Author's Note
Stupid crackfic lol. Something I had on the back burner for a while that I had started on years ago but never finished. Once again, Past Flamm gives Present Flamm a gift lol. This is... I don't even know man. There's probably a couple mistakes here... I mean let me know or... yeah... whatever lmfao
Enjoy!
FP&A
The spectacled earth pony stallion smiled graciously as he took his seat in the chair provided to him.
“Princess Twilight! Once again, I’d like to thank you and the rest of the Elements for meeting me on such short notice!”
Twilight sat opposite of him around the Grand Common Room’s roundtable, and nodded amicably with a soft, wide-eyed smile.
“Of course, sir!” she said.
She then placed a hoof on her chest and drew upon her optimistic intrigue as she continued:
“I don’t know what this is about yet… but if Celestia and Luna sent you, then it’s gotta be important…! O-Oh! And thanks, girls, for heading over here on equally short notice,” Twilight quickly added.
Rarity was first to the reassurance:
“Of course, dear! Whatever is needed by the Princesses is worth moving around a couple client appointments,” she said.
Pinkie Pie immediately cut in by slamming both her hooves on the table, which earned her more than a few startled gasps. She then vibrated in her seat so much that Equestria’s Geological Survey was probably gonna have a few questions in the near future.
Then came her rather… succinct response:
“I. LOVE. MEETINGS!”
Fluttershy, Applejack, and Spike all simultaneously glanced over to the excitable mare, also sharing raised eyebrows amongst themselves before quietly nodding in acquiescence to the entire situation.
Rainbow Dash, however, was a little less-than forthcoming with such an accommodating attitude:
“Yeah yeah, I’m sure the Princesses are really important as always, but nopony’s dying or being threatened so… I’m kinda missing out on a nap, just sayin’,” she indeed said.
Applejack continued to prove that she was some form of Rainbow Dash’s wrangler when she was about to reprimand her for lack of tact and manners… as usual.
The Castle’s guest, however, cleared his throat.
“Of course! Rest assured, I don’t think this meeting will take more than twenty minutes. I’ll be in and out of your manes once I say what’s needed, and I get answers to my questions,” he said, and tacked on a bright smile and nod for good measure.
Satisfied that the conversation was righted, Twilight then gestured with both hooves towards her friends sat around the table. Smiling warmly, she asked:
“Then on that note, would you please introduce yourself to everypony here?”
He nodded once, then cleared his throat once more whilst smoothing out his tie and dress shirt.
“Certainly! Hi everypony! Big fan of yours’! My name is Bottom Line, and I’m the Senior Director of Financial Planning and Analysis of Their Majesties’ Treasury.”
Bottom Line then hefted his suitcase onto the table and, with some sleight of hoof, laid out several sheets of various grids and colored charts—all were filled with numbers. He placed both hooves on the table and excitedly proclaimed to everypony:
“And I’d like to take this time to discuss your budget for the last year.”
Crickets.
There were crickets that scampered out of the room once the word ‘budget’ was said, but there was also complete silence. Twilight stared straight at Bottom Line, who was clearly looking for some measure of response. She then glanced over to either side of her, and found her friends seemingly… much more understanding than she was.
“Ummm… our… budget?” she dared to ask.
Everypony looked back at her in various states of bemusement that she would ask such a question, and thankfully, it looked like Spike was coming to her rescue:
“Y-Yeah, Twi… our budget,” he said.
A little too matter-of-factly for her liking, as if she was being the weird one. Her understanding was in no better straits.
“Wh—ah?”
Bottom Line chimed in again, seemingly eager to get down to brass tacks while chuckling politely:
“Y-Yes, Princess. Your budget. Heh, you six plus Spike are the Department of Harmony, after all.”
All looked to her curiously and nodded in complete agreement. Twilight felt like the room was getting brighter by virtue of how in-the-dark she was right now. Nevertheless, she sat upright, and placed both her front hooves on the table. Twilight was already over this.
“What the f—WHAT?! Girls, Spike… what the heck is he talking about?” she asked, tossing the question to those who were clearly more in the know than she was.
Applejack spoke up first:
“Uhhhh… sugarcube? Do you not know of ummm… ‘our budget?’” she asked.
Twilight deadpanned.
“Ummm… no. That’s literally why I’m asking the question!”
Rainbow Dash leaned back in her chair and unceremoniously crossed her hind legs atop the table as she began gesturing with her right-front hoof.
“Yeah! It’s like what the Princesses gave us to spend versus what we actually did!” she said.
Twilight rolled her eyes so hard she felt like her retinas detached from her optic nerves.
“I’m well-aware of the concept of what a budget is, Rainbow! What I’m curious is how you all seem to know about something that’s complete news to me!” she exclaimed.
Rainbow Dash scoffed, and blew a strand of her prismatic mane out of her face.
“Don’t get mad at me, Twi. I’m not the one who forgot about our budget…”
The Princess of Magic was ready to slam her own head against the table, but before any more of her friends could tag in with their own thoughts, Bottom Line careened back into the conversation:
“I see… I think that already answers some of my questions, then,” he said. “Well, ehm… this is certainly not how I expected this conversation to go, but, here we are!”
He adjusted his glasses and began to explain:
“Your Highness, as you and your best friends here were anointed with the Elements of Harmony, you consequently made up the ‘Department of Harmony.’ Like any other administrative sector in Their Majesties’ bureaucracy, Equestrian tax dollars are allotted to you in the form of a budget—broken down by various line-items we recognize on our ledger.”
Twilight’s mouth remained slightly slackened, but she nodded nonetheless. She felt it was better to just take things as they were for right now.
“O-Okay… ‘Department of Harmony?’ Wh—whatever. Okay, sure,” she acquiesced.
Asking her previous questions was clearly getting nowhere, so she ran her hooves through her mane to re-compose herself. Twilight figured it was better to get everything sorted as quickly as possible so she could have a long talk with everypony afterward.
“Right… then in that case, what was our ‘budget’ for the last year?” she asked.
“Mkay according to this…” Bottom Line fetched the top paper of the stack and drew his hoof to the bottom.
“…Harmony Department was budgeted for two million, four hundred thousand bits for the last year.”
Twilight almost sustained neck damage from how hard she blinked and recoiled.
“WHOA! O-Okay! Ummm… wow, that’s… a lot! Whew, I thought we were in trouble or something,” she said confidently.
Bottom Line continued:
“Indeed, but here’s the thing. You lot have spent upwards of three million bits, which leaves you, overall, over-budget by about six-hundred thousand bits.”
Any crickets that remained from the last exodus were summarily silenced when Twilight’s internal, bloody screaming eclipsed all other sounds filtering in.
“...WHAT?!”
To everypony else’s credit, they all seemed surprised... though significantly less-so than Twilight was.
In fact, Rainbow Dash almost looked... impressed.
“Whoa... didn’t think we racked it that high!” she giggled.
Pinkie nearly fell into hysterics.
"PFFT! WOWIE ZOWIE!" she screamed... then promptly sniffed.
Twilight snapped her gaze to her friends, the righteous fury of fiscal irresponsibility burning brightly in her eyes.
"Excuuuuuuuse me?! You’re laughing?? We somehow spent twenty-five percent over the budget that I wasn’t even aware of... and you’re laughing?!”
Pinkie giggled.
“It’s actually hilarious, Twi! And I don’t wanna pretend it’s not!” Pinkie said oh so excitedly, itching her nose with a bright smile.
Twilight took a deep breath and exhaled nice and slowly.
“Okay... no use being angry now I suppose. Now, the question is... how did we get here? What the hell did you all expense to the Crown? Because I sure as hell didn’t buy anything on our trips!” she voiced.
Bottom Line cut right in:
“That’s exactly what we’re here to find out. We have a record of all the purchases made on our ledger. So other than to let you know of your standing relative to budget, I’m also here to get some... clarity on the biggest expenditures. So let me see...”
An uneasy silence fell over the group as the visitor started organizing his papers appropriately. The blanket of tension that was wrapped around everypony felt like a hug from that one creepy dude in high school who always asked for those inappropriate hugs... mainly because Twilight was mildly glaring down each and every one of her friends.
“Ah, here we are!” he cut back in with what appeared to be a proper spreadsheet in his grasp.
“Let’s see... so earlier this year... the first thing that stands out that I’m seeing is about a two-hundred thousand bit expense. Over in Cloudsdale. Look’s like it’s labeled as simply ‘Damages.’”
Twilight was beginning to think the vein on her forehead would become permanently visible. She threw her ‘no use being angry’ spiel out the window and into oncoming traffic.
“Alright. Own up! Who was it??” she demanded.
Rainbow raised her hoof with an air of familiarity.
“Ahhh right! I remember that one! Remember when I had to do the whole Sonic Rainboom skit again? Well... we kinda forgot to take into account the whole, you know, City of Cloudsdale. The magic stuff that mixed with the sonic boom kinda blasted a bunch of glass in a few of the larger office buildings, along with damaging some foundation. Had to replace ‘em.”
Twilight asked in disbelief:
“And you decided to not let anypony else know? Not even me?”
“Like we said, we thought you were aware of the damn budget, Twi!”
“I just… I—BUDGET OR NOT! You just kept something that big to yourself?!” Twilight countered through gritted teeth.
Applejack cut in, hoof extended over the table as if she was trying to put an ethereal wall between them.
“L-Look sugarcube,” she addressed Twilight. “Fer once I’m gonna have to take the side of Rainbow Dash. We all thought you were aware of this… process. Why bother you with somethin’ yer already ‘aware of?’”
Twilight looked like she was about to jump onto the table and move to strangle them, but Spike put a single hand on her back to help calm her down… if only barely. Thankfully though, Bottom Line cut right back in after finishing his notes.
“Excellent… glad we were able to clear that up and get clarity on that line item. Now, next we have…”
Twilight watched as he drew his hoof over the next item which was just out of reach of legibility for her eyes.
“I’m seeing a preeeeeetty big expense under ‘Food and Team Meals’ titled ‘party goods’ for a cool million bits.”
Twilight almost didn’t wanna know… but her morbid curiosity had an iron grip on her like a puppet-master’s hand up its ass. She groaned, sounding almost defeated and in physical pain.
“A whole. Million. Bits… Lemme guess… Pinkie?” she wagered.
Glancing up towards the pink pony, she found her nearly vibrating through spacetime in her seat. She then watched her shoot her hoof up so fast, she was surprised it didn’t break the sound barrier and kill them all from sonic overload.
Twilight kinda wished that was the case.
Oh! OH! ME ME ME ME!!” she declared. “That was MeeeEEEEeee!”
Twilight knew that if she didn’t rein in her abject horror and frustration, she’d probably have a stroke so massive, the universe would be fully aroused. She took a deep breath and sighed out, then crossed her hooves over one another on the table as she leveled a stoic gaze at her pink friend.
She simply asked:
“And what did you spend over a million bits on?”
The massive headache returned with a vengeance when Pinkie started screaming her answer like an overhyped infomercial host.
“Weeeeeeeell remember when I was baking for the Friendship Festival over in Canterlot? Well it turns out I didn’t have NEARLY enough SUGAR to bake—and cover—all the cookies and doughnuts I was making!”
She sniffled again.
Twilight’s blank stare continued, and she had about as much clarity on the situation as a window of a sauna where ponies boned each other.
“So… am I to take from this that you spent literally a million bits on just sugar alone? Sugar is not that expensive, Pinkie! What the hell else did you buy?! Are you sure no one else was in on this?” Twilight demanded.
Pinkie slammed her hooves on the table and leaned over it towards Twilight with an almost evilly lecherous smile. Applejack and Twilight scooted away from her just slightly at the sight.
Her response was as smooth and dark like a five-bit cup of black coffee from a hipster cafe. Her voice gradually increased in volume and aggressiveness:
“Remember when I was baking cookies… and you were making your rounds to check on everypony? And I told you that I was running low on some supplies so I had to get some in a pinch? It was me, Twily. I was able to save the day by finding a nice older mule in one of Canterlot’s back alleys who said that he had some ‘SPECIAL SUGAR’ I could use THAT EVERYPONY WOULD LOVE!”
She then elastically snapped back to her usual shrill, excitable self:
“And they DID! Everypony went back for thirds! And it smells sooooo good I can’t stop sniffing it!” she screamed, throwing her hooves up for emphasis.
Everypony was blown backwards by her theatrics, while Bottom Line was busy nodding and jotting down rather stoically.
Pinky sniffled again.
Twilight’s eyes widened in complete, utter disbelief when her sole surviving synapse finally fired in her withering brain.
“You… you bought cocaine… from a literal mule?! And you got half of Canterlot addicted?! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR GODDAMN MIND?!” she cried out, hooves on her head.
Pinkie giggled.
“Out of my mind on this SPECIAL SUGAR! HAHA! YEAH!” she then proceeded to dab aggressively three times.
Applejack cut in once more with a bit of caution:
“Whoa there Twilight… cool it there with the speciesist remarks.”
The Princess swiveled in her seat with eyes that would make Equestria’s serial killers look downright enchanting.
She seethed:
“Not a fu—A drug mule, you idiot!”
Rarity stretched out both her hooves between Twilight and Applejack.
“Girls, girls… please… Twilight, you’re making quite the scene in front of our guest here. Please, let’s discuss more lively in private!” she intervened.
But before Twilight could start choking both of them with her magic, her concentration was broken when Bottom Line spoke up again.
“Speaking of ‘scene,’ Miss Rarity…” he began. “I see a charge for another five hundred thousand bits originating from the Canterlot Fashion District from about two months ago… from a merchant called ‘Scene.’ I don’t mean to assume, but would you know anything of this?” he inquired.
Rarity flipped her mane over her shoulder and smiled.
“While I thank you for the consideration, yes I do happen to know! You see, Princess Luna reached out to me and wanted to inquire on the more modern fashion senses of the more…”
Rarity stopped and twirled her right hoof idly in the air as she sought the proper word usage. While Twilight hung on her pause, Spike was busy scratching her back… all while the alicorn was thinking of needing to take a pregnant mare’s course on how to breathe properly again.
Finally, Rarity perked up.
“…lewd variety.”
Bottom Line held the utmost stoic professionalism as he urged:
“Please… go on.”
Twilight cut in sarcastically.
“Yeah Rarity! Please! Elaborate.”
“Well… Princess Luna was ‘grounded’ because she was still recovering from the Tantibus Incident. To get her out properly with nopony ‘noticing’ or reporting her leaving, I had to… incentivize the Lunar Guard to look away. That was about half of the amount.”
Twilight had ground her teeth to dust by this point.
“Mmmmkaaaay…” Bottom Line wrote down, nodding. “And the rest of it?”
“Once we got Princess Luna out on the streets—in disguise of course—she we ended up at ‘Scene,’ which is a lingerie and personal toy emporium. I will say that this was fully sanctioned by Her Highness, as she requested I charge the remainder to Harmony’s budget for everything she bought… as Celestia was monitoring their stipends at the time.”
“I see… thank you, Miss Rarity!”
Twilight was just… defeated. She stared towards the center of the table, not looking anypony in the eye, and looking like she saw ‘things and stuff’ in the Equidae War. She didn’t think she could get PTSD symptoms from a finance meeting, but, here she was.
All were looking toward her for another explosive opinion on the matter. Twilight had no more juice to give from the fruit of her sanity. It had all been wrung out like a dish towel.
Bottom Line cleared his throat again:
“Alright then… two more items I’d like to address. One is a modest seven-hundred thousand bits for a line item marked as ‘Animal Charity.’ Would this be your purview, Miss Fluttershy?” he asked.
Twilight—head in hoof—craned her head towards her with a deadpan and a cocked eyebrow.
Fluttershy, having felt all eyes on her suddenly, shrunk back a bit in her mane.
“W-Well… I do know that one! That was for a special treatment for the animals—the ‘Hookers and Blow’ Package!”
Suddenly, Twilight’s fruit had a little more juice in it.
“I’m sorry… the WHAT?!” she asked, then promptly leaned her entire body over to her so she could follow up with more questions:
“F-Fluttershy… did you also buy drugs?! And prostitutes?!”
Fluttershy looked absolutely horrified.
“Oh no Twilight! I could never do that! And don’t be silly! The animals have no need for drugs… or ummm… baser services!” she refuted.
And then promptly clarified dreamily:
“‘Hookers’ are a very popular brand of animal cracker treats that look like fish hooks. And the ‘Blow’ treatment is when we set up a bunch of fans and manually crank them to simulate wind blowing through their fur and hair! Oh how the animals love it so!”
Twilight retracted just a little bit.
“Right… okay… then why did it cost almost a million bits?” she dared to ask at the risk of her hold on reality further slipping away.
“It was on short notice! And the only ponies that were available to help me feed the animals their Hookers and administer the Blow treatment were the mares from the local brothel! They’ve volunteered before, but now they were only accepting payment in that ‘special sugar’ that Pinkie got, so I had to have her help me get some!”
Twilight wanted to snap. She really, truly did… but that wide-eyed, innocent look that Fluttershy was known for wouldn’t let her. She opted to take a rather deep breath before she spoke calmly instead… though her words held a rather sardonic accent at best.
“Right. So.
“You treated the animals to a rather run-of-the-mill package of ‘Hookers and Blow.’ And in order to facilitate this, you had to have actual hookers administer the Blow and Hookers… and you paid the hookers for their time, in blow. Am I understanding this correctly?”
Fluttershy smiled brightly and nodded.
Twilight just opted to lay her head on the table. She was tired. Fatigued, really… and it was the kind of fatigue that no amount of sleep could cure.
Bottom Line’s voice spoke up through the blackness of her shut eyes:
“Right… okay, thank you! And finally, the remaining contributor to being over-budget is labeled simply as ‘Produce.’ Miss Applejack, would you have any insight on this?” he asked.
“I sure do!” she said, pushing her hat back a bit.
“Had to import more Zap Apples to meet the demand for the Zap Apple Jam! Even the Princesses wanted a bunch… so we couldn’t rightly say no to that! Problem was that those Zap Apples were comin’ from Mareitonia. And they don’t take kindly to Zap Apples leavin’ their borders,” she explained.
She lowered her voice a bit and punctuated the meaning of her words with help from her hooves:
“Had to get some ‘special ponies’ to move ‘em out. They weren’t cheap unfortunately, though I figured it was fine because I didn’t expect the other girls here to spend so much on their… activities, heh,” she giggled.
And as Bottom Line was writing down his final notes, it all came to a head for Twilight. It was her turn to quiver in her seat as the weight of the sheer absurdity of everything she heard fell upon her.
She snapped her head upright so fast and hard, she probably cracked a vertebra.
“OKAY. FIRST OF ALL. HOW DARE YOU ALL!” she screamed.
Spike raised a hand.
“Twilight…”
“NO! This is madness! Did you all hear yourselves?! Am I really the only one living in a fucking plane of reality anymore?!” she questioned.
And then promptly started pointing at each one of her friends individually as punctuation for her words:
“We’ve got: destruction and damage to public and private property; drug use and trafficking; bribery in addition to lewd and lascivious conduct plus sex toys for a Princess; hiring whores from a whorehouse; and smuggling! Anything else?!”
Her eyes were starting to glow brightly, and Bottom Line quickly packed up his suitcase and bid a rather speedy farewell.
“Thank you all… this is everything I needed and I have no further questions! I’ll just uh… be out of your manes…” he uttered, scurrying out the door to avoid whatever was coming.
Twilight promptly continued:
“What the hell’s your damage, girls?! Am I living in a clown world? We are the Elements of Harmony, we’re supposed to be held to a higher standard! How do we even explain this to the Equestrian Taxpayers when this gets back to the Princesses, and the finances become public domain?!”
Rarity spoke up softly, meekly raising her hoof:
“W-Well… remember, at least part of this was sanctioned by Luna… so if you feel this doesn’t reflect well on us, maybe we could enlist her help in… you know… not making this public?” she suggested.
Everypony else seemed to be on board.
Twilight was having none of it.
“‘If this doesn’t reflect—’ Oh for…” she stammered over her thoughts and words before getting ahold of herself again:
“So. Corruption. We’re gonna add ‘corruption’ to the list. Is that what you’re suggesting?! ‘Elements of Harmony?’ Elements of Harmony—MY ASS! Too bad there isn’t any budget left over! Otherwise I’d use it to pay for your funerals!”
Rainbow Dash had something to say to that:
“So… you wanna murder us over you not knowing about our budget? That’s not very cash-money of you, Twi.”
Spike actually had to hold Twilight back this time.
