The Increasingly Terrible Life of a Teenage Pony Princess

Chapters

1. Her Majesty’s Not-So-Secret Service
2. Precious Intelligence
3. Royally Messed Up
4. Showdown
5. Zugzwang
6. A Hovercraft is a Ship Too
7. Baked in the Bakery
8. This Means War
9. The Lunacy
10. Walking on the Moon

1. Her Majesty’s Not-So-Secret Service

Shining Armor looked down from his throne, trying to make his expression as dignified as possible. He stared at the pony in a guard’s armour standing in front of him and furrowed his eyebrows before clearing his throat.

“You probably wonder why I called you,” he said.

Flash smirked. “How long have you been waiting to say that?” he asked.

“Been a while,” Shining chuckled, but soon he returned to his official expression. “The thing is, I have a new task for you.”

“I hope it’s not cleaning the dungeon again,” Flash said. “Last time we found Sombra’s old torture chamber, complete with some insane old pony who’d been locked there for the last thousand years.”

“Oh, this should be much easier,” Shining replied. “As you know, Flurry Heart turned sixteen recently…”

“Oh, I know.” Flash nodded. “After the party, the cleaning staff went on strike. I had to drag at least ten absurdly rich teenagers out of the castle, and the less we say about Twilight, the better.”

Shining shuddered. “Well, about that…”

“Twilight?”

“No, teenagers,” Shining replied. “I’ve recently noticed that some of the ponies from my daughter’s entourage aren’t what I’d call trustworthy.”

Flash furrowed his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“Colts, specifically,” Shining said.

“Ah.” Flash nodded. “Should I go to them with a baton, fly with them out of the town and make them go back through the snow and blizzard?” He stood at attention. “Just to teach them a lesson, I mean.”

“I don’t think it will be necessary,” Shining replied. “Remember that most of them come from the most noble families of the Empire. You need to be careful. Diplomacy and all that.”

Flash saluted. “Of course!”

Cadance looked into the mirror and fixed her crown. She examined the tips of her wings and levitated a comb, moving it along her mane and tail. Sunburst watched it in awe while trying not to suffocate in the perfume-laden atmosphere of the boudoir. Cadance swished her tail and turned to Sunburst, smiling at him.

“So, how’s Flurry doing?” she asked.

“She’s having a bit of trouble with equations,” Sunburst replied. “But she has a great understanding of complex magic theories. The thing is–”

“No bad influences?” Cadance smirked.

“Well, I’d say that some of the fillies-in-waiting are getting a bit, umm… frivolous,” Sunburst said. “Rough Diamond keeps disrupting the lessons. Not to mention the guards. I think their presence may be a bit, umm… distracting.”

“And what do you think, why is that?” Cadance asked.

Sunburst shrugged. “I don’t know, but if I were to guess, I’d say that those big, armed stallions and the thought of violence… It’s not easy to think about maths when someone’s waving a spear around.”

Cadance raised her eyebrows. “Well, anyway, how’s Starlight? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“Good, I guess,” Sunburst replied. “Although she’s been getting frustrated recently for some reason. Her recent letters were rather unsubtle. Not to mention that she’s still salty because I came back here to take care of Flurry’s education. She mentioned something about a useless vice-principal who’s never home when she’s cold and–”

“Okay then.” Cadance sighed. “So it never occured to you.”

“What?” Sunburst asked.

“I mean, you’ll be great in your new job,” Cadance replied.

“I’m getting a new job?” Sunburst furrowed his eyebrows. “Another one?”

Cadance nodded, levitating a bottle of rose-scented perfume. “Precisely. You’ll keep an eye on any stallion around my daughter. Focusing especially on young and handsome ones. I’ve heard Prince Pristine Emerald–”

“If I were to be honest, I’d say that his wit isn’t exactly on par with his, umm… physical quantities,” Sunburst said. “Speaking of bad influences, I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep him around Flurry.”

“That’s why your new task is to keep him and other colts away from Flurry,” Cadance replied. “That is, until she’s ready.”

“So, I’m supposed to be a chaperone now?” Sunburst asked.

Cadance nodded. “Not so oblivious after all… But yes, you’re going to be Flurry’s chaperone. Any questions?”

“Why?” Sunburst asked. “I mean, as a Princess of Love–”

“– I should be glad that my daughter is going through adolescence?” Cadance smirked. “Well, that’s definitely a good thing. But as a mother and a sensible mare… Remember when Flurry was a baby and nearly destroyed the Crystal Empire with her powers?”

“Well, she learned to control them now,” Sunburst replied. “I’d even dare to say they improved and one day she may even beat her aunt’s achievements.”

“Exactly,” Cadance said, a faint smirk still adorning her face. “And now imagine what will my hormonally unstable daughter do with her perfectly controlled, improved powers when some ass with the brain the size of a seashell breaks her heart. Can you see that, Sunburst?”

Sunburst froze. “I guess I’ll take that job,” he stammered.

The wooden, leather-covered club hit the shield with a loud thud. Flurry spun in place, levitating the club and trying to land a hit on Rough Diamond, who covered her head with a shield. Still fighting, they waltzed across the room, stray hits breaking one of the lamps and an old, ugly vase Cadance had put there. Rough Diamond jumped over the couch, suddenly gaining an upper hoof and unleashing a storm of club swings.

Flurry backed off, throwing the shield at her opponent; Rough Diamond just blocked it with her club. She was, however, less lucky when Flurry threw her club at her; it bounced off her helmet stunning her for a split second and causing her magic to falter.

Flurry smirked, retreating to the fireplace and levitating an old rapier with a silver handle, adorned with gems. She swung it at Rough Diamond who blocked the blow with one of the cushions lying on the couch, causing feathers to fly around everywhere. Flurry spun again, preparing another blow.

The rapier bounced in her magic field when the blade hit a dagger Rough Diamond was levitating. Flurry furrowed her eyebrows and attacked, pushing Rough Diamond out of the room.

In the corridor, she realised she’d made a mistake. There were a lot of antique weapons hanging on the walls near her room and soon she had to duck when a battle axe flew above her head, leaving a large gash in the crystal column behind her. Another blow just snapped Flurry’s rapier in half, so she grabbed some random scimitar off the wall and charged.

Rough Diamond wasn’t prepared for resistance and backed off, trying to scare Flurry away with wide swings. Still, Flurry chased her to the dining room, spinning the scimitar madly with her magic. Rough Diamond raised the axe, accidentally embedding it in the table. Flurry smirked, but instead of trying to get it out, Rough Diamond just fired her magic up, dropping a tapestry hanging from the ceiling on Flurry’s head.

It took Flurry a while to free herself from the fabric. When she did, she saw that Rough Diamond found a guisarme and charged with it, letting out a battle cry. Flurry dodged, slipping on the tiles and landed in front of the kitchen door. She blasted it open with her magic and, seeing that Rough Diamond was still running at her with a guisarme, she opened a cutlery cabinet, levitating all the forks, knives, and spoons she found inside, ready to throw them at the enemy.

Rough Diamond stopped, conjuring a magic shield. Flurry’s magic exploded against it, sending the torrent of cutlery around; knives and forks pierced the walls, tables, and a cutting board some young cook used to shield himself. The guisarme snapped in half, hit with a frying pan.

“Whoa,” Rough Diamond muttered when the last teaspoon hit the floor. “Were you trying to stab me full of holes?”

“No more than you tried to give me another hole I don’t really need.” Flurry smirked. “That was a good one.”

“Yeah.” Rough Diamond dropped the remains of her poleaxe and removed her helmet. She was a milky-white crystal unicorn who’d recently grew quite a few inches, but her weight didn’t quite catch up yet, giving her a somewhat emaciated look. “Guess the servants will be pissed.” She pointed at the cook, who kept watching the knife embedded in a thick piece of wood, inches from his face. Suddenly, his magic faltered and he passed out.

“Oh, come on, it’s just a few misplaced things,” Flurry replied, looking around. She was slightly shorter and pudgier than Rough Diamond, giving her better coordination. “And the cutlery cabinet. And a few holes in the walls…”

“And your room is full of feathers.” Rough Diamond shrugged. “At least we didn’t light anything on fire this time.”

“Yeah,” Flurry said. “We’d better go before the guards notice.”

Flurry Heart’s room was big and full of strange things. When she turned sixteen, ponies from the whole world sent her gifts. A flying carpet from the citizens of Somnambula was lying on the floor – while Shining Armor had no idea why’d an alicorn princess need a flying carpet, Flurry quickly proved him wrong, taking Rough Diamond for a ride which ended in damaging the roof of one of the houses in the Empire. The room also had a lot of posters of popular bands and musicians, as well as a caricature of King Sombra wearing thick-rimmed glasses and saying, “Come to the Dork Side”. Books and comics were scattered everywhere, along with dresses and some random weapons.

Flurry was sitting on her bed, playing an old, oddly-looking guitar she’d gotten from auntie Starlight. It was one of the gifts she enjoyed the most – much more than the present she got from the Griffonstone leader, Grampa Gruff, which was an “orphaned” griffon egg. While Cadance protested that trading griffon eggs was illegal in Equestria, Gruff pointed out that he wasn’t selling it to them. Thus, the egg was currently waiting to hatch in the incubator.

“So, what are we gonna do tonight?” Rough Diamond asked. “I guess we’re not welcome in the kitchen anymore, so there goes raiding the fridge.”

“I think the guards finished training,” Flurry replied. “We can invite Pristine Emerald and a few others and play Diplomacy or something…”

“Diplomacy?” Rough Diamond raised her eyebrows. “I thought you wanted to date this guy, not to murder him.”

“Yeah, he’s bad at this anyway,” Flurry said. “No challenge at all.”

“And he’s an idiot.” Rough Diamond shrugged. “How about we watch some movie? I think Precious Gem has the new Equestrian Pie.”

“Is it as dumb as the previous one?” Flurry asked.

“I think so.”

“Great.” Flurry got up from the couch. “Let’s find her.”

They walked out of Flurry’s room and walked across the corridors to the library.

It wasn’t often mentioned in the official news and stories from the palace, but it was actually full of foals and teenagers. Children of the staff, servants, fillies-in-waiting, some orphans Cadance was helping… Precious Gem was actually one of them; she moved into the palace library when she was three after her parents died in a blizzard. Now she was seventeen, had a long, greasy mane, thick glasses resembling bottle bottoms, and the knowledge of every book in the library, especially those cursed by King Sombra. She’d also seen every movie in Equestria, or so she claimed; she usually watched them in one of the cozy reading rooms, where she kept her projector.

“Greetings, your highness,” Precious Gem said, trying to fix her mane. Flurry often wondered how could a crystal pony make it look so messy, but Precious Gem somehow managed to do that.

“Stop your highnessing me, or I’ll have you beheaded,” Flurry muttered. “Actually, can I even behead ponies?”

“The pre-Sombra code says the heir or heiress apparent can only behead her subject for high treason, when her parents are away or otherwise unable to do so,” Precious Gem recited, somehow keeping a straight face. “It’s actually a really old code. It says that the official title of the heiress apparent of the Crystal Empire is the Duchess of Chalcedonya. Of course, the Duchy of Chalcedonya is currently buried under thousands of tons of ice, so–”

“You’d better start digging.” Rough Diamond chuckled, poking Flurry. “Maybe you’ll find out that you have some frozen subjects.”

“The code also says the royal harem of the heir shall be no greater than any of her parents’.” Precious Gem smirked.

“Wait, I have a harem?” Flurry raised her eyebrows.

“You don’t,” Rough Diamond said. “The exact size of your parents’ harem is zero and yours shall be no greater.”

“Eh, there must be some way around,” Flurry said. “I’d finally have some choice rather than having to listen to this imbecile, Pristine Emerald. He recently spent an hour talking to me about fishing. We don’t even have any pond to fish in!”

“Yeah, that’s dumb.” Rough Diamond shrugged. “Can we finally watch that movie?”

Author's Note

Well, what could possibly go wrong?

2. Precious Intelligence

Flash wouldn’t be a royal guard for over two decades if he didn’t know the value of proper intelligence. Thus, he had a chain of informants all around the palace and beyond, telling him of everything that happened in the Empire. Usually, they’d send him notes, but on rare occasions, he had to visit them personally.

Precious Gem sat in an old, comfy armchair in her library. A faint smirk adorning her face and a slightly absent gaze suggested that, even though Flash confiscated all the weed he found in the library, she still had a stash somewhere.

“So, what does the Princess think of Pristine Emerald?” Flash asked.

Precious Gem grabbed a slice of pizza Flash brought her. “What does she think of him?” she chuckled. “Dude, they talked, like, for an hour recently.”

“It’s ‘Captain Sentry’,” Flash muttered, his cheeks turning red.

“Yeah, whatever,” Precious Gem replied, wiping a trail of tomato sauce off her face. “They talked for an hour about ponds and fish, and then she wanted to know more about harems.”

“What?” Flash raised his eyebrows.

“Harems.” Precious Gem nodded. “It’s a big building where you keep all your lovers, hoping they don’t kill each other, but that’s not important at the moment, your captainness.”

Flash sighed. “And what happened next?”

“And then we watched a movie.” Precious Gem lowered her voice to a whisper. “It had sex and shit jokes in it.”

“Just great,” Flash muttered. “Anything else?”

“Somepony trashed the kitchen, but that’s a story for another pizza.” Precious Gem looked at the empty box. “I may have heard who did that.”

“Nah, that’s not my problem,” Flash replied. The smell in the room made his stomach twist and he longed for some fresh air. “Thanks for your help, Precious Gem.”

“You’re welcome, your captainness.” Precious Gem smirked. “See you around.”

Soon after Flash left, Precious Gem decided to catch up on recreational reading, so she grabbed the book about applications of crystal magic. However, she only read a few pages before she heard the door opening.

“Did you forget something?” she asked, raising her head.

“Hello, Precious.”

Precious Gem blinked. It wasn’t Flash this time. Glasses, messy mane, and a goatee most definitely meant that the pony in front of her was Sunburst.

Precious Gem and Sunburst, despite growing up in quite different conditions, still had a lot in common. They both liked to learn about magic, despite not being able to perform it themselves. They were the nightmare of every hairstylist in the Crystal Empire and, of course, they often spent a lot of time in the library.

“Hello,” Precious Gem said. “I thought it was Flash.”

“What was he doing here?” Sunburst asked, taking a seat and looking at the empty pizza box.

“Trying to give me a flying lesson.” Precious Gem chuckled. One of her many feats was making almost everyone in the Empire forget that she was, in fact, a pegasus – as a matter of fact, she’d learned to fly fairly late in her life and she used her wings mostly to reach the tallest shelves.

“Isn’t he a little too old for that?” Sunburst fixed his glasses.

“Well, I’m pretty sure he aims higher than a lowly librarian,” Precious Gem said. “He’s been asking me about Princess Flurry Heart recently. Like, a whole lot.”

“Uh-huh…” Sunburst’s ears perked up. “And what did you tell him?”

“Not much.” Precious Gem smirked. “Well, I did tell him about Pristine Emerald and Flurry’s plan to get a harem. That is, once we dig up Chalcedonya because that's where it traditionally was. Maybe we can, like, find some frozen eunuchs and finally find out if they cut out the whole stuff or just the–" She cleared her throat. "Nevermind. Do you happen to have any pizza? I’m hungry and I can't stop thinking that 'frozen eunuchs' would make an interesting band name.”

“Wait.” Sunburst raised his hoof. “What harem?”

An arrow landed in the middle of the circle, wobbling slightly after it embedded itself in the target, next to several more arrows. The green crystal unicorn standing at the range lowered his bow. “Perfect,” he said, flipping his mane. “How do you like it, your highness?” he asked. “There was some strong wind during this one.”

“Obviously,” Flurry replied, rolling her eyes. “Try again, Pristine Emerald.”

Pristine Emerald aimed his bow, but this time the crosswind caused the arrow to go wide, bouncing off the shield of one of the ponies guarding the nearby wall. The guard turned back and gave a brief speech regarding Pristine Emerald’s sexual orientation and the occupations of several of his female family members. He only stopped when he saw Flurry Heart.

“The weather today sure is interesting,” Pristine Emerald muttered, shooting another arrow. This time, strong headwind stopped it in mid-air before it reached the target.

“I’ll need to talk with the pegasi,” Flurry said. She saw Rough Diamond, dressed in a guard’s armour, hiding behind a row of columns surrounding the shooting range and gesturing towards her. “In fact, I need to go right now.”

“Don’t worry, your highness, I’ll keep practicing.” Pristine Emerald looked at his bow and shrugged. Flurry sighed and teleported away, appearing right behind Rough Diamond, who gasped, dropping her spear.

“Stop doing that!” Rough Diamond exclaimed. “Next time, I’ll just give you a sock to the jaw. These days, the worst that can happen to me is exile.”

“Like you’d ever want to live without me.” Flurry smirked. “Also, no one said where we’d exile you. Maybe to Yakyakistan. Or just anywhere north.”

“Awesome, I always liked cold,” Rough Diamond deadpanned. “Anyway, were you fooling with him again?”

“What do you mean?” Flurry asked, watching as a slight breeze ruffled Rough Diamond’s mane.

“Exactly this,” Rough Diamond replied when the wind intensified, knocking her helmet off her head.

“Oh, it’s nothing.” Flurry smirked. “I recently discovered I can make everything I say more dramatic.” She laughed when lightning struck somewhere above the snowy plains, the sound of thunder following soon afterwards.

“Just great,” Rough Diamond said. “Can you do some sunny weather too? Or actually learn something useful like turning water into cider or something?”

“I’ll think of it,” Flurry replied. “But first I’ll have to–” She turned back to see Sunburst standing behind her, sweating profusely. “Hello,” she said.

“You highness.” Sunburst bowed.

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Flurry muttered. “Ten years ago.”

“Well…” Sunburst looked at Rough Diamond and at Pristine Emerald, who was still at the shooting range, trying to aim his bow at the target. “Can we talk in private?”

Flurry looked at Rough Diamond and smirked. “Depends if private Diamond agrees to that,” she said.

Sunburst furrowed his eyebrows. “Of course if you don’t have time–”

“No problem,” Flurry said. “Di, go and tell Pristine Emerald to put that bow down before he gets hurt.”

Rough Diamond made a mock salute and trotted towards the range. Flurry and Sunburst walked along the arcade.

“So…” Sunburst said slowly. “I presume you know about, umm… You know… Birds and, uhh… bees.”

Flurry raised her eyebrows. “Of course I do,” she said. “What do you want to know? We don’t get many birds here, bees are asleep in winter and the best sex is safe sex. Or so I heard, because finding a right guy in the Crystal Empire is tough as dicks. One’d think it would be easier, given my mother is the Princess of Love or some other shit. Also–”

“Enough!” Sunburst exclaimed. “Such language is not acceptable, especially since you’re a princess.”

“What’s the point in being a princess if you can’t get laid?” Flurry asked. “I’m staying on the topic of birds and bees because you started it.”

“Well…” Sunburst shot some frantic looks around, looking for help. “I thought young Pristine Emerald…”

“He’s an idiot,” Flurry replied. “We have to write ‘this way towards the enemy’ on his arrows or else he’d shoot himself somehow.”

“Really?” Sunburst sighed with relief. “What about Captain Sentry? I heard–”

“Nah.” Flurry embraced Sunburst and whispered into his ear, “I prefer the brainy types.”

“Brainy?” Sunburst stammered. “I mean–”

Flurry kissed him on the cheek and backpedalled. “See you later, Sunburst,” she said with a wink and teleported away.

Flash walked along the wall, lost in his thoughts. First, there was that attempt on his life. He was pretty sure the unicorn who was trying to shoot him was Pristine Emerald. Worse, Flash had seen Flurry standing next to him. Was his mission compromised? He had to be careful.

Flash looked around, but he didn’t see any assassins surrounding him with knives. They’d be in for a nasty surprise – after all, no other guard could best him in a one-on-one fight. Now, if they were changelings…

Flash shuddered. Pristine Emerald surely didn’t act alone. After all, Flash witnessed himself as Flurry talked to Sunburst and kissed him. Was she telling him not to worry about Flash because soon he’d be dead? Was Sunburst also a part of the plot? Just how many stallions ended up in the young princess’ bed?

Suddenly, Flash saw some shadow approaching him. He spun around, raising his spear and aiming it at the throat of the attacker.

“Easy there, captain,” Pristine Emerald said, looking at the tip of the blade inches from his face. “I just wanted to say that your shift ended three hours ago.” He tried to push Flash’s spear aside, but Flash held it firmly.

“You can never be too careful,” Flash said. “Strange things happen, these days.” He cleared his throat. “You’d better not wander here after dark, son. Enemies, assassins…” He poked Pristine Emerald with his spear. “Get lost, boy, or one of them is gonna make Hearth’s Warming decorations out of your balls.”

“What about you, captain?” Pristine Emerald asked, backpedalling slightly and looking for an escape route.

“Oh, I fear no evil,” Flash replied, smirking at the younger guard. “For I am the worst son of a bitch in this valley of death and if you don’t believe it, then I can show you.” He waved his spear. “And now get lost, boy, or I’ll have you flogged for insubordination.”

“Is that even a thing?”

“Get out or it will be!” Flash exclaimed. Pristine Emerald nodded and ran away, almost losing his helmet on the way. Flash watched him for a while, before turning back in case Pristine Emerald had a company.

“He’s good,” Flash muttered to himself and shook his head. “I almost believed this little murderer is an imbecile he pretends to be…” He shrugged and looked around. “Constant vigilance!”

Pristine Emerald lay on the couch in Precious Gem’s room, chewing a slice of pizza. His helmet and armour were scattered on the floor; his head was resting on Precious Gem’s lap; the librarian was holding the hose of a large hookah made of uranium glass with her wing, inhaling the smoke from time to time.

“I don’t get it,” Pristine Emerald said. “All the other mares get crazy over me, but the princess doesn’t even want to look at me. What’s going on?”

“Dude, that’s, like, very simple,” Precious Gem replied. “Wanna puff?”

“I don’t wanna puff.” Pristine Emerald winced; despite his unwillingness to join Precious, he was still somewhat buzzed. “I want to know why the princess doesn’t like me.”

“Because you seem like a prime example of a moron in a uniform,” Precious Gem replied, articulating each word with overt precision of someone trying hard not to slur. “For starters, she’ll never fall in love with you if you keep calling her ‘your highness’. She hates that.” She looked at her hoof. "Do you think 'frozen eunuchs' makes a good band name?"

“Then what am I supposed to call her?” Pristine Emerald asked. "Also, what's a eunuch?"

Precious Gem sighed and took a long puff from her hookah. “Something you'll become one day, I swear. She has a name, hello! It’s Flurry Heart, you know. And even then… Have you ever read anything longer than the table of contents of an air freshener in the toilet?”

“I don’t think so.” Pristine Emerald shrugged.

“Quod erat demonstrandum,” Precious Gem muttered. “Dude, why do you want to tap the princess anyway?”

Pristine Emerald raised his eyebrows. Unfortunately, all his attempts at putting together a response were hindered by the hazy atmosphere of the room.

“Have you ever thought about, like, lowering the bar a little?” Precious Gem asked.

“Meaning?”

“This.” Precious Gem inhaled some more smoke and kissed Pristine Emerald, blowing it into his lungs. Pristine Emerald broke the kiss and backpedalled sloppily, sitting straight on the couch.

“Are you crazy?” he asked.

“Eh, it was worth a try.” Precious Gem sighed.

“Well, it was kind of nice…” Pristine Emerald looked around. “Do you have something to eat?”

Precious Gem rolled her eyes.

3. Royally Messed Up

Flash Sentry, just like every good guard, believed that teamwork was the key to success. Thus, he’d often organise various team-building exercises which his subordinates took with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

Sunday friendly tournaments of rugby were usually a great success and this one was no different. Currently, the 3rd Company of the Crystal Guard was leading in a game against the 24th Scouting Detachment by two points, five broken teeth, and one kick to the family jewels.

“Watch out!” Rough Diamond exclaimed, knocking Pristine Emerald off his hooves. Crystal Empire was small; despite being a filly-in-waiting, Rough was still training with the 3rd Company and would never miss a traditional Sunday game. Pristine Emerald, who was currently trying to get out of a puddle of mud, had quite a different opinion.

“What’s wrong with you today!?” Rough Diamond exclaimed. “You move like my granny. And I mean the dead one.”

“Precious Gem,” Pristine Emerald muttered.

“Say no more.” Rough Diamond chuckled watching as Flash tried to somehow control the game which currently turned into a fight after one of the Crystal guards mentioned in passing that all scouts were sodomites. “So, are you still trying to pull off the Shining Armor?”

Pristine Emerald rubbed his temples. “What does the Prince have to do with that?”

Rough Diamond rolled her eyes. “He became a prince because he banged the Princess, simple as that. They say there were only two stallions who did that, him and Captain Sentry.”

Pristine Emerald looked at Flash. “But Captain Sentry is not a prince.”

Rough Diamond made a suggestive move with her hips. “Well, he doesn’t look like he banged anything, does he? Or maybe he was afraid to bang Shining Armor’s sister. We may never know.”

“Shh…” Pristine Emerald looked around. “You’re talking about royalty.”

“And yet, I’m still closer to banging Flurry than you are.” Rough Diamond shrugged. “I mean, I’m not interested, but if I were, it wouldn’t be a problem.”

Pristine Emerald furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you gay?”

Rough Diamond smirked. “No more than the 24th Scouting Detachment…”

Flurry sat in the classroom. She could hear the guards playing rugby, but for some reason, Sunburst called her there for some special classes. When she showed up, she saw that he decided to get rid of his robe. He also combed his mane and beard.

Flurry furrowed her eyebrows. “So, what is this class about?” she asked. “It’s Sunday.”

“Mammals,” Sunburst replied. “I think you need to know more about them.”

“Well, we ain’t nothing but them,” Flurry said. “Do you want to show me some mammalian habits?”

“We are nothing but mammals.” Sunburst smirked. “Speak like a princess should or you’ll get punished… in quite an unladylike way.”

Flurry lay back in her seat. “Well, you can punish me however you want…”

“Now we’re talking.” Sunburst nodded and stood up. “Now, if you’d like to turn around and raise your tail…”

“Aaargh!” Flurry screamed, her eyes shooting open. She looked around, finding herself on the fainting couch. She could still hear the guards playing rugby, but Sunburst was nowhere to be seen.

“Stupid dream,” she muttered to herself.

“We thought it was quite amusing.”

Flurry groaned. “Auntie Luna? Holy shit…” She blushed. “I mean–”

Luna stood by the fainting couch. “Don’t worry, young one. Your reaction to us appearing is not the worst we’ve encountered. For example, Flash Sentry tried to stab me with a spear. At least we were in a dream, but it was still strange.”

“Yeah, he got a bit nervous recently,” Flurry muttered.

“Not as much as poor Sunburst.” Luna smirked. “First time I saw him looking that good.”

Flurry blushed even more. “Wait, aren’t you, like, retired? And this was my dream…”

“Not yet. Also, well, dreamwalking is not something you can retire from,” Luna replied. “Also, there’s nothing to be ashamed of. If you wish to wake up and touch yourself, I won’t be watching you.”

“I’m not touching myself!” Flurry exclaimed.

Luna nodded and sat on the couch next to Flurry. “Surely. And having a crush on your teacher is nothing wrong. When we were young, Celestia and I had a crush on Starswirl, you know…”

Flurry raised her eyebrows. “But he’s old and smells of piss!”

“He wasn’t that old back then,” Luna replied. “We were trying different things and I must admit that I was defeated. Celestia managed to bed him first.”

“And how was it?” Flurry asked.

Luna chuckled. “She said he was old and smelled of piss, so the joke's on her.”

“Eww!” Flurry exclaimed. “Now you ruined the whole mood.”

“I can bring Sunburst back if you want,” Luna said. “Or maybe someone else. I noticed that Ed Sheepran is all the rage as of late, if you know what I mean.”

Flurry shuddered in horror. “How about no?”

“Well, colts seem to be into Songbird Serenade.” Luna shrugged. “As young ponies say, whatever floats your boat.”

“Isn’t she old enough to be my mother?” Flurry asked. “And I’m not into mares.”

“Well, colts like different things,” Luna replied. “Also, we do recall that dream about Rough Diamond a few days ago… Truly, she lives up to her name.”

“Auntie!” Flurry exclaimed.

“Alright, we get it,” Luna said. “You want to keep your teenage angst to yourself. Remember where it got me.”

“Eh, my mom and auntie Twilight wouldn’t send me to the Moon,” Flurry said. “Though I wonder where they’d send me.”

“Hopefully to some nice stallion.” Luna winked and disappeared.

Flurry woke up again and looked around. She was alone in her room, lying on her bed with her legs and wings at strange angles. She stretched her muscles, hearing the joints pop and levitated a bottle of lube from under her bed.

“Ed Sheepran, huh?” she muttered to herself with a smirk.

Sunburst looked around. Given that he was in an empty corridor, this seemed like being overly cautious, but due to the tragic irony of his situation, this was the only right thing to do. Princess Cadance gave him a mission to protect Flurry Heart but, as it turned out, the young princess’ crush was nopony else but Sunburst himself.

This had its good and bad sides. The good side was that he definitely knew better than to break Flurry’s heart. The bad side, however, was that nopony in the Empire knew that Sunburst knew better than that. Which, in turn, made him a likely target of Cadance’s wrath.

Sunburst shuddered, realising that at some point he’d have to tell Flurry Heart that having a crush on him wasn’t the best idea. Not only because he was decades older than her, but also because if her parents found out, his life wouldn’t be worth a hair from Starswirl’s gnarly beard.

He looked around again. While there were no mute, masked ponies surrounding him to strangle him with a piano string and bury his body in the snow for the future generations to find and put in a museum, next to the artifacts from the lost kingdoms of Chalcedonya and Crystalia, he still felt rather uncomfortable. Like that one time when he was ten and Starlight found out–

“Hey, mage!”

Sunburst gasped, turning around and getting tangled in his robe. He collapsed in front of the pony who called him – who was no one else but Flash Sentry himself.

“Don’t call me ‘mage’,” Sunburst muttered, getting up and trying to look as dignified as he could.

“Whatever, mage,” Flash replied. “The princess wants to see you.”

Sunburst froze. “I don’t think we should see each other right now,” he said.

“Why so?” Flash asked.

“Well, she’s a bit, uhh… emotional and not in the right state of mind, I guess,” Sunburst replied, carefully weighing every word. “I’m not sure how would she react to seeing me. Last time we met, well, I don’t think she was aware of what she was doing and–”

Flash furrowed his eyebrows. “Are we talking about the same princess or are you banging Cadance too?”

“Ah, so it’s Cadance who wants to see me!” Sunburst exclaimed, slapping his forehead in an exaggerated fashion. “Of course, whoever else.” He looked at Flash. “Wait, what do you mean by ‘too’?”

“You know what I mean,” Flash replied. “Same with Pristine Emerald. I’m watching both of you...”

“That’s fine, I guess?” Sunburst shrugged. “I’ll better get to the princess, then.” He shuddered and ran down the corridor, leaving Flash behind.

Flash nodded. “Something fishy’s going on…”

Sunburst was on the verge of passing out when he reached Cadance’s office. He dropped on the plush couch and tried to stop himself from hyperventilating. Cadance looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “Do you want some tea?” she asked.

“Sure, why not,” Sunburst muttered. “I mean… Sure, why not, Your Highness.”

Cadance chuckled and levitated a cup towards him. He took a sip, nearly burning his mouth.

“That’s a w-wonderful tea, Your Highness,” Sunburst said. “What’s in it?”

“Cyanide,” Cadance replied.

Sunburst clutched to his chest, trying to catch a breath. He rolled off the coach and dropped on the floor, spitting the tea.

“Don’t worry, it’s just almonds,” Cadance said. “You looked so stressed that I just wanted to make a little joke to ease up the tension.”

“You all will kill me with your jokes,” Sunburst whispered under his breath and stood up. “I believe you didn’t call me here to prank me, Your Highness?”

“Of course not,” Cadance replied. “It’s about Flurry.”

Sunburst froze. “Well, actually–”

“We’re going to visit Twilight in Ponyville soon,” Cadance said. “I thought it’d be a great occasion to introduce Flurry to its citizens. Could you write a speech for her?”

“Wha–” Sunburst trembled. “A speech? S-sure, no problem. I have a lot of experience in speaking writes… I mean, writing speeches. Yes, speech. I’ll do that. I can speak, right?”

Cadance chuckled. “Great. I knew I could count on you.” She patted Sunburst’s head. “Hope your task goes as well as Flash’s mission.”

“Does he have to write a speech too?” Sunburst asked.

“Nah, he’s just escorting Flurry to Manehattan so she can get a new dress,” Cadance replied, smiling. “Shining told me he was very enthusiastic.”

“No way I’m going to Manehattan with Flurry!” Flash exclaimed. “It’s a big, dangerous town! Ponies get raped at every corner!”

Shining Armor raised his eyebrows in a surprisingly royal, commanding way. Ponies often considered him a bit stupid—given that his wife, sister, and daughter were all alicorns, the bar for him was always set high—but once he got into his royal mode, everyone immediately remembered that he could shield the entire Canterlot with his magic and his role in defeating King Sombra. “Well, I’d say that’s the primary reason you’re going there. She needs a bodyguard.”

“Well, maybe it’s not as dangerous…” Flash smiled sheepishly. “Also, she’s an alicorn. She can probably throw a building at a mugger or something…”

“The thing is, we don’t want her to throw a building at anyone,” Shining replied. “Too much cleaning, press going crazy... Not to mention the ponies in that thrown building. Besides, she’s supposed to go incognito, disguise and everything, with you as her uncle.”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Flash said. “Aren’t you a prince or something? We could just tell Rarity to come here and–”

Shining raised his hoof. “Flurry really wanted to go. She gets bored in this palace. Also, it won’t be that bad. Rough Diamond is going with you.”

“Oh, great.” Flash rolled his eyes. “Did I tell you about the conspiracy? I’m pretty sure she’s a part of it too.”

“You did. Twice,” Shining sighed. “I already told you that Precious Gem is not the best source of information. Unless you’re looking for facts about snails.”

“I’m still gathering evidence,” Flash said. “Also, there was an attempt on my life.”

“Great.” Shining smirked. “Gather some while you’re in Manehattan. And stop scaring Pristine Emerald. His parents complained.”

Now it was Flash’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “His parents? What kind of a guard is he?”

“A guard who has a bad case of awfully rich, annoying parents,” Shining replied. “I told them that they can’t have your head on a silver platter and since they insisted, I'm afraid I lost it for a moment and mentioned that we may reassign Pristine Emerald to Chalcedonya, guarding the glaciers and showing lost yaks the way. Needless to say, our approval rating among the nobles dropped considerably.”

“Not like it stopped us before,” Flash said.

“I may still reconsider their offer,” Shining replied, casually levitating an old battle axe and a sharpening stone. “So, are you going to Manehattan?”

Flash gave the axe a very long look. “Sure thing.”

“Good.” Shining threw the axe away; it bounced off the wall, its handle snapping in two. “Pack your bags, then!”

Author's Note

Manehattan, here we come...

Fun fact: the last of my fics set in Manehattan was Elektrichka, published in November 2014. Since then we did leave Ponyville, usually ending up in Canterlot (Moonwing, Stick a Pin in It, Hard Knocks and Kirin Poetry, but also McColts' fort (Outside), Frozen North (Six Mares Sit in the Cabin and Nothing Happens), Rockville (Limelight) and pretty much everywhere, including outer space (Minuette, Part II: Mummies, Tentacles, and Shit)

4. Showdown

The train rolled across the hills. Flurry, used to the luxurious train her family used whenever going to an official visit, found the travel rather slow, but it didn’t matter much. Aside from her and her entourage, none of the ponies in the carriage were from the Crystal Empire – in fact, most of them were from Vanhoover. Thus, no one recognised her in the vest hiding her wings and a pair large glasses obscuring her face.

Rough Diamond, on the other hoof, was somehow attracting more attention than Flurry. She was the only actual crystal pony in the carriage and, slowly but surely, she learned to hate it.

“I swear, if one more kid touches me to see what my skin feels like, I’ll fucking kill them,” Rough Diamond muttered, sitting on her seat. She also had a disguise – a baseball cap and a t-shirt saying ‘I love Manehattan’.

“Shh.” Flash sighed. “If you have to complain, at least do that quietly.”

“Can I quietly murder someone?” Rough Diamond asked. “I have five knives under that t-shirt.”

Flash facehoofed. Rough Diamond had been mopey since they got on the train and he slowly realised that his disguise—an old, white suit and fake moustache—as well as the company of two young fillies made him look like a middle-aged pimp way past his prime.

“Also, what’s the deal with potatoes?” Rough Diamond asked. “Everyone in the dining car kept asking me if I want potatoes.”

Flash froze. This was one of the things he didn’t want to explain to any crystal pony. Unfortunately, Flurry did that for him.

“Back in Sombra’s times, crystal ponies were very poor,” she said, ignoring Flash’s warning looks. “Ponies in Equestria sometimes joke about that. Like, a crystal stallion sits with a crystal mare and she asks ‘do you love me more than potato?’ ‘You’. She doesn’t believe him and asks him why. He says, ‘because potatoes are only a dream and you’re here for real’. But there’s really no stallion. There are just hallucinations and death of malnourishment.”

Rough Diamond stood up. “Excuse me, I’m going to the dining car.”

“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” Flash said when Rough Diamond walked away.

“Oh, come on.” Flurry shrugged. “It’s not like she’s going to challenge everyone to a duel or something.”

Suddenly, the door to the carriage burst open, hit by a flying yak. The yak fell on the floor with a loud thud and rolled into a row of seats, knocking passengers down like a bowling ball. Rough Diamond walked in soon after that, looking at the destruction the yak left in his wake.

“Pony crazy!” the yak shouted.

Flash stood up and cleared his throat. “It’s not like I know this mare, but…” He looked at Rough Diamond. “What did he do to you?”

Rough Diamond shrugged. “He stood closest to the door.”

Flash nodded slowly, looking at the conductors who walked into the carriage, surrounding Rough Diamond. “As I said, I don’t know this mare.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle this.” Rough Diamond smirked and looked at the conductors.

“Good news,” Flash said when they got out of the train in Manehattan. “I discreetly explained who we are to the conductors and you’re not getting arrested.”

“You could’ve told them that before someone hit me with a club and locked me in the caboose,” Rough Diamond muttered.

“Then you wouldn’t learn,” Flurry said. She looked around the train station, trying to stretch her wings under the vest without anypony noticing. “Also, they wanted to kick you out of the train, but we were in the mountains.”

“Just great.” Rough Diamond sighed. “Anything else?”

“When we’re back, you’re going to the anger management class again,” Flash replied. “And racial sensitivity training.”

“Why?” Rough Diamond exclaimed. “It all started because of jokes about crystal ponies!”

Flurry shrugged. “The whole carriage full of ponies and you decided to throw a yak across the room. I agree with Flash, this just doesn’t look good.”

“You too?” Rough Diamond shook her head. “Just my luck.”

Rough Diamond only cheered up a bit when they got to Rarity’s boutique. Over the years, it grew considerably, although the club upstairs still existed and no amount of cash could convince its owner to sell it.

Flurry walked into the store and stopped immediately, looking at its shiny interior. It was bigger than most of the halls in her palace and filled with customers from all of Equestria. The workers were running around them, ready to find something ideal for them – no matter if they were a lowly farmer from Galloping Gorge, a movie star from Applewood, or a proud daughter of a buffalo chief.

“Welcome to Rarity for You. My name’s Plaid Stripes and I’ll be your guide,” said the young, orange mare with a neatly combed mane and perfectly straight, white teeth. She wore a strange, denim dress adorned with, among other things, hammers and nails.

“It’s a special order,” Flash whispered.

“Ah, of course!” Plaid Stripes exclaimed, slamming her forehead with her hoof. She turned to Flurry. “You’re Princ–”

“Say that aloud and I’ll have to kill everypony here,” Flash said.

“Don’t worry, he doesn’t mean it for real.” Flurry smirked. “Rough Diamond, on the other hoof...”

“What again?” Rough Diamond muttered.

“We need to get you a dress too, of course!” Flurry exclaimed. “Come on, let’s see what they have for us.”

Plaid Stripes nodded and grabbed a measuring tape. “Let’s get you two to the workshop. You can’t be seen without that vest, I guess?”

“Yeah, I–” Flurry was interrupted when Plaid Stripes dragged her and Rough Diamond towards the door behind the counter. She opened it and let them in before almost slamming Flash with it. He tried to open it, but it didn’t budge and he had to stay outside.

“Coco!” Plaid exclaimed when they entered another large room, littered with sewing machines and pieces of all kinds of fabric Flurry could name and a lot of others she’d seen for the first time in her life. “They’re here.”

An older, cream-coloured mare with glasses who was sitting behind a sewing machine raised her head. “Did you measure them?”

“I’m doing that right now!” Plaid Stripes poked Rough Diamond’s flank and measured her leg. “Big, thin, no ass, kind of like Princess Cadance…”

“My mom has an ass,” Flurry muttered, watching as Rough Diamond’s frown deepened.

“She doesn’t show it to the world, though.” Plaid Stripes patted Rough Diamond’s back. “Are you a crystal pony?”

Rough Diamond raised her eyebrows. “Uhh… Am I?”

“Okay, I know,” Plaid Stripes replied. “Were you always a crystal pony?”

“Careful,” Flurry said. “Every word you say around Rough may be your last…”

“Oh, don’t worry.” Plaid Stripes smiled at Rough Diamond. “After we’re done, we can go upstairs. There’s gonna be a cool party in there.”

“A party, you say?” Rough Diamond asked. “Great, maybe I finally won’t be completely humiliated. Or maybe we’ll even get la–” She paused, seeing that no one was listening to her – Flurry just removed her vest, revealing her wings. Plaid Stripes’ jaw dropped. Even Coco stood up and walked to Flurry, examining the feathers. She grabbed a notebook and made a few rough sketches, writing some notes on the margins.

“So, uhh…” Plaid Stripes looked around and grabbed a piece of fabric. “We’re gonna need holes for wings. Size, uhh… Did you ever have your wingpower measured? Asking out of curiosity.”

“Around twelve,” Flurry replied. “I once got it up to twenty-five, but I didn’t feel like making a hundred wing push-ups, a hundred sit-ups, a hundred squats, and ten kilometres running every day to keep that.”

“Plaid, remember that it’s not just the size,” Coco said. “It’s probably wingpower-to-weight ratio.”

Plaid looked at Flurry. “Well, about the weight… We’ll need more fabric here.”

“It’s pizza.” Flurry blushed.

“I knew Precious Gem was a bad influence.” Rough Diamond chuckled.

“Not that you’re better,” Flurry said. “And after all, you can make it bigger if I grow taller, right?”

“Taller?” Rough Diamond asked. “Maybe wider.”

“Look at yourself, Ms. No-Ass,” Flurry replied.

Coco looked at her notes and sketches. “Well, I guess we’ll get some rough versions done by tomorrow,” she said.

“It’d be easier if you two stood still for more than two seconds.” Plaid Stripes smiled.

“Look who’s talking.” Coco rolled her eyes. “Anyway, tomorrow we’re checking how the rough version looks on you and make additional measurements. Then we’ll draw a few designs for you to choose from. It may take a few weeks before we’re done, but you won’t have to be here for the whole process.”

“Okay,” Flurry said. “So, what about the party?”

“We’re not going to a party!” Flash exclaimed. He’d spent quite a while hanging around in the store and being given suspicious looks by a group of raccoons. Needless to say, this didn’t improve his mood at all.

“My dad told you to escort me to Manehattan and back,” Flurry said. “He didn’t say anything about parties.”

“Yes, but how am I supposed to protect you at a party?” Flash asked.

Flurry sighed. “Blend in with the crowd or something. Aren’t you the captain of the Royal Guard? Or you can just leave it to Rough Diamond. I guess no party is too scary for her.”

“I’d rather not go there to pick body parts after she’s done.” Flash shuddered. “You’re not going to any party.”

Suddenly, lightning struck somewhere outside the store. “I may get bored in the hotel room.” Flurry smiled sheepishly. “And my magic sometimes goes haywire when I’m bored.”

“How convenient,” Flash muttered. “You can flood this town for all I care, we’re not going to–”

“THOU SHALL ALLOW US TO GO TO THAT PARTY,” Flurry said, her eyes glowing.

“I… I think we may go to that party,” Flash said, staggering with his eyes crossed.

“What did you do?” Rough Diamond whispered.

Flurry shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I controlled his mind or something.”

“You can do that?” Rough Diamond asked.

“How would I know?” Flurry looked at Flash unsurely. “It never happened to me before.” She poked Flash. “Uhh… put on a dress?”

“Why would I do that?” Flash asked. “Also, don’t you have a party to attend?”

“Didn’t work now,” Rough Diamond said.

“You don’t say!” Flurry exclaimed. “But at least he lets us go to the party.”

Flash smiled. “I shall blend in with the crowd!”

Despite the passing years, Vinyl Scratch still refused to let anypony behind her turntables. Many tried, of course; Manehattan scene was a home to many young DJs, but so far none of them could match the rave legend. Flurry, who was back in her vest, was about to experience that.

“Nice moves, girl!” some colt exclaimed, watching her spin on the dancefloor.

“Thanks!” Flurry turned around to see what Rough Diamond was doing. “Is your dancing actually sword moves without the sword?” she asked.

“Eh, whatever works!” Rough Diamond chuckled. She was dancing with some kirin mare and two bat pony sisters. Several teenage colts were staring at them, their eyes wide.

“How come they’re swarming around you?” Flurry walked to her friend. She had to repeat the question a few times due to the loud bass drowning every conversation; eventually, she just focused her magic and sent it directly to Rough Diamond’s head.

Stop doing that! Rough Diamond thought. What do you want?

I’ve been wondering why those guys keep swarming around you, Flurry replied. Her telepathy was getting more and more accurate; it’d been months since she last missed the auditory cortex and accidentally read someone’s memories or made them empty their bowels. Still, for some reason most ponies were rather uncomfortable about having their brain probed.

I’m a crystal pony. Rough Diamond made a mental equivalent of an eye roll, which Flurry felt as a slight increase of electric activity in the motor cortex. Some of them wonder for how long you can see your seed after you cum inside a crystal vagina.

So, I’m not exotic enough for them? Flurry scoffed.

Not when you can see what a blowjob from a bat pony feels like or see how is kirin beer made. Look into their heads, you’ll see that the thinking is now taking place somewhere else. Rough Diamond’s neurons lit up with electricity when she started to laugh.

Flurry didn’t have to use telepathy to see that. She jumped between Rough Diamond and the bat ponies, landing in front of some colt with glasses who smiled at her.

Flash on your six, Rough Diamond thought.

Flurry turned back to look at Flash. She had to give him credit – he got rid of the suit, but still, his idea of what teenagers wore was at least twenty years behind. He even had a skateboard.

“What’s going on?” the colt in front of Flurry asked.

“My uncle,” Flurry replied. “He’s really overprotective.”

“Why?” the colt asked. “Aren’t you a grown up?”

“Oh, he keeps doing that since her parents died after the airship they were building exploded,” Rough Diamond said.

What the hell, Rough? Flurry mentally poked Rough Diamond’s hippocampus.

Don’t worry. We’re exotic, you have tragic past. Use it to your advantage, Rough Diamond thought.

“Oh.” The colt lowered his head.

“It was a long time ago,” Flurry said. “Can we go somewhere else? I’d rather get him off my tail.”

“Sure,” the colt replied. He turned to the two bat ponies. “Girls, we gotta bail.”

“Cool,” one of the mares said. She spun to the rhythm of the song and let out a high-pitched wail, causing the nearest ponies to wince and cover their ears. The colt and his two friends rushed to the exit, pushing themselves through the crowd. Flurry, Rough Diamond, and a kirin mare followed them; they ran down the staircase, next to the door of the now-closed Rarity for You and soon found themselves in the street. Even though it was late, there were still a lot of ponies around; most of them, as Flurry noticed, in various stages of intoxication.

“I think we lost your uncle,” the colt said. Flurry finally had a chance to look at him closer and noticed that he was slightly shorter than her, with messy mane and a cutie mark depicting a large Rubik’s cube. “By the way, my name’s Rubik’s Revenge.” He pointed at his friends, a bulky earth colt in a trench coat and a thin, blonde unicorn. “This is Discrete Mathematics and Card Trick. We’re in the math club together.”

“Oh great,” Rough Diamond muttered.

“I’m Warm Spring,” the kirin mare said. “I’m working at a brewery.”

“Rough Diamond.”

“Don’t ask her about potatoes, she hates that,” Flurry said.

“Oh, shut up, uhh…” Rough Diamond furrowed her eyebrows. “What’s your name anyway?”

Flurry looked around until her gaze landed on the blackboard in front of the nearby pub. “Espresso Martini,” she replied.

“Nice name.” Rubik’s Revenge nodded.

“Yours is nothing to sneeze at either,” Flurry muttered. She felt a slight breeze and saw that the two bat ponies from the club landed next to them. They were almost identical, but Flurry wouldn’t bet on them being twins – she’d seen enough of auntie Luna’s guards to find out that all bat ponies looked the same for her.

“Midnight and Midnight,” Discrete Mathematics said. He had a slow, deep voice suiting his looks. “I see you decided to join us.”

“Of course.” One of the bat ponies chuckled. “Why’d we miss such an interesting company?” She patted Warm Spring’s mane. “Midnight Dancer.”

“Midnight Knight,” the other bat pony said. “‘Knight’ with a ‘k’, yes, we are sisters, and no, we didn’t fuck each other.” She turned to Midnight Dancer. “Is it everything they usually ask us about?”

“You forgot ‘we won’t fuck each other even for a million bits’,” Midnight Dancer said and looked at Card Trick. “I know you wanted to ask that, blondie.”

“What about two million?” Card Trick asked.

Midnight Knight rolled her eyes. “Revenge, who did you bring here? I mean, a crystal pony, a kirin, and a unicorn in a vest already look like a setup of a lame joke, but where did you get this sweetheart?”

“He’s helping us with the algorithm,” Rubik’s Revenge replied. “In fact, we can go to the casino and test it right now.”

“Casino?” Flurry asked.

“Long story,” Discrete Mathematics said. “You see–”

“Shut up.” Card Trick frowned. “Are you gonna tell about our plan to every random filly you’ve met in a club?”

“Maybe,” Discrete Mathematics muttered. “Speaking of, we’d better get going. Her uncle may start looking for her.”

They trotted down the street. Card Trick stood on the pavement for a while before following them. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why?” Rubik’s Revenge asked. “The more the merrier, you said that yourself.”

“I don’t trust her.” Card Trick pointed at Rough Diamond. “She walks like a cop.”

Rough Diamond frowned. “Listen, dipshit, even if I were a cop, do you think we’re in the Crystal Empire right now? I’m kinda a guard but in the Crystal Empire everyone is.”

“Why?” Warm Spring asked.

Rough Diamond turned to Flurry and blinked. “We’re very good at hiding the fact that, even though we call themselves ‘The Crystal Empire’, the whole town is half the size of Manehattan. A lot of ponies end up in the army because everyone thinks King Sombra will jump out of someone’s ass again one day. And the worst thing is the royalty.” She looked at Card Trick and rolled her eyes. “A normal town would have a mayor, but no, we are the Empire. We have a princess and a whole court, not to mention–”

“Oh, I’ve heard that,” Flurry said. “Do you know that one filly-in-waiting who’s also a guard? I’ve heard the only thing bigger than her ego is a stick in her ass.”

“She’s not as bad as the young princess herself.” Rough Diamond smirked and for a moment Flurry thought she’d burst in laughter, breaking the masquerade. “Now this brat is crazy.”

“No wonder.” Flurry nodded. “Is it true that all Crystal Guards are geldings and catamites so they wouldn’t be tempted by her outstanding beauty?”

“Nah, that’d be the scouting detachments,” Rough Diamond replied.

“What about them?” Midnight Dancer asked.

“Inside joke,” Rough Diamond said. “You know, when they’re in the mountains and it’s cold–”

“What are they looking for in there?” Flurry asked. “Potatoes?”

Rough Diamond sent her a death glare. Her eye twitched, but before she could say something, Discrete Mathematics stopped so abruptly that she almost bumped into his back.

“What’s going on?” Rubik’s Revenge asked.

“Espresso’s uncle,” Discrete Mathematics said.

It took Flurry a while to realise who he was talking about. “Is he chasing us already?”

“It seems so.” Midnight Knight grabbed a small mirror with her wing and used it to see what was behind her.

“It won’t be a problem.” Card Trick produced a collapsible baton from under his shirt.

“It’s not a good idea,” Flurry said. “When I was ten, some madpony attacked us with such a baton and ended up with broken teeth, broken ribs, and a baton in the ass.”

She decided not to mention that the whole incident happened during the official visit in Canterlot; the other guards ended up having to protect the attacker from Flash as well as Rough Diamond, who decided to bite him.

“Let’s see if you can come up with something better.” Card Trick smirked.

“Oh, surely.” Flurry walked to the two policemares standing at the corner of the street and watching the crowd. “Excuse me, ma’am,” she said. “There’s some creep following us. He’s easy to notice. Middle-aged but tries to dress like a teenager and carries a skateboard.”

“A skateboard, eh?” the policemare asked. Despite the darkness, she wore a pair of sunglasses. “We’ll see… And you shouldn’t be here after dark. It’s dangerous.”

“Thanks,” Flurry smiled. “We were just going home.”

The other policemare looked at her. She was younger, chubbier, had a lot of freckles and a cherry-coloured mane. “Do I know you?” she asked. “I’m sure I’ve seen ya before.”

“M-maybe?” Flurry cursed under her breath, realising that she’d seen this mare before. Not in Manehattan, though; she had a vague feeling it was some Applejack’s relative.

“Seriously, it’s like I totally know you.” The policemare shrugged. “Maybe I arrested ya once?”

“Twice,” Flurry replied. “But I learned from my mistakes, I swear on my mom’s life.”

“Your mom’s dead,” Rough Diamond whispered.

Flurry rolled her eyes. “Okay, then filly scout’s honour.”

“Surely.” The policemare chuckled. “Go back home and I don’t want to see ya here again.”

“Okay.” Flurry nodded and ran to her companions.

“That was close,” Rough Diamond muttered.

“At least they’ll stop him for a while,” Rubik’s Revenge said. “What did you do to get arrested?”

“Oh… Something,” Flurry replied, frantically thinking of some crime she could commit. Unfortunately for her, the crime rate in the Crystal Empire was an all-time low; there weren’t many events she could draw inspiration from. ‘I, uhh… stole a taxi and drove it into the sea because Celestia told me to.”

“She’s a Horseshoe Bay mare, you know,” Rough Diamond deadpanned.

“Now that’s crazy.” Midnight Dancer smiled at Warm Spring and patted her back. “Have you ever done something this crazy before?”

“Worst I did was public urination, but it was because we ran out of beer,” Warm Spring muttered in her usual monotone. “And I got mad when the cops came so they charged me with arson too.”

“So it’s true what they say about kirins?” Rough Diamond asked.

“Yeah, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry,” Warm Spring replied.

“I meant the beer part.” Rough Diamond winced. “Wait, where do you work?”

“Don’t worry. Not all kirins make beer.”

Rough Diamond furrowed her eyebrows. “This doesn’t answer my question.”

“The more you know…” Rubik’s Revenge shook his head. “And here we are.” He pointed at the building in front of him.

The establishment looked shiny in an almost vulgar way; Flurry and Rough Diamond were used to buildings with crystal walls, but in the Crystal Empire nopony usually adorned them with a ton of neons until the whole place could be seen from the moon. Bright, colourful signs invited any curious passerby to come inside and have a drink while playing roulette, blackjack, or poker. Other, more discrete signs suggested that there were other, more shady forms of entertainment available there.

Discrete Mathematics smirked. “Well, the game is on.”

Flash rushed down the street. He still had a vague idea that he shouldn’t have let Flurry go to the party and in fact, he didn’t exactly know why he did that. What was worse, he’d seen her running away with a bunch of suspicious individuals. Some of them were bat ponies too.

Flash had nothing against bat ponies in general. However, experience taught him that drinking with the members of Luna’s Guard could easily end in a gutter, without the wallet, and with the taste of vomit, bad decisions, and mangoes still in his mouth.

He looked around, trying to see where Flurry was. It was no use; the crowds were going in all directions, obscuring the view. He decided to take off and search for her from the sky when someone patted his back.

“What the–” He paused, seeing two policemares in front of him.

“Detective Copper Top,” the mare in sunglasses said.

“Recruit Officer Babs Seed.” The younger mare smirked at him. “We have a few questions.”

“Can this wait?” Flash asked. “I’m looking for my niece.”

Both policemares looked at each other. “Your niece, you say?” Copper Top gave Flash a long look, paying special attention to his clothes. “I can’t see much of a family resemblance.”

“Long story,” Flash replied. “Can I go now? It’s very important.”

“Important, you say?” Babs nodded. “Well, that’s interesting. This filly told us an interesting story, you know.”

“Oh, my niece often does that,” Flash said, furrowing his eyebrows. “She keeps running away from home and when the whole family is looking for her, she’s just hiding with some weirdos, laughing at us. Her poor mother must be worried sick and–”

“Funny you say that,” Copper Top muttered. “What did she say about her mother?”

“That shiny one said her mom’s dead.” Babs shrugged. “So, someone’s lying here.”

“Of course!” Flash exclaimed. “She’s a habitual liar. And that crystal pony is a part of the conspiracy!”

“What conspiracy?” Babs asked.

“You know what?” Copper Top looked at Flash. “I have a feeling that if she’s your niece then I’m princess Flurry Heart.”

“That’d be her,” Flash said.

“What?”

“She’s actually princess Flurry Heart,” Flash lowered his voice to a whisper. “In disguise, so she could go shopping in peace. I’m a royal guard tasked with protecting her but she ran away and her parents will be really angry if something happens to her.” He unfurled his wings. “I’ll get you both fired if you don’t help me!”

Copper Top fixed her sunglasses. “Okay, this was a funny conversation, but now you’ll go with us.” She turned to her assistant. “Babs, check if they have some free rooms in the nuthouse.”

“I’m not crazy! Don’t try that!” Flash exclaimed, seeing that Babs reached for a baton. “I was disarming ponies with such sticks before you were born!”

“Okay.” Babs raised her hoof. Flash only managed to look at it and recognise the dark outline of a crystal gun with a charged stunning spell when suddenly everything around him went black.

Copper Top watched as Flash dropped on the pavement, his tongue sticking out his mouth. “Looks like your response–” she removed her sunglasses, “– was pretty shocking.”

“Yeah,” Babs replied. “Let’s get him to the station and see what’s wrong with him. Maybe he’s high. Or maybe the shrinks are looking for him.”

Copper Top smirked and put her sunglasses on.

“Okay, just so we’re clear,” Card Trick said. “Revenge, Mathematics, and I are doing the counting while you distract the dealers. “Don’t try to play, at least not until you learn the algorithm.”

“Can I just play some poker?” Flurry asked. “Without counting, just for fun.”

“You’ll lose everything we win,” Card Trick replied and turned to Rubik’s Revenge. “Why did you even bring her?”

May I cast the Torment of Tantabus on this cream-faced loon and watch as he gouges his own eyes? Flurry’s voice rang in Rough Diamond’s head.

Stop doing that! Rough Diamond exclaimed, her every neuron rejecting Flurry’s thoughts, but without any noticeable effect. Also, cream-faced loon? Where did you get that? From auntie Luna?

Flurry shrugged mentally. How am I supposed to know the modern words if no one is allowed to swear in my presence? I only know stuff you and auntie Luna taught me.

Try shithead. Or faggot. He certainly looks like one, Rough Diamond replied.

You mean a bundle of sticks?

Rough Diamond facehoofed. Just make him shit himself or something.

“Stop staring at each other like this,” Rubik’s Revenge said. “It looks a bit creepy.”

Flurry smirked at him. “Okay, we’ll stop.” She turned to Card Trick. “How’s your stomach?”

Card Trick raised his eyebrows. “Now that you say it, it hurts a bit. I knew there was something wrong about that hayburger.”

“Good.” Flurry nodded. “Let’s get to that casino.”

They walked to the door and Flurry pushed it open. In the lobby, they were immediately intercepted by a large, bald stallion in sunglasses. “Get out,” he said. “We don’t let kids in.”

“We’re all eighteen,” Discrete Mathematics replied. “Unless you have to be twenty-one here, then we’re twenty-one.”

“Yeah, and my mother is Princess Cadance.” The bouncer rolled his eyes.

“What an amazing coincidence,” Flurry said. “She’s my favourite princess. Nice to meet her son.”

The guard chuckled. “You are amusing, but it’s really a bit past your bedtime. And we don’t let kirins in anyway.”

Warm Spring furrowed her eyebrows. “What? Why would you do that?” Flames erupted around her.

“This is why.” The guard grabbed a fire extinguisher and casually poured the foam on the carpet around Warm Spring. “Last year in Las Pegasus, a whole casino burned down because a group of kirins lost a million bits in a poker game.”

“Spring, chill out,” Midnight Knight said. “Surely, there must be something we can do–”

“Yes, you can get out before I call the police,” the bouncer replied.

Flurry cleared her throat. “THOU SHALL LET US IN!” she exclaimed. The lamps dimmed a bit and a chill breeze ran across the room, causing everyone to shiver.

“I… Uhh, I shall let you in?” The bouncer shrugged and smiled at her. “Yeah, I guess you can go. Have a nice day.” He scratched his head and staggered, resting himself against the wall.

“Thank you,” Flurry said and trotted away from him.

“How did you do that?” Rubik’s Revenge asked, catching up with her.

“Do what?”

“Royal Canterlot Voice,” Discrete Mathematics replied. “I thought only the princesses could do that.”

“Oh, it’s easy,” Flurry replied. “My aunt worked at the palace and she taught me–”

Rough Diamond chuckled. It soon turned into a fit of laughter oddly resembling a pig with hiccups.

“What?” Flurry asked.

“I’m sorry.” Rough Diamond wiped tears from her eyes. “But did you just imply that your aunt worked in the palace? As in, actually did some work?”

“Okay, I don’t get it.” Midnight Dancer looked at Flurry and Rough Diamond. “You seem to have a lot of aunts in the strangest of places. Not to mention a creepy uncle. And this crystal pony seems to know you better than she should.”

“Uhh…” Flurry looked around. “NONE OF THEE WANT TO QUESTION ANYTHING ME OR ROUGH SAY.”

“Yeah, the more you know…” Midnight Dancer shrugged and rubbed her temples. “Where are you from, anyway?”

“Crystal Empire,” Flurry replied. “And you don’t want to know what I’m hiding under that vest.”

“Yeah, I don’t.” Midnight Dancer smiled. It was a bit dopey grin, not unlike the bouncer’s expression when they left him.

“I’m glad we have this settled.” Flurry smirked and walked into the casino. It was pretty crowded; ponies flocked to the tables, playing craps, poker, roulette, blackjack, and other games Flurry didn’t know. Rows of slot machines stood by the walls – most of them occupied.

“Not bad,” Rough Diamond muttered, watching as Rubik’s Revenge, Discrete Mathematics, and Card Trick walked to the blackjack tables. “Try not to control too many minds.”

“Nah, I’d rather not.” Flurry looked around and walked to the craps table. The croupier passed her some chips while she stared at the table, trying to figure out the rules. “How do I play this?”

“You bet on the outcome of the roll,” the croupier replied.

“Ah, okay.” Flurry tried to levitate the dice, but they didn’t budge.

“They’re all enchanted,” the croupier said. “So unicorns don’t tamper with them.”

Flurry nodded. “Who’d even try that? But I think I’d rather play something less random.”

“We can play poker.” Rough Diamond pointed at another table. There were still two free seats there; Flurry took the seat next to some old lady while Rough Diamond sat between a bearded stallion who looked a bit like Sunburst, and a young mare with long, green hair. The rest of the players were some huge, muscular earth pony, and a changeling mare.

“Got some crystals?” The stallion smirked at Rough Diamond who rolled her eyes.

“Bite my shiny crystal ass,” she muttered.

“I’d be afraid of losing my teeth.”

“Oh, this may still happen.” Rough Diamond looked at the table and threw some chips on it. The green-haired mare followed by posting the big blind.

Soon, two cards landed in front of Flurry. She looked at them and smirked – it was a pair of black sevens. Flurry raised her head and looked around the table. The players were focusing on their cards, seemingly uninterested in what the others were doing. Flurry, however, noticed that the big earth pony was taking quick looks at her.

“Check,” Rough Diamond said, putting two five-bit chips on the table. Flurry’s mind went into overdrive; the mental image of Rough’s cards was a bit blurry at first, but soon it cleared, showing that her friend had, quite fittingly, a king of diamonds and a seven of diamonds.

Get out of my head, Rough Diamond thought. I can see you.

Don’t worry, I’ll help. Flurry immediately switched to the mind of the green-haired mare, who also decided to check.

Soon, she was flooded with memories. The green-haired mare was, in fact, a male changeling in disguise. His name was Scapula, but as of late he was known as Green Fairy. There was nothing special about his cards, though; just a queen of hearts and a nine of clubs.

“Are you just going to sit and stare?” the bearded stallion asked Flurry.

“Oh yeah…” Flurry smiled sheepishly and grabbed her chips. “Raise.”

“First time here?” the old lady asked. “Say goodbye to your money. Raise.”

Good luck, with that jack of diamonds and two of clubs, Flurry thought. She also learned that the old mare’s name was Royal Card and that she used to play cards on a casino by the lake about sixty year ago; apparently she drank all the whisky, banged all the stallions, and then someone burned down the casino by casting a spell that lit the ceiling on fire. The memories of smoke over the water were suddenly interrupted by the old mare thinking that it’d be fun to bang the changeling. The mental image made Flurry blush. She quickly left the old mare’s head and decided to check what was going on with the big stallion.

His memories were a bit hazy; Flurry could tell he was from some place pretty far away and that he spent quite a lot of time firing a minigun at someone. The previous raises scared him too; with a jack of clubs and three of diamonds, he decided to fold.

Changeling’s mind was surprisingly tough to read. Flurry guessed it was because, unlike Scapula, she was in her true form. After a while, she managed to read that her name was Axilla and some blurry memory of the hive. Her cards, however, remained a mystery.

“Okay.” The bearded stallion grabbed the cards and dealt the flop. Flurry barely managed to keep a straight face when she saw a four of hearts, four of clubs, and ten of diamonds.

You’d better fold, she thought to Rough Diamond.

No shit. Rough Diamond rolled her eyes. “Fold.”

“Fold,” Scapula/Green Fairy said.

“Raise.” Flurry looked at Royal Card.

“Raise,” the old mare said.

What does she have? Rough Diamond’s voice rang in Flurry’s mind.

Nothing at all, Flurry replied just as Axilla decided to fold. At the last moment, Flurry managed to get in tune with her short-term memory and saw an ace of hearts and a jack of spades.

Then why doesn’t she fuck off? Or die?

She might as well do both. Flurry smirked.

“Fourth street now.” the bearded stallion put the card on the table. “Ready to part with your money, ladies?”

Flurry looked at the new card – two of hearts. “Raise,” she said, adding more chips to the pot.

“You’re a crazy one, kid,” Royal Card hissed. “Wanna play sharp? I’ll show you sharp. Raise.”

The bearded stallion shook his head and put another card on the table. Flurry sighed with relief, seeing that it was a king of hearts.

“You need to work on your face,” Royal Card whispered to her. “You keep blushing and smiling… I can almost read your mind. You were bluffing the whole time and now we’ll see that.”

“Almost, yeah.” Flurry smirked. “And you have to work on your cards.” She turned the cards, revealing a pair of sevens.

“Aww, shit,” Royal Card muttered as Flurry levitated the chips towards herself.

The game went on. Soon, there was a sizeable stack of chips in front of Flurry and only a bit smaller one in front of Rough Diamond. Several players, including both changelings, ran away from their table. The zebra in a uniform sat next to Rough Diamond for a while and soon lost what looked like half of his country’s military budget. Royal Card shuddered and grabbed some pills from her purse.

Just as Flurry folded right in time to avoid Royal Card’s pair of aces, Warm Spring walked to them. “Rubik’s Revenge says their system works,” she whispered. “They won two thousand bits in blackjack. How are you do–” Her eyes widened when she saw Flurry’s chips. “How much is that?”

“Around fifty thousand. I lost count.” Flurry shrugged. “Can you get me something to drink?”

“No problem.” Warm Spring put a cup in front of Flurry.

“Thanks.” Flurry took a sip. “Eww… This beer tastes like piss.”

“I’m doing my best,” Warm Spring muttered.

Flurry looked at her unsurely, but decided not to question this, especially since something else caught her attention. For some reason, their table got empty. Royal Card disappeared somewhere, just like pretty much everyone. Only Flurry and Rough Diamond stayed, each with their chips still in front of them.

Rough Diamond looked at Flurry, but before she could ask a question, three stallions walked up to them. All of them wore expensive suits and, for some reason, tinfoil hats.

Flurry chuckled. “What happened? Did we win enough to buy this place?”

The stallion in the middle smirked and looked at her. He had an eyepatch and his face looked like someone used it to sharpen knives at some point in the past. “Funny you mention that,” he said. “Let’s just say we keep an eye on those who win in suspicious circumstances.”

“What is suspicious about this?” Rough Diamond asked, trying hard not to notice the stack of poker chips in front of her.

The stallion furrowed his eyebrows. “You’d better come with us.”

“We aren’t going anywhere,” Flurry said, trying to reach the stallion’s mind. Unfortunately, all she got were some blurry images, distorted by the tinfoil.

The three stallions chuckled. “Nice try,” the one with the eyepatch said. “But it’s not enough.”

“You’ll go too.” The other stallion aimed a fire extinguisher at Warm Spring.

Do we fight? Rough Diamond thought.

Not here. Flurry stood up. “I still think it’s a misunderstanding.”

“We’ll see.” The stallions led Flurry, Rough Diamond, and Warm Spring to a room in the back of the casino. Rubik Revenge, Discrete Mathematics, Card Trick, Midnight Dancer, and Midnight Knight were already there; Card Trick had a black eye.

“The bats talk too much,” the stallion with the eyepatch said. “Not the best idea telling the bartender how you got here.”

“Well, controlling the bouncer’s mind was a new thing,” the other stallion said. “He still seems like he has cat food instead of brain. You’re an interesting bunch of kids.”

“For the record, I only met them today,” Card Trick muttered. “I’m a lawful citizen. Card counting is not a crime.”

“Shut up!” the stallion with the eyepatch exclaimed. “Normally, we only kick ponies out–”

“Well, sometimes we ask them which limb they want to have broken,” the other stallion said.

“– but this is something different,” his boss finished, ignoring him. “That’s why we called the police.”

The door opened. Copper Top and Babs Seed walked in, looking at the scene.

“Well, well, well,” Copper Top said, looking at Flurry. “Who do we have here?”

Flurry spread her wings, ripping her vest apart. “I can’t get arrested!” she exclaimed, charging her horn. “I’m a princess!”

“Whoa!” Midnight Dancer’s eyes widened as she looked at Flurry’s wings. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Get down and cover your ears!” Flurry aimed her horn at the wall. “We’re get–” She dropped on the ground, hit by the stunning spell from Babs’ crystal gun.

“A princess playing poker, huh?” Copper Top took her sunglasses off. “Now that’s what I call royal flush…”

“Yeah,” Babs muttered.

5. Zugzwang

Flash stood in the middle of the throne room, trying not to yawn. Given that he just came back from Manehattan after a long travel in a cage guarded by two policemares, it was a futile task. However, the sight of Princess Cadance sitting on her throne and staring at him was a powerful motivation.

“I have good news,” Cadance said, her tone as cold as ice surrounding the Crystal Empire. “They said that if we drop police brutality charges, they won’t mention to the newspapers that the youngest princess of Equestria fooled her guard and won, if I recall correctly, fifty thousand bits in poker, not to mention the thirty thousand young Rough Diamond managed to–”

“If I can say something…” Flash gulped, gathering courage. “I’m pretty sure Rough Diamond also played a part in–”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Cadance waved her hoof. “I tried to contact Blood Diamond and tell him about his daughter’s latest exploits, but he’s currently in one of his mines in Zebrica. Some problems with the workers.”

“Oh really?” Flash furrowed his eyebrows. Unlike him, Flurry and Rough Diamond made it back to the Crystal Empire in a comfortable carriage. Locked and with bars in the windows, but still comfortable.

“I’d suggest dropping that tone,” Cadance said. “After our lawyer pointed out that rules of the casino don’t ban reading minds when playing poker, we got those eighty thousand bits back. It was more or less enough to pay my daughter’s new friends–” she rolled her eyes, “– so they’d keep quiet about this event. Some of them wanted to pay a visit, but they’re all equi non gratae in the Crystal Empire.”

“Understood,” Flash replied. “So, what will happen to me?”

“Oh, I considered sending you to one of our military bases in the Frozen North,” Cadance replied. “But Shiny said you’re a good guard, so I’ll let you stay here.”

Flash sighed with relief.

“You’ll still be my daughter’s personal guard,” Cadance said. “Apparently Shiny trusts you.”

Flash cursed under his breath. “Good for him,” he deadpanned. “What about Flurry?”

Cadance sighed. “I guess she’s getting bored here, hence this unfortunate situation…” She shook her head. “But don’t worry, we’ll find her something to do…”

Just like many places across Equestria, the palace in the Crystal Empire had a room dedicated solely to playing chess. However, probably due to the fact that it had been built during the reign of king Sombra, the one in the palace looked like it had been designed by someone who was definitely compensating for something.

There was a large chessboard on the floor in the middle of the chamber, with dark squares made of obsidian and white squares made of marble. Each player stood on one of two balconies on the opposite sides of the chessboard. Sombra had used his slaves as chess pieces, but Cadance commissioned a new set, made of marble and obsidian, just like the chessboard. Those turned out to be rather heavy and the set, just like the big chessboard itself, was rarely used.

Two large hourglasses filled with crystals stood by the wall; each of them was connected by an intricate chain of cogwheels and pulleys to the lever at the balcony, allowing the player to switch to the other hourglass after each move.

“F4,” Flurry said, pulling the lever. They didn’t use the marble and obsidian pieces since her chess teacher, Fine Gold, was an earth pony and couldn’t levitate them. Instead, a group of foals from the local magic kindergarten got dressed as chess pieces and stood on the board, thus having the first contact with the favourite game of the princesses.

This proved to be difficult. Not all of the foals could read and square coordinates meant nothing to them. Also, at first no one wanted to be a pawn. Then, during one of the games, Fine Gold promoted a pawn to a queen and since then, everyone wanted to be a pawn. Some of the foals were rather ambitious too; when Flurry blundered a rook, he decided to resist capture by biting the incoming bishop.

“Very suspicious,” Fine Gold muttered, looking at the chessboard. Flurry’s centre looked quite impressive; four pawns stood in the row on the fourth rank, protected by the knight standing behind them and both bishops still on their starting squares. “Still theory, though. Castle kingside.”

“How?” the foal playing the role of the black king asked.

Fine Gold sighed. “Go to g8,” he replied and pointed at the colt who was the black rook. “You, with the crazy comments go to f8.” He turned to Flurry. “Last week, they had a tournament. In one of the games, both kids castled with the queen… and it was still the best game in the tournament.”

Flurry let out a brief chuckle, but she was still focused on the board. She couldn’t read Fine Gold’s mind; they actually used the big chessboard because the players were too far from each other for her telepathy to work. “Knight to f3,” she eventually said.

Fine Gold thought for a moment. “This position occurred thousands of times before. Ponies play c5 in this position, knight to a6, bishop to g4… Actually, let’s play bishop to g4.”

The black bishop moved towards the knight Flurry just played. She couldn’t move it again, though – her queen was on the same diagonal as the bishop.

Flurry decided not to rush things. “Bishop to d3,” she said. Her bishop – a short pegasus filly – stood behind the pawn in the middle and immediately started talking with the knight right next to her.

“Time to castle, huh? Knight to c6,” Fine Gold said, smiling. The group of foals in the middle of the chessboard just kept getting bigger.

Flurry looked at the bishop, still standing next to her knight. She recalled that one time when she accidentally moved the knight in such a position and lost her queen. After that, the foals protested against her poor chess skills and threatened a revolution until Flurry let them eat cake.

“Okay,” she said, looking at her pawns. They didn’t move for a while and were getting bored. “Pawn to h3.”

The pawn stopped arguing with the rook behind him and moved a square forward to attack the bishop.

Fine Gold nodded and looked at the foals from the balcony. “So, Flurry’s knight is pinned by my bishop because I said so. She doesn’t like that and wants to get rid of my bishop. I can move back or I can take the knight. What would you do?” He looked at his kingside rook. “You, with the crazy comments!”

“Fries,” the black rook replied.

“Yes, the answer is fries,” Fine Gold said. “Bishop takes on f3.”

“Aww…” the white knight exclaimed, walking off the chessboard. The black bishop walked on her place proudly, only to realise there was the queen in front of him.

He chuckled. “I’m in danger.”

“Queen takes on f3,” Flurry ordered.

“I take you, you take me,” Fine Gold half-sung, half-muttered. “You’re the worst player in history…” He cleared his throat. “Knight takes on d4.”

“Oh, come on!” Flurry exclaimed, realising that she’d just lost a pawn for nothing. Even worse, her queen was under attack; thus, she immediately retreated to f2.

“Here we go again,” the kid playing one of Flurry’s rooks muttered.

“Don’t doubt my skills!” Flurry exclaimed. “We’re just down a pawn.”

“Just?” the captured pawn asked.

“No worries, I’m attacking his knight,” Flurry replied. “Or not,” she said when Fine Gold retreated his other knight, allowing his fianchettoed bishop to protect the knight on d4. “Actually, I’d better castle.”

“How do I do that?” the white king asked.

Flurry rolled her eyes. It took quite a lot of crystals in her hourglass before her king finally understood castling and Fine Gold already had a new plan in mind. His knight moved to c5, threatening one of Flurry’s bishops. Flurry retreated it all the way to the back.

Fine Gold scratched his nose. “Never play f6,” he muttered. “Actually, let’s play f5. Raawr!” His pawn charged forward towards Flurry’s defences.

“E-pawn takes on f5,” Flurry said.

“G takes on–” Fine Gold paused. “Knight–”

“You wanted to capture with the g-pawn first.” Flurry smirked. “That counts as touching a piece.”

Fine Gold nodded. “I’ve seen countless games between young unicorns that were lost because someone levitated the wrong piece,” he said. “Let it be, then.” He turned to the foals. “Why was it bad to take with a pawn? You, with all the good answers!”

“Because you wanted to open the position?” the black pawn on a7 asked.

“Correct,” Fine Gold replied. “But don’t worry, I’ve been playing g takes on f5 before you were born.” He looked at Flurry. “Even you.”

Flurry looked at the chessboard and realised her queen was standing in front of Fine Gold’s rook, separated only by her own pawn on f4 and his pawn on f5. On the other hoof, Fine Gold’s bishop was standing in front of the king an if she was able to pin it, she could even checkmate him later. “Queen to g3,” she said.

“Now that’s very suspicious.” Fine Gold smirked. “King h8.”

“Rook e1,” Flurry replied.

“E5!”

“Pawn takes on e5.”

“Rook takes on e5.” Flurry looked at the board and realised Fine Gold’s bishop wasn’t exactly pinned to the king anymore. “Oh, sh–”

“Shh, kids are listening,” Fine Gold said. “Actually, if I took your rook, you’d win my bishop and knight and that wouldn’t be frankly, obviously ridiculous.” He looked at the board. “Knight from c to e6… No, not you, the other one.”

“Rook back to e1,” Flurry said, realising that the knights were now protecting each other.

“Retreating like a Prenchman?” Fine Gold asked. “I guess f4 is the best move here.”

Again, Flurry had to move her queen forward to avoid capture. The f-pawn moved even further towards her ranks. Flurry retreated with the king, but took back with it after the rogue pawn took the pawn on g2. Said pawn wasn’t happy – the filly playing it didn’t get to move at all.

Suddenly, Flurry saw her chance. Her light square bishop was aimed at the pawn on h7, right in front of Fine Gold’s king. If she could move the queen in there, she could get a surprise checkmate.

She moved her queen to h4.

“Knight f5, or as I say it, knife f5,” Fine Gold said. The knight standing on f5 blocked the diagonal for the bishop and attacked her queen. Flurry realised she could take it with the bishop, but then it’d get taken by Fine Gold’s rook, stopping her plan.

She moved the queen back to g4. As a response, Fine Gold took her knight on c3 with his dark-square bishop. Flurry took back with the pawn on g2.

“Trading down to the endgame?” she asked.

Fine Gold shook his head. “Rook g8.”

Flurry took a breath to tell her queen to move back, but then she realised she was in trouble. Her king was standing behind her queen, so it was unable to move out of the rook’s way.

“Shit,” Flurry muttered. Several kids laughed.

“Are you gonna cry like a grandmaster?” one of them asked.

“Eh, it’s not over yet,” Flurry replied. “Queen takes on g8, check.”

“Rook takes on g8, check,” Fine Gold said. The hourglasses barely had time to turn.

“King f3.” Flurry looked around the chessboard but there weren’t many options.

Fine Gold turned to the kids. “As you can see, the princess still has both rooks and a bishop pair. All of them are standing in the first rank, doing great job to protect the king. Queen to g3, check.”

“King e2,” Flurry said, realising that resigning was most definitely an option.

“Queen g2, check.”

“King d1.” After making a move, Flurry suddenly realised her king had pretty much nowhere to go.

“Rook d8, check.”

Flurry sighed.“I resign.”

“I see you read my book, Resign like a Grandmaster,” Fine Gold said. “Of course you could give up both of your bishops, but that’s still a checkmate in two.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Flurry muttered.

“Don’t worry,” Fine Gold said. “You’re still the best chess player in your chair.”

“Unless someone else is touching my chair?” Flurry asked, rolling her eyes.

“Well, if it’s him.” Fine Gold pointed at something behind Flurry. She turned back and saw Sunburst climbing onto her balcony. “Last time I played him, we played for six hours and it was a draw.”

“Not bad.” Flurry turned to Sunburst. “What’s going on?”

“Professor Yearling is ready for the lesson,” Sunburst replied.

Flurry nodded and looked at the chessboard. The foals decided to reenact the checkmate and were now arguing whether a bishop moving forward to tackle the queen was an illegal move. “Why do I have to learn chess?” she asked.

“One day, you may need strategic thinking and patience,” Sunburst said. “In fact, I’d say you need a lot of patience right now.”

Flurry shrugged. “But what about creative writing?”

This time, it was Sunburst’s turn to shrug. “Well, you sure do have a lot of creativity…”

The first rays of the rising sun pierced their way through the old, colourful glass of the royal chamber, casting kaleidoscopic shadows on the lustrous floor tiles. Flurry Heart sat at the old, mahogany desk, littered with all sorts of writing utensils, pieces of dusty parchment, and notebooks filled to the brim with small, neatly-formed letters. In front of her, on a red oaken chair, sat an older mare whose light gold coat, hidden under a lavender dress wore countless marks of a stormy youth. Her mane, once black, was in several shades of darker and lighter grey, but her mulberry orbs were still sharply piercing her fledgling apprentice with a stern gaze.

“Not bad,” Professor A.K. Yearling declared firmly. “However…” She hesitated for but a little moment, which was enough for Flurry to quietly shudder in anticipation of what was to come. “You’re using too many adverbs.”

“Oh,” Flurry retorted. “I always thought I was supposed to do that.”

“Of course.” A.K. Yearling looked around the suite, her gaze focusing on the intricate details of the mosaic on the walls before she turned her orbs back to the text in front of her. “Also, did you happen to swallow a thesaurus?”

“Excuse me?!” Flurry ejaculated.

“Really, I wasn’t sure some of these words existed,” A.K. Yearling pontificated. “Then I realised you’ve either made ‘amperthrouciously’ up or it’s some slang word from Crystal Empire I’m not aware of.”

“I may have gone a little creative with it,” Flurry challenged acidly.

“And sometimes your use of dialogue tags has nothing to do with what is spoken,” Professor Yearling murmured. “Speaking of, did you banish the word ‘said’ from your vocabulary?”

“Well, I don’t want to keep repeating it,” Flurry explained.

A.K. Yearling looked over at Flurry’s attempt at writing and shook her head. “Then use some character’s actions to fill the space. You’d avoid telling instead of showing too.”

Flurry nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Also, there’s really nothing wrong in simplicity,” A.K. Yearling said. “It’s hard to keep the reader interested if they have to look up every second word or get lost in some long and meandering sentence.”

“You’ve just said ‘meandering’,” Flurry replied.

A.K. Yearling smirked. “Well, sometimes you have to break the rules.” She stood up, walked to the window and looked at the snowy plains surrounding the Crystal Empire. “So, where are those ruins of Crystalia your father told me about?”

“Pourquoi dois-je apprendre cela?” Flurry asked, looking at the book in front of her. She’d been learning Prench for three days and she still had no idea how to pronounce half of the words. The other half she pronounced wrong.

Sunburst said something in Prench. Flurry didn’t understand a single word, but she reached into his mind and saw an image of herself having a conversation with some Prench noble. She had to applaud his imagination; the noble looked like a proper Prench pony dressed in a fancy suit. The whole scene took place in some nice jardin among the marble statues.

“Ah, I see,” Flurry replied. “Though I think my mom prefers to represent the Crystal Empire among foreign nobles.”

“Still, one day, Celestia forbid, you may take the mantle.” Sunburst shuddered.

Flurry shrugged. “Why’d I need languages if I can just read their minds?”

“Because reading minds without consent is considered rude among the upper class,” Sunburst said. “Speaking of, as far as I know, among lower class it’s considered a good reason to get stabbed.”

Flurry smiled sheepishly. “It’s not like they know. Although now when I think about it, I have trouble connecting to the mind of someone thinking in another language. Different wiring, I guess.”

Sunburst froze. “You know what? Maybe we’ll switch to classical languages first. Like Old Horse.”

“Why?” Flurry asked. “Nopony speaks it anymore… Except maybe uncle Rockhoof.”

“That’s exactly the reason,” Sunburst replied.

“So, how are the classes?” Rough Diamond asked, looking at the chessboard. Flurry just played d4, so she eventually levitated a pawn and played d5 just to stay safe.

“I still suck at chess.” Flurry moved her bishop to f4.

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s common.” Precious Gem grabbed another slice of pizza. She was technically the host of this little party; after a day of classes and guard training outside the town, both Flurry and Rough Diamond decided to hide in her room in the back of the library.

“If it was, I’d have no idea either.” Rough Diamond shrugged and played knight to f6. Flurry played knight to f3 and Rough played her other knight to c6. “I don’t even know what I’m doing.”

“It seems so.” Precious Gem turned to Flurry. “So, how was the writing class? I’ve heard your dad brought A.K. Yearling here.”

“She seems more interested in ancient ruins.” Flurry moved a knight to c3. “But I wrote quite an interesting romance story when she wasn’t looking.”

“I’ve read it,” Rough Diamond muttered, moving her bishop to f5 to completely mirror Flurry’s position. “I don’t think it’s quite accurate.”

“Yeah, it’s not.” Precious Gem looked at the chessboard and shook her head. “Also, Flurry’s writing again? I miss the Long Lost Sombra’s Daughter series. Will you continue it?”

Flurry blushed. “I was thirteen! Also, for once my mother was right. It was a phase.” She moved the knight to b5.

“So yeah.” Rough Diamond shrugged, looking at the chess pieces as if she saw them for the first time in her life. It was partially true – the set, made of white beryl and black agate belonged to Precious Gem. “For starters, I don’t think the ‘princess goes to Royal Guard barracks and gets ravaged’ qualifies as a romance story.” She looked at Precious Gem and moved a pawn to a6. “Am I right?”

“Do you mean the game or Flurry’s writing?” Precious Gem took a bite of her pizza. “The answers are, in order, no and yes.”

“Ah, okay.” Rough Diamond smirked. “Also, it’s not true that new female guards are given, as you put it, a ‘test ride’ by everyone else at the barracks.”

“No?” Flurry sighed and took the pawn on c7 with her knight, checking the king and forking the rook. “Too bad.”

“My ass begs to differ.” Rough Diamond chuckled and took Flurry’s knight with her queen. “I tried to woo one guy once, but I may have pushed him too much. I’d say his soldier didn’t want to salute.” She cursed under her breath when Flurry’s bishop took her queen. “What do I do now?” she asked.

“Resigning is an option,” Precious Gem said.

“Yeah, I guess.” Rough Diamond shrugged. “Why do I even play chess? I should probably go find somepony with a harder spear and get warm before tomorrow’s training. Anytime we leave the town, I almost freeze my ass off.”

“I suggest pants.” Precious Gem set the pieces on the board again and pushed the pawn to e4 with her wing. “As for the guards, you probably shouldn’t look for anyone while Captain Sentry still keeps an eye on you.”

“Indeed.” Flurry levitated her pawn and put it on e5. “I’d make him forget about us, but he lined his helmet with tinfoil.”

“Guess you’ll have to settle on some unconventional solutions, then.” Precious Gem smirked and moved her king to e2.

Flurry raised her eyebrows. “Wait, what the hell?”

Author's Note

Teaching your daughter chess – best way to make her a cultured supervillain (though right now she plays either impressively-looking but ridiculous openings or oldest tricks in the book. Also, believe it or not, the move Precious Gem plays is called "Bongcloud Opening"

6. A Hovercraft is a Ship Too

The building must have once been a tall, crystal spire overlooking the plain with pride, showing every newcomer that the rule of Princess Amore was standing strong. However, years of falling snow flattened it almost completely, leaving but a pile of now-unearthed ruins.

The temperature was rather warm for Frozen North, which meant that Rough Diamond could actually stop her teeth from clattering. However, she noticed the thin layer of ice on exposed parts of her crystal coat and started to pace around to avoid freezing. This, however, caused snow to get into her metal boots, soaking the socks she’d put under her armour against the Crystal Guard regulations regarding uniforms. At least they had camo pattern, even though it was completely useless in the snow.

“I get why you’re here,” Pristine Emerald said, his breath creating a vapour around his head. “But why am I here?”

“For the same reason,” Rough Diamond replied. “To keep us away from Flurry.”

A.K. Yearling emerged from the ruins. Unlike the two guards, she didn’t seem to notice the cold. “Come with me!” she exclaimed. “I found something interesting!”

Rough Diamond and Pristine Emerald followed her into the building, slipping on the remains of mosaic on the floor and tripping over the pieces of crystal debris.

“Look!” A. K. Yearling pointed at some dark shape lying on the floor. When Rough Diamond and Pristine Emerald walked closer, they saw a frozen body of some mare in a toga, lying on the floor. It was almost perfectly preserved, staring at them with an expression of mild annoyance. There was some minor damage to the body, probably caused by the building falling apart, as well as a quite obvious spear piercing her chest.

“She must’ve been an important official of Princess Amore.” A. K. Yearling sniffed the air, looking at the broken objects in the room. “Sombra’s soldiers actually surprised her in the lavatory, it seems. But she still managed to get one before her death.” She pointed at the pile of charred bones held together by a melted armour lying in the corner.

“Great,” Pristine Emerald muttered. “Can we go home now? She’s staring into my soul.”

A.K. Yearling shook her head. “We need to transport the body to the lab without unfreezing it or else it starts to rot.”

“Just awesome.” Rough Diamond looked at the sleigh they’d pulled all the way to the ruins of Crystalia, with A. K. Yearling and her equipment. The professor refused to help them, pointing out that she’d turned seventy last Summer. “At least we don’t have to worry about the unfreezing part. Not until we reach the town.”

“Oh, you won’t have to go back to the town,” A. K. Yearling replied, smiling and reaching for her saddlebags.

“Now she’ll sacrifice us to the old gods of the Crystal Empire,” Pristine Emerald whispered into Rough Diamond’s ear.

“My lab will come to us.” A. K. Yearling grabbed some device from her saddlebags and pushed a button.

Pristine Emerald sighed. “Or she’s just crazy.”

"May be both, actually," Precious Gem replied.

Suddenly, they heard the loud, buzzing sound. A large cloud of snow appeared on the horizon and flew towards them, the buzzing growing louder.

“See? She summoned the gods to take us.” Pristine Emerald looked around and grabbed his spear.

The cloud stopped by the ruins. The snow fell, revealing a hovercraft the size of a large house. It was painted white, although some cracks in the paint revealed that it used to be khaki-coloured not a long time ago. Two large propellers were still spinning in the back of the vehicle when a ladder lowered from it.

“Hello, grandma,” said the young colt who emerged from the vehicle. “What did you find?”

“A perfectly preserved body from the old Crystal Empire era,” A. K. Yearling replied. “Get Deep Pit here and help me.”

Rough Diamond’s jaw dropped. “Where did you get that?” she asked.

“Writing books pays,” Pristine Emerald muttered. "Who'd think?"

"Not you," Rough Diamond said. "The longest thing you've ever read was a limerick someone wrote on the wall of the toilet."

A. K. Yearling chuckled. “Books and, uhh… prizes for finding some long-lost artifacts. Also, filming rights.”

“I thought the movie was a disaster?” Rough Diamond asked.

“Whenever I watch it, I wipe tears from my eyes with my cheque book.” A. K. Yearling smirked. “And don’t stand like this! Go and help me with that body!”

While Rough Diamond was on her way to become an archeologist, Flurry had more important things in mind. Her dress just got delivered – regardless of their owners’ exploits, the dresses from Rarity For You would always arrive on time.

Now, however, came the difficult part.

“No, you still sound like you’re reading it,” Sunburst said, watching as Flurry levitated his notes in front of her.

“Maybe because I’m reading it?” Flurry shrugged. “What am I supposed to sound like, then?”

“You need to make it sound natural,” Sunburst replied.

Flurry’s eye twitched, prompting Sunburst to levitate a silver tray in front of himself. “How am I supposed to make it sound natural?!” she exclaimed as a lightning struck somewhere in the background. “I’ve never in my life said something like, ‘I hope my efforts will contribute to the well-being of this community’. Why can’t I just tell that I hope we’ll have a fun time together?”

“Because you’re a princess and princesses–”

Flurry looked around to see if any guards were there. “As a princess, I command you to stop worrying about my speech.” Her eyes lit up. “That’s an order.”

Sunburst froze. “I’ll stop worrying about the speech,” he said in a mechanical voice.

“See?” Flurry smirked. “That was easy.”

“Actually, it wasn’t,” Sunburst replied, this time in his normal voice. “Your mind control and mind reading abilities can be stopped by a layer of tinfoil 0.016 millimeters thick, wrapped around the cranium. Obviously, it only works on weak minds.”

“Yes, because yours is so strong…” Flurry muttered.

“I’m taking care of you for sixteen years and I’m still alive, so I don’t complain,” Sunburst replied. “Also, I’d watch out with casual mind control. Remember what happened to Sombra? Because that’s how you get Sombra.”

“I always thought it was because ponies didn’t like crystal stairs.” Flurry shrugged.

“And then he forced them to like crystal stairs,” Sunburst replied. “You start with small things and then suddenly you find yourself overthrowing the princesses.”

Flurry chuckled. “Small things, you say?”

“Well, those things may also play a role in this,” Sunburst said. “Some say that the real cause of Princess Amore’s decline was disruption and unrest in her harem.”

“So she did have a harem!” Flurry exclaimed.

“In case anyone asks, you don’t know that from me.” Sunburst smirked. “Now, let’s get back to the speech. Just highlight the parts that seem unnatural to you and we can change them.”

“Okay,” Flurry said. “Guess we can polish it on the train.”

“We’re not taking the train,” Sunburst said. “Professor Yearling offered us her hovercraft. It’ll be faster and, from what I’ve heard, more comfortable…”

Flurry smiled. “Lots of small places to hide and, uhh... discuss speeches. And the engine noise will drown the sounds… of me practicing public speaking, yes.” She blushed. “I’ll be right back.”

She teleported out of the room, landing in the toilet near her rooms. She walked to the sink and poured some water on her face. She almost expected steam to come out of it.

“What am I doing?” she exclaimed. “Why do I keep imagining Sunburst like this…”

“For starters, you should stop teleporting into toilets,” Rough Diamond muttered from one of the stalls. Flurry heard the sound of flushing water and her friend walked out of the stall, her steps slightly stiff and shaky. "I was just reading an interesting limerick."

“What’s up?” Flurry asked, trying to sound casual.

“I think my ass has frozen off, my armour broke when I tried to take it off, and I totally didn’t hear what you said about Sunburst,” Rough Diamond replied.

“Ah, that’s go–” Flurry froze. “Wait.” She turned to Rough Diamond. “You heard it.”

“Well, of course, I was just sitting in the shithouse, minding my own business when someone teleports next to me and mentions something about imagining Sunburst rutting her senseless!” Rough Diamond rolled her eyes. “What was I supposed to do?”

“I didn’t mention rutting him senseless,” Flurry replied.

“I guessed the rest from your face.” Rough Diamond walked to the sink to wash her hooves. “See? I don’t need fancy mind tricks to know what you’re thinking about.”

“Okay, let’s assume I have some strange thoughts about him…” Flurry said. “What would you do?”

“Think that he could be my father and find myself a fi– colt my age.” Rough Diamond shrugged. “There’s what, a few thousand ponies in the Empire, right? After you eliminate most mares, everypony too young or too old, those that are too ugly or too dumb, those who are in the scouting detachments and prefer their own company, and, of course, that one creep who is into goats, then you still have–” She furrowed her eyebrows, making the calculations. “Okay, on a second thought Sunburst is not that bad.”

“See?” Flurry sighed. “What am I supposed to do?”

Rough Diamond pointed at the stall. “Go there, beat around the bush for a while and if you still like him after you’re done, then go for it.”

“I’d rather not blow up the door again,” Flurry muttered. “I guess I’ll be in my bedroom, then.”

She focused to teleport, but before she could do that, the door burst open and Precious Gem walked in.

Rough Diamond rolled her eyes. “This is a big castle. Why does everypony go to the same shitter as me?”

“I’m just visiting,” Precious Gem replied and turned to Flurry. “So, I’ve heard you’re going to Ponyville.”

“Well, it’s an official visit, so–”

“Can I go with you?” Precious Gem asked. “Princess Twilight owns a few rare books I’d like to look at.”

Flurry shrugged. “Well, I think my parents decide who goes and–”

“Please, I have to go there!” Precious Gem exclaimed, embracing Flurry’s legs. The smell of her coat was enough to get contact buzz, so Flurry backpedalled.

“Ask my mom,” Flurry said. “I’m pretty sure she’ll be glad to help you with research. I can tell her a word too.”

Precious Gem smiled. “Thank you!” she exclaimed. “That’d be, like, great!” She kissed Flurry’s cheek and ran off.

“What the hell was that?” Rough Diamond asked.

“I don’t know, but I almost offered her sexual favours in exchange,” Flurry replied. “And it’s your fault.”

“Hey, I’m not turning ponies gay!” Rough Diamond exclaimed. “Except of scouts, but they’re already a bundle of sticks.”

“Obviously,” Flurry replied. “And now I’m off to my bedroom. Princess duties.” With these words, she teleported away.

Cadance yawned. The day was getting rather hectic, even without the junior librarian suddenly bursting out of the closet and asking if she could go to Ponyville. Cadance agreed on a reflex. She didn’t quite expect a hug and a kiss on the cheek, but she guessed some ponies just loved their princess so much.

And now there was the hovercraft. Cadance would much prefer to take the train; it was big and comfortable, with a fully functional kitchen in one of the carriages. The hum of its wheels was soothing and she could sleep in it as well as in her own bed. However, when Shining realised that he had one in a lifetime opportunity to ride in Daring Do’s hovercraft, he couldn’t resist to ask A.K. Yearling to give them a lift.

And so she was, sitting in a cramped room and watching the waves below them. She thought she’d have to stop doing that; she felt a bit nauseous.

She got up and straightened her wings, deciding to take a short walk. The deck of the hovercraft wasn’t exactly the most interesting place in the world, but it was still better than her room.

Cadance barely managed to get out of the cabin when someone ran into her, bouncing off of her flank and dropping on the deck. She only shrugged, looking down and seeing Sunburst trying to untangle his cape which, as Cadance noticed, was completely soaked in water. She shook her head and lifted him with her magic.

“Thank you.” Sunburst put on his glasses and blinked. “Your highness! It’s you!”

“Well, of course,” Cadance muttered. “Don’t bother apologising, I’m used to ponies bumping into me as of late. What happened?”

“Your daughter,” Sunburst replied.

“Again?” Cadance sighed. “What is it this time?”

“She’s acting a bit... weird.” Sunburst shrugged.

“Weirder than usual, you mean?” Cadance asked.

Sunburst responded with a slow nod. “Well…”

Of all the places, the stern of the hovercraft must’ve been the worst. The deck there was constantly going up and down and the propellers were making wind blow, threatening to rip Sunburst’s cape off of him. What was worse, the hovercraft was now going down the river, which meant the water kept pouring on him.

Flurry, however, didn’t seem to mind. She held the railing, her eyes closed and her wings spread. “I’m flying!” she exclaimed.

“You can fly just fine,” Sunburst muttered. “And in some dry place. Get back to the cabin before you catch cold. We’re still not done renovating the west wing after the last one.”

“Oh, come on!” Flurry lit her horn, pulling Sunburst towards herself. “Do you want to fly too?”

“I’d rather not…”

“Do you trust me?” Flurry asked.

“Umm…” Sunburst backpedalled, but Flurry embraced him, yanking him closer to the railing.

“Come on!” she exclaimed. “Show me the whole new world or something!”

“Are you alright, princess?” Sunburst asked. “I mean, I don’t think this hovercraft ride is good for your health. You’re getting quite excited and–” He was abruptly cut off when Flurry kissed him.

Sunburst froze. It had nothing to do with water pouring on them. Then he broke the kiss and turned back, opting for a tactical retreat.

Flurry sighed and shook her head. “Oh, come on!”

Cadance nodded. “Okay, this is not completely unexpected.”

“It’s not?” Sunburst asked. “I mean, I was supposed to–”

“Teacher crush. Typical,” Cadance replied. “Trust me, I’m an expert on that.”

“How–”

“Princess of Love.” Cadance rolled her eyes. “I think that’s what they call me. Also, apparently even Celestia had a crush on Starswirl the Bearded. Don’t worry, she’ll get over it in a week or so.”

“Are you sure?” Sunburst asked. “She seemed pretty serious about it.”

“She’s sixteen.” Cadance smiled. “At least it’s you and not some pompous fool. At least you won’t leave her heartbroken, right?”

Sunburst froze. The princesses had this effect on ponies – especially Sunburst. “Me? Her? H-heartbroken?”

“Cheer up,” Cadance said. “Maybe you’ll even find it fun. Or at least my daughter may teach you something. Like getting rid of some of your more annoying habits which, of course, are not a problem at all, but–”

“What habits?” Sunburst asked.

“Asking too many questions, for example.” Cadance sighed. “Come on, Sunburst. We have a long way to Ponyville. Go to my daughter and be polite. Maybe you should discuss literature? I’ve heard from professor Yearling that she has some talent.”

“Oh, she sure does,” Sunburst muttered. “Precious Gem told me she’s working on a romance novel involving royal guards or something.”

“See?” Cadance patted Sunburst’s back. “It’s gonna be fine.”

Despite Cadance’s assurances, Sunburst decided that the safest option was spending the rest of the cruise hiding in the bilge. It didn’t quite work as planned; one of professor Yearling’s sidekicks found him and, since he was soaked in water and oil, as well as covered in barnacles, dragged him to the bathroom.

Even though the hovercraft was generally cramped and poorly maintained, the bathroom, belonging to professor Yearling herself, was a work of art. Somehow, despite limited space, someone managed to put a hot tub the size of a small swimming pool there, complete with a sauna, some showers, and a professional masseuse, a huge, muscular mare with an accent, who was rather disappointed by the fact that Sunburst didn’t have wings.

“Vings are mein specialty,” she said. “I’m putting professor Yearling’s vings togezher all ze time. But at least zey didn’t complain.” She pointed at Precious Gem and Flash Sentry, who were currently sitting in the hot tub. Flash kept rubbing his wings with his hooves and eyeing Precious Gem unsurely. When he saw Sunburst, he sat straight and furrowed his eyebrows.

“Nice to see you,” he said in a cold tone. “Precious Gem just told me an interesting story about you and the princess…”

Precious Gem opened one eye. “Oh, there you are, dude. Flurry is looking for you everywhere, you magnificent beast. Not cool, leaving her like that.”

“We’re not a thing!” Sunburst exclaimed. “And we won’t be, even if Cadance wants me to!”

Flash raised his eyebrows. “Wait, Cadance? She’s a part of it too?”

“Yes, but she hopes Flurry will get over it in a week!” Sunburst groaned. “And for the record, I’m not the one sitting in a hot tub with a teenager!”

Flash lowered his voice to a whisper. “That masseuse put us here. It’s really hard to say no to her.” He looked around to make sure the masseuse wasn’t within earshot. “Try to break free and she’ll break you.”

“Just great,” Sunburst whispered back. “At least the princess isn’t here.”

Suddenly, the door opened and Flurry came in, followed by Rough Diamond. “I came for the wing massage!” she exclaimed.

“Hey, a hot tub!” Rough Diamond exclaimed. “And I see Precious Gem already took the best place.”

“Yeah, and I found Sunburst.” Precious Gem looked around, only to find out that Sunburst was trying to either hide underwater or drown himself in the hot tub. “Get out, dude,” she muttered. “The princess is here.”

Since Sunburst didn’t respond, Precious Gem unceremoniously dragged his head out of the water with her wing. Flurry and Rough Diamond took their places in the hot tub, despite Flash rolling his eyes and Sunburst trying to drown himself again.

“Let’s face it,” Flash said, getting Sunburst out of the water. “If someone takes a photo of us and it leaks to the papers, we’ll both get reassigned to the border with Yakyakistan. So enjoy hot water while you still can.”

Sunburst sighed, watching as Flurry splashed water on Rough Diamond. “I just want this trip to end…”

The masseuse walked to them with the camera. “Smile, please!” she exclaimed.

Author's Note

The only pony Cadance constantly expects to burst out of the closet is Rough Diamond. Also, when Flurry asks Sunburst if he trusts her, I almost had him say, "well, yes, but actually no".

7. Baked in the Bakery

Starlight Glimmer ran away from the welcome party as soon as she could. There was nothing strange in that; she just felt that it was more of a family gathering than anything else, and although Twilight did tell her that she was a part of the family, she much preferred to catch up on more important things, like sleeping.

Since Twilight’s new princess duties distracted her from the School of Friendship and Sunburst got dragged back to the Crystal Empire once Flurry hit puberty, Starlight had to take over most of the school-related stuff, which meant that she didn’t even notice when ‘sleep is for the weak’ became her motto. Even when she started to hide half of her paperwork in the drawers, assuming that if no one asked for it, it wasn’t important, the other half was enough to keep her awake.

She just closed the door of her bedroom and was about to drop on her bed when she saw that someone was already in it. Instinctively, she grabbed the silver tray lying by the door, but she realised that the pony under the blanket was too small to be Tempest Shadow, who had a rare talent to wind up in other ponies’ beds, as well as a tendency to blow up anyone who’d dare to wake her up.

Starlight thought that it could’ve been Trixie. Whenever Tempest decided to sleep in Trixie’s bed, Trixie would then go to sleep in Starlight’s bed, forcing Starlight to go and wake Tempest up. Since Starlight was usually too tired for this, she’d often try to kick Trixie out of her bed or just lie next to her, which obviously started rumours.

However, when Starlight levitated the blanket off the pony, she saw Sunburst cowering on her mattress. A smile adorned her face.

“Finally, you decided to come,” she said. “I hope it’s not the last time tonight…”

“Well, I’m hiding,” Sunburst whispered.

“Oh, you can hide here as long as you want,” Starlight replied. “Do you want some wine and scented candles?”

Sunburst smiled sheepishly. “Nah, I already got hot stone massage and ended up in a hot tub with the princess…”

“Cadance?” Starlight raised her eyebrows. “A bold move, very surprising from you. Of course you know that when Shining finds out, he’ll revive the old royal tradition of hanging, drawing, and quartering?”

“N-no, it wasn’t Cadance,” Sunburst replied, trying to hide deeper in Starlight’s bed. “Actually, I–”

“Did you bang Twilight?” Starlight asked. “Great, I still have a chance for a threesome. Though when Shining finds out–”

“It’s not Twilight!” Sunburst exclaimed. “I ended up in a hot tub with Flurry Heart!”

Starlight’s eyes widened.

“If that helps, Flash was also there,” Sunburst muttered. “As well as two other mares, but–”

“Sick.” Starlight smirked. “Will I be enough or do I have to bring Trixie and Tempest to match that? You wouldn’t believe what Tempest learned in the Storm King’s army. As for the hot stone massage, we can go to the spa. But meanwhile, when Shining and Cadance find out, you’ll hope you only get hanged, drawn, and quartered.”

“Cadance kinda knows,” Sunburst replied. “I told her that Flurry fell in love with me and she said that it’s fine because she’ll forget about it soon. I’d say the sooner the better. This is already getting out of hoof.”

“Eh, no problem,” Starlight said. “I always felt you prefer more mature mares anyway. Let’s see if the welcome ceremony already ended. Pinkie is preparing a big party this evening. Did someone get Flurry a dress?”

“Actually, it’s a very funny story.” Sunburst chuckled. “Well, for once it wasn’t my fault, so I found it funny…”

“You’ll tell me later,” Starlight replied. “There are more interesting things to do in this bed. As for Flurry, I guess she’ll be in her room, trying the dress… Hmm…” She stood up and walked to the door. “Let’s go, Sunburst.”

“Where?”

“To someone who can help you out of this situation,” Starlight replied, opening the door.

The preparations for the evening party were in full swing. Starlight had to dodge Pinkie twice while walking across the room and Sunburst nearly got shot with a party cannon. Starlight, however, didn’t care. She stormed through the chaos and trotted towards the two ponies carrying a large cake.

“Hey, you!” she exclaimed. “Baker’s son!”

The teenage pegasus colt turned to her, almost dropping the cake. The unicorn filly behind him lit her horn, grabbing it, and sent him a glare.

“My name is Pound, Ms. Glimmer,” the pegasus said.

“Yeah, whatever,” Starlight replied. “Would you be so kind to take one of those cherry cakes upstairs, to Princess Flurry Heart’s room. I know she loves them.”

“Hey!” the filly exclaimed. “We still have to carry this one!”

“He’ll be right back, Carrot,” Starlight replied. “Besides, you’re a unicorn. You can deal with it.”

“It’s ‘Pumpkin’,” the filly said. “Why do you keep mistaking me for Carrot Top? She’s old.”

“You should be glad I’m not the Dragon Lord Ember,” Starlight muttered. “She once spent a weekend with me and Trixie and I think she’s still convinced we were both Twilight Sparkle.” She turned to Pound. “What are you still doing here? Get the cake and go to her!”

“How do you know Flurry likes cherry cake?” Sunburst whispered.

“Once, Trixie and I babysat her. She stole some from the bakery.”

“That’s terrible,” Sunburst muttered. “But I’d say she didn’t change much. Do you know what she and her friends once did to steal the cookie jar? One of the kitchens is still haunted after they summoned a wraith to–”

“See?’ Starlight smiled. “This will totally work.”

“What?” Sunburst asked.

“Hormones,” Starlight replied. “Speaking of, we can go to the spa now. Maud invited me recently and I’d say you could learn a lot from her.”

“Really?”

“Yes,” Starlight said. “Her husband is a total nerd too, but they managed to produce four foals, in accordance with the best Pie family tradition. Sticks, Stones, Bones, and Words. That last one actually gave Pinkie a heart attack.”

“Okay, I already learned one thing,” Sunburst muttered.

“What is it?”

Sunburst looked at Pound, who was walking upstairs with a cake. “Never have kids…”

It took Pound a while before he found the princess’ room. In fact, he got a bit lost in Twilight’s castle and the only reason why he eventually found his way were the noises coming from behind one of the doors.

Pound walked closer, his ears perking up. From what he heard, he could tell that someone was getting mad because the knife couldn’t fit under a dress. Pound furrowed his eyebrows and leaned closer to the door. Before he could hear something more, someone opened the door, causing him to lose balance and fall on the floor, barely saving the cake with his wings.

He looked up to see a tall, off-white crystal pony with dark mane, currently tied in two rather messy braids. Her purple eyes were screaming murder when she levitated the knife.

Pound suddenly realised why the knife couldn’t fit under her dress – it was simply the size of a machete.

“Who are you?” the mare asked. “Why are you sneaking here?”

“Pound Cake, son of the owners of the Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie Pie was my foalsitter, Ms. Glimmer told me to bring this cake to the Princess!” Pound exclaimed really fast, trying to shield himself with the cake.

“Rough, chill out.” This voice, despite being high-pitched and cracking slightly, had some commanding note to it. Pound felt the sudden urge to bow and was surprised that Rough didn’t cower immediately.

“Your Highness,” he said, seeing the young alicorn walking towards him in a blue dress. He didn’t know much about dresses, but he had to admit it looked very nice.

“Just ‘Flurry’,” Flurry said. “Don’t call me ‘princess’, ‘your highness’, ‘your majesty’, or whatever you come up with.” She turned to her crystal friend. “Rough, stop aiming at him with that knife. He might get nervous.”

“This cake may be poisoned,” Rough replied. “How do we know Ms. Glimmer sent him? Remember that it is my duty to protect you or something.”

“Great,” Flurry deadpanned. “Why don’t you take a bite of this cake first? We’ll see if it’s poisoned.”

Rough’s expression faltered for a moment. “We can always feed him,” she replied. “If he doesn’t want to eat, then it means he knows it’s poisoned and we’ll kill him. Unless he knows it’s poisoned but he’ll eat it and die anyway. One never knows what’s wrong with anarchists.”

“You do realise there’s a possibility it’s not poisoned?” Flurry asked.

“Nonsense!” Rough Diamond exclaimed. “Why would someone bring us a cake that isn’t poisoned?”

Pound gulped. “Umm… Because they know the princess likes those cakes enough to steal them from the bakery when she was a foal?”

“Ah, I see you’ve heard of it,” Flurry said. “Yes, I see auntie Starlight’s hoof in it…”

“What?” Rough asked.

“One of the embarrassing foalhood stories,” Flurry replied. “Just like, ‘Flurry once shot down a pegasus while skeet shooting with magic’ or ‘when Flurry was a baby, she ate a coin’.” She rolled her eyes. “I also bit king Sombra, almost destroyed the Crystal Empire twice, walked on water, peed in the ball pit, and turned a bottle of my mother’s milk into whisky. Apparently this means I’m destined to do great things.”

“M-maybe,” Pound replied. “So, uhh…” He looked at the door.

“You can stay,” Flurry said. “We can get some tea and eat that cake, I guess.”

“Where are you gonna get tea from?” Rough asked. “I don’t think you can magick it out of thin air…”

“No, of course not,” Flurry replied. “You can’t really get food out of thin air, though nothing stops me from conjuring a tea plant and treating it with an age spell…” She lit up her horn, causing some tea leaves to appear on the table in the middle of the room. “Of course teleporting some from the kitchen is easier.”

“Of course,” Rough Diamond muttered. “How about teacups? Or water, for that matter?”

“Teacups are easy.” Flurry replied, conjuring three teacups that landed on the table. “Auntie Trixie taught me that. As for water…” A small rain cloud appeared in the middle of the room. Flurry squeezed it, making water pour from it into the cups. Flurry’s horn flashed, heating the water.

“Does she always do that?” Pound asked.

“Well, once she conjured a cow because I wanted milk in my coffee,” Rough Diamond replied. “But it wasn’t a very good cow.”

“Did she kick?”

“Nah, Flurry messed something up and the cow was inside out, with all the guts and stuff on display.” Rough shuddered. “I didn’t want coffee anymore. Later Sunburst told us you can’t just magick something alive and expect everything to work properly. Too many complications.”

“Yeah, and besides, that was a bull,” Flurry muttered, putting a cup of tea in front of Pound. “Hydraulics problem. So, how are you?”

“F-fine,” Pound replied. “I, uhh…”

“Don’t worry about Rough,” Flurry said. “That’s just how she rolls. Are you going to be at the party? If it gets boring, we can always go and hide somewhere. Do you play poker?”

“Don’t play poker with her.” Rough Diamond smirked. “She reads minds.” She saw Pound’s expression and chuckled. “No, she’s not reading yours right now. If she did, you’d feel it. Or maybe it’s just me who feels like wind blows through my brain whenever she does that.”

“Rough, stop. You only feel wind because, as Precious Gem once said, there’s a lot of empty spaces in your skull.” Flurry levitated a piece of cake towards Rough Diamond and stuffed it into her mouth. “What else can we do in this town? It seems the party will be boring.”

“Well, I don’t know if what we do here will be, uhh… suitable,” Pound said. “I mean, when we’re not running away from monsters, we usually go to a pub or listen to stand-up comedians, or karaoke, or–”

Rough Diamond finally swallowed her piece of cake. “Karaoke?”

“Do I have to remind you what happened last time you tried to sing?” Flurry sighed. “At least they managed to put this guard’s leg back where it should be.”

“Hey, it wasn’t my fault,” Rough Diamond replied. “The sea turtles–”

“Yeah, we all know that story.” Flurry turned to Pound. “So, what else can we do here? If you’re into this sort of thing, I’ve heard Precious Gem smuggled a bag of weed in her luggage…”

Pound just looked at her. The days when someone offered him a bag of weed were pretty rare and situations when said someone was an alicorn princess just never happened to him at all. He heard all princesses were weird, but he couldn’t really tell – after all, the only princess he’d see on a daily basis was Twilight Sparkle and, as Rumble told him, she was weird even before becoming an alicorn.

“Hmm, speaking of Precious Gem…” Rough Diamond said. “Where is she?”

The little room in the back of the library was filled with smoke. Twilight really felt she should be going to the party, but this strange filly who introduced herself as a junior librarian from the Crystal Empire was just too interesting of an interlocutor.

“So, this crystal.” Precious Gem inhaled the smoke from the bong and started to draw something on a piece of paper. “Three gigathaum hours of raw magical energy over the span of seventy-two hours.”

“That’s not possible,” Twilight replied. “I mean, there were attempts, but still no one managed to carry on the Cold Stone-Apple Polish Ritual. Such an energy is just too unstable to contain it for seventy-two hours.”

“Eh, we did it.” Precious Gem waved her hoof in a somewhat disjointed manner. “Well, not the ritual itself, but the crystal thing is easy. You just need lead covers.”

“Lead covers?” Twilight asked. The smoke was making her somewhat hazy.

“Lots of lead covers!” Precious Gem exclaimed. “One technician raised his head from behind the lead cover and now he can read at night without a lamp.”

“Interesting.” Twilight smirked. “Tell me more about it.”

“Of course you have to watch out for probability effect,” Precious Gem said. “Dude, like, normally there’s no way a fly turns into a dragon and scares the shit out of you, right? Now, like, if that fly flies next to a hypercharged crystal core…”

Twilight chuckled. “Fly flies. A core. Right.” Suddenly she felt the world was a much nicer place than just a few minutes before.

“Yeah, not to mention the hedgehog. It got into our lab, then it grew bat wings, changeling horn, and it wasn’t a hedgehog anymore but some clusterfuck, man.” Precious Gem shrugged.

“Happens to the best of us,” Twilight said. She wanted to add something more profound, but the door opened and Tempest Shadow, yet another member of the colourful group of formerly-evil unicorns living in Twilight’s castle as well as the self-proclaimed Princess of Kicking Ass and Ranged Weapons Maintenance stood in it.

“Are you two smoking?” She sighed. “The party is about to start and Sunburst and Starlight went missing, your brother keeps stealing cake, Princess Cadance is still having sea sickness and I didn’t have time to find Flurry because we had to put Pinkie on meds again.”

Twilight furrowed her eyebrows. Her alicorn liver went into overdrive, clearing her body of any toxins she’d inhaled. “Don’t worry,” she said. “This party is going to be perfect!”

Filled with new energy, Twilight quickly managed to gather everyone in the castle. Flurry and her entourage were found in their room, along with Pound Cake. Finding Sunburst and Starlight took a bit longer; they arrived fashionably late, still dressed in white bathrobes from the spa. They didn’t miss much, though – just a noisy welcome recited by two of Maud’s daughters, Joy Sticks and Harsh Words. By the end, Sticks forgot her lines, which ended with both sisters getting into a fight.

“Can we start betting on who wins?” Rough Diamond asked when Maud dragged both fillies away.

“I’d say Harsh Words,” Pound replied. “She’s just like her aunt Limestone.”

Rough Diamond looked at him as if she was surprised he could talk. “That is?”

“Somewhat crazy.” Pound shrugged. “She’s always first to punch someone if necessary. Same if it’s not necessary.”

Flurry poked Rough Diamond. “Sounds like you’d be soulmates.”

“Can you pretend I didn’t tell you to shut up?” Rough Diamond asked. “Since you’re a princess and stuff.”

“Mostly stuff,” Flurry replied and turned to Pound. “Do you have more of this cake?”

Pinkie dropped on the seat next to them and took a deep breath. “This cake, that cake, all the cake in the world…” she whispered. When she saw Pound sitting next to Flurry, her lips formed a half-smirk. “Hey, I see you’re aiming pretty high!”

“I’m not aiming anywhere.” Pound blushed. “Ms. Glimmer–”

Rough Diamond chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry about her. Flurry is kinda free, right? Unless you count Pristine Emerald, but he’s a moron and I’m pretty sure he never baked a cake in his entire life. So, if you want to talk about buns, ovens, and other stuff like that–”

“Rough, for the love of auntie Celestia, shut the fuck up,” Flurry muttered, blushing even more furiously than Pound. Ponies passing by could feel a minor earthquake; lights flickered, disrupted by the raw magic.

“Water?” Pinkie asked, producing two glasses out of nowhere. She gave them to Pound and Flurry. “Or maybe it’s vodka. Hard to tell, these days.”

Flurry took a sip. It was actually gasoline, but she turned it into vodka with one quick spell.

“Okay, okay,” Rough Diamond said. “Maybe at least you’re into crystal ponies? Or have a brother who is? Do you know that if you cum inside a crystal pony, you can kinda see–”

“Rough, chill out,” Flurry muttered.

“I have a sister,” Pound replied, spitting his drink when Pinkie looked away. “She’s sitting over there and, judging by her expression, she wonders why I’m with you.”

“A sister?” Rough shrugged. “Will do.”

“You’re really bored, aren’t you?” Flurry asked. After the first sip of vodka, she decided to turn it into lemonade, but the spell didn’t quite work.

“Kind of,” Rough replied. “Where’s Precious Gem?”

“Drinking punch with some ginger unicorn,” Flurry replied.

“If you see Twilight dance, then it means the punch is spiked,” Pinkie whispered.

“You spiked the punch, didn’t you?” Pound shook his head. “Also, that’s my sister Pumpkin over there.”

“Not bad.” Rough Diamond stood up, taking a look at Pumpkin. “Let’s get this party moving.”

Flurry and Pound followed her. When Pumpkin saw her brother, she furrowed her eyebrows.

“Where have you been?” she asked. “I had to carry everything with mom and dad.”

Pound smiled sheepishly. “Well, the Princess–”

“Oh, who gives a fu–” Pumpkin turned her head and faced Flurry. “I mean, I don’t have anything against princesses, but my brother can be a lazy piece of–”

“Shit?” Rough Diamond asked. “He doesn’t quite look the part.”

“Well, I was just trying to avoid saying that in front of a princess,” Pumpkin muttered. “Who the hell are you?”

“My filly-in-waiting, I guess,” Flurry said. “A part of her job is saying unpopular opinions and other stuff like that.”

“Really?” Pumpkin asked.

“No, but she’s a natural.” Flurry chuckled. “We considered making her a jester, but she beats the ponies that laugh at her. Even if they don’t actually laugh at her, but she thinks they do. I see you’ve met Precious Gem.”

“I was just sharing my brownie recipe,” Precious Gem said. “I’m pretty sure it’ll be a great contribution to your family’s bakery.”

“Well, this town is already weird without everyone getting baked,” Pumpkin replied. “Do you know how many days we had without a monster attack? Two.”

“One, if you count, as mom put it, Pinkie’s hormones getting crazy.” Pound shrugged.

Pumpkin lowered her voice to a whisper. “I’m telling you, she’s pregnant. That’s why she’s going haywire as of late. Especially after uncle Cheese had to go to Manehattan.”

“Monsters would probably bother me more if I didn’t live in a place that may freeze over if someone accidentally breaks the most fragile magical artifact ever known to ponykind,” Rough Diamond said, ignoring Pinkie’s issues, despite the danger they presented. “Which already happened, if I recall correctly.”

“You can’t really recall something that happened before you were born,” Flurry said. “And I apologised. Many times.”

“Two days before I was born.” Rough Diamond shrugged. “Though maybe Precious Gem remembers more.”

“Well, the first year of my life was always cold,” Precious Gem said. “Anyway, the brownies may have a magical effect on monsters. Like, throw one at Ursa Major and it’ll be like a teddy bear.”

“Yeah, because a stoned bear the size of a building is what this town needs.” Pumpkin rolled her eyes. “My previous coltfriend ran back to Fillydelphia after the last jackelope infestation.” She shrugged. “Maybe I shouldn’t have told him that they’re relatively harmless, compared to what usually–”

“So, your coltfriend left you?” Rough Diamond asked. “Happened to all of us. But I’m pretty sure that, for example, your brother–”

“I’m not interested in banging my brother,” Pumpkin said quickly. “But go ahead. I’m always in for some scandal in the royal family.”

“Hey!” Pound exclaimed, blushing. “I just brought her a cake, that’s all. And it was Ms. Glimmer who told me to do that.”

“Well, here we are, with the Princess,” Pumpkin replied. “And Ms. Glimmer is now trying to kiss that weird guy with glasses, so my bet’s on the punch being spiked. Maybe even by Spike himself.”

“I can confirm,” Flurry said. “My aunt is currently dancing with my dad and it’s even worse than usual.”

“Do you think we should evacuate before Tempest tries some magic?” Pound asked. “Do you remember when she got drunk and challenged Trixie to a magic duel?”

“At least they managed to get rid of the crater.” Pumpkin sighed. “Apparently Ponyville construction teams got better at that since that one time Scootaloo cloned herself.”

“So it’s true?” Rough Diamond asked.

“Of course it is.” Precious Gem smirked. “I met a few of them in the Empire. They had that ridiculous idea that if we ever rebuild Crystalia and Chalcedonya, we can clone some crystal ponies to boost population, but Princess Cadance said it’d be easier to do it, like, the natural way, if you know what I mean.” She moved her wing in a suggestive gesture.

“Yeah, that’s how cloning goes,” Flurry said. “Once you start, you can never stop.”

“Just don’t clone yourself.” Rough Diamond smirked. “Equestria wouldn’t last two hours.”

“I’m not planning to,” Flurry said. “So, do we stay here and wait till the discussion starts revolving around buckball, or do we go somewhere else? Like upstairs?”

“We can also go to the bakery,” Pumpkin replied. “It’s empty now and there’s plenty of space in there.”

“I’ve never been to a bakery, myself.” Rough Diamond furrowed her eyebrows. “Except maybe that one time when I was looking for the toilet and–”

“Be careful not to put any bun in the oven.” Precious Gem grabbed her bag. “I think I have everything we need.”

They walked towards the door, but before they reached it, Flash Sentry jumped from behind one of the tables and stood in front of Flurry.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“We’re going to the bakery with my new friends,” Flurry replied, her eyes lighting up. “And there’s no way to stop me.”

“Tinfoil and lessons with Sunburst.” Flash smirked. “I’m now immune to your mind tricks.”

“Dad!” Flurry exclaimed. “Can I go out with my friends?”

Shining Armor appeared next to her almost immediately. Like any dad, he could easily hear his daughter’s voice, even in the loudest noise. “Nice,” he said. “You’re finally making friends!”

“I reckon me and Precious are just servants?” Rough Diamond muttered.

“Precious and I,” Precious Gem whispered.

Rough Diamond raised her eyebrows. “Rough and you?”

Shining Armor ignored her, instead looking at Pound. “Though on the other hoof… Who are you?”

“Pound Cake,” Pound replied. “Pinkie Pie used to foalsit me and Pumpkin. When we were ten, you visited her when our parents weren’t home and–”

“Ah, now I remember you.” Shining Armor looked around and sighed with relief when he saw Cadance talking to Rarity on the other side of the room. “So, where exactly are you going with my daughter?”

“He and Pumpkin wanted to show us the bakery,” Flurry said, using her magic to temporarily block the Broca’s area in Precious Gem’s brain – she heard in Precious’ thoughts that she was just about to repeat her joke about buns in the oven.

“Well, if you’re together…” Shining shrugged. Next to him, Precious Gem opened her mouth, only to find out that it didn’t quite connect with her brain. “It’s not like we didn’t wander around the town at night, right, Flash?”

“Yes,” Flash replied. “It ended badly when we arrived at the barracks at 4 AM and broke the door.”

Shining chuckled. “Well, at least my daughter isn’t a guard. And she’s not breaking any doors.”

“Yeah, she aims higher,” Flash muttered. “My bones, the universe…”

“Hey, I never broke your bones!” Flurry exclaimed before turning to her friends. “Let’s go to this bakery!”

“Watch out for Pinkie’s stuff,” Pumpkin said, turning on the light. “I’m not responsible for anyone getting hit with a ton of party hats hidden somewhere in case of a party hat emergency.”

“Where can I get a party hat?” Precious Gem asked.

Pound reached under one of the tables. “Here they are,” he replied.

“Cool.” Precious Gem put on a party hat and smirked. “So, what are we gonna do? I have–”

Rough Diamond rolled her eyes. “Not the weed again. We don’t have anything to eat here.”

“Well, we can always make something,” Pound replied. “Like cupcakes. There’s a whole cupcake laboratory in the basement.”

“Or brownies.” Precious Gem turned to Pumpkin. “Remember that recipe, you know…”

Pumpkin smirked. “Hmm, this could actually be fun. We have flour, vanilla sugar…”

“No eggs,” Pound muttered.

“Und keine Eier,” Precious Gem said. “Eggs won’t be necessary.”

Flurry chuckled, remembering the last time Precious Gem baked her brownies. While the kitchen in the bakery wasn’t as big as the one in her castle, but the oven was quite impressive and the rest of the equipment was shiny as if it was brand new.

“Can I do that?” Flurry asked when Pumpkin started to mix batter. “I mean, normally we have servants who do that, but I always wanted to–”

“Sure.” Pumpkin chuckled, giving Flurry her bowl and turning to Rough Diamond. “Do you need help with that?”

“My batter turned into concrete,” Rough Diamond replied, turning her bowl upside down. “I guess I accidentally made the armour-piercing cheesecake.”

“Weren’t those banned by Geneighva convention?” Precious Gem asked.

“Only the use against unarmoured targets,” Rough Diamond replied. “You may nerd out about whatever you want, but you can’t beat me at military history.”

“Did someone actually ever bother with the convention?” Flurry shrugged. “I mean, if someone’s attacking you and they’re foolish enough not to wear armour, then they may as well taste the cheesecake… Who’d stop me?”

“Fillies and gentlecolts, our future ruler.” Precious Gem smirked. “I guess the tribunal would need tinfoil hats, though.”

“Why?” Pound asked.

“They disrupt my mind reading ability,” Flurry replied. “But I’m working on it.”

Pound smiled sheepishly and turned to Pumpkin. “Do we have any tinfoil?”

“You need to crumple it, so it distorts brain waves more.” Rough Diamond looked at her bowl. “What should I do with that?”

“Just throw it out the window,” Pound replied. “There’s a rubbish bin right underneath there.”

Flash slowly approached the bakery. Shining may have been laid back about it, but if something happened to Flurry or, more likely, Flurry happened to someone, it’d somehow be Flash’s fault, so at least he wanted to have some control over it.

It wasn’t like anyone in the bakery expected him to come. The lights in the kitchen were on and he could hear laughs, as well as muffled conversation. There was a rubbish bin right below the window. Flash looked around, hoping that there weren’t any ponies who could see him. Then he knocked at the bin, just in case there was some homeless pony inside. He’d once been bitten by one and needed several shots and a lot of medical check-ups before he was allowed back into the guard quarters.

After double-checking everything, he climbed on the bin. hoping that no one inside the building noticed his presence. However hope, yet again, turned out to be the mother of fools; just when he was about to look through the window, something heavy hit him, causing him to fall unconscious into the trash.

He lay there for a while, accompanied only by chirping crickets and meowing cats who tried to catch rats in the bin.

After a few minutes, two fillies emerged from the dark. They looked pretty similar to each other, except for the colours – one of them was pale violet with blonde mane, while the other was in different shades of rose and dark pink.

“Why are we fillies again?” the first one asked. “I see the School of Friendship has been rebuilt after the Scootapocalypse, but it must’ve been a while ago. The town also has some new buildings. We should be adults by now.”

The other filly shrugged. “Maybe the universe needs us to be fillies, Dinky. Also, this situation happened before.”

“What?”

“Us two, Tootsie Flute is gone, it’s the middle of the night and there’s an unconscious guy in the waste bin,” the rose filly said. “That’s a nice bin, by the way. My mother lived in a similar one in one of the realities we visited. Anyway, you were like, ‘Ruby, you can’t take this guy’s wallet’.” She rolled her eyes. “And then we ended up in the middle of an intergalactic war that will happen in two thousand years.”

“There’s no logical connection between you not taking this guy’s wallet and the intergalactic war,” Dinky replied. “Besides, I know him. Remember when we were guards in the Crystal Empire? That’s our captain.”

“Oh really?” Ruby opened Flash’s wallet. “That’d explain many things. But what is he doing here?”

Dinky’s eyes widened. “Hey, I remember this reality!”

“And?” Ruby asked.

“We’d better get out of here.”

Pumpkin looked around. The remains of two brownies lay on the table in front of her and focusing her gaze on Flurry was a bit of a challenge for her. In spite of that, her eloquence was just kicking in.

“Have you ever thought of being evil?”

“Why would I?” Flurry asked. She’d eaten a few brownies herself, but all she felt was just a pleasant buzz.

Pumpkin waved her hoof. “Because, like, you can. I mean, Princess Luna had this whole Nightmare thing, but when I asked Ms. Glimmer why she used to be evil–”

“– she told you that this never happened.” Pound replied. “And when you pressed, she explained you the theory of parallel universes and how nothing she’d done ever happened in our world.” He shrugged. “This sounded pretty evil, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, but I mean the possibilities,” Pumpkin said. “You’re an alicorn. Can you raise the dead?”

“Depends how complicated their brains are,” Flurry replied. “When I was eight, I revived a litter of frozen kittens. Then I tried to revive an old servant, but he came back as a zombie and started losing body parts. There was a lot of cleaning and mom was pretty mad. She told me to stop experimenting with necromancy.”

“So you’re saying you can create an army of the undead?” Pumpkin smirked.

“Why?” Flurry asked. “The body parts are really annoying to get rid of.”

“To rule Equestria, of course!” Pumpkin exclaimed. “Potentially, you could do that, right?”

“Why would I need an army of the undead?” Flurry shrugged. “There’s a simpler way: if I got rid of my aunts and my mom, I’d just inherit the throne legally.”

“Ah, so we just have to eliminate four ponies.” Pumpkin nodded. “Do you have any plans?”

“If I had, I wouldn’t tell them to you,” Flurry said. “But when I take over the world, Rough Diamond will get Oatstralia.”

“Yay,” Rough Diamond muttered. She was lying under the table with an empty bottle of wine Pinkie Pie had hidden in the kitchen in case of a wine emergency.

“What would I get?” Pumpkin asked. “Also, I guess Celestia would be the easiest. I mean, everyone always goes for Celestia and usually they succeed, so–”

“No idea.” Flurry shrugged. “Maybe she just doesn’t expect anything bad when the opponent looks harmless. Though I guess she’d drop the sun on me if I tried something funny.”

“Oh, I’d do it for you.” Pumpkin lowered her voice to a whisper and checked whether her brother was within earshot. Luckily, Pound was just sharing the last brownie with Precious Gem. “Who’d expect anything from a baker’s daughter, raised by Pinkie Pie herself? If we poisoned the cake…”

“Then you still have Luna to deal with,” Flurry replied. “How do we get rid of Luna? If I could control her mind, we could actually make it look like she’s in charge.”

“We blame poisoning Celestia’s cake on her, that’s simple.” Pumpkin smirked.

“Nah, we may need her as a figurehead.” Flurry furrowed her eyebrows. “Also, it’d be pretty cool to have bat pony guards. Maybe I’d move to Canterlot to be closer to her?”

“Yeah, after we arrange an accident for your parents,” Pumpkin said. “Then, as an orphan, you can gain sympathy of the crowds…”

“We’re not arranging any accident involving my parents,” Flurry replied.

“Oh, it doesn’t have to be right now.” Pumpkin shrugged. “After all, this may take years. Still, Twilight Sparkle escapes me. I don’t know how to defeat her.”

“That’s easy,” Flurry said. “Just sow discord between her friends. Not the god of chaos, just turn them against each other. Conflicting loyalties and such. This should confuse her.”

“But how to do that?” Pumpkin looked around. “Why are the brownies gone?”

“No problem.” Flurry lit her horn and levitated a stone lying on the windowsill. She closed her eyes and focused, turning it into a brownie.

Pumpkin’s jaw dropped. “You know you could solve world hunger with this? And drive us out of business, but well…” She took a bite of the brownie. “Not bad, though.”

“Oh, it’s not so easy to create food out of nothing,” Flurry replied. “In fact, I cheated. It’s still a stone, but it looks and feels like a brownie. You can eat it, but when it comes out, it may hurt.”

“Aww, hell.”

“One does not live by brownies alone,” Flurry said. “And as for Twilight, I recently started to play chess. It’s all about finding weaknesses in the opponent’s position, you know? We need to find such a weak spot among Twilight’s friends. I’d focus on Starlight or Rainbow Dash…”

“Pinkie is a wildcard,” Pumpkin replied. “We should focus on her, especially since Pound and I know her weak spots. Also, I’m like, sure she may focus on her own family soon. And once she’s off the stage, the group’s morale–”

She was interrupted by the sound of somepony clearing their throat. When Flurry turned towards the source of the noise, she saw Precious Gem staring at her and Pumpkin with the unusually stern expression on her face.

“Excuse me,” she said, piercing Pumpkin with her gaze. “I don’t know if you heard, but after spending a millenium under King Sombra’s rule, we, crystal ponies, greatly value peace.”

“So?” Pumpkin scoffed. “Go give peace a chance somewhere else.”

“Well, when someone gives Flurry ideas, I get the feeling that peace is in danger,” Precious Gem replied. “From what I’ve gathered, you envision yourself as some kind of villainous second-in-command. You do realise those usually end badly? Like, all those creatures who, as you put it, went for Celestia and succeeded now make pretty statues in her garden.”

“Yeah, and I know what mistakes to avoid,” Pumpkin replied. “Now, get lost, weed-smelling vagabond. We’re talking business.”

Precious Gem shrugged and for a moment it looked like she was going to follow Pumpkin’s advice. Suddenly, however, she raised her hoof, landing a powerful punch on Pumpkin’s jaw. The unicorn mare staggered in her seat before falling to the floor.

Flurry’s jaw dropped. “I swear, from now on I’m going to return books on time.”

“Well, I hope so,” Precious Gem replied. “Also, while we’re at it, if you ever do become evil, remember that I need a bigger library.” She looked at Pumpkin. “Hmm, should I give her the manuscript of my Cozy Glow biography or will she learn all the wrong things from it?”

Flurry shook her head. “You already have the second biggest library in the world.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m talking about.” Precious Gem looked at drunken Rough Diamond sleeping on the floor next to unconscious Pumpkin. “Should we find some nice couch for these two before we return to Pound? After a few brownies, he got really fuckable.”

“After he ate them or you ate them?” Flurry asked. “Because it may not be enough for me.”

Precious Gem shrugged. “Both.”

Flurry looked at her and sighed. “Okay then…”

Author's Note

Deep lore for newcomers:

8. This Means War

While growing up, Flurry often heard her aunt Twilight complaining that her wings wouldn’t let her sleep, getting in the way whenever she wanted to turn. Flurry, being born an alicorn, usually didn’t have such problems. This morning, however, it was different.

The stiffness in her joints felt like it was going to kill her. Her wings were sore and numb. She had a horrible headache, made even worse by her telepathy going into overdrive for some reason – she felt like she heard a faint echo of the thoughts of everyone in town. What was worse, for some reason her fur was wet and a chill breeze in the room made her shiver.

“Where am I?” she muttered.

“In the shower. Tell me, Flurry, why do you have to have standards?”

Flurry opened her eyes and saw Princess Luna standing in front of her. She gasped and backpedalled, banging her head against the tap. A bottle of shampoo fell on her and landed in front of Luna’s hooves.

“What standards?” Flurry blurted out.

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember.” Luna rolled her eyes. “Just because the guy threw up just when you were going to kiss him doesn’t mean you can storm off like that.”

“What?”

“Especially since Precious Gem didn’t mind,” Luna said. “She does that funny thing with her wings, you know, just before the guy comes she grabs his–”

“I don’t want to hear about this!” Flurry exclaimed, cowering as her voice echoed across her skull. “And I don’t want to have anything to do with a guy who throws up on me!”

“Shame,” Luna replied. “Aside from that little detail, I must say that he did quite well. You should–”

“No,” Flurry replied. “That wouldn’t be very princesslike.”

Luna furrowed her eyebrows. “Pardon, but I think I have bigger experience on what is princesslike and what is not. Although I am ashamed to admit that after coming back from the moon, my standards lowered a lot. I pretty much regret most of the stallions I had sexual congress with in the first two years after coming back. And later, King Thorax.”

Flurry’s eyes widened. “King Thorax?”

“Do not bother,” Luna replied. “This baker’s son is much more passionate. You can just ask Precious Gem.”

“I’d rather not.” Flurry shuddered. “Why do you even sneak here and watch them have sex? Or why did you want to watch me?”

“Oh, sometimes I just get the previews, especially when someone’s mind was altered by chemicals,” Luna replied. “Eat enough brownies and you can accidentally get a threesome with me, I am afraid. It is terribly inconvenient when you have a meeting with your subjects and behind the wall a Lunar Guard high on fermented mango juice is, as you young ponies say, fadoodling the hoofmaiden like there is no tomorrow…”

Flurry covered her ears. “Auntie Luna, please… Do my parents know that you’re telling me about this?”

Luna smirked. “They do not have to. Besides, it is better to have some theoretical knowledge, before engaging in some basket-making with a stallion and if you have any questions–”

“Basket-making?!” Flurry exclaimed.

Luna shrugged. “I think they call it ‘making hooves for foal stockings’ these days.”

“By Celestia’s balls, why does my life have to be that way?” Flurry rolled her eyes. “Colts throw up on me and my crazy aunt is stalking me in the shower to tell me about the sex life of her guards.”

“Celestia’s balls?” Luna chuckled. “That’s a new one. I need to share it with her. Also, if that’s any consolation, Flash Sentry also had a bad night. He just woke up in the garbage bin near the bakery.”

Flurry froze. “What was he doing here?”

“Oh, be not afraid.” Luna winked. “After tasting the projectile that hit him, he is convinced that you are making weapons of mass destruction.”

“This doesn’t help,” Flurry muttered.

“It kind of does.” Luna smirked and ruffled Flurry’s mane. “Also, have you ever considered him as a partner? And tell me not about age difference. Pretty much all my partners are younger than me.”

“No, thanks,” Flurry replied. “I already convinced Sunburst that I’m in love with him–”

“Ah, I forgot you are no stranger to older partners,” Luna said. “How is he? It is really interesting that your mother also had those kind of dreams about him when she was younger. As far as I am aware, they–”

“I don’t want to know about this!” Flurry exclaimed, charging her horn and firing a spell at Luna. The older princess didn’t dodge; the spell went right through her and hit the wall, sending broken tiles and debris across the whole bathroom.

Luna looked at her chest and furrowed her eyebrows. “If this was my actual body and not an astral projection, I would be deeply disturbed. Was this the Battle Spell Number Fourteen from the Great Book of Terrific Battle Spells by Incendiary Device?”

“Yes.” Flurry blushed, avoiding Luna’s gaze.

“My sister can do a better one,” Luna replied. “If she fired it at me, the pieces of this house would be everywhere from here to Hoofington.”

Flurry furrowed her eyebrows.

“Cheer up,” Luna said. “You are not the first princess who fired a potentially lethal battle spell at someone else in a fit of rage. And probably not the last.” She looked at the hole in the wall. “I will better go. It seems that Rough Diamond just woke up and she has the hangover of her life.” With these words, she disappeared.

“Astral projection, huh?” Flurry muttered. “Next time I’m using the Battle Spell Number Eighteen, then. She’ll feel that even in Canterlot.”

The bathroom door opened and Rough Diamond walked in, dragging her hooves. She looked at the hole in the wall, then turned to Flurry and shrugged before walking to the toilet.

Flurry shuddered. “What are you gonna do there? I’m traumatised enough today without you taking a dump.”

“Don’t worry,” Rough Diamond muttered, leaning over the toilet to throw up.

“This doesn’t make it any better,” Flurry said, wincing. “Why does everyone keep throwing up when I’m around?”

“I don’t have an alicorn liver, you know.” Rough Diamond wiped her mouth and looked at the hole in the wall again. “Premature conjuration?” she asked.

“Princess Luna, don’t ask,” Flurry replied.

“Still better than my day so far,” Rough Diamond said. “I woke up on the couch with Pumpkin. Who gave her that black eye? Was it me?”

“Precious Gem, believe it or not.” Flurry sighed. “Guess I won’t become a supervillain anytime soon.”

“I seem to be missing some context.” Rough Diamond walked to the sink to get a sip of water.

“I’ll tell you later,” Flurry replied. “Now, we need to find–”

“Hello, girls!” Precious Gem walked into the bathroom. She was wearing a silk bathrobe and smoking a cigarette. “How’s your da–” She was rudely interrupted when the Battle Spell Number Fourteen flew past her head and made another hole in the wall. “What was that for?”

“Premature conjuration,” Flurry muttered.

Shining Armor took a sip of his coffee. Whatever Pinkie had put in the punch didn’t serve him well; or maybe it was the bottle of wine he drank with his wife and sister after most of the guests went home. He scratched his head and realised that there were at least three bottles, which would explain why Twilight was still snoring in her room. Shining also had a vague recollection of some earth mare who emerged from under the table when everyone was asleep and told him to help her drink the rest of the champagne or else it’d go to waste. The dull headache was a clear sign that he obliged.

He took another sip of his coffee, thinking that it’d be much easier to take if gods didn’t decide to punish him further and send Flash Sentry.

“I know this taste,” Flash said. “For some reason they are making armour-piercing cheesecake. They even attacked me with it when they found out that I saw them.”

Shining sighed. “Flash?”

“Yes?”

“Get out. That’s a royal order.” Shining looked at the coffee mug. “I’ll talk to Flurry about the armour-piercing cheesecake later. For now I have to–”

The door to Shining’s room burst open. Shining and Flash looked up and saw a chubby blue mare. For some reason, she looked rather furious; Shining felt that her gaze was piercing him and staring at his very soul. He suddenly understood why mailponies around Equestria were advised not to ask about Mrs. Cake.

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice dripping with ice. “I’d like to talk to you about the holes in my walls… Among other things, including a crystal pony throwing up in the bathroom and clogging the toilet.”

“Told you,” Flash said. “Armour-piercing cheesecake. It’s a surprise that they didn’t bring the whole house down.”

Shining raised his eyebrows. Mrs. Cake’s explanation, however, caused him to wake up everyone in the castle who was still asleep.

“FLURRY HEART!!!”

Shining paced around the room. Those who knew him as a sympathetic and somewhat harmless prince of the Crystal Empire with the voice of a surfer and the look of a used cart salespony, would be surprised if they saw him now in his full, royal grace.

“Okay,” he said. “I thought this little stunt in Manehattan was just a one-time thing. But now you gave the daughter of that crazy mare a black eye? What were you thinking?”

“That wasn’t me,” Flurry replied. “It was Precious Gem.”

“Precious Gem?” Shining raised his eyebrows. “Now you’re just lying to me. And who made holes in the bathroom wall? Princess Luna?”

Rough Diamond, who spent most of Shining’s initial rant covering her ears and trying not to throw up again, raised her hoof. “Well, actually–”

“I didn’t ask you for your opinion!” Shining exclaimed. “Also, I see that yet again, you’re Flurry’s partner in crime. Why is it always you two?”

“Well, the family legend goes that our mothers met during childbirth classes and it’s not like I had anything to say about this…” Rough Diamond froze, seeing Shining’s expression. “But you probably know this better, your highness.”

“Of course I do,” Shining rolled his eyes. “Now, what should I do? I’d send you two to some boarding school in the Griffish Isles, but I’m certain you’d burn it down in a week…”

“What did they burn down this time?”

Shining turned around and saw his wife walking down the stairs. Flurry noticed that he seemingly shrunk; he could look royal when he wanted, but he had no chance compared to Cadance, even if she had a ruffled mane and was wearing mismatched socks.

“Hi, mom,” Flurry muttered. “We didn’t burn anything down.”

“Still, Shining was probably heard in Griffonstone,” Cadance said. “From what I’ve heard, I managed to figure out you didn’t play poker this time.” She shook her head. “Remember, the fact that the colt you’ve rejected ended up with your friend is not the reason to blow up walls.”

“How do you know about it?” Flurry asked.

Cadance shrugged. “I don’t. I think I actually dreamed about it.”

Despite Shining’s screaming earlier, there were still several ponies in the castle and its surroundings that were asleep. This included Sunburst, lying on the floor after it turned out Starlight’s bed was too small for three ponies. Especially if one of them was Trixie who, when it came to kicking other ponies out of bed, had the skills of a cuckoo hatchling.

Suddenly, he heard something. He blinked, looking around to find his glasses. When he finally managed to put them on his nose, the first thing he saw was a blue leg hanging from the bed above him.

“What’s going on?” Sunburst asked.

“Oh, the Great and Powerful Trixie is pleased by your flattery,” a voice above him muttered. “Do go on.”

“Shut up.” Starlight unceremoniously pushed Trixie out of her bed, causing her to land on Sunburst. Starlight leaned over to see her two friends lying on the floor in a picturesque pose, resembling the Vitruvian Mare. “What’s going on?”

“I’ve heard something,” Sunburst replied, trying to free himself from under the snoring Trixie. “Something like Flurry screaming.”

“Do you think she’s in danger?” Starlight asked. “We have to help her, even though I’m already in my pajamas…”

Trixie raised her hoof. “Actually, you’re wearing Trixie’s cape.”

Sunburst chuckled. “Nah, I guess that would be the other way around.” He shrugged. “She was screaming someone’s name.”

“Oh, so she also had fun tonight.” Starlight smirked. “Speaking of, next time we need to ask Tempest to–”

“If she had fun, then I’d rather not imagine that,” Sunburst said. “It sounded awfully like ‘Luna!!!’.”

Flurry rested her hooves on the railing of the bridge and looked at her reflection in the river. “Screw this,” she muttered. “I’m going to become evil.”

“About time,” her reflection replied. “We were getting pretty bored here.”

“I need to find Pumpkin,” Flurry said. “She had some cool ideas before Precious Gem knocked her down. But first and foremost, I need Princess Luna in my torture chamber. Well, I don’t have a torture chamber yet, but we can always organise something. Should I start by torturing squirrels?”

“No, I don’t think it’s a good idea.” Her reflection sighed.

“Good. We like squirrels.”

“Yes, and it’s hard to clean up the mess.” Flurry’s reflection looked around. “And we think torturing Luna to death first is not the best move. Make her watch as you turn Equestria into a wasteland and, for example, kill off half of the population and force the other half to work in glue factories. And then, when they ask us why are we doing this, we’ll tell them that Luna is to blame for it. That’ll make her regret all those times she watched our dreams…”

“Huh.” Flurry looked around too, just in case someone was watching her. “Wait, shouldn’t there be some good Flurry here, who’d try to stop us from doing that? After all, half of the population...”

Her reflection smiled sheepishly. “The thing is, I am the good one.”

“Really?” Flurry asked. “But you just told me to kill half of Equestria…”

“Yeah, you don’t want to meet the evil one.” Flurry’s reflection chuckled. “I’m actually being merciful, you know. Even though we’re all hungover and mad.”

“Does she want us to kill everyone?” Flurry asked.

“Not really. She doesn’t like such a senseless waste of workforce and wants to enslave everyone, turning Equestria into an industrial powerhouse at the small price of slowly drowning all of us in toxic waste and suffocating us with fumes while the remnants of ponykind die of hunger. Whoever survives will be experimented on. Only the dead can know peace from this evil.” Flurry’s reflection shuddered. “But is this the future we want?”

Flurry nodded slowly. “Well, tell me more about the ‘industrial powerhouse’ part…”

“Flurry, are you okay?”

“Aargh!” Flurry exclaimed, firing a spell blindly. It hit a tree on the other side of the river, causing a somewhat singed pegasus mare to fall from it. The mare got up, looked at Flurry and yelled quite a few rude things, mostly centering on Princess Cadance’s attitude towards casual sex.

Flurry responded with quite an unprincesslike wing gesture and turned to the pony standing on the bridge behind her. To her surprise, she saw Pound Cake, smiling sheepishly at her.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I just asked if you’re okay,” Pound replied. “Given that you just tried to evaporate Cloud Kicker, I don’t think so.”

“So this was Cloud Kicker?” Flurry turned back to take a look at the pegasus mare. “She really can’t catch a break whenever I’m in town, it seems. And I’m okay, I was just pondering whether I should wipe out the whole of Equestria, half of it, or just settle on a fate worse than death for everyone. Any ideas? Your sister already volunteered to be my second-in-command, so we can just as well include you in the team. After all, you threw up on me, so that’s almost like we’re married.”

“I’m sorry,” Pound said. “I didn’t mean to do that, but the brownies–”

“Yeah, we all know Precious Gem’s brownies.” Flurry smirked. “Some of us also know Precious Gem’s other features…”

Pound blushed. “Well, she does that thing with her wings, when– Uhh, why am I telling you this?”

“I have no idea,” Flurry replied. “If I wanted to know what she does with her wings, I’ll just ask her to teach me.” She shrugged. “Maybe if I’m really drunk.”

“Yeah, this could turn awkward, I guess.” Pound chuckled. “So, uhh, aside from murdering us all, do you have any other plans?”

“I don’t know,” Flurry replied. “Any ideas?”

“Well, I’m currently trying to stop my sister from plotting to get rid of Precious Gem,” Pound replied. “She mentioned something about being a part of the royal family and me wasting a lifetime opportunity.”

“Pumpkin seems pretty ambitious,” Flurry said. “Actually, have you tried some team-building exercises?”

“What?”

“It’s something guards do,” Flurry replied. “They have to accomplish some task together, remembering about cooperation and, if Rough Diamond is to be believed, acting like complete retards.”

Pound scratched his mane. “What’d this task be? I actually thought of inviting them both for a milkshake, but I’d rather not have them both next to any glassware.”

“Yeah, this time it wouldn’t end with a black eye.” Flurry nodded. “As for the task I have in mind, it’s quite an ambitious one. I need to prank my aunt.”

“Twilight?” Pound asked.

“Nah, that’s an easy one,” Flurry replied. “I have a much bigger target in mind…”

Author's Note

Congratulations, Luna, you've doomed us all.

9. The Lunacy

“Okay, this is the plan,” Flurry said, levitating a piece of paper. They were sitting in an old clubhouse in the middle of the Sweet Apple Acres. It had seen better days; the Cutie Mark Crusaders didn’t use it anymore, opting for an office near the town hall instead. Also, it still bore the traces of an event known as the Scootapocalypse – most notably, a broken window and several dents in the walls.

Rough Diamond raised her hoof. “May I know why did you teleport me out of my bed? I still have a hangover, you know…”

“I’m about to explain,” Flurry replied. “Pumpkin, could you stop staring at Precious Gem like that? We’re about to do something villainous together.”

“Does anyone have any painkillers?” Rough Diamond asked. “I’m gonna give you my Oatstralia for painkillers.”

“Wait, what villainous thing are we doing?” Precious Gem glared at Flurry. “Hope it’s not taking over Equestria.”

“Nah, this can wait,” Flurry replied. “I’m going to prank Princess Luna.”

“Okay, I’m going to put this in the ‘famous last words’ category,” Precious Gem said. “And how exactly are you gonna do this?”

“It’s easy.” Flurry looked at the paper. “We go to Canterlot and I’ll pretend that I want to visit my aunt. She’s usually asleep during the day, so the guards won’t let us in.”

“I can already see a flaw in this plan,” Rough Diamond muttered.

“Also, how will we get to Canterlot?” Pound asked. “The next train is at twelve o’clock.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Flurry said. “I got it covered…”

The blast of teleportation shook the nearby trees. Flurry was the first to stand up, but only her and Precious Gem managed to get out of the trip unscathed; Pound threw up while Pumpkin and Rough Diamond ended up with a nosebleed.

“We’re not in Canterlot,” Pumpkin said, wiping her snout. “We’re in some forest.”

“We’re about five miles from Canterlot,” Flurry replied, looking around. “That’s about my maximal reach when I’m teleporting someone with me.”

“About?” Pound asked.

“Well, I wanted to land as close to Canterlot as I could and I may have pushed it a little.” Flurry shrugged. “At least no one got a stroke.”

“Wait, that was an option?” Rough Diamond asked, scratching her head. “Just great. One day, I’ll get a brain tumour because of your magic.”

“Don’t worry, I can probably remove tumours.” Flurry shrugged. “I never tried, but–”

“Yeah, and I’ll let you play with my brain, right.” Rough Diamond shook her head. “Okay, so now we have to go to Canterlot by hoof?”

“I can teleport you again,” Flurry replied.

“We’d rather go by hoof,” Pound said quickly.

They didn’t have to walk for long. Soon, they reached the main road leading to the capital. Despite the early hour, it was full of carts, wagons, carriages, chariots, and other vehicles, transporting ponies and goods to and from the town. Flurry and her companions tried to blend in with the crowd, but it soon proved to be impossible.

“Don’t you have a feeling that we’re being watched?” Flurry asked.

“No way,” Pumpkin replied. “An alicorn, two crystal ponies, a unicorn with a black eye and a pegasus just walking down the road. If we walked to a bar, the bartender would ask if it’s some kind of a joke.”

“Indeed,” Rough Diamond said. “Maybe we should hitch a ride?”

“How do you even do this?” Flurry asked. “I mean, I never had to do this, so–”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Pumpkin waved her hoof at a mare pulling a heavy cart. Several foals leant from the cart and stuck their tongues out.

“Guess this one is full,” Pound said, waving his wing at another wagon. The pony pulling it didn’t even bother to look back at him.

“Eh, you have to do this the Manehattan way.” Precious Gem muttered, walking in front of some stagecoach. The two ponies in front of it stopped, causing the rear pair to ram into them. Then, owing to poor brakes, the stagecoach hit them too, causing all four ponies to land in a pile in front of Precious Gem, cursing and yelling at each other.

“Would you be so kind to drive us to Canterlot?” Flurry asked the ponies, who were now trying to untangle themselves. She noticed that two of them were Scootaloos – not the Cutie Mark Crusader herself, but rather her clones, still living in Equestria in large numbers, though rarely coming anywhere near Canterlot due to Moondancer following them everywhere and asking strange questions.

“If you tell the green one not to walk into traffic,” the clone replied. “I guess we have a few free seats in this hearse.”

“Wait, it’s a hearse?” Rough Diamond asked, looking at the vehicle unsurely.

“Not yet,” the Scootaloo clone replied. “We take elderly ponies for trips around Equestria, so it may as well be.” She looked around, making sure her coworkers were still untangling the harness. “I also advise ponies on cutie mark-related problems, but don’t tell anyone. Especially not the tax office.”

“Don’t worry,” Flurry said and looked at the stagecoach. “Travelling with old ponies can’t be that bad, right?”

“I swear, I’m gonna throw the next geezer who asks me about potatoes through the window,” Rough Diamond muttered. She was stuck between two old, overweight mares; one of them was deaf and the other one was too busy knitting to pay any attention to her.

“Well, at least you’re not sitting next to an ex-royal guard,” Pound whispered to her. The pony next to him turned to him with a toothless grin.

“The guard? You should definitely join the guard. See the world, bang some mares…” He patted Pound’s back and pointed at some granny sitting in the front of the stagecoach. “Widow Principle was the wife of our general,” he said. “She only cheated on him twice. Once with his aide-de-camp and then with the whole 32nd Pegasus Squadron.” He chuckled. “After that, we ended up on the border with Griffonstone. Have you ever got a blowjob from a griffon?”

Pound looked at Flurry, trying to move as far away from the old guard as possible. Flurry smirked and lit up her horn, causing the guard to immediately fall asleep, probably dreaming about griffon blowjobs.

“Guess you saved his life,” Pumpkin said.

“Pound’s?” Flurry asked.

“Nah, this old fart’s.” Pumpkin pointed at the old pony. “In his age, the only thing that can rise is intracranial pressure, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, that’s what we need,” Rough Diamond muttered. “Someone passing away during the trip. I wonder if this happens often.”

“Taking a peek into this Scootaloo’s memory, they had at least two such accidents in the last five years,” Flurry replied. “But I don’t think this is going to happen today.”

“So it’s true?” Pumpkin asked.

“What?”

“That princesses can feel when someone dies,” Pumpkin said. “It’s because the Pale Horse is their relative.”

Precious Gem rolled her eyes. “She’s an alicorn, not a cat in the nursing home.”

“Exactly.” Flurry smirked. “Also, I don’t recall any skeletons with scythes coming to the last family gathering. Unless he’s just not very sociable. Wouldn’t be the first one in the family. For example, auntie Twilight–”

“Of course he’s not sociable,” Pumpkin said. “He’s the Pale Horse, after all.”

“Which means he eventually meets everyone,” Pound replied. “I’d call that very sociable.”

“In the end, you meet him alone, though.” Precious Gem shrugged and turned to one of the old ponies. “Do you have any more potatoes? In the Crystal Empire, we’re starving.”

Rough Diamond just rolled her eyes.

After a long trip upwards, the stagecoach stopped in the centre of Canterlot. The elderly tourists trotted out of it, marvelling at the tall buildings. Flurry looked around; the palace was nearby so it was time to continue with the plan.

“I hope you’re not planning to join us?” the Scootaloo clone asked. “I think your friend started to teach the grannies to smoke weed.”

Flury rolled her eyes. “Precious, stop whatever you’re doing.”

“Hey, it’s therapeutical!” Precious Gem exclaimed, giving some thin, old mare a very suspicious bag.

“Surely.” Flurry sighed and shook her head. “Let’s go to the castle.”

They left the group and trotted across the street. The newly-rebuilt castle was right in front of them, as majestic and intimidating as ever. Pumpkin stopped in front of the gate and looked at it, her smile faltering.

“How are we going to get inside?” she asked. “I mean, there are guards and such…”

“No problem.” Flurry walked to one of the guards. “Hello, Blunt Spear,” she said. “Is Princess Luna home?”

“Hi, Flurry,” Blunt Spear replied. “How’s your dad?”

“He’s fine.” Flurry smiled. “We’re in Ponyville now and I wanted my friends to meet my auntie, you know.”

“She’s asleep now, as far as I know.” Blunt Spear pointed at the tall tower behind him. “And I’m not sure if her guards will let you in. They brought in a new transport of bats recently and they’re really bad at recognising ponies. One of them kicked Princess Celestia out of the kitchen when she wanted to grab some snacks in the middle of the night.”

“We’ll be careful,” Flurry replied. “I mean, how many alicorn princesses just happen to wander around Equestria?”

“Recent studies suggest at least seven,” Precious Gem muttered, prompting Flurry to shoot her a glare. “But what do I know.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Rough Diamond said. “We’ll wait for Luna to wake up, I guess. Though given her guards, she may wake up just by hearing them.”

“You’d be surprised,” Blunt Spear replied. “I once had to share a room in the barracks with a blind bat pony. He kept screeching and listening to the echo to know where he was going. I couldn’t sleep.”

“What happened to him?” Flurry asked.

“They put him on an airship so he’d detect incoming griffons.” Blunt Spear shrugged. “At least I don’t need earplugs anymore.”

“That’s fine, I guess.” Flurry turned to her friends. “Okay, let’s go. As far as I recall, we have a lot of stairs to climb.”

“You at least have wings,” Rough Diamond said. “Also, come on. We haven’t been afraid of stairs during Sombra’s reign, so those stairs can kiss our asses. Though indeed, those who can fly don’t even have to bother.”

“And you can teleport,” Pound replied as they walked across the large hall with mirror-like tiles on the floor. “I mean… Can you?”

“Not really.” Rough Diamond shrugged. “Also, watch out. Precious Gem may get jealous.”

“We can share,” Precious Gem said. They reached the large hallway with servants and bureaucrats passing them by, paying no attention to them. Flurry counted the staircases. She was pretty sure some of them kept changing places, but this time she quickly managed to find the right way.

They barely reached the second floor of the tower when they were stopped by two guards. It was a weird bunch even for bat ponies – their armours were slightly too big and the way they walked was so unmilitary-like that Flurry heard Rough Diamond groan.

“Hey, it’s Espresso Martini!” one of the guards exclaimed, looking at Flurry.

“Don’t be silly, her name is Flurry Heart,” the other guard replied.

“Midnight Dancer?” Flurry asked. “Midnight Knight?”

“With a ‘k’, yeah,” the guardsmare said.

“Do you know each other?” Pumpkin asked, eyeing the bat ponies.

Flurry and Rough Diamond nodded.

“We met in Manehattan,” Rough Diamond said. “Briefly.”

“Not really briefly.” Midnight Dancer rolled her eyes. “Do you know what happened to us after we all got arrested? Those guys actually got hired by the casino.”

Flurry shrugged. “Good for them, I guess.”

“Well, except of the kirin, but she got punished with more work in the brewery,” Midnight Dancer said.

“Which is just taking the piss if you ask me.” Midnight Knight sighed. “And we ended up in the bat pony court because that’s how Manehattan works.”

“Yeah, and we were given a choice,” Midnight Dancer continued. “Either we go back to the caves–”

“Which is stupid because we were born in Manehattan.” Midnight Knight fixed her helmet. “I only saw the caves once, when we visited out grandma. Everypony with half a brain already moved out and those caves reek of piss and old ponies.”

“– or we join the Lunar Guard.” Midnight Dancer shot her sister a glare. “Which is much funnier because we get rum rations and the captain is a huge lesbo.”

“And we sometimes swing that way,” Midnight Knight said. “Though we never boinked each other, despite what ponies say about twins.”

“Awesome,” Flurry muttered, rolling her eyes. “So, can we go to Princess Luna? I have something important to tell her.”

“Actually, no,” Midnight Dancer replied. “She’s sleeping now. Come back during the official visiting hours.”

“It’s not like we don’t like you or anything,” Midnight Knight said. “But if we screw something up, it’s the caves for us.”

“Or the captain’s sex dungeon…” Midnight Dancer added.

“Which isn’t that bad if you like chains and whips…”

“And we sometimes do…”

“But this old hag smokes after sex.” Midnight Knight sighed. “I’d rather not get lung cancer, thank you.”

“And I don’t think anyone ever cleaned those whips,” Midnight Dancer said with a shudder. “Do you know what you can get when someone whips you with a dirty whip? I’d rather not get hepatitis or other shit.”

“Sorry, then.” Flurry charged her horn.

“Great.” Midnight Knight sighed. “You can’t convince us to let you in, so you’re going to try some magical mumbo-jumbo?”

“Such is the fate of guards.” Midnight Dancer spread her wings open. “But at least we won’t go down without a fight!” She spun her wings, producing a spear and charged at Flurry.

The spell wasn’t very loud, though it flashed brightly, blinding everyone for a moment. When Flurry’s companions regained their sight, they saw Midnight Dancer and Midnight Knight lying on the floor and snoring.

“This should do,” Flurry said, turning to her friends. “Let’s put them in some locker and– Wait, why are you staring at me like that?”

“Uhh…” Pumpkin looked at Pound, who was pale and looked like he was about to throw up. She sighed and turned to Rough Diamond. “Should I tell her or will you do this?”

“You have a spear in your chest,” Rough Diamond replied.

“Oh.” Flurry looked down. “That’d explain a few things.” She coughed, spraying blood on the floor. “This should do something, right?”

“For starters, you should be, like, dead,” Precious Gem said. “And since you aren’t, you’d better not remove it, or else–” She winced when Flurry ripped the spear out of her chest and looked at the bits of flesh stuck to the blade.

“Is that a lung?” Flurry asked. “First time I see so much of my blood.” She looked at the wound, trying her best to ignore the fact that Pound just threw up after all. “At least it seems to be healing.”

“Interesting.” Pumpkin furrowed her eyebrows, watching as Flurry’s wound closed on its own. “If we cut off your leg, would it grow back?”

“We have no time to experiment,” Flurry replied. “Someone may have heard us.”

Pumpkin looked at Midnight Knight. “Can I at least know what ponies say about twins?”

“That they fuck.” Rough Diamond smirked. “You’ve never fucked your brother? I mean, if I had a twin sister, I’d totally–”

Precious Gem sighed. “Rough, chill out. Or go fuck yourself, because like, you seem to have too much energy.”

“That’s what I’m technically talking about,” Rough replied.

“I don’t think I wanted to know this.” Pound shuddered. “Also, we’d better hurry before somepony notices us. We’re rather distinctive.”

“Yeah, it’d probably be better to blend in with the crowd,” Rough Diamond said. “Can you turn us into bat ponies or something?”

“Kind of.” Flurry shrugged, levitating Midnight Dancer and Midnight Knight. Pound opened a large cabinet standing by the wall and took several sets of armour out of it, making room for the sleeping bat ponies.

“Oh no,” Rough Diamond muttered.

“What now?” Pumpkin asked.

“Last time I asked her if she could do something magical and she replied with ‘kind of’, we both ended up in the hospital,” Rough Diamond replied.

“Don’t worry,” Flurry said. “I can’t exactly turn you into bat ponies, but… Remember this spell auntie Twilight uses to turn herself into a breezie? I can turn you into changelings and then you can just turn into bat ponies.”

Pumpkin raised her eyebrows. “This sounds complicated. Like, how am I supposed to turn into a specific bat pony?”

“Just imagine one.” Flurry aimed her horn at Pumpkin and furrowed her eyebrows. One magic flash later, Pumpkin became a yellow changeling mare; she looked at herself and winced.

“Now this is weird,” she said. “I mean, how do I even–” Suddenly, she turned into Pound. “Great, now we’re identical.” She looked at her brother. “How can you even walk normally? I mean, it’s kinda uncomfortable when it’s all dangling there…”

“Can we change the topic?” Pound asked, his face bright red.

“Change?” Pumpkin turned into Flurry. “Hmm, do I have your powers now?”

“Try it and you’ll join them in the closet,” Flurry muttered. “If only because two Flurries is Rough's worst nightmare and she might not let you stay that way. Just do some bat pony and let’s go.”

“That’s what she said.” Pumpkin turned into a bat mare who, despite her thin barrel, had quite a sizeable ass.

“I’m not sure that’d fit in any armour,” Pound said. “And you’re saying balls are uncomfortable?”

“You’re just jealous.” Pumpkin wiggled her butt and looked at it, smiling. “Can I keep that?”

“I don’t think so,” Flurry replied, turning the rest of her friends into changelings.

“Why am I a mare?” Pound asked when the magic faltered.

“Are you two never pleased with what you get?” Flurry rolled her eyes. “You’re a changeling. If you want, just magick yourself the biggest dick you can imagine and shut up.”

“Nah, I guess I’ll try something else…” Pound focused and turned himself into a bat pony; however, he immediately collapsed, turning back into a changeling. “What’s going on?”

“You can’t turn yourself into a borderline anorexic abomination and expect to be able to walk,” Precious Gem said. She’d already turned into a bat pony; she still had black mane and purple eyes and while she was slightly thinner than her regular body, it was far more proportional that what Pound and Pumpkin came up with.

“Well, at least I was creative.” Pound looked at Rough Diamond who just turned herself into Midnight Dancer, or possibly Midnight Knight.

“Oh, shut up,” Rough Diamond said. “At least I have some disguise, unlike you.”

“Wait a minute.” Pound furrowed his eyebrows and turned into another bat pony, this time with long green mane and tattoos covering both wings.

Precious Gem smirked. “Okay, Mr. Original just turned himself into the mare who was in the centrefold of this May’s Playbat.”

“How do you know?” Flurry asked.

“Our library bought a subscription,” Precious Gem said. “They have some interesting articles.”

“Articles, sure,” Pound muttered.

“I’m really into Canter S. Thompson.” Precious Gem turned to Flurry. “I see you decided to become a bat alicorn now.”

“Convenience.” Flurry levitated the suits of armour they’d found in the closet. “We’d better put those on in case we meet somepony.”

Disguising as guards took a while, but with Rough Diamond’s help, everyone managed to put every part of armour on the body part it belonged to. Still, Rough Diamond wasn’t satisfied.

“None of you walk like a guard should,” she muttered as they climbed up the stairs. “Pound will soon stab someone with this spear and Pumpkin is just limping like an old horse.”

“Yeah, try walking while wearing iron boots that are too big for you,” Pumpkin replied.

“You know we’re changelings now, right?” Flurry asked. “You can make your hooves bigger.”

“I can?” Pumpkin looked at her hooves. “Huh. Changelings are just better. Can you make me a changeling permanently?”

“Well, if you avoid the strong natural sources of magic…”

“Why?” Pumpkin asked.

“Magical resonance,” Flurry replied. “Your body will know something’s not right and try to go back to the pony form. If a big source of magical energy interferes with your magic, the resonance can shatter your bones.”

“Aww…”

They reached the next floor. This one, unlike the others, wasn’t empty. A tall bat mare with an eyepatch walked towards them, fixing her helmet. Her armour was cleaner and more ornate than regular bat pony armour; she also had a navy blue cape.

“What are you doing here?” she asked. “You know you can’t interrupt the Princess’ beauty nap, right?” She looked at them. “Are you all new here?”

Rough Diamond smiled sheepishly. “Well, actually–”

“Wait, I recognise you,” the mare said. “Midnight Knight, right? You finally learned to walk like a guard.” She turned to the rest of ponies-turned-changelings-turned-bat-ponies. “Which can’t be said about you twats. And where’s your sister?”

“Am I my sister’s keeper?” Rough Diamond shrugged. “Probably cleaning the armour closet.”

“Wait.” The mare looked at Pound and smirked, embracing him with his wing. “You know you’re just wasting your talents with those half-wits? You should definitely be guarding the dungeon with me…”

Pound froze. “Well, the thing is, I’m scared of dungeons,” he replied.

“Oh, don’t worry, we’ll work on that.” The mare winked at him. “You just have to–”

Suddenly, a magical beam struck her in the chest, throwing her at the wall with the loud ringing of the armour. Flurry smirked, her horn smoking. “This will teach her to clean the whips,” she said.

“Did you kill her?” Pumpkin asked, looking at the empty armour.

“Nah, I just used that classic spell.” Flurry walked to the armour and levitated a large frog out of it. Somehow, the frog still had a tiny eyepatch; her other eye was looking at them with as much contempt an amphibian could manage.

“So, if someone kisses her, she turns back into a pony?” Precious Gem asked.

“Exactly,” Flurry replied. “Don’t try it or I’ll have to change her again.”

They left the captain of Luna’s guard jumping around and catching flies with her tongue. Soon, they reached the top of the tower, standing in front of the tall door, with moons and stars sculpted on them. Nopony was guarding it; Luna believed the guards on lower floors would stop any unwanted visitors before they’d be able to get there.

“Okay, auntie,” Flurry muttered, opening the door. “Time for revenge.”

Luna was sleeping on a large bed in the middle of the room, snoring loudly. She lay on her back, her limbs scattered at weird angles. When they approached her, she turned, nearly slamming Rough Diamond with her wing.

“Damn, she’s huge,” Pound said. “I mean, I always knew that, but I’ve never seen her this close.”

“So, what do we do to her?” Pumpkin asked. “Do we put her hoof in water so she wets herself?”

“This doesn’t work,” Precious Gem replied. “Also, traditional way of pranking alicorns involves roasting peppers.”

Pumpkin winced. “What’s funny about that?”

“Well, Twilight once went for the–” Precious Gem cleared her throat. “Nevermind.”

“We should do something epic,” Flurry said. “Just drawing a dick on her horn won’t do. Something ponies will remember for ages. Something like–” She paused, realising that Luna was looking at her.

“Oh shit, she woke up,” Pound muttered.

“You don’t say!” Pumpkin hissed.

Luna furrowed her eyebrows. “Who’d think! My own guards!” Her eyes lit up, as she darted out of bed, charging her horn.

Flurry conjured a shield. She was an alicorn and her father was the best shield conjurer in the whole country. This helped her somewhat.

Her shield survived the contact with the cold fury of Luna’s spell for exactly two seconds. The whole room exploded around them, the walls turning to dust, bits of clay, glass shards and splinters. Deep cracks appeared in the floor as the whole tower shook, hit by torrents of raw arcane energy.

Luna stood up and looked around the room. Or rather, what was left of it – the whole top of the tower disappeared, sans a few bits of debris. No trace of the attackers was to be found anywhere.

“Huh,” Luna said when the dust fell. “At least Celestia will let me redecorate this time…”

10. Walking on the Moon

Twilight’s eye twitched. Just twelve hours ago, everything was fine. Now, however, everything decided to go down like a rollercoaster with faulty brakes. And Twilight just forgot to fasten her seatbelts.

First Shining woke her up, yelling that Flurry and her friends went missing. She, Shining, Flash, and Cadance were barely able to start searching for them when Mrs. Cake approached them – as it turned out, looking for her own children.

They searched through the whole town, including bars, ditches, and Hugh Jelly’s basement. However, before they could check in the Everfree Forest, Twilight got a message from Canterlot.

Princess Luna had been attacked by her guards.

Twilight was just catching her breath after teleporting everyone—including Mrs. Cake— to Canterlot, when Luna entered the hall, dragging some hapless bat pony behind.

“Is this one of the attackers?” Twilight asked.

“No, we found her unconscious in the armour closet,” Luna replied. “Same with her sister. Also, from what I was told, the captain of my Guard has been turned into a frog.”

“Interesting,” Flash said, walking to the bat pony and looking at her. Her armour was dented and dirty and her mane was ruffled – probably a side effect of Luna grabbing her tail and just dragging her all the way from the tower. “Who are you?”

“Midnight Knight,” the bat pony replied. “With a ‘k’. Seriously, no one ever writes my name correctly. Don’t send me to the caves, okay? I ain’t remember nothing.”

“So you remember something?” Flash asked.

“Nah, I don’t remember shit,” Midnight Knight replied, groaning and rubbing her temples. “We were on duty in the tower and then she woke me up and brought me here.” She looked at Luna. “By the way, Your Highness, I’m pretty sure your guards would live longer if they were levitated rather than thrown down the stairs, okay? Or just let them walk. I can do it just fine.”

Flash furrowed his eyebrows. “You do realise speaking to your Princess in such a manner can get you dishonorably discharged?”

“Really?” Midnight Knight smirked and turned to Luna. “You know what? This place sucks. Old bats say that it’s a great honour and shit to serve in your guard, but really it’s like, the food is shit, none of the armours fit my ass, I have to fill seven different forms and write a report anytime I use a spear, I didn’t get the dental plan I was promised, and the captain is a Luna-damn diddler. Hope she stays a frog forever.”

“I will keep that in mind,” Luna muttered. “Consider yourself dishonourably discharged.”

“What about my sister?”

Luna sighed. “She can get lost as well. That is, after she writes a report. We found her bloodied spear lying on the floor in my tower.”

“Whose blood is it?” Twilight asked.

“We are testing it, but it seems to be an alicorn blood,” Luna replied. “The blade started to rust.”

Cadance let out a stifled scream. Shining Armor dropped on the floor.

“Eh, I would not worry,” Luna said. “Alicorns are tough, after all. I remember that one time when we fought King Sombra and he dropped–”

“We have no time for fond memories,” Twilight said. “So, the ponies who attacked you must’ve met Flurry and her friends. Where can they be?”

“The attackers?” Luna pointed at her tower. “I would say they are everywhere now. Unless, of course, you believe in some form of afterlife, then they are in a better place now.”

“Which, knowing Flurry, may have been the best fate they could meet,” Flash muttered. “Does any of you believe those were just ordinary bat ponies with spears? Flurry would mind control them into shoving the spears into their–” He suddenly realised that he was speaking to royals. “You know what I mean. And if mind control didn’t work, she’d do that herself. There must be someone far more powerful behind it.”

“Of that I am sure,” Luna said. “But where is Flurry?”

“Where are we?” Rough Diamond stood up and spat out some dust. Looking around, she saw that Luna’s spell removed the bat pony disguise from them. They were in the middle of some deserted wasteland; it was the middle of the night, at least judging from the stars above them.

“I can see my house from here,” Precious Gem said.

“Great, so we’re not far away from the Crystal–” Rough Diamond looked in the direction Precious Gem was pointing. “Oh, are you fucking kidding me?”

Flurry got up and looked at the sky. A small, blue and green planet was hanging above them; they could see white patches of clouds and ice caps on each pole – just like every inhabited planet.

The problem was, however, the distance.

“Are we on the Moon?” Pumpkin asked, staring at the sky.

“It seems so,” Flurry replied. “Auntie Luna must’ve been really pissed when we woke her up.”

“Hmm…” Precious Gem grabbed a hoofful of dust and licked it. “No, it’s not made of cheese.”

“But how are we able to breathe?” Pound asked. “Like, there’s no atmosphere here, right?”

“It’s just another lie told by the government.” Pumpkin shrugged. “After all, Luna managed to live here for a thousand years, right?”

“Watch out, we’re the government here,” Rough Diamond muttered. “Also, I think Precious Gem explained this to me once. Like, Luna was in the Moon, not on the Moon, which makes a, uhh…”

“Significant difference,” Precious Gem said. “As for breathing, I hope it’s not that old trick that something is possible as long as we believe it is.”

Flurry furrowed her eyebrows. “Why so?”

“If it’s like this, then Pumpkin suffocates first, due to her disturbing lack of faith,” Precious Gem replied. “And since we’re technically in space, I’m afraid no one will hear us scream.”

Pumpkin scoffed. “Well, I believe we can breathe here simply because we do. It’s not a matter of faith. Also, maybe you all should start thinking how to come back home? We can’t sit here forever.”

“Technically, we could start a civilisation here.” Rough Diamond smirked and looked at Pound. “Though we’d probably starve first and even if we manage to eat rocks, the future generations may be slightly inbred.”

“Damn, girl.” Precious Gem shook her head. “We have, like, the only occasion to look at the surface of the Moon this close and you only think about dicks.”

“Look who’s talking,” Rough Diamond muttered. “I’d like to remind you that–”

“Shut up and listen to me!” Flurry exclaimed. Lightning struck in the distance – an impressive feat, given the lack of any clouds whatsoever. “I’m the only princess on this planet, so naturally I should take charge.”

“It’s a satellite,” Precious Gem said. “When we’re back home, I’ll tell Sunburst that you slept through all the astronomy classes.”

“I know, but ‘I’m the only princess on this satellite’ doesn’t have that ring to it,” Flurry replied. “Anyway, we can’t come back to Equestria.”

“You can’t teleport us?” Pumpkin asked.

Pound shuddered. “Oh no…”

Flurry rolled her eyes and turned to Pumpkin. “Have you ever tried to teleport on your own? You need to choose some defined point as your destination. Equestria is too far, so I’d have to split the road into stages. And I can’t define a stage as ‘some random point in vacuum’.”

“Maybe I could help you, somehow?” Pumpkin shrugged. “It can’t be that hard.”

“Well, after two, maybe three stages I’d get tired and we’d all die,” Flurry replied. “Not to mention that now your heads would explode, either from vacuum or continuous teleportations.”

“So, what do we do?” Pound asked.

“We can eat Precious Gem.” Rough Diamond got up and looked at the librarian. “Then we’ll draw straws, assuming we can find any here…”

“In your dreams,” Precious Gem replied. “Also, we can still give ponies on Earth some kind of signal that we’re here, right?”

“Yes, that was what I was thinking about,” Flurry said. “Like, draw something on the surface, so they’d see it.”

“It’ll take a while and a lot of walking.” Pound looked around. “Unless each of us gets one letter.”

“Who said anything about letters?” Flurry smirked. “Also, I guess I can do something about that…”

She lit her horn. The dust around her raised from the ground, exposing the darker layer underneath. Flurry’s wing shot open, causing the lines of dust to run in all directions. Rough Diamond dodged a stream of regolith and looked at the thick, dark line that appeared next to her. A similar line could be seen far away in the distance.

Flurry opened her eyes, watching the dust settle. “Okay,” she said. “They should see that once auntie Luna raises the Moon. And I bet they’ll come to fetch us immediately.”

“What is it?” Precious Gem looked around and furrowed her eyebrows. “Hard to tell from the surface.”

Flurry leaned to her and whispered into her ear. Precious Gem’s eyes widened.

“What’s going on?” Pumpkin asked.

“We’re going straight to Tartarus,” Precious Gem replied.

Rainbow Dash landed on the balcony in front of Twilight. Her Wonderbolts uniform was torn in a few places; she also had a bloody scratch on her face.

“We haven’t found Flurry in the Everfree Forest,” she said. “Also, it seems the quarray eels in the Ghastly Gorge are getting faster every year.”

“No trace of any new, powerful villains?” Twilight asked. “Though if they were truly powerful, maybe they’d manage to hide from us? What if they’re everywhere? They could be one of us!”

“Stop, for Celestia’s sake!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “I know where this is going. You’re going to go crazy and assume Applejack is a villain. Then some idiot, for example Flash will stab you and claim that it’s obvious you were the villain all along.”

Twilight’s eye twitched. “Last time it was Fluttershy.”

“Could be.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “But the thing is, you’re not helping. And before you ask, I’m not the villain.”

“This is something a villain would say,” Twilight replied, prompting everyone in the room to look at Rainbow Dash.

Before Rainbow Dash could respond, the door of Twilight’s room opened and Luna walked in. “I know that the discussion whether Rainbow is a villain is interesting, but we need to raise the moon,” she said. “Ponies may start to panic if we don’t.”

Twilight groaned. “Are you listening to what I’m doing here?”

“Well, to be fair, I am not the only one.” Luna turned back, urging Starlight, Sunburst, Flash, Cadance, Shining Armor, and the rest of Twilight’s friends to enter the room. “You were twilighting to yourself pretty loudly.”

“At least she didn’t go full Starlight,” Rainbow Dash muttered.

“Hey!” Starlight exclaimed.

“What?” Rainbow Dash shrugged in mid-air as the Moon emerged from under the horizon behind her. “Don’t tell me it’s not true…” She looked at everyone gathered in the room. “Why are you looking at me like that? I said I’m not the villain!”

“Uhh…” Flash looked at the ponies around him, but no one said anything, so he continued. “You may want to look at the Moon.”

Rainbow Dash turned back. For a moment she watched the Moon, her smile widening. Suddenly, she dropped on the balcony in a fit of laughter.

“We are not amused by this,” Luna muttered, furrowing her eyebrows.

“Well, it must be huge,” Twilight said, her eyes widening. “I mean, if the radius of the moon is–”

“Are you talking about the length or girth?” Sunburst asked.

“Both,” Twilight replied. “But it’s not quite biologically accurate. Whoever did this probably got more inspired by graffiti rather than, uhh, the real deal.”

“Should we tell Rainbow Dash to grow up and stop laughing?” Applejack looked at Rainbow Dash.

Starlight sighed. “She had over forty years to grow up. At this point I’d say it’s a lost cause.”

“But who’d do this?” Cadance looked at the Moon again. “I mean, I must admit it’s pretty impressive, though Luna probably doesn’t agree…”

Luna exhaled loudly. “Well, of course I do not agree! Which heathen defaced my Moon?!”

Rainbow Dash stopped laughing. “Well, to be honest, that’s not exactly a face.”

“Shut up!” Luna exclaimed. “Of course, I could have expected that… Discord!”

Discord appeared next to her in a puff of smoke. For some reason, he carried a telescope with him. “Oh, Luna! You called?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know why I called you!” Luna shouted. “What did you do to my Moon?”

Discord looked at the Moon. The he looked again, this time using the telescope. “Shame on you, Lulu,” he said. “Do you think I’d be so... immature to pull off such a dick move on you?”

“Yes, that is exactly what I think,” Luna replied, trying to ignore the fact that Rainbow Dash started to laugh again.

“Oh, I’d look for someone completely different,” Discord replied. “Mine doesn’t even look like this.” He looked down. “In fact, I’m not sure what animal it comes from…”

Luna’s eye twitched. “You won’t have that dilemma after I am done with you!”

“Physical violence?” Discord smirked and conjured a large pair of scissors. “I’d think twice before using those,” he said. “In fact, you look a bit stressed, so maybe–”

“Maybe I’ll shove them up your arse and open them?” Luna exclaimed. “Some villainous lout drew a pair of genitalia on my Moon! I want them hanged, drawn, and quartered!”

“Hanged?” Rainbow Dash asked. “I’d say they’re already well-hung.”

Luna shuddered. “I told you to shut up! And you two, stop calculating the dimensions!”

“About six hundred twenty miles,” Sunburst said.

“Does anyone listen to me?” Luna groaned.

“Chill out, Your Highness.” Rainbow Dash smirked. “It could be worse. At least no one drew a dick on Uranus…”

Luna’s hooves started to tremble.

“It doesn’t look like the rescue team comes anytime soon,” Pound said.

“Maybe they’re planning to leave us here to starve,” Precious Gem kicked a nearby rock, sending it flying. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“Don’t worry, someone will eventually get sent here to see what’s going on.” Flurry looked at the lines. “I mean, if something like this appears on the Moon, you want to see it, if only for curiosity.”

Suddenly, something exploded next to them, causing dust and debris to fly off in all directions. Flurry looked there and saw a small crater that wasn’t there just a few minutes ago.

“Great,” Pound muttered. “We’re gonna get killed by asteroids.”

“Well, now it’s technically a meteorite,” Precious Gem said, walking to the crater. “Or maybe not.”

Pumpkin walked to her and looked into the crater. “Rainbow Dash!” she exclaimed. “Are you here to save us?”

“Where is ‘here’?” Rainbow Dash asked, getting out of the ditch. “At one moment I told Luna that at least no one drew a dick on Uranus and then suddenly I’m here–” She saw Flurry and smiled. “There you are! Where’s that villain who kidnapped you? We need to kick their ass and get out of here! Then we can think of removing the dick from the Moon.”

“We are on the Moon,” Rough Diamond said.

“What?” Rainbow Dash looked around. “Well, that’d explain many things… How did you get here?”

“Long story,” Flurry replied. “Well, we also pissed off Princess Luna, I guess.”

“Oh, she’s surely pissed off.” Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Too bad you couldn’t see her face when she saw the Moon. Have you seen the heathen who did this?”

“Heathen?” Rough Diamond asked. “What’s this?”

Rainbow Dash shrugged. “I don’t know either, but that’s what Luna said about them. So, if you know who are those heathens, show me the way so we can kick their asses or congratulate them.”

“Well, actually, we did this,” Flurry said.

“Don’t bring me into it,” Precious Gem muttered. “I like my library and I’d rather not end up getting sent on a student exchange to Yakyakistan. Or to Frozen North.”

“Who’d they exchange you for?” Rough Diamond asked. “Bighoof?”

“Princess Cadance would probably find this quite interesting,” Pumpkin said. “I mean, if what they say about her is true…”

Flurry raised her head. “What do they say?”

Pumpkin smiled sheepishly. “Uhh… Nothing in particular. I mean–”

“Tell me,” Flurry whispered, her eyes lighting up. Pumpkin shuddered, her body going limp.

“Hey, maybe stop torturing my sister, okay?” Pound said, walking to Flurry and dragging her away from Pumpkin. “Are all alicorns so short-fused?”

“Yes,” Rainbow Dash replied. “You should see Twilight when she’s not busy friendshipping.”

“I’m not short-fused!” Flurry exclaimed. Even though it still seemed impossible, another lightning struck in the distance, complete with the roar of thunder spreading in a vaguely-existing atmosphere.

“Of course you’re not.” Rainbow Dash poked Pumpkin with her hoof. “Is she even alive?”

“She’s going to have a nasty headache, I hope,” Flurry replied. “Also, how long do you think it’ll take Luna to figure out that maybe she should check what’s going on in here?”

“Well, before I left, Twilight and Sunburst were busy estimating the size of your dick.” Rainbow Dash winced. “This sounded much better in my head.”

“Great.” Precious Gem groaned. “We’re gonna die here because ponies prefer to estimate the size of a drawing on the Moon.”

“How big is it, anyway?” Rough Diamond asked.

“About six hundred and twenty miles,” Precious Gem replied. “You could’ve drawn something useful here, like ‘Here We Are, Dude’ or a smiley…”

“A smiley wouldn’t have such an impact,” Flurry said. “Besides, we were going to prank Princess Luna, right? That’s the ultimate prank, I’d say.”

“Yes, but we’re on the Moon now, with no hopes of ever getting back home.” Pound sighed. “Am I really the only one bothered by this?”

“Yes.” Rough Diamond looked at the dark sky. “Because when we get back to Earth, Princess Cadance will send us to… Uhh, where can she send us?”

“To the ruins of Crystalia?” Precious Gem asked. “Thought it wouldn’t be much worse.”

Rough Diamond waved her hoof. “Nah, I don’t mean that. Like, Celestia once sent Luna to the Moon, Luna sent us to the Moon, we’ve been sending ponies to Tartarus, and if you piss off Celestia too much, then she can probably kick you all the way to the Sun. But where would Cadance send ponies? As a Princess of Love, I mean?”

“I hope it’s some good brothel.” Rainbow Dash shrugged. “And I’m pretty sure Twilight will lock me in some endless library one day.”

Pumpkin opened one eye. “What about a Friendship Reeducation Course? I told her that she should think about it once, but she never listened. That way, we could catch potential villains and teach them friendship before they turn evil, whether they want it or not.”

“Is there an alicorn you didn’t try to turn evil?” Flurry asked.

“Well, I once sent a letter to Princess Celestia, but she told me not to write, ever.” Pumpkin smiled sheepishly.

Flurry rolled her eyes. “I wonder why.”

“Well, I only suggested–” Pumpkin winced, rubbing her temples. “Can you stop trying to fry my brain? I’m gonna get cancer or something!”

“It just happens on its own,” Flurry said. “Also, I wouldn’t worry about staying here. I mean, there are reasonable ponies down there. Someone will figure this out and–”

Something heavy hit the ground behind them. They all turned to see another crater, still smoking after the impact.

“I’m starting to sense a pattern,” Precious Gem said, walking to the crater.

“Starlight?” Rainbow Dash asked, seeing the pony who raised from the crater. “What did you do?”

“I told Luna that she can’t just teleport ponies wherever she wants to and that if a big dick pisses her off so much then she should go and get one because that’s apparently what she needs.” Starlight shrugged.

“And she sent you to the Moon for that?” Flurry asked.

“Nah, for telling her that I’m not sharing Sunburst with her.” Starlight sighed. “Also, what are you doing here?”

“Luna happened.” Flurry smirked. “We wanted to prank her, so we disguised as her guards. You can guess the rest.”

“Ah, of course,” Starlight replied. “Too bad Trixie isn’t here. We’d be home in no time.”

“No way!” Flurry exclaimed. “Not even I can teleport everyone back!”

Starlight sighed and shook her head. “I mean, she can build rockets out of shit.”

“Literally?” Rough Diamond asked. “I mean, we don’t have that much and without food–”

“I’d like to say no, but one can never be sure,” Starlight replied with a shudder.

“I’d rather stay here if this was an alternative,” Pumpkin said. “I mean, I could always establish a moon base…”

Precious Gem shrugged. “Eh, I had worse.”

“This still doesn’t help us.” Starlight turned to Flurry. “Since nopony seems to be catching subtle messages, write something like ‘we’re here, you dingus’ on the surface.”

Suddenly, she heard a low-pitched chuckle behind her. She spun in place to see Discord standing on some rock. For some reason, he wore a bright pink spacesuit.

“Excuse me,” Discord said, “did you just call drawing a crude depiction of male genitalia on the surface of the Moon a subtle message?” He patted Starlight’s back and gave her a golden statuette. “This one’s for the winner of the ‘This Sounded Better In My Head’ category.” He teleported, appearing next to Flurry and ruffling her mane. “Of course, the winner of ‘I Didn’t Think This Through’ was already known.”

Flurry furrowed her eyebrows. “No wonder Luna kicked you here.”

“Lies!” Discord exclaimed. “Slander! Unlike you, Ms. Dash, Ms. Glimmer, and your colourful bunch of friends, I didn’t end up here for getting on Luna’s nerves. I got here all by myself.”

“How?” Pumpkin asked.

Discord pulled a piece of paper out of nowhere. “Well, imagine that this is our spacetime and those two points are the Moon and Earth. Normally, they’re pretty far away, as the spacetime generally doesn’t change shape. However, if you can bend the spacetime around yourself, you can form a wormhole, or more correctly, Einstein-Rosen bridge–”

“Who is Einstein?” Pumpkin asked.

Discord rolled his eyes. “Okay, it’s chaos magic. I don’t have to explain it.”

Pumpkin leaned closer to Discord. “Is it possible to learn this power?”

“It takes seven centuries to master,” Discord replied. “Hope you have a lot of free time.”

“Wait,” Flurry said, levitating Pumpkin away from Discord. “So, you just went here on your own? Can you bring us back home?”

“Yes,” Discord replied. “But where's the fun in that?”

“Well, I might not be Luna, but I can probably think of something, like sending you to–”

“Uranus?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Discord shook his head. “Eh, you’re indeed not Luna. I’d say you’re not even Starlight.”

“Hey!” Starlight exclaimed.

“Pray tell me, young Flurry Heart, how did you want to banish me? Starlight once tried, right? But I’m like Lassie, I always come home.”

“I don’t know who’s Lassie,” Starlight muttered. “If I recall correctly, my comparison involved a broken toilet that doesn’t flush.”

“Starlight used to be kinda crude, yeah.” Discord smirked. “But well, how are you going to banish me?”

Flurry charged her horn. Still smirking, Discord snapped his fingers. The surface of the Moon suddenly disappeared, turning into a dark blue ocean of some strange substance – not a liquid, but not exactly a gas either.

“Where are we?” Flurry asked. “Where’s everyone?”

“Still on the Moon, I hope,” Discord replied. “As for us, we’re, as bad as it sounds, as close to Uranus as we can without getting suffocated in the methane atmosphere.” He shrugged. “Not that I have a problem with that, but for you it could be terribly inconvenient.”

Flurry looked around. “Well, aren’t we currently in vacuum anyway?”

“Touche,” Discord replied. “Though I still may just leave you here until you get wiser. Did wonders for Luna.”

“Did it?” Flurry asked. “I always felt that, as far as my aunts go, she seems the most, uhh… off.”

“That’s because you’ve never went on a pub crawl with Celestia.” A tankard of cider appeared in Discord’s claw. He drank it and threw the cider away. “Not to mention your mom, auntie Twilight, and a tatzlwurm.”

Flurry rolled her eyes. “Now you’re making it up. Also, what’s a tatzlwurm?”

“I’ll tell you when you grow up.” Discord put on a pair of thick glasses and a grey wig. “Kids your age are too fascinated with its appendages.”

“So it has tentacles?” Flurry smirked.

“If Cadance ever asks, I didn’t tell you that.” A halo appeared over Discord’s head, complete with a pair of angel wings growing from his back.

“So you won’t tell me where to find it?” Flurry asked. “Though given where we are, there might be no time for that.”

“For once you think with your brain,” Discord said. “But that’s not important right now. The thing is, due to your recent actions ponies are landing on the Moon left and right, which is pretty amusing, at least until everyone lands on the Moon.” He donned a hard hat and looked into a notebook. “Then it becomes a logistics problem.”

“Well, it’d end much faster if you just get us back to Earth rather than taking me where no pony has gone before,” Flurry replied.

“Did I say I want to end this?” Discord chuckled. “I would even make you my apprentice, but Fluttershy will be jealous.”

“No, thanks.” Flurry shook her head. “My mom wouldn’t like that.”

“Your dad, on the other hoof, would love it.” Discord smirked. “Though we do have to go back. We’re playing Ogres and Oubliettes on Friday.” He snapped his fingers and Flurry suddenly found herself in the throne room of the palace, standing in front of Princess Luna. Her friends were also there; after being teleported from the Moon, Pound got sick again and threw up on Luna’s hooves, much to her annoyance.

“Okay, now I understand why you didn’t want to fornicate with him,” Luna said, looking at Pound. “Also, where have you been?”

Discord appeared between them, wearing a cape and a domino mask. “Captain Discord to the rescue! I just found them wandering on the Moon.” He smiled at Luna. “They said something about pranking a Princess and practicing art. Also, we might have been to Uranus.”

“Where?” Luna looked back, waving her tail. “Also, are you telling me that–”

Suddenly, Flurry found herself teleported again. When she saw the familiar landscape of the Moon, she wasn’t even surprised.

“Again?” Rough Diamond groaned. “How many more times will she do this?”

“Don’t ask me,” Shining Armor said, looking around. “I got caught in the blast, it seems.”

“You’re not the only one, dad.” Flurry looked around. Pound, Starlight, and Precious Gem weren’t sent to the Moon this time, but aside from Shining Armor, Cadance, Applejack, and two random guards also managed to take part in this trip. “At this point, I think we should stage an intervention.”

“Not until she stops doing this,” Cadance said, looking at one of the lines of Flurry’s drawing. “Also, did you do this?”

Flurry blushed. “Yeah… Kind of.”

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Cadance replied. “When I was your age, I also had unrealistic expectations.”

“Mom!” Flurry exclaimed. “Can we stop discussing my nonexistent sex life? Luna already keeps doing that and look where it got us!”

“I really hoped Sunburst would–” Cadance paused. “Okay, I’d rather not think what you’d do to the Crystal Heart if I kept talking.”

“Crystal Heart isn’t as big as the Moon.” Shining smirked. “That’d be a rather small dick.”

“Can we stop talking about that?” Flurry groaned. “Also, can Discord beam us up from here?”

Suddenly, her stomach twisted, as yet again she was teleported back across space. She found herself in the throne room, with Twilight and Starlight standing alongside Luna, who was tied with chains, gagged, and with a magic inhibitor on her horn.

Flurry smirked. “I see you’re busy,” she said to Twilight. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

Luna said something in an angry tone, completely muffled by the gag.

“What did she say?” Flurry asked.

“Something like, ‘joke’s on you, little shit, they got it from your mom’s luggage’,” Starlight replied. “Which isn’t entirely accurate as we got the chains from Trixie.”

“Yay, more stuff I never wanted to know.” Flurry rolled her eyes. Something flashed and her parents appeared next to her.

Cadance looked at Luna and furrowed her eyebrows. “Where did you get this?”

Twilight and Starlight looked at each other with sheepish grins, but before they could say anything, Shining smirked. “Honey, can’t you see they’re busy? Don’t worry, girls, just pretend we’re not here.”

Luna rolled her eyes and muttered something.

“She said, ‘you’re all the same’,” Starlight translated. “She also wonders how come Twilight has the same genes.”

Flurry turned to Shining. “Has she ever met Granny Velvet?”

“She did,” Shining replied. “But Granny Velvet never tried to drop her down Neighagra Falls in a barrel. Not that they’d have such a big barrel.”

Luna groaned.

“She said bad things about your mother,” Starlight said.

Cadance cleared her throat. “Okay, while my mother-in-law is clearly a very interesting pony, someone has to be a responsible adult here. Flurry, remove this, uhh… drawing from the Moon, then we can untie auntie Luna and think of what to do next, okay?”

“Okay,” Flurry replied.

“Have you ever noticed that ‘auntie’ is an anagram of ‘untie’?” Shining Armor asked.

Cadance rolled her eyes. “It’s not. ‘Auntie’ has an ‘a’, but other than that, it’s spelled exactly like ‘untie’.”

Shining shrugged. “Funny how this ‘a’ completely changes the pronunciation.”

“We can discuss that later, now we need to untie Luna before she tries to curse us. Or even worse, she won’t invite us to the Hearth’s Warming dinner,” Cadance said and turned to Flurry. “And then we’ll think of an appropriate punishment…”

The bell rang and Flurry and Rough Diamond walked out of the classroom. Flurry smiled at a teenage dragon passing by, but Rough Diamond was too busy muttering something under her breath to notice him.

“What’s up?” Flurry asked, waving at two changelings walking down the corridor.

“I still don’t get why your mom sent us to the School of Friendship,” Rough Diamond replied. “It turns out you can’t punch your opponents during buckball games. It suddenly lost a lot of its appeal.”

“There’s a rugby class,” Flurry replied, smiling at a minotaur.

“Yeah, so the guys like this one use me as a ball.” Rough Diamond looked at the minotaur. “Also, why isn’t Precious Gem here? She’s an egghead, after all.”

Flurry shrugged. “She has a job back at the Empire. The new librarian would need ages just to learn which books at the library were cursed by King Sombra.”

“Hey, I have a job too!” Rough Diamond exclaimed.

“Yes,” Flurry replied. “Being my personal bodyguard.”

“You can draw a dick on the Moon with your magic alone,” Rough Diamond said. “You don’t need a bodyguard. You need therapy.”

“Cheer up,” Flurry said. “We’re having a party at the dorm tonight.” She waved at the group of bat ponies passing by.

“A party?” Rough Diamond asked, eyeing the bat ponies. “Who’s coming?”

Flurry smirked. “Everyone, hopefully.”

“Yeah, I met a nice griffon who also doesn’t understand buckball. I hope he co–” Rough Diamond furrowed her eyebrows. “Wait, did you mean coming as in arriving at the party or–”

“Well, it depends on you.” Flurry chuckled. “One thing is sure: this place has much more interesting guys. And no uncle Flash scaring everyone away.”

“Oh yeah…” Rough Diamond nodded. “Don’t you feel your mom planned this?”

“Possibly,” Flurry replied. “She’s the Princess of Love, after all.”

“Yeah, but this probably doesn’t involve fucking everyone around.” Rough Diamond looked at three griffons standing by the staircase and smiled at them.

“Who said anything about fucking everyone around?” Flurry asked. “As auntie Luna pointed out, I have standards. Guys who throw up on me are pretty much out.”

“Yeah, sure.” Rough Diamond smirked. “But still–”

“Oh, come on!” Flurry exclaimed. “Besides, it’s just a party. We’re not going to burn the school down or anything.”

“Well, if you say so...” Rough Diamond shrugged. “But yeah, it’s just a friendly party. In a School of Friendship. After all, that’s what it’s all about, right? Nothing weird can possibly happen.”

“Exactly,” Flurry replied.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Author's Note

The End (?)