“Fifth place?”

“I know you’re shocked, and that this sounds li—”

“FIFTH BUCKING PLACE?”

The pink Princess’s screech echoed off of the crystalline walls, each reverberation of sound making the blue gems hum with a harmonic whine as if a dim chorus of petulant whiners were echoing their alicorn conductor.

“It’s actually not that bad! If you look at the deeper metrics you’ll see—”

“Not that bad? NOT THAT BAD?” Cadance whirled on Sunburst, curlers flying out of her hair in all directions like pinecones from a tree in a winter storm. The Princess was far out of sorts, her face a pallid mix of sallow, sleep-bagged eyes, and a thin trail of dried drool beneath her chin… seeing as how she’d been confronted in the midst of her morning make-up preparation. Her lips curled, like a venomous snake preparing to strike. Cadance could feel the ‘resting bitch’ inside boiling up, and she felt no need to restrain the demonic surge.

“Tell me, Sunburst. My incredibly talented, professional agent…” Each adjective dripped with sarcasm, green drops of toxic poison so thick that they nearly took form out of the very air, “Just how many princesses were there in last quarter’s public opinion poll?”

“Cadance, I—”

“HOW MANY?”

“F-four...”

“Four. And what place did I, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, Alicorn Princess of Love, founding member of the ‘Friendship Four’, receive in that poll?”

“Fourth.”

“Fourth,” Cadance growled, one of her hooves digging into the royal carpet. “Also known as last place. A result most ponies would be unhappy with... A result some ponies would fire their agents for.” Cadance tried to send the most withering glare down her snout at Sunburst, whose glasses were already starting to fog from the sweat beading on his brow.

“But I’m no fool Sunburst. I actually agreed with you when you told me not to read too much into those polls. When you told me those popularity contests aren’t really so important when you’re up against two literal ancient Goddesses and the savior of the planet, I agreed!

“But… my oh-so brilliant, wise counselor… How many ponies were in this quarter’s poll?”

“F-five.”

“FIVE. The glorious, first inclusion of my darling daughter. Princess Flurry Heart, teenage alicorn, finally of legal age and able to participate in this public-spectacle charade.” Cadance tossed the hairbrush she’d been clutching so hard in her magic field that it had snapped, throwing it with enough force that it left a hairline crack in a diamond-hard column. “I had actually planned a girls’ night-in, Sunburst... With plenty of cookie dough and snacks and rum, so I could cheer up my little girl after she received her last-place finish.”

Cadance felt tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Hot, stinging, drops. She wasn’t sure if they were drops of anger or of despair, rage or wallowing self-pity. At this point, she didn’t care.

“Imagine my surprise when she comes third. Not even fucking fourth, Sunburst. THIRD!” Cadance’s telekinetic field menacingly approached the orange stallion with enough intent to make him start to charge his horn with a defensive spell. Cadance paused, letting out a half-choked crying whine: “That bucking pity-party should have been planned for me!”

The tears were streaming now, dripping off either side of her face as she fell to her haunches, wracking sobs coming in heaving shudders. She couldn't stop them, or the horrible thoughts. She was old. Ugly. Unloved. A joke of a Princess. Despised by the populace.

“I-I… I’m the worst Princess!” Cadance’s wail was almost as loud as her furious shout.

“No, honey, no.” Shining Armor stepped forward. Earlier in their marriage, he would have already wrapped her up in a reassuring hug. Now he was tentative, unsure, and even a little scared of her. Her tempestuous and chaotic emotional state was never predictable. The love in her marriage was yet another casualty of this damned superhero job. That fact alone was worth another cry.

“Y-y-yeshhhh!”

“Don’t forget about the hippogriffs and the Saddle Arabians. They weren’t on the poll. There’s no way you’re the worst Princess.”

“What the buck did you say?” Cadance snarled, blinking the tears away. Shining Armor could be such a goddamn moron sometimes.

“Nothing, honey!”

“Morons! I’m surrounded by bucking morons!” Cadance whirled on Sunburst once again. “What are we going to do about this?”

“Well, uh Hyper Heartthrob we— *hoomphf*!” Sunburst’s sentence was cut off as he received a blindingly fast psychic punch to his gut, leaving him curled up on the ground, gasping for breath.

“DON’T CALL ME THAT!” Cadance snarled, “I told you to never address me by that bucking ridiculous ‘Flam Co.’ superheroine name! The public can simper like a bunch of drooling idiots over these gaudy titles and costumes and Flam Co. can force me to play along when I’m out of the castle, but in here I’m Princess Cadance! Understand?”

Groaning, Sunburst rolled onto his belly, scrambling for his spectacles. “Th-that’s part of the problem, Princess… everypony can tell that you hate it.” Sunburst must have knocked his head when he fell, because he wouldn’t dare talk to her like this otherwise. He even rolled his eyes as he placed his meager, broken black frames onto his snout. “That’s why you only poll well in the Crystal Empire, and the rest of Equestria thinks you’re a stuck-up royal that doesn’t want to be a supe—”

With a blinding flash of magic, Sunburst was tossed head over heels, slamming him into the nearest wall.

Cadance stared down at him with ice in her veins. It was so much easier to take out her frustrations on somepony else rather than having to actually deal with them. She squeezed her enhanced telekinetic magical field tighter, feeling the unicorn’s body creak underneath the strain.

“A-ah!” Sunburst screamed.

He was so pathetic with his cape dangling down, his glasses falling off his nose and breaking on the ground, his raggedy orange mane streaming down to the floor, and his stallion-bits uncomfortably hanging down his belly. She gripped the pair of orange gemstones in her field, squeezing and twisting slightly. Sunburst’s eyes bulged with a rancid mixture of fear and physical discomfort

“Now I know I didn’t just hear what I thought I heard.” Cadance smiled sweetly. “You wouldn’t have been mouthing off to me, now would you, Sunburst… my oh-so-loyal agent?”

“N-n-no!” Sunburst squirmed in her grasp.

“You really should be careful, you know...” Cadance applied a little more pressure. They really were like two little water balloons: so easy to squeeze just a bit too hard and they’d pop. “Because if you were working for a different super-mare, they would only geld you for daring to speak out of turn.”

“I-I wasn’t—”

“But you know what my super-power is Sunburst?” Cadance growled, “Love. I can make anypony fall in love with anything. So why would I need to bother gelding you? I’d much rather make you fall madly in love with the biggest, strongest yak-mare out there that enjoys C-B-T.”

“C-B-T?”

Cadance’s grin sharpened to a razor fine snarl. This was almost therapeutic. “I’d make it so you’d be begging that big stinking yak-ess to stomp your junk into a paste.”

“N-no! P-please!”

“I’ve done it before, Sunburst. I don’t mind making ponies fall in love, regardless of how they feel about it. Love is so beautiful after all. The boost I got from compound F means I don’t even have to worry about overwriting a pony’s mind and soul. I can make anypony do anything I want.”

It was true. She had used her power many times. She liked to think that most of the time it had been for the better — that she hadn’t done it for selfish purposes. Sure, maybe she’d sampled a few of the handsomer stallions at court, maybe she’d stolen a few to form her own personal harem. Maybe she’d even locked her husband up to be a complete, simpering devotee to her instead of his previous swinging, open-marriage lifestyle.

Too bad. Perks of being a superheroine.

Releasing all the squeezing psychokinetic pressure that could have squashed him like a grape, she dropped Sunburst in a heap.

“So unless you want to find yourself with a newfound dragon vore fetish, you’d better get to finding a way to fix my fucking poll numbers, now.”

Cadance turned in a huff, tears forming in her eyes again. She beckoned Shining over to her, letting him know that now was the appropriate time to lavish her with comforting words. Everypony around her was such a mindless incompetent. It wasn’t fair.

She bet Twilight didn’t have to deal with this shit.

Author's Note

Hey everyone, hope you like my take on 'The BOYS' set in MLP.

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