knew about. Though you and I might have to explain a few knocked over fragile items to Celestia, but I doubt anyone was hurt…”
Sunset smirked gleefully. “Explain my way out of a catastrophic accident to my mom? Threaten me with a good time…”
Elsewhere…
With an accomplished smile framed by a black goatee and candle light, Chancellor Naysay made few more strokes of with the quill he held in his white magical aura, then gently set it on a desk next to an inkwell. With a pride-filled sigh, he closed the thick, hardbound book he had been working on ever since he was old enough to hold float a feathered writing implement and took a moment to, once again, appreciate the title.
‘The Non-Pony Menace!’
‘With post-endnote addendum exploring the idea that non-ponies are maybe not as bad as they seem under extenuating circumstances.’
“Finally, my life’s work is complete!” he announced to the flickering shadows and cobblestones of the underground bunker. “To think Celestia thought she could discreetly hide my genius away down here while I slave away at the pages. Well no more!” He announced as he thrust a forehoof into the air dramatically. “Soon the light of truth will fill every corner of this country, and every pony will know the insidious natures of the non-pony species!” Naysay lowered his hoof and added in a near whisper. “Except in specific cases where they’re ordained by higher powers to save Equestria and should maybe be considered for third or possibly even second and half-class citizenship in that case.”
‘Poomf!’
The light in the chambers suddenly increased as the shadows began to dance frantically.
Neighsay turned then sighed as he laid eyes on the giant flaming rocket. “Oh, I’ve wasted my life…”
‘KAAAAAAAAAAAA-BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!’
The End.
