Twilight Sparkle and the Stupid Original Pony

“I can tell something’s up.” Miss Smiley made like her name. “Gloam’s been excited all week and won’t tell me anything.”

Perhaps I should have been more cautious and kept her home from school. I knew Gloam could keep from telling a secret, but hiding her anticipation was maybe a bit much to ask of a child her age.

“Don’t you worry,” I said, mirroring her expression, “keep hush and all will be clear next week.”

“Oh—” For an instant the smile faltered, as if she knew that she would never see us again. When it returned, it didn’t quite ring true. “—I won’t say a thing, but I hope it’s something wonderful and, um, and you have a good life.”

Smiley was one of the few teachers who knew that my long missing husband had returned. It wasn’t a great stretch of imagination to conclude that Gloam and I might depart to parts unknown now that our family was united.

Before I could think of anything to say that might be comforting without giving away too much information, the ground shook from some nearby impact. Without looking, I knew it couldn’t be anything good and pushed Smiley back into the tunnel leading from the fortified school complex. I turned to gather Gloam before the blast doors closed and seal the bunker exit. Something large was moving at the top of the ramp but my number one priority was Gloam – she was herding a group of younger children back down the ramp. Together we were able to get them to safety, but the door was already closing. We jumped back after rolling the youngest of the Psmythe brood under the descending door. I’d butted heads with the pretentious matron of the Psmythes more than once – and she’d never know that Gloam and I had probably just thrown our lives away saving her offspring.

With our escape cut off, I could finally look around and see what the actual threat was.

At the top of the exit ramp there were three figures in power armor. I didn’t recognize the insignia on their shoulders as belonging to any of the legions who operate in this sector of the galaxy – an eye with a serpentine protuberance writhing from each corner, the entanglements thereof forming an almost recognizable symbol. All three of them towered a good four metres tall and one of them held an honest to chaos gigantic butterfly net, large enough to a half dozen school children. Plenty of room for Gloam and me if we couldn’t get away. The two flankers spread out from the netter to make sure we couldn’t evade him. With all of their organs of observation, whatever they might have, focused on us, there were no potential blind spots that we could slip into and my pseudo-invisibility technique was useless.

“Bollards,” I thought vainly as they hemmed us in. A barrier of tall bollards might slow oversized armored antagonists, while giving humans mobility to flee.

Gloam and I joined hands to make a run for it as the net came down.

We tried to duck beyond the descending net, but the rim clipped my head and the hunt scene ended.

—

“Mom?”

I didn’t move when the ache in my head brought me back to consciousness, but Gloam must have heard my breathing change.

“Yeah,” I whispered into the absolute darkness. “Where are we?”

“Don’t move, there’s an edge. A huge spaceship. They think you’re my big sister.”

I’ve been called worse, I thought.

Lights came on and I cautiously appraised our situation. Gloam and I were alone on a circular platform suspended in the centre of a round cylinder. The depths below us were lost in shadow and ceiling above was a mess of pipes and wires. A catwalk extended to a door in the wall of the cylinder. Opposite the door, and unreachable without flight, was a window. By my guess, we were in a disused reaction mass tank, converted for some twisted spectacle.

I stood, but before I could think of braving the narrow, rail-less, catwalk to try the door. It opened to admit another armored figure, also wearing the unknown insignia. With each step his boots latched to the iron grating. Pushing him off the catwalk, if I even could push something that heavy, wasn’t going to be an option. As he drew neared, I estimated that he stood a metre taller than me.

“Aren’t you a little short for an imperial trooper?”

“I’d fuck you both to death for that remark but Mister Wiggly likes his meat still wiggling.”

I had actually hoped that he wouldn’t understand Standard Terran, it wasn’t a good sign that he did, but it did explain why I didn’t see a translator mounted to his armor.

“What’s—”

“And it’s time to get dinner.”

He looked expectant, like he had just set up a joke and was waiting for the correct reply.

“Uh, what’s dinner?” I asked when his impatience grew. Presumably the answer was us.

“No, no, no. You’re supposed to ask what do you get for dinner.”

“What do we get for dinner?”

“You get fed to Mister Wiggly!” he said, laughing at his own joke.

I didn’t ask again what Mister Wiggly was. The answer, if one had been forthcoming, couldn't be anything good.

“Clothes off,” he continued. “Fabric gives him constipation. Nothin’ worse than having my whole arm up his ass trying to fish out some bitch’s underwear.”

I could imagine worse ways of approaching said body part, but facing his motorized bulk, we weren’t in any position to argue. At a gestured command, we tossed our garments into the pit and stood naked.

Unassailable in his armor he looked down upon us with contempt.

“Make love to your sister,” he ordered.

There was no way I would molest my child but if we pretended like we might comply, maybe I could buy a little time. Surely a rescue effort was already under way. And if this headache would relent, I might actually be able to think of something to do with that time.

“If we do, you’ll let us go?” I asked.

“No, but if you do, I can delay feeding time for as long as you keep it interesting.”

I spat at his feet.

“I will go virgin to my wedding bed,” Gloam declared stepping closer to the edge, “or to my grave.”

Even a shrimp like this guy could flick us across the room with one hand, but Gloam had him beat when it came to defiant energy and hauteur. If only the Terran spells that I could be permitted to use included something combat worthy. Flinging him at the far wall would be perfect, but I had used untrained Equestrian power for that working. With a witness present, I mustn’t.

“I am the chaplain of the shipsgod, I could marry you to your sister and your grave could be your wedding bed, too.”

I took Gloam’s hand and stepped to stand at the edge with her. If his monster wanted live meat, it was going to be disappointed if he took so much as one step towards us.

Defeated, he turned and stalked away.

The door slammed like a tonne of steel, leaving us alone on the platform. We moved away from the edge and I swept my daughter into my arms.

“You were so brave, honey! Death before dishonor.”

“Mom, I’m so sorry for ratting you about about knitting.”

“What?”

I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Oh, after my prank with Discard.”

Yesterday? The day before? It seemed like an event from another lifetime.

“Can you ever forgive me?” she asked earnestly.

I disentangled one arm from our embrace and held up one fist.

“Baby, it was nothing, I’ve already forgotten.” Gloam bumped fist with me. “And everypony knows, Gloam never rats!”

“I didn’t want to die with that hanging over me.”

“You’re not dying at all, if I have any say in it.”

But it was an empty boast if I didn’t figure something out fast, I could hear something squelching beneath us, and the sound was getting louder. The light down below wasn’t good and Mister Wiggles was hard to see among the shadows. At first I suspected that it might not even be made of proper matter, but as it drew nearer we saw that it appeared to be comprised of translucent, gelatinous, but material, flesh. It looked like a bacterium, gown huge. A cylindrical body was covered with dozens of hand sized eyes surrounding a gashlike mouth. Each end of the cylinder tapered into a single tentacle; it was using the pair to climb the wall towards the catwalk that would grant it access to our perch. Looking at it I realized what the markings on the crew’s armor represented. From that realization, it wasn’t far to decipher the rune formed by the stylized tentacles. No unit of the Legion would fight under such a mark of heresy. Whatever was inside the power armor was no servant of the Emperor.

But the creature menacing me, their mascot or shipsgod, was it just a grotesque animal, or did it actually have intellect? Simple observation didn’t reveal its nature, and we were running out of time to speculate. It had almost reached a level with us.

“Gloam, climb on my shoulders, maybe you can reach the pipes.”

She’d be uncatchable, like a rabid spider monkey, if she could get in among the nest of plumbing.

“What about you?”

At least she was obeying, climbing as she asked.

“Try to find me a weapon, or a loose cable that I can climb.”

Slightly unsteady, she stood on my shoulders.

“How far?” I shouted up to her. Wiggles was on the walk, and headed for us.

“Half a meter!”

“Stand on my hands!”

At the gym I could do a handstand for a full minute. Gloam was still slightly shorter than me and weighed several kilos less. I should be able to lift her straight up to where she could reach.

Something wet touched my ankle and pure loathing catalyzed the imperative to protect my offspring. My arms shot straight up, propelling Gloam into the air above me. My elbows locked and she flew towards safety.

She didn’t come back down.

I could hear her scampering among the pipes above, safe for the moment. Both tentacles had reached me and one was already past my knee. In vain I tried to pry it off of me.

These were not the penile tentacle dicks of depraved dreams. These were brutal, prey rending, tearers, ready to rip me limb from limb. One was coiled around my legs, and the other had me by the waist. A cold tip was planted right between my ass cheeks, seeking not penetration, but leverage to reduce me to bite sized pieces. As it began to pull, I realized that this was my chance. If I used my Equestrian magic to portal Gloam across just as I died, I could save her without violating the command of the pony goddess. She said I must not reveal my power while I lived; this could be just the loophole I needed. But would my death release enough power to save Gloam and destroy the monster? It would have to.

As I focused myself for an act of sophistry that might damn me, the door blew inward with the room-shaking krunk of an explosion.

“Get your filthy tentacles off my waifu!”

Smoke swirled and Twilight stood in the doorway,one hand raised, ready to discharge the power gathered for our ride to Equestria as a single blast into Mister Wiggles. Before she could attack, a cry sounded from above.

“Yiiiiiii!”

Gloam leapt from her perch among the pipes, landing almost knee deep in Mister Wiggly. She was holding a rusty length of iron and even as an expression of utter revulsion crept over her face, she began striking the boneless bulk of the creature she was standing in. Unfortunately, she also blocked Twilight’s shot.

Before Twilight could search for another target area, Edna charged into the room as Beulah covered her from the door.

“Ewwww! Ewwww! Ewwww!” Gloam shrieked, hopping from foot to foot, as she beat at Mister Wiggles. The jagged end of her field expedient weapon ripped an eye out of the translucent surface of its body with each blow.

The tentacles preparing to split me in two whipped loose with a staccato snapping of suction cups popping free from my skin. I wrestled the first one I could grab to keep it away from my daughter; the other grabbed me by the waist again to free its fellow, allowing me to keep them both occupied.

“Control!” Beulah yelled into her comset as she sprayed the observation windows across the tank with suppression fire from her smartgun,“Are you getting this?”

Before the monster could defend itself, Edna had reached Wiggles and hoisted Gloam up onto her shoulder. With her free hand she unlimbered a massive pistol from her belt and proceeded to blast a row of improbably large holes in the mid-section of Mister Wiggles’s body. Each shot was louder then the charge which had blown the door. Before the echoes of gunfire died out, tentacles went limp and ceased to thrash; I relinquished my grasp since they were no longer seeking my daughter.

“No fucking shit it’s illegal,” Beulah was yelling at the radio again, “it’s a fucking class three! Five minutes, people! They’re unloading cargo and then they’re going to lift the fuck off! Orbital is already clearing their flightpath.”

“Neutralized, let’s go!”

Edna signaled Twilight and me towards the door.

As we ran, Beulah whipped around.

“Hostile!” she yelled and then the smartgun spoke. “Neutralized! I have point!”

Twilight and I followed Beulah, with Edna and Gloam close behind.

“I can run, too!” Gloam insisted. Edna gave a single sharp whistle – ahead of us Beulah stopped, weapon ready against any defenders who might present themselves before her for slaughtering. After permitting Gloam to wiggle down to the floor, Edna looked happier with better weapons mobility. She took a moment to deactivate the mags and shrugged out of her uniform blouse and handed it to me. Under her top she wore what appeared to be a bulletproof brassier. I drew the blouse and, not bothering with the closures, I nodded that I was ready to continue. She gave two whistles and gestured onward, covering the rear with a pistol in each hand.

Twilight and I took Gloam’s hands and as a family, we ran.

—

“The shipgod’s prey will not escape. He prefers his meat alive, but none will live to tell the tale!”

Exiting the ship, the way was blocked by three marines in full battle gear and one officer in light command armor. Beulah was still enmeshed in the armature of the smartgun and emptied an entire belt. The officer was only cut partially in two, unlike the marines. They say that one imperial marine is worth more than ten thousand men – and three and a half of them had just been bisected by one tough old lady from Terra. Augmented biology wasn’t going to save them when all those extra extra organs were strewn across the landing pad. Point for the home team.

“Mom,” Gloam said, looking at the fallen Imperial Captain, “I hate these guys. Can I poop on his face?”

“No! We don’t have time to torment the dying. He’ll bleed out in no time.”

In addition to a gap in his abdomen large enough to stand in, Edna had placed tight clusters of three shots in each of his shoulders when he tried to draw his sidearm.

Laughter sounded from no particular direction in baffling echos. Something about it sounded familiar.

“End his life,” Hel commanded, “I claim his soul.”

I would have left him to find peace which whatever distant god he was faithful to before death took him, but if the Queen of the Damned demanded my service, I must obey.

Holding my hand out, I accepted a knife from Beulah.

I placed the tip of the blade to his skin.

“The ship god is dead. And so are you.”

He didn’t flinch as I sank the blade into his carotid.

With our way clear, once more we ran.

—

“What the hell was that gun? The loud one.”

I didn’t want to spend any longer thinking about what we had just escaped and sought refuge in small talk. My ears were still ringing, so it seemed reasonable to ask about the weapon.

“This, my friend—” Edna described the hand-cannon at her hip affectionately “—is a Coltnakov 1912. Modeled after the famous Colt 1911, but scaled up for archaic twelve gauge munitions. Nobody makes that ammo any more, I sourced these loads from the Web.” She ignored my sharp intake of breath at the mention of that dark unknown. “Today I was packing soft target rounds designed especially for making big, gooshy, holes in invertebrates.”

“You just about turned Mister Wiggles inside out.”

“Sure did,” she said happily as we jogged up to their transport. She really looked to be in her element, defending the extraction. “My small guns are an authentic 1911’s, rechambered for standard 12mm, packing armor piercing fragmentation rounds. Coming aboard!”

Beulah covered as we entered the transport; inside I was delighted to find Isha and Discord – watching a weapon console and a surveillance screen, respectively.

—

I stood between the pilot and EWO positions as they secured a high performance exit from the port facility. In a moment we were meshed with normal traffic and they relaxed enough to speculate what had brought the ship to Terra.

“I wish I knew what the fuck they were hauling, must be pretty hot stuff if imperial renegades are selling it. And someone must want it really bad to risk letting them land.”

“Probably some new drug or weapon. With luck we’ll never know.” Beulah wasn’t so much terse, as practical. With luck, they’d never need to know.

“I’ll sniff it out. One way or another.”

I didn’t doubt it, I thought as I headed back to the crew compartment to check on Gloam and everyone.

When Edna had grabbed herself a spare top, Twilight raided the locker for something Gloam could wear. Beulah’s tank top hung so low on her it left her nipples exposed; I tied off the shoulder straps to shorten them, and it looked like a simple dress.

“Hey.” Beulah had put the transport on autopilot and join us, aft, a moment later. “I’ve been in touch with control. We made it out clean, we’re not being tracked or followed.”

She paused.

“Confirmed,” Edna said with a glance at her workstation. “Not picking up any tracking, it’s like we were invisible. Whatever contraband they were bringing in, the whole sector’s security was disabled so that there would be no record of it arriving, and that means no record that we were at the landing pad. This goes all the way to the top.”

And nobody here wanted to mess with ‘the top’.

“So you’re safe,“ the commander picked up. “We can have you kids home in forty minutes.”

“Fuck that!” Twilight adopted Terran idiom for her exclamation. “We’re all going to the water park!”

Why did everyone look at me for confirmation?

“Uh, what?”

“Are you hurt?” she asked. “Is anyone hurt?”

“No.”

Heads shook in agreement.

“So let’s go celebrate being alive. If there’s one thing I learned from Pinkie (and unfortunately I’ve learned a lot more than just one) it’s that the cure for a near death adventure is a party.”

—

Crazy as it seemed, our next stop was indeed the World Wide Wet.

I authorized Twilight and Discord to access my tab and shunted them off towards the men’s lounge and locker to acquire swimwear and meet us at the nearby open air bar before we all headed to the water.

At the suitvend in the women’s lounge, I started to pick a modest one piece from the customizable collection of instantly instanciatable intraaquatic investure.

Isha reached past me and scrolled the display.

“You are not wearing a frumpy suit like that for your husband on my watch. Here.”

She guided me towards the skimpiest bikinis on offer.

“I am not wearing a fucking clit sling that’s gonna get lost between my lips!”

“I want to wear a fucking clit sling!” Gloam chirped out merrily, having successfully transformed from mommy’s rescuer to l’enfant terrible.

“Gloam! Language! This isn’t Gallop, you’ll wear an age appropriate suit for a little girl. It will cover your bits and it will have ruffles.”

And it did, too. But I hadn’t specified the direction of the ruffles. She had dialed the fabric colour to within a demi-shade of her own skin, creating a nude look,which combined with the long-wise ruffles created an uncanny mermaid effect. A sea-shell top worn over the tankini perfected the haunted ocean fairy-tale look.

But in the mean time I had found something suitably daring for myself without actually doing the opposite of covering myself. A moment later I had donned the newly created article.

“Satisfied?” I asked, presenting myself to Isha.

“Twinsies!” she said.

I had not cleared the suitvend when I sent my order to the fabricator, and Isha had simply had my creation fabbed in her size.

“Uh, are you sure you want to wear my husband’s mark like that, there?”

I had customized my bikini to match Twilight’s light purple colour, and decorated the largest single expanse of fabric, a fitted inverted triangle, with a rose star backed by a white counterstar. Of the five small stars which completed the mark, three were on the smaller triangle of fabric where the thong joined the waist ties behind, and the other two were strategically located on the upper piece of the garment. The sign of Twilight now adorned my body, and Isha’s too. It looked good on her.

“That’s his personal mark? I thought it was just an Equestria thing.”

“Nope, each pony has a unique mark, and getting your mark is one of the greatest days in a pony’s life.”

“Oh, well everyone else is ready to go, so I guess I’m stuck with it.”

Gloam, Edna and Beulah were all waiting on us.

“Oh, come on then.”

I took her hand and pulled her after me.

We found the boys already at the bar, already drinking.

Discord had figured out the swimsuit customization interface well enough to have blue and pink butterflies printed all over his new yellow trunks. They didn’t look like Fluttershy’s butterflies, but surely the thought would count.

“Lookin’ good dude! If Fluttershy could see you now, she’d be like, ‘impregnate me now! (If you don’t mind)’.”

“Well, maybe not exactly,” he protested. “But I dare say she might opine that I do strike quite a figure.”

He cut a comical pose and I couldn’t imagine Fluttershy doing anything other than dragging him under a beach umbrella for a little “fire and chaos”.

Twilight’s laughter prompted me to pay closer attention to what she was wearing. In contrast to Discord’s baggy trunks, Twilight wore skin tight racing briefs in wetlook silver, gleaming despite clouds that had moved in to block the low winter sun. It looked like she had girt her loins with a narrow band of mercury, with a nearly invisible magclasp promising sudden access on demand to what lay beneath.

I realized that I was staring, but I didn’t stop. I semi-noticed Discord elbow Twilight in the ribs in a companionable, “I told you!” way.

Gloam saw her chance in my distraction.

“Isha and I are gonna go ride the slides, right Isha?”

She blinked up at Isha with large bright eyes – Isha didn’t stand a chance.

“Go ahead, sweetie,” I said, still staring at a very glossy package. “Take your time.”

Twilight and Discord got new drinks, while Beulah, Edna and I collected our firsts. Casually we all retired to the lazy river for a relaxing float. Twilight and I faced each other across a single large inner tube, while three smaller tube completed our riverine phalanx.

Drifting in the current, it hardly seemed real that mere hours ago Gloam and I had been on the verge of death. A light drizzle had started to fall, but the warmth of the lazy river drove away any chill.

“Mmm, Princess,” I murmured as I sipped at something fruity, fancy, and rum based which she had ordered for me, “you’re right. This is a billion percent-times better than going home and cowering in my domicile.”

“Trust me,” she said, “I’ll take good care of you.”

“Please?” I pleaded.

We moved closer together in the rain, inverse to each other. If we were to reprise a deed we had performed on our last visit to the water park, with an honor guard consisting of Discord taking point and the two combat grannies flanking us, nobody would notice.

—

“Mom, mom, mom!”

Gloam’s shout roused me from my afterward languor just in time to get the splash from her cannonball in my face and hope that her mini-tsunami didn’t capsize us. Isha slipped into the water with hardly a ripple as Gloam surfaced at my side. Discord tipped over as the wave hit his inner tube.

“Mom, I went down the big slide! The big one!”

“Are you old enough for that?”

“No,” Isha said, “she isn’t old enough. But she’s faster than the lifeguard.”

After her escapade at the amusement park a few weeks back, why was I even surprised?

“I went down backward!” she boasted. “And then I hit the water so hard, water went up my butt!”

“Oh, gods.” I covered my face with both hands. One wasn’t enough to hide my efforts not to laugh. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I didn’t quite make it to the toilet, but I took a shower.”

“Isha?”

“I tipped the restroom attendant about twice what she earns in a week.”

“Good, thank you.” I finally uncovered my face and noticed Twilight still staring in shock. “Twi, are you alright?”

“Holy mother of Celestia, what did we do?”

Gloam grinned proudly, enjoying her father’s reaction.

“What did we create?”

“Isn’t she great? Let’s all go ride the rapids together and then get some dinner.”

—

After dinner, we parted with Beulah and Edna and took the transit back to my place. Their intel resources were still confident that we had made a clean escape, benefiting from a security lapse designed to cover an entirely unrelated crime. Had to wonder what the eff was being unloaded. But still it might be better if they didn’t show themselves near my home just in case they were being watched. Or if we were.

Before bed, I conferred with Isha.

“Let’s send Garny and crew to Gallop tomorrow. I don’t want them getting stuck if some other random bullshit takes me out. Can you let them know in the morning?”

“Sure. I’d think you were being paranoid if I hadn’t seen what happened today.”

“It’s no wonder she’s paranoid,” Twilight said, “living in a place like this. Can’t even walk a foal home from school safely.”

“You think my neighborhood is bad? You should see the B side of town!”