The Long And Short Of It

Morning had come again. And as was typical of Cut N. Paste’s mornings, she and her herd were occupying the freshly cleaned bathroom, and each going through their morning routines. It’d been an interesting few days since Anon got back from his impromptu stallion’s night, and honestly, Cut had still failed to process some of it. That night was crazy!

Anon had come home wearing the hottest outfit she’d ever seen, and what did he do? He dressed Pike up in colty lingerie and bucked her! It was that same blue apron Cut had seen her wearing a while ago. That was a pretty shocking sight. Even more shocking was that once Pike got over the initial embarrassment, she seemed like she liked it!

At first Pike didn’t even want Cut to look at her! The earth pony had never seen her like that, all bashful and embarrassed.

But once the three of them got going...

‘Phew! I’m feeling hot and heavy just thinking about it!’

Anon started talking about how he was going to pin her down and show her what a little mare she was, and she was totally into it! Pike!

Nocturnal Pike, enjoying getting tossed around the bed like a ragdoll! It was a side of her Cut never would have thought existed, let alone seen before. She wasn’t judging, though!

Quite the opposite, really.

When Cut looked at somepony like Pike, it was easy to see a paragon for how mares should act instead of an actual mare. It was obvious to anyone who met her that she tried her utmost to act like one too. But sometimes, Cut got to see the little ways Anon managed to bring those walls down. Like the plants Pike grew, the food she cooked, and the times she’d indulge her (slightly) deviant sexual tastes...

It was nice, even if she tried to explain them away every time Cut asked her about them.

‘Maybe I should keep more of an eye out for things like that, help encourage her too.’

‘Oh! Kind of like she’s doing for me, except in reverse! She’ll help me be more marely and I’ll help her be less marely!’

‘...Hm, mental note: that didn’t even sound good in my head. Never, ever say that to Pike.’

“Uggghhhhh.” Cut’s attention was pulled toward the sound of Anon stepping out of the shower. Clearly, today would be a slow day for him.

“How are you still hungover?” Pike accused through a mouthful of toothpaste, “It's been three days!”

“I’m not hungover,” Anon whined back, “Jus gimmie some aspirin and a couple of minutes and I’ll be fine.”

Pike rolled her eyes but did as he asked, popping open the drawer she stood in front of to retrieve the pills. “Seriously, how much wine did you drink that you’ve been hungover for three days?”

Anon threw back some aspirin and swallowed them— ‘without water!? What the heck?!’

“I’ll have you know I was only hung over one day. And that was yesterday.”

Still a little thrown off by his brazen aspirin consumption, Cut’s voice came out shaky. “Wh-What about the day before then? You were certainly something.”

Anon gave her a slight grin. “Hehe, still drunk. Heyooo....”

That was, by far, the weakest “heyo” Cut had ever heard a pony mutter.

“Anon, that was pathetic.” Once again Cut found herself in sync with Pike, as they seemed to be increasingly often.

Giving quite a bit of credence to the ‘hungover’ theory, that retort somehow managed to actually fluster him. “Yeah well... the pills haven’t kicked in yet so it doesn’t count!”

“Oh?” Pike smirked. “What was that mister I’m not hungo— mmmf!”

Anon silenced Pike’s taunt by deftly slinging his towel right into her face.

‘Wow, he gave it just enough spin that it wrapped around her head too!’

Caught off guard, Pike stumbled a bit as a hoof immediately went to her face. Anon ignored her muffled cries though, instead turning over his shoulder to hit Cut with the unintentionally steamiest look he’d ever given.

“Sorry for messing up the bathroom you just cleaned.”

It was probably just the hangover, but his quieter voice combined with his half-lidded eyes...

‘Oh mare! That’s the exact look the bad colt love interest gives the protagonist in ‘Sara o arawanakereba naranakatta toki, hon'nosukoshidake osoku natta watashi no chō sōdaina bōken’!’

‘Quick, you should do like the protagonist does and say something cool!’

“Uh, well you can mess up my bathroom any time!”

‘…Oh Celestia.’

The sounds of Pike’s struggling instantly ceased. One of Anon’s eyebrows shot way up.

Cut already knew what they were going to say; she might as well own up to it. “You two don’t need to say anything, I-I know that was awful.”

Pike finally pulled the towel off her face, revealing the exact disappointed look she was expecting.

Anon was visibly disappointed in Cut too, but at least he put a supportive hoof on her withers. “It's okay dear. We’ll just have to work on your one-liners before we have company.” Keeping his hoof on Cut, he rolled his head back to look at Pike. “Which will be soon, right honey?”

Pike let out the second loudest groan Cut had ever heard. “It's bad enough Astral won’t stop bugging me about that while I’m on the job.”

Unfortunately for Pike, it seemed the prospect of teasing her had given him a second wind. “Well,” Anon's voice came out completely devoid of sympathy, “We both agreed to keep bugging you until you set it up so, when’s she coming over? When’s the party?!”

Pike rolled her eyes before finally tossing the soiled towel over her shoulder. “Anon, having one pony over is hardly a party.”

“About that...” Cut piped up. “Anon and I were talking about inviting Silken over too. That way Astral doesn’t feel like a fourth wheel, you know?” Cut had been in that position a hoofful of times before and it’d never been fun. In fact, it was unbearably awkward!

Not to mention that crushing feeling that she was witnessing something she’d never have herself...

Well, Pike’s friend probably didn’t need to worry about that part.

‘And now neither will I for that matter!’

“That’s actually not a terrible idea,” Pike remarked. “But uh, what exactly are the five of us going to do? Just drink?”

‘Oooh nuts, I hadn’t thought of that.’

Cut and Silken usually defaulted to Cyber when they were together, and who knew what she did while hanging with Anon? Probably not something Pike’s friend would be into, she’d wager.

“Leave that to me!” Anon cut in, “It's been waaaaay too long since I’ve gotten to play host.”

‘Huh, I didn’t expect that from him.’

Evidently Pike hadn’t either; she was looking just as surprised as Cut felt! “Alright,” said a bemused Pike, “I hadn’t taken you for a ‘host with the most’ type, Anon.”

‘What an... incredibly odd thing to say.’

A 'host with the most' was a pretty stereotypically stalliony description. Cut didn’t really think that applied to Anon at all, even if he said he wa—

‘Aha! Wait a second, I know what this is! This is banter!’

‘She called him that because she wants to gain back some ground after Anon ribbed her about Astral! Look at me, starting to pick up on these things.’

‘Now let’s see how Anon responds…’

“Well I just haven’t had the chance to host! I hang out with like, three ponies and I live with two of ‘em.”

‘He... took it completely sincerely.’

“You just worry about getting the word to Astral and I’ll handle everything else! Cut and I need to drop by Silken’s after work today anyway.”

‘I do?’

“We do?” Cut asked, quizzically.

“Of course,” Anon said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “We can’t have you be the only one without a special sex outfit!”

Cut’s shock at the sudden turn in the conversation nearly knocked the wind out of her. She couldn’t even let out an audible “oof.”

“Guess he really isn’t hungover,” Cut caught Pike musing under her breath.

The only thing that came to the earth pony’s mind when she heard ‘sex outfits’ was every single one of her mom’s pornos that she was regrettably aware of. Usually featuring a teat fetish themed outfit, no less. Frankly, Cut was really not sure she wanted to be put in some kooky outfit just for sex. Unfortunately for her though, in situations like this her mind could only think of one response:

Deflection.

“N-No, that’s okay. I’m fine.”

“Nonsense!” Anon continued completely unabated, “I’ve got my suit now, and Pike has her apron—” In a rare show of bashfulness, Pike turned red and looked away from the two of them at that. “—so we’ve got to get you something too! I’m thinking something with cowprint would really knock it out of the park. What do you think, hon?”

At first, Pike looked visibly relieved that Anon hadn’t lingered on the topic of her apron, but then that relief shifted to annoyance. “Anon,” she griped, “don’t you think you’re milking this teat thing a littl—” Pike blanched as her own words caught up with her. “Oh send me to the Moon.”

Anonymous the unicorn was firmly planted at his desk. Surrounding him was the now somewhat comforting white noise of everyone in the office going about their day. Even Cut was in the zone, physically cutting and pasting her edits into the articles as they came across her desk.

‘Well then, no reason to keep dallying myself.’

Turning his attention to the notebook lying in front of him, Anon dissected what he’d learned over the past few days. It took a while, but he eventually realized what he’d forgotten at the wine tasting: he’d both left his notebook there, and he’d left before hearing what Caesar was so desperate to tell him. Thankfully, Caesar saw fit to remedy both those things. The stallion had a courier drop off Anon’s notebook the next day, complete with Caesar’s own personal annotations.

And wow, was reading them a doozy.

Caesar did not have many positive things to say about Wind Rider or DuBois Design. In fact, Anon didn’t think he had any positive things to say at all—just more and more creative ways of insulting them, some of which Anon would have to use himself at some point. And after doing a little research for himself, Anon was quick to see why.

The series of events DuBois fed him were dangerously close to being a complete fabrication.

Nowhere in his retelling of events was the mention of his friend’s hairbrained scheme to destroy some poor mare’s career. Which, considering that mare also happened to be a national hero, was a pretty fucking egregious omission. If Anon had been stupid and just written about DuBois' version of events taken whole cloth, he’d have basically shot his own career in the face.

‘Thanks for that, Dubious.’

At least Caesar was looking out for him!

But now Anon had to ask himself something: should he just throw all this out and forget about it?

On the surface, it looked like there was absolutely no story for him here. Wind Rider was unambiguously in the wrong, and seemingly was punished accordingly. Nevertheless, Anon couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more to it. Looking out over his desk, he grabbed the handful of related articles he’d picked up and laid them out in front of him. They all said more or less the same thing. Wind Rider was a stallion so obsessed with being the best that he’d tried to snuff out a promising young mare’s career just to keep his record around.

Anon just couldn’t help but wonder, why?

Sure, he could see that being someone’s motivation back on Earth, but he really didn’t think he’d ever seen a pony ever act with such unambiguous malice before. And over something so seemingly trivial, too: just a speed record?

‘No, there’s got to be more to this. And I’m going to find out what!’

The shit he was writing about Fancy’s fancy outfits would keep Jargon off his back for the foreseeable future, which blessedly freed him up to play investigator on this matter to his heart’s content!

Reaching into one of his desk drawers, Anon pulled out a much smaller, secret notebook. It was a record of all of his sources. A quick page-through showed that none of them would be of any help, though. He needed someone with a direct connection to the Wonderbolts, and ideally Wind Rider himself, if he wanted to get anywhere with this. Technically Dubious fit that description, but anything else he’d tell Anon would very obviously not be of any use.

‘Hm, well, guess I’d better start figuring out if any other current or former Wonderbolts live in town. Or book myself a daytrip to Cloudsdale.’

Nocturnal Pike was busy doing what every guardsmare should do: work out! Today was a strength training day, so she and the mares were scattered about the Castle’s training gym. She typically kept these pretty free-form, allowing her subordinates to choose what they thought needed the most work and let them focus on that. Pike, for example, was currently on her back doing some four-legged hoof presses on one of the new ‘weight machines’ the Princesses commissioned. It had her lying on her back, all four hooves working together to push a weighted platform.

‘14... 15... 16…’

Lying on her back like that, legs up, she couldn’t help but notice how this workout had her in a very similar position to the one Anon had her in a few nights ago.

A less disciplined mare might have let that realization distract her, but not Pike.

‘17.. 18... 19…’

The last thing she’d want is for an opponent to exploit her size like Anon did. He was the only one she’d allow.

And Cut too she supposed, if she asked.

‘20!’

Letting out a relieved breath, Pike guided the weighted platform back to its resting position and extracted herself from the contraption. She might’ve been more of a fan of old fashioned workout techniques, but Pike couldn’t deny that these new ‘machines’ had their uses. Normally an exercise like that required a pretty serious spotter in case her legs gave out, but the machine had a built-in safety!

That didn’t mean she still didn’t ask for a spot, though.

“Lookin’ good!” Astral cheered. “Pretty sure you just beat your personal best on this thing.” To punctuate that, she gave the machine a smack—only to immediately jump away from it as it made a most horrific groan.

Pike grimaced, as her highness’ earlier words came to mind. “The Princesses did ask us to be gentle with these things, remember?”

“Yeah,” Astral weakly added, “I do now.”

Pike shook her head, feeling very disappointed in her number one. “Come on Astral, if I can’t even trust you around the Crown’s equipment, how am I supposed to trust you around my stuff?”

“Oh? So we’re on for tomorrow then after all?”

A small part of her was tempted to say no. The more she thought about it though, the more she realized she may have just been overthinking things. Astral’s already met Anon; she knows what to expect. And it wasn’t like they were going to spend the party running around the kitchen or tending to Pike’s garden! Having her over wasn’t going to shatter Astral’s idea of her and ruin their friendship; Pike was just being dramatic.

“Yeah, of course. Anon and Cut are bringing one of their friends too.”

Astral shrugged, expectedly nonchalant. “Cool, cool. Oh, speaking of, I did also tell Night Sky about this.”

‘What?!’

“What!?”

“Oh come on Pike,” she chided, “You really think your number two doesn’t deserve to meet him too?”

Well, Astral had her there. Night had been Pike’s friend for about as long as she’d been friends with Astral. Really, she did deserve to also meet the stallion Pike had been spending so much time with. She doubted it’d really change much anyway: adding one more pony shouldn’t bring in too much chaos. Sure, the kind of relationship Pike and Anon had might come as more of a surprise to her, but she was pretty level headed. Pike doubted it would be a problem.

“Alright, alright. But nopony else! Our apartment isn’t that big.”

Astral rolled her eyes, but Pike knew she got the picture.

But, as if on cue, the hairs on the back of Pike’s neck stood up. Her finely honed instincts told her that somepony was watching her, right that very moment. And she didn’t need a degree to know exactly who it was.

Pike didn’t even dignify her by turning around before shouting, “CLOAK! Quit creeping on us and give me twenty!”

A satisfied smile crept onto Pike’s face as she heard the sounds of a pony doing just that.

‘Fantastic!’

Now she just needed to go find Rook. She had promised to show the poor mare some exercises she could do despite her 'bruised pelvis,’ and she was going to make good on that. Especially since by Rook's account, it was at least partially her fault.