Sighing, Tank Top took a swig from his beer can and leaned back against the wall of the hot tub. He had earned this break. It wasn’t easy being a Marketing Major at Coltarado State University, after all, and he was well on his way to a 2.1 GPA this semester.
“Hey, Toppy,” his frat brother Natural Light called from a lounge chair on the other side of the pool area. “You need another beer?”
“Nah, I’m good bro.” Tank Top wiggled his beer to emphasize his point. Then, he slowly closed his eyes, savoring the warm bubbling of the water around him.
He had about dozed off before he heard some voices nearby, slowly growing louder. They approached the hot tub, and Tank Top let out a little grunt of annoyance, making sure to keep his eyes shut. When the voices became loud enough, however, he noticed they belonged to mares. Immediately, he opened an eye to gauge them.
He took in their features as quickly as his slightly-glassy one-eyed vision could make them out. There were two mares- both sleek and on the taller side, which he was into. One had a dark blue coat, and the other was white. It appeared that they were unicorns…No, wait, Pegasi…Both?
The rusty gears in Tank Top’s head, which were much more accustomed to remaining still, began to churn quickly. Coming to a sudden realization, he shot up to a full seated position as adrenaline began to course through his veins.
Princess Luna and Princess Celestia, dressed in gold-trimmed swimsuits, were standing at the head of the stairs leading down into the hot tub. “Hello there,” the elder alicorn smiled down at the stunned student. “Is it alright if we come in?”
Gasping down a quick breath, Tank Top nodded. As Equestria’s Princesses slowly wading into the hot, bubbling water, he exhaled and gathered himself. “Y-your Highnesses! You’re, uh, here on vacation, just like me?”
“Yes, my dear subject,” Celestia cooed down at him as she continued to settle into the scalding tub. “Now that we’re retired, we plan to be on vacation almost all of the time!”
Tank Top scratched his head. “I guess that’s right. I read something about you retiring. Not that I wanted to spend time reading, obviously…”
Luna snorted and covered her mouth with a hoof as she chuckled. “Oh my, you are funny!” She slid over on the underwater seat towards him. “What’s your name, handsome?”
“I’m Tank Top,” he answered immediately, his ears perked up completely as if they were radar dishes locked onto a target.
“What a masculine name,” Princess Celestia gushed, scooting over as well. Tank Top was now flanked by the slightly larger mares.
He smiled smugly, beginning to relax in the presence of the once-intimidating regents. “Well, you know, I’m a masculine kinda stallion.”
The sisters tittered briefly. “So strong,” Luna breathed, squeezing his foreleg. “Marexico must attract all the big, powerful ponies during Spring Break, hmm?”
“Yeah!” Tank Top answered quickly, beginning to show his excitement. “What brought you two down here?”
“EARP discount,” Celestia answered him, clawing with a hoof to try and attract his attention.
“Uhhhhhh….” Tank Top’s eyes narrowed.
“Equestrian Association of Retired Ponies,” she clarified.
“Oh! I think my parents are part of that.” Scratching his head again, Tank Top reached back for his beer, only to find that it was empty. “Oh, shoot, I’ve gotta grab another beer. You beautiful mares want one as well?”
Luna began to fan her face with a hoof. “I’m blushing, oh goodness…”
Celestia giggled to herself. “I’m more of a margarita mare. But you do go ahead! Don’t stay away long!”
Tank Top was pretty sure he felt a hoof on his flank as he got up and exited the hot tub, making a beeline for his friend on a lounge chair nearby.
“Broooooooo!” he hissed at Natural Light in a loud whisper. “Are you seeing this shit?”
Natural Light hoofed his buddy a beer before the question was even asked. “Yeah dude. The Princesses are here?”
“Ex-Princesses. They’re retired, here to party, and they’re totally into me.” Tank Top spun around and waved at the two alicorns, who laughed bashfully and waved back at him.
“Yeah, that’s all great my man,” Natural Light answered. “But, aren’t they like a million years old, or whatever?”
Tank Top furrowed his brow. “Whaaaaat? Nah, man, they’re totally hot. Did you see those bikinis?”
“That’s not what I asked. I asked if they were old as dirt, dude.”
Tank Top huffed indignantly. “Well…I don’t know, maybe, but they’re alicorns so it doesn’t matter.” His eyes darted back and forth as he thought about it. “Right…Right?”
Natural Light shook his head. “Whatever, my dude. I’m just saying…I wouldn’t.”
“You sure you’re gonna leave ‘em both for me? There are two of them, you know. I’m sure they’d love to have you join us in the hot tub.”
Groaning, Natural Light pulled up his sunglasses, revealing his calculating yellow eyes. “I’m just tryna drink and enjoy my week off, man. Don’t try to bring me into your old age fixation.”
Rage began to well inside of Tank Top’s chest, washing away every bit of uncertainty that had once plagued him. “You know what, you’re just jealous! Yeah, jealous! Fine, I’ll get ‘em both, and I’ll be a hero!” Without another word, he stomped back to the hot tub with his drink.
As he approached, Luna coyly put a hoof under her muzzle. “Is everything alright? Doesn’t your friend want to join us?”
“No,” he spat. “He’s being a stubborn little- Ah, it doesn’t matter.” Slowly, he waded into the hot tub again. “Did you miss me, Princesses?”
“Oh, we’re not Princesses anymore, none of that,” Celestia hummed, waving her hoof above the water. “Just come and relax with us.”
Tank Top took his old seat in the hot tub and immediately found himself in a vice between the two sisters.
Luna ran her hoof up his leg. “To answer your question, we really did miss you,” she whispered. Giggling, she pressed her side into his. “If you stay around, I can make your dreams come true.”
“Oh man, that would be totally lit,” Tank Top breathed.
“What?” Luna asked, tilting her head.
“I said it’d be totally lit,” he repeated, louder and clearer this time.
“WHAT!?” Luna repeated, sticking a hoof into her ear to clear it. “You’ll have to speak louder!”
“HE SAID THAT IT WOULD BE LIT!” Celestia announced even louder.
“HIT? WHAT IS HIT?”
“L-I-T,” Celestia annunciated. “IT’S SLANG FOR ‘GOOD’.”
“Oh!” Luna relaxed and began toying with Tank Top’s ear again. “Sorry, after a thousand years in a vacuum my hearing isn’t what it used to be.”
“It’s, uh, it’s cool,” Tank Top replied, holding a hoof above the water to accentuate his point.
“I think I’m going to run and use the little fillies’ room,” Celestia told the others, rising out of the water and grimacing as she walked toward the stairs.
Luna rolled her eyes. “Sister, is your arthritis acting up again?”
“Yes,” she breathed, slowly lifting a hoof out of the water to climb the stairs. “Owowowowow!”
“Maybe you’ll listen to the doctor next time and stay out of the hot tub?”
“I just need some naproxen, a-and I’ll be fine,” she seethed. After another agonizing fifteen seconds, Celestia had finally clambered out of the hot tub and was hobbling into the hotel and toward the bathrooms.
For reasons he couldn’t quite put a hoof on, Tank Top was feeling a little strange. Something deep inside him was telling him that this may not have been a big a score as he first thought; but, as his fraternity life had taught him, he continued on with his conquest and turned to Luna. “Well, would you and Celestia want to go to a house concert on the beach at midnight tonight?”
Luna’s eyes widened for a moment. “Oh, I don’t think so, my sister and I aren’t into modern music.” Her expression softened into a more suggestive one. “Although, while you were away, we were talking ourselves and wanted to invite you along with us tomorrow. It’ll be a full day,” she told him, shooting him a wink.
“Hohoho,” Tank Top responded, wiggling his eyebrows. “What sort of day are we talking about, here?”
“I’m glad you asked!” Luna effused. Her horn lit up and a small pamphlet appeared over the hot tub. “First, we’re going to see an artisanal chocolate farm. Then, in the afternoon, we’ll visit this adorable little flea market in the village, and finish it all up with an early dinner in an art deco bistro.”
“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” Tank Top groaned. “Is…Are you joking?”
“Of course not, why would I be joking? It’s the perfect day!” Accentuating her point, Luna unwrapped a caramel-flavored hard candy with her magic and popped it into her mouth.
Just then, Celestia exited the hotel and approached the hot tub, still hobbling slightly. “Luna, I think we need our new friend’s help with the little issue in our hotel room.”
Luna furrowed her brow for a moment before her visage relaxed again. “Oooh, that’s right. Tank Top, come up to our room with us, wouldn’t you? We really need your help.” Luna stood up and held a hoof out to Tank Top.
Ignoring the slightest twinge in his chest, Tank Top took Luna’s hoof and together they exited the hot tub. Celestia and Luna, flanking him, then extended their wings over his back, and together the three headed towards the hotel entrance.
As they passed by Natural Light’s lounge chair, Tank Top leaned his head back and cast a triumphant, mocking expression towards his friend.
Natural Light lifted his sunglasses and cringed in disgust at the scene, shaking his head sadly in a display that caused the strange twinge inside of Tank Top to come back.
The trio entered the hotel and after a brief elevator ride arrived on the seventh floor of the resort. Carefully, Princess Celestia used her magic to lift a room key out of her bathing suit and used it to open the door to her and Luna’s room. “Please, come in,” she breathed in Tank Top’s direction.
Tank Top’s ears flicked as he heard a strange buzzing noise coming from within. He lurched forward as he felt Luna’s wing tap him on the hindquarters.
“We really need your help,” she echoed.
Tank Top entered the room, his heart beating much faster than it was accustomed to, and heard the strange noises grow louder. He stumbled deeper into the hotel room on Celestia’s tracks as Luna closed the door behind him.
“Now,” Celestia hummed. She pointed a hoof roughly in the direction of the room’s TV, which was buzzing static. “We need your help fixing the television, it won’t stop making that horrible noise!”
Tank Top glanced over and found that the source of the buzzing he had heard earlier was simply static on the room’s entertainment set.
“We had just finished watching a documentary about the Great War, and I was trying to switch over to Antiques Road Show,” Luna explained. “When this terrible noise came!”
Celestia brought the remote to her face and blinked several times, as if trying to focus her vision. “I can’t read the text on the push-button control! Where are my bifocals?”
“Let me see that!” Luna used her magic to bring the remote to her. Then, she began tapping it wildly with her hoof. “The buttons are too small! How is anypony supposed to press these?” The tapping continued until the channel switched over to a popular comedy, albeit with an activated function that played a foreign language through the speakers. “This is even worse! Tank Top, please do something!”
Tank Top reached over with a hoof and hit the power button on the set, shutting it off. “I can’t believe it,” he muttered to himself.
“WHAT!?” Luna cried. “YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO SPEAK UP, MY HEARING ISN’T THE BEST, REMEMBER?”
“I SAID I CAN’T BELIEVE IT!” Tank Top spat back, stomping a hoof on the ground in anger. “Natural Light was right about you both all along! I don’t want anything to do with you! You’re too old!”
Celestia placed a hoof to her chest. “How rude! You know, like a fine wine, I happen to get better with age!”
“How dare you call us cold!” Luna tacked on.
“HE CALLED US OLD, NOT COLD,” her sister explained.
“Oh. Well, that’s even worse!” Luna declared. “I may be one thousand, five hundred and seven years old, but I don’t look a day over eleven hundred!”
“I am leaving, do not follow me, goodbye.” Tank Top turned tail and marched right out of the hotel room.
As soon as the royal sisters heard the door close, they burst into laughter. Celestia’s hooves stomped gaily as she guffawed, just as Luna slumped to the floor, breathless.
“Y-y-you were so right, sister!” Luna cried. “That was the most fun I’ve had in a thousand years!”
Celestia did her best to catch her breath. “It did feel j-just a bit mean, though. I mean, he fell for us so hard!”
“Don’t feel sorry,” Luna sighed, wiping a tear from her eye. “Stallions like that deserve to get played!”
“I suppose you’re right,” Celestia said, resigning herself to wearing a broad smile. “I could spend my entire retirement playing practical jokes on young stallions.”
“Indeed!” declared Luna. “Little do they know that we are still just as desirable and attractive as we were in our prime!” Satisfied with herself, Luna looked over at the room’s clock. “Gadzooks! It’s already eight thirty! I have to take my evening pills and put my dentures in their solution before bed.”
“Goodness, it is late! Far past my normal bedtime.” Celestia began rummaging through her luggage as her sister entered the bathroom. “Lulu, do you know where my diapers are? I’m pretty sure I leaked just a tad in the hot tub, and I’d prefer not to start my vacation with a wet bed tomorrow morning!”
“How should I know where you packed them?” Luna’s toothless mumble echoed from the bathroom.
“Nevermind, I found them! They were below my compression stockings, next to my bottle of warfarin!”
Author's Note
Thanks for reading! Below are the links to my Official Fan Group and the Group's Discord Server, both created by the wonderful BlackJack21:
OFFICIAL FAN GROUP HERE
GROUP DISCORD HERE
