This Brontosaurus Traveled Horsey, This Brontosaurus Saw It All
The Royal Museum of Natural History in Canterlot played host to dozens of scientific conferences every year. One such conference was in session, a debate between two of Equestria’s leading paleontologists: Dirt T. Bucker and Pack Ornery. Previously, attendance had been limited to others in the same field, but as one of her first actions as princess, Twilight Sparkle had opened the conferences to the general public.
She was starting to regret that action as she watched the two scientists belittle each other in front of a sauropod skeleton.
“Heresies has more holes in it than Queen Chrysalis’ legs!” Pack held up a copy of Bucker’s book, then dropped it back onto the podium for effect. The scientific equivalent to a mic drop.
“You’re just mad that our research has revalidated Brontosaurus as a distinct genus.”
“It’s Apatosaurus! Real scientists have known that since the turn of the last century!”
“Real scientists adapt to the conclusions brought forth by new evidence, instead of trying to force the evidence to conform to outdated ideas, Pack.”
What had started as a friendly debate had quickly devolved into the two rivals poking holes into as many of the other’s theories as possible. With a smattering of name-calling for good measure.
In the front row, Professor Fossil rolled her eyes, while Petunia Paleo sat on the edge of her seat, soaking up every word like a sponge. Even the ones she shouldn’t have been hearing at her age. Especially the words she shouldn’t have been hearing at her age. With her newly expanded vocabulary, she’d have no problem winning the next playground argument she got into.
In the second row, Twilight held her head in her hooves, watching as famous scientists bickered like foals. Starlight sat next to her, bored out of her mind. Fluttershy was listening politely. Rarity was busy sewing something, while Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, and Applejack had all fallen asleep.
The debate continued, as the two scientists each posited their own theories on sauropod behavior, citing evidence to back up their claims wherever possible. Social herds, with young protected in the center, with fossilized trackways submitted as proof. Generalized diet, with coprolite analysis as an example. Sometimes there was debate from the other speaker. Other times there was silence, which the audience quickly came to realize was begrudging acceptance from the rival.
“I bet I can make it move.”
All eyes in the room turned to Petunia Paleo. The filly hopped onto her chair so she’d be more visible to the crowd. “Or, to be more precise, I bet Starlight can make it move.” She pointed to the unicorn sitting next to Twilight, whose expression changed from bored to shocked in a heartbeat. “Through the miracle of ~~animation~~ necromancy.”
“Those are forbidden spells!” Starlight blurted out.
“And these fossilized bones are rocks. There’s nothing organic left for the spell to cling to,” Twilight added.
The gears were turning in Starlight’s mind. Nopony had ever returned fossils to the land of the living before. Everypony said it was impossible, but had anypony seriously tried? With everypony’s attention on Twilight, she zapped the bones with a blast of magic.
There was a collective gasp as the skeleton started glowing. Dirt and Pack looked from the glowing dinosaur behind them, to the unicorn trying to bring it back to life, and finally to each other. They both reconsidered their respective locations, with the pegasus flying stage right and the mule galloping stage left.
The sauropod skeleton hovered in the air, and some of the bones dropped to the floor. Most museum mounts were composites, made up of bones from multiple individuals, as well as fabricated pieces to replicate what hadn’t been recovered with the rest of the skeletal material. Only the bones that belonged to the same dinosaur as the bone which Starlight had initially struck with her magic remained. She poured more mana into her spell and with a flash of light, a long-necked dinosaur stood on the stage, walking Equestria for the first time in more than one hundred and fifty million years. The dinosaur’s size rivaled that of even the largest dragons, though she had a peaceful demeanor.
Without moving from her spot, the curious dinosaur’s head swung over the audience. Most ponies backed away, but Petunia hopped up and down, waving her forelegs. The dinosaur’s head ducked low in front of her and she climbed on, squealing in joy. “I shall call you Gertie!”
Riding her new mount, Petunia directed her to smash through the museum’s wall and escape into Canterlot. Ponies scattered as the sauropod walked among them.
Twilight, her friends, and the scientists crawled out of the hole left in the side of the building. Pinkie Pie hopped over the debris, turning a somersault midair before landing between Rainbow Dash and Rarity.
There was no need to point, though that hadn’t stopped Rainbow Dash from doing so. It was obvious which way Petunia and Gertie had gone; one needed only to follow the trail of destruction.
“Ha! It really does sound like thunder when she walks. Another point for Brontosaurus. She’s not being very deceptive right now, is she, Pack?”
“Shut up, Bucker. She’s not a lizard either.”
“At least we can agree on that.”
While the paleontologists argued, Twilight was chastising Starlight.
“What happened to ‘those are forbidden spells’, Starlight? I know how you work. You got so caught up in trying to figure out if you could do it that you never even considered the consequences. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“Okay, Twilight, you’re wrong.”
“I am?”
“Not really, but you told me to tell you that. Besides, what consequences?”
Gertie stepped on a parked wagon as she walked up to an apartment complex. She rubbed against the building, scratching an itch she couldn’t reach. The building’s façade collapsed, showering her in debris, while the structure’s occupants ran out the backdoor, screaming in terror.
Twilight shot Starlight a look and motioned to the destruction. Starlight just shrugged and put on her best innocent face, halo and all.
A colt ran up and yanked the halo away, revealing it was actually a Frisbee. Now halo-less, Starlight shrugged yet again. Then she teleported back to Ponyville, leaving everypony else to deal with the repercussions of her actions. Again.
It was the sigh of a long-suffering mentor, questioning why she’d ever decided to take this pony on as a protégé.
“Fluttershy, you’re good with animals.”
“Well, I suppose I could use The Stare. If you think that would be okay?”
Twilight glanced around at the destruction surrounding her and deadpanned, “I think that would be perfectly acceptable, Fluttershy.”
Fluttershy flew up to Gertie, landing on her snout and staring her in the eyes. “You will stop smashing Canterlot. You’ll be a good dinosaur and return to the museum immediately.”
Gertie blinked. Then she shook her head, flinging Fluttershy off in the process. Mind control just wasn’t her thing.
Fluttershy’s wings locked up and she fell to the ground. Fortunately, Applejack was there to break her fall.
Pinkie Pie continued pronking after Gertie, and Rainbow Dash trailed her from the sky. “I’ve been meaning to ask you, Pinkie. Why are you still pink? The rest of us are in black and white.”
Pinkie gigglesnorted. “I wouldn’t be Pinkie Pie if I was all gray and boring, I’d be Inkie Pie instead.”
“Isn’t that one of your sisters?”
“Nope, but that’s a common misconception. I don’t know why ponies think they’re named Inkie, Blinkie, and Clyde.”
“What kind of name is ‘Clyde’, anyway?”
“That’s what I said!”
Gertie had made a beeline for the Canterlot Gardens Statuary, as if drawn there by a primordial force. Or more likely the filly on her back, urging her forward. But most likely, it was just bad writing. Royal Guards and tourists alike fled as Gertie galloped into the middle of the statue garden. The Apatosaurus Brontosaurus Apatosaurus Brontosaurus long-necked dinosaur started grazing on the various delicacies offered in the garden, mostly the statues. Gertie seemed to prefer marble. Lone among the statues was the solidified remains of a trio of villains, petrified for all eternity, or until a dinosaur nommed them. Whichever occurred first.
As if on cue, Gertie’s neck swiveled around and she started eating the statue.
The statue had lost its smallest component.
Gertie swallowed the chunk of rock whole and then turned her attention to the castle’s more palatable hedge maze.
“Let’s have a second of silence for Cozy Glow.” Twilight paused briefly, then continued, “Okay, that’s enough mourning.”
Applejack returned her hat to her head. “Nothing of value was lost. I’m glad you only took a second, I don’t know if I coulda held that in for a full minute. Good riddance to th’ rascally varmint.”
“Hey Twilight, once Gertie eats the other two, you could put a gigantic statue of yours truly on this pedestal.” Rainbow Dash struck a pose that she thought was heroic, but was instead clichéd.
Fluttershy pointed to Gertie’s neck. Amazingly, there was a bulge that appeared to be climbing from the dinosaur’s stomach. Eventually Cozy Glow reached Gertie’s head and pried open her jaws. Soaked in saliva, she was unable to fly, and instead glided to the earth, where she collapsed and dripped dino drool from her curly hair.
The rest of the ponies agreed that Cozy’s reaction was quite appropriate, also making their own declarations of disgust. Rarity dry heaved. At first, for effect, and then the fake dry heaves turned into real ones as she triggered her gag reflex.
“You win, I give up. Just don’t ever do that to me again!” She tried to stand to no avail. “I’m not known for my compassion, but even I wouldn’t do that to somepony.” She shuddered. “At least not now.”
“Just for clarification, do you mean petrification, or being eaten by the dinosaur?” Twilight had pulled a notepad from thin air and was waiting to take notes.
“Yes!”
It was at that point that Gertie stepped on Twilight.
“Gertie wants a pony ride!” Petunia declared.
Twilight channeled her earth pony magic as well as her unicorn magic to remain standing under the weight of tons of dinosaur pressing down on her. Somehow, she made enough room on her back for Gertie to climb on, and she trotted around the statue garden for the dinosaur’s amusement.
Cozy Glow took advantage of the situation to make a break for it, buzzing her little wings as fast as they could go. She got about twenty feet in the air before something clamped down on her tail. Cozy’s eyes went wide as she turned to see her tail firmly grasped in Gertie’s mouth. She pounded her hooves on Gertie’s snout, trying to get the dinosaur to release her. Gertie chomped down, munching on curly tail hairs as Cozy tumbled from the sky.
She turned to look at her tail and saw her fleshy dock with just stubble where her curly tail had been. She was so engrossed in examining what little was left of her tail she forgot both that she was falling, and that she could fly.
She slammed into the ground, leaving a Cozy Glow-shaped crater from the impact. Cartoony birds flew around her head for a few moments. A hoof reached into the pit, and Cozy took it, coming face to face with Pinkie Pie.
Cozy Glow put on her biggest, friendliest, ‘don’t send me back to Tartarus’iest smile and Pinkie shook her head.
“Nopey dopey! You’re not going anywhere little missy until we take care of your backside.”
Cozy tried to back away. “You wouldn’t spank an innocent little filly, would you?”
“Of course not! I’m not going to spank you, either.” Pinkie slapped a giant censor bar over the filly’s tailless rump. “There you go! Now you’re up to code. The Hays Code!”
Cozy blinked. “Isn’t Gertie pre-Code?”
Pinkie nodded. “She is, but stop breaking the fourth wall, kiddo. That’s my job.”
“But this censor bar itches.”
Gertie, finally tired of riding Twilight, started eating the mountainside. Twilight collapsed on a park bench, exhausted after supporting thirty tons of dinosaur. Most importantly, Gertie wasn’t hurting anything by just eating rocks. Her eyelids felt heavy and she allowed herself a brief nap.
“Wake me if it’s important.”
“I hate to be a nag, but Cozy Glow is still loose.” Applejack motioned to the filly who was trying to slip into the background.
“More important than that. The rest of you should be able to handle a filly.” She yawned. “If not, just find a teenager and buy her a pizza in exchange for babysitting.”
“Hey! I’m worthy of your time! I’m your archenemy! Wake up and face me you coward!” Cozy pounded her hooves on Twilight’s flank to no avail. “I almost conquered the world! I don’t need a babysitter! Fight me!”
Twilight stretched out. “That feels good. A little lower, please.”
Twilight awoke half an hour later, feeling refreshed, and with a freshly massaged flank, courtesy Cozy Glow’s pounding. Cozy had even managed to get a knot out of her neck. For her efforts, Cozy had been rewarded with a time-out, and was sitting in the corner thinking about what she’d done.
Twilight then turned her attention to Gertie. She blinked. She then held the blink for a few additional seconds, but when she reopened her eyes, the sight she saw was the same. Her mind told her it was impossible. Gertie had leveled the entire top of the mountain, turning it into a plateau.
Pinkie Pie pounded a sign into the ground.
Coming soon: Zephyr Heights.
“What? Just… how?!? What.”
“Twilight’s doing her imitation of a bewilderedbeest again.”
“Very funny, Grayscale Dash.”
“Hey! Being in black and white is just like a Daring Do cosplay!” Rainbow puffed out her chest. “You know, without having to spend hours dying my hair.”
Twilight hovered over Canterlot, surveying the damage. Petunia was still riding Gertie, who had turned her attention to the castle.
Inside the castle, Celestia and Luna had noticed the ground shaking, and the dinosaur approaching. Luna did the only appropriate thing – she closed the curtains on all the stained glass windows. Whatever they didn’t see couldn’t hurt them.
“Twilight will take care of it.”
Luna nodded in agreement of Celestia’s proclamation. “She always does.”
As Gertie lumbered towards the castle, Twilight teleported in front of her. The sauropod dealt with Twilight the same way she did anything else in her way.
Gertie gobbled up Twilight Sparkle. The princesses holed up in the castle were blissfully unaware of Twilight’s demise as the long-necked dinosaur started eating the stained glass window wing of the castle. …And another stained glass window wing, and another, and another, and yet another… The only reason the castle was so large to begin with was Princess Celestia's fetish for stained glass windows.
“I’ve never planned a funeral before.”
“Pinkie, it’s pronounced ‘few-ner-all’ not ‘fun-er-all’,” Rarity corrected her.
“You can’t have ‘fun’ at a ‘few-ner-all’, silly. Oh, I know, I’ll put confetti cannons in the casket!”
At Petunia’s urging, Gertie finally spit Twilight out. The unicorn stood up amidst a pile of colorful glass fragments and chunks of mortar, and her friends gasped at seeing their friend wingless for the first time since Magical Mystery Cure.
“Ooooh, think of all the money we’re saving by reusing all those old animation models of Twilight.” Pinkie Pie hopped in place. “We can use the budget savings to throw you a ‘You’re Back To Normal’ party!”
“My wings!”
Twilight’s friends looked down on her, for the first time in years. “Uh, sugarcube, I think y’all are missin’ more than just your wings.”
“Ahhhh! I’m short! …Again.”
Petunia giggled. “Gertie liked you better pre-ascension.”
Cozy Glow snickered from the corner she was still sitting in, even though she was no longer thinking about what she’d done. In truth, she hadn’t been thinking about what she’d done at all, rather she’d been thinking about how not to make the same mistakes the next time. And scheming. Lots of scheming. “I like her. Can we keep her?”
Twilight glared at Cozy Glow. “We’re sending her back where she belongs. And when we’re done, we’re sending you back where you belong too.”
Cozy smiled innocently. “The Castle of Friendship?”
“Either back in the statue or Tartarus. I haven’t decided yet.”
“Golly, what if I apologized and pwomised it’ll never happen ever again?”
“That isn’t going to work, Cozy Glow.”
“But it worked for Starlight Glimmer. And Trixie. And Discord…”
“Zip it.” Twilight’s horn glowed and Cozy’s mouth zipped shut. “Zip it good.”
Applejack lassoed the fiendish filly and trussed her up like a Thanksgiving turkey, as was her wont. Though it begged the question as to why herbivores were trussing up turkeys for a harvest festival. If the buffalo were really the native creatures of Equestria that the ponies displaced when settling there after the wendigo incident thousands of years earlier, that still wouldn’t make sense. It must have been griffins, and said griffins were invited to that first Thanksgiving, where turkey was served for the carnivorous bird-cats. Then after the griffins had been moved to ~~a reservation~~ Griffinstone, ponies continued the tradition for no reason other than it was tradition. Eventually they stopped cooking the turkey, instead tying it up and holding it hostage until after the feast was done.
Gertie continued eating the castle while Twilight intentionally prolonged scolding Cozy Glow. Once the final stained glass wing had been devoured, and Canterlot Castle once more resembled the picturesque storybook castle it had once been, she grasped Gertie in her aura and floated the massive dinosaur behind her as she trotted back toward the museum.
With the threat contained, the two scientists took the opportunity to study the living dinosaur up close and personal in what was obviously its native environment – floating down a city street, like a giant dinosaur balloon in the yearly Barneigh's Thanksgiving parade. At least that’s what Bucker and Pack accused each other of thinking, as they continued bickering like an old married couple. Gertie didn’t mind though, biting off chunks of buildings as she floated past them.
“So now that we got the varmint, whatcha gonna do with her?”
“Well, Applejack, I was thinking we’d take her back to the museum so scientists can study her.”
“You can’t do that to Gertie!”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s my pet!” Petunia held up Equestria’s largest dog collar, custom engraved with Gertie’s name on it. It would’ve been the perfect size to fit big red dogs, if such things existed. “You can’t separate a filly from her pet!”
~~Rainbow~~ Grayscale Dash nodded. “Yeah, that’s uncool, Twi.”
“Golly, even I’m not that evil.”
“Nopony asked you, Cozy Glow.” Twilight once more zipped the filly’s lips shut. That would henceforth be referred to as mistake number one by prosecutors at a later date.*
*Actually, it was more like the twelfth, but who’s counting? If you’re going to prosecute somepony, does it make more sense to prosecute a dinosaur, a schoolfilly, the headmare of a school, or the princess in control of the country? Especially once Cozy Glow offered to turn state’s evidence in exchange for commuting her previous sentence. And that’s not counting the lawsuits, countersuits, and counter-countersuits. In the end, three insurance companies went out of business, hundreds of ponies were laid off, and the only ones to make any money were the lawyers. Twilight eventually abdicated, and Discord proposed an utterly chaotic system known as democracy to replace the monarchy. Celestia and Luna ran against each other, with Celestia easily defeating the superior candidate because ponies were biased by their life-giving sun. That, in turn caused Luna to let the Nightmare back into her heart. The resulting battle rocked Equestria to the core and set equinity back a few thousand years. Cozy Glow took advantage of the power vacuum, turning the three tribes against one another.
…Um, forget all that. They all lived happily ever after. Let’s go with that.
With Twilight’s attention on Cozy Glow, she let go of Gertie. Thirty tons of sauropod crash-landed on the street, shaking the neighborhood. Windows shattered. Ponies screamed and ducked under desks and sheltered in doorways. Part of the mountain that Gertie hadn’t already eaten crumbled away. The abandoned warehouse district burst into flames, followed immediately by the creepy amusement park that had been closed for thirty years but never demolished for some reason, despite the land underneath it being insanely valuable.
Cozy unzipped her lips. “I bet you’re going to blame that one on me too.” She rezipped her mouth while Twilight was busy staring at all the destruction, slackjawed.
After a few moments of consideration, Twilight’s mind rebooted. “That’s a great idea, Cozy. All in favor of declaring this Cozy Glow’s fault?”
“Aye!”
“Neigh!” Cozy was the sole objection. “It wasn’t my fault. For once.”
“I’m sorry, the ayes have it, Cozy Glow, and this will hereafter be referred to as your mess.”
Gertie, meanwhile, was doing what sauropod dinosaurs did best: eating. Trees disappeared from the street one by one as she devoured them, trunks and all. Multiple wagons were blocking Gertie’s way, so she climbed atop them, squashing them flat.
“That’s what I call Jurassic parking!”
Nopony else got Pinkie Pie’s joke.
As Gertie tried to continue walking, four of the carts stuck to her feet. The wheels were wobbly from the great weight of the Apatosaurus Brontosaurus, but they still rolled. And so did Gertie, down the block, and down the hillside Canterlot had been built on.
Petunia yelled as Gertie got the hang of roller skating, picking up speed and flattening everything in her path. Twilight continued teleporting the rest of the gathered ponies, doing her best to keep up with the speeding dinosaur.
By the time she reached the base of the mountain, Gertie was traveling at well over 70,000,000,000 MPH.*
*Millimeters Per Hour
There were many things near the base of the mountain: old-growth forests, impossibly sheer cliffs, Ponyville. One of these would be far funnier for a speeding dinosaur to end up in, so it was blatantly obvious which one she’d be crashing into. Mostly because the road didn’t lead into the forests or off the cliffs. All together now…
*Audience participation required. Shout. Shout. Let it all out.
“My barn!” Applejack cried.
Specifically, the road led to the single unluckiest building in Ponyville. No longer on a steep mountainside slope, Gertie’s momentum gradually bled off. By the time she reached Sweet Apple Acres she was traveling slower than had she been walking. She gently tapped the barn, coming to a stop.
The barn, amazingly didn’t fall apart comically. Since famous filmmaker Blow-It-Up Bay hadn’t been allowed on the set, it also didn’t explode ironically. It remained standing, and Applejack breathed a sigh of relief.
Right up until Gertie took a bite out of it. And another, and another… Once the barn was gone, she turned her attention to the various trees in the orchard.
“La Guardia! She’s eating La Guardia! No! Not Impellitteri too!” Applejack wailed as Gertie devoured many of her beloved trees, all of which had been named for former mayors of New York City for some reason. Applejack was obviously a mare in desperate need of psychological and/or psychiatric help.
As Petunia watched her gargantuan mount devour a building, she had a brilliant idea. She was a filly, riding a building-eating dinosaur. What building in Ponyville did she most want to see destroyed?
“Hi Miss Cheerilee! Look what I brought for show and tell! This is Gertie! She’s a Brontosaurus. Or possibly an Apatosaurus. The scientists are still arguing about that somewhere.”
Five minutes later, Ponyville could no longer boast about being the last town in Equestria with a quaint one-room schoolhouse. It wasn’t as tasty as the barn, but Gertie ate it anyway. The rest of Petunia’s class cheered loudly. Cheerilee cheered even louder. ‘Cheer’ was right there in her name, after all.
Watching the devastation, Mayor Mare quickly formulated a plan to solve her biggest problem. She led Gertie through town, away from the homes and businesses, and straight to a giant eyesore. She threw a bottle of barbeque sauce, shattering it against the crystal walls of Twilight’s castle. Gertie devoured the castle, Friendship Map and all.
Twilight, her friends, the paleontologists, and Cozy Glow arrived on the scene just in time to see the last of the Castle of Friendship™* disappear into Gertie’s gullet.
*Castle of Friendship playset available at fine retailers nationwide for only $99.99! It’s magically delicious! But it contains small parts that could be a choking hazard, so please don’t actually try eating it unless you’re a cartoon character. By reading this fine print, you’ve waived your right to sue us should you ignore our warnings and consume it anyway.
As Twilight’s friends consoled her on the loss of her castle, Bucker and Ornery continued arguing. With nopony paying attention to her, Cozy Glow decided it was a great time to be helpful. She pointed to the School of Friendship and patted her belly, indicating that this building would also be a tasty treat. Though it wouldn’t be the Tasty Treat, which was in a different city entirely.
Gertie complied, as students and teachers alike ran screaming from the building. Starlight teleported herself and Sunburst to Sire’s Hollow, once more abandoning the mess she’d created.
“Golly, my work here is done. I guess I’ll just be on my way then…” Cozy had learned her lesson about overstaying her welcome and whining about how nothing went her way after spending time in Tartarus. Watching Starlight make her exit reminded her that she should also do the same.
Unfortunately for her, she’d failed to grasp that she should stay silent about it instead of announcing her intentions to everypony. Even more unfortunately for her, she couldn’t just teleport like Starlight could. Gertie grasped the wily filly with her whiplash tail, preventing Cozy’s timely escape. The dinosaur slowly plodded in the direction of Rarity’s Boutique, but the unicorn stood firmly in front of her business with a rolled-up newspaper.
“Oh no you don’t.” She levitated the paper up to Gertie’s head, threatening to swat her with it. “I will make you a dress if you spare my beloved Carousel Boutique, where every garment is unique, chic, and can be sized to an XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXL!”
Gertie looked at the unicorn and nodded. She was a lady, and she could embrace her femininity as much as the next mare.
Rarity tore through her stockroom, looking for enough fabric to make the promised dress. “I need a circus tent! Stat!”
Sweetie Belle materialized out of the kitchen. “Hear that girls?"
“I think the circus is in Manehattan this week.”
“You heard Apple Bloom. Let’s go girls!” Scootaloo hopped on her scooter, leading the way to Ponyville’s train depot. The others let them go, because for once, they weren’t the biggest disaster in Ponyville.*
*This would eventually be known as mistake number two. The Cutie Mark Crusaders not being the biggest disaster in town? That was a challenge. And the Cutie Mark Crusaders were always up for a challenge!
In the confusion created by the Cutie Mark Crusaders, Petunia slipped a wig and oversized glasses on Gertie. The rest of the gathered ponies ran right past her without seeing her, because the Rule of Funny was in full effect. The fillies managed to sneak Gertie to the railway station without incident. A new personal record for the Cutie Mark Crusaders!
“Two please.” Petunia slapped bits on the counter for herself and Gertie.
The ticket taker coughed and pointed to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, and Petunia coughed up more bits. Then he pointed to Cozy Glow, and she flatly refused to pay for the villainous filly. Cozy Glow refused to pay for herself. Gertie refused to let the pegasus go. It was eventually agreed that Cozy could ride for free, on the basis that nopony was willing to try removing her from Gertie’s prehensile tail. Had the scientists been there, they would’ve been astounded to learn this new sauropod fact, but they were far too busy arguing with one another.
“Are you fillies old enough to be traveling unattended?”
“We’re not alone. We’re with her.” Petunia pointed to Gertie. “She’s 150 million years old, give or take a million years.” The ticketmaster was satisfied with that answer, and allowed the fillies to buy tickets. Gertie crammed inside the passenger car, stretching it well beyond its limits, and the fillies climbed onto the roof.
The silence on the roof of the train was deafening. Well, aside from all the wind noise, the sounds of the engine, and the wheels clicking on the rails. It was just deafening in general. The Crusaders glared at Cozy Glow, and she returned the favor.
Petunia decide to break the awkward silence. “So.”
“So,” answered Scootaloo.
“So,” added Cozy Glow.
“Knit?” Everypony turned to look at Sweetie Belle. “Crochet? Cross-stitch?”
“We’re not playing word association.” Apple Bloom facehoofed. “We ain’t talkin’ t’ that one.”
“Which one?” Sweetie Belle obliviously asked.
Apple Bloom jerked her head at Cozy Glow.
“Is something wrong with your head?” Sweetie’s obliviousness had turned to concern for her friend.
“For the love of Celestia… We ain’t talkin’ t’ Cozy Glow.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. She did lock us in a closet after all.”
“Nearly drain Equestria of magic, team up with a magic-stealing centaur and a rogue shapechanger, and come close to overthrowing the country, that’s all cool, you know. But lock three fillies in a closet, that’s where we draw the line. To Tartarus with her!”
Scootaloo nodded. “Exactly.”
Cozy Glow rolled her eyes. “Petunia, please let the Cutie Mark Collective know that I’m willing to open negotiations with whichever one of them possesses their shared brain.”
“I’m a dictionary!”
“Close enough. Should I address you as ‘Sweetie Belle’ or ‘Dictionary’ now?”
“‘Sweetie Belle’ will be fine.” She smiled. “See, I’m really good at negotiations! Look at how much progress we’re making! Oh, oh, oh, will you be surrendering to us?”
“No, but I’m open to the idea of splitting power with all of you. I mean, we’re riding a giant dinosaur. We can totally take over Equestria if we work together!”
Gertie stuck her head out the window of the passenger car they were riding on top of, twisted her neck around so she was facing the filly, and opened her cavernous jaws.
“On second thought, perhaps I’ll try that reformation thing four out of five ex-villains have been raving about. Not trying it didn’t work out too well for me last time…”
Gertie nodded and pulled away, sparing the nefarious filly.
“Huh. Y’all really are good at negotiatin’, Sweetie Belle.”
“You know, ‘Reform or get eaten by a dinosaur’ has a really good ring to it.” Scootaloo held up a hoof and her friends joined her in shouting.
They all turned to look to see if they’d obtained a second cutie mark, but no such luck.
“Why are you such an awful pony, anyway? You’re our age.”
“I’m not bad, Sweetie Belle, I’m just drawn that way.”
“Whatever helps y’all sleep at night, Cozy.”
“I assure you, I sleep like a statue. At least I have for… uh… how long has it been since the Battle of the Bell?”
“Fifteen years.”
Cozy Glow blinked. “There’s no way that’s equinely possible. None of you look a day older than you did the last time I saw you.”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
“Me too.”
“Thirty-two.” The others turned to look at Scootaloo and she continued, “I got held back in school a few times. If I’m really lucky, Miss Cheerilee will finally let me graduate this year.”
Cozy Glow blinked. Obviously the Cutie Mark Crusaders were trying to pull the wool over her eyes. She hadn’t lost fifteen years to being a hunk of rock in a statuary. She couldn’t have been in the statue for more than a few weeks at best, she guesstimated. Obviously, if it was the future there’d be flying cars, hoverboards, and self-nailing horseshoes, and Cozy had seen none of those things.
The conversation had turned awkward, and trailed off into a more comfortable silence. A détente of sorts, while the little steam engine struggled under the weight of its load, making slow and steady progress toward Manehattan.
Back in Ponyville, Sugarcube Corner was being devoured… by Pinkie Pie.
Twilight had borrowed Rarity’s rolled-up newspaper, but it had little effect deterring Pinkie Pie from eating her own home/workplace.
“So tasty…”
“Cease eating our home this instant, or we’ll be forced to fire you!”
Pinkie shrugged. “Worth it.”
“Cease eating our home right this second, or we’ll never be able to bake anything again, ever.”
“Gasp!” Pinkie exclaimed, actually saying the word ‘gasp’ out loud. “Does this mean I need to regurgitate the pieces I already ate?”
The Cakes looked at one another. “No, dearie. That would violate several …dozen… health codes.”
It was well past nightfall when the train arrived at Manehattan’s station towing only Gertie’s overloaded car. The rest of the passenger cars had been left behind at various points in the journey because Scootaloo thought the trip was taking too long, and hence disconnected their cars from the train to lighten the load in the hope of speeding things up. Cozy Glow would’ve suggested just doing a scene change, but she enjoyed watching Scootaloo’s frustrated efforts too much.
“When you get caught between the moon and Manehattan Island…” The rest of the ponies turned to Sweetie Belle, who’d hopped atop Gertie’s head and was belting out the Eclipse Cross song made famous decades earlier. “The best that you can do…”
The others rolled their eyes and let her get it out of her system, as none of them had any intention of falling in love with the little unicorn. Except maybe Gertie, because she'd never had to worry about shippers in her day.
Cab drivers in Manehattan had always been stereotyped as crazy – for good reason. One cabbie ran up Gertie’s tail towing his carriage, continued up her back and neck, and launched himself off her head to try and jump over a traffic light. He made it – his cab didn’t. Gertie snapped it out of the air and nommed it. The rest of the cabbies kept their distance after that. They didn’t give her quite as wide a berth as they gave wagons with Neigh Jersey license plates, but it was pretty close.
Gertie continued eating her way through Manehattan, gobbling up streetlights, mailboxes, fire hydrants, and anything else that got in her way, though Petunia steered her clear of buildings. At least for the most part. A few office buildings bit the dust when Gertie bit into them, but Manehattan had thus far suffered the least amount of damage of the cities she’d been to. Mostly because the streets were wide, and Petunia kept Gertie as close to middle of the street as possible to reduce the collateral damage. Unlike some fillies that were along for the ride, she wasn’t a complete monster.
…Unlike the Cutie Mark Crusaders who’d come up with a fun new game they liked to call ‘Will Gertie Eat It?’ So far the answer had been a resounding ‘yes’ to everything that wasn’t meat. Gertie’s neck swung back and forth as she gobbled things off the sidewalks on either side of the street, including, eventually, the sidewalks themselves.
She stuck her head into the Equestrian Stock Exchange when she walked past, causing the market to go into a panic. Oil plummeted, on the theory that since dinosaurs had returned to life, there’d be more oil in the future. …No one ever said ponies knew how oil worked… or that the stock market had any basis in reality. Seriously, if Celestia said ‘I like apples’ Sweet Apple Acres would be the biggest company in the country within hours. The lone bright spot as the markets collapsed was construction/building supplies. There’d be a huge demand to rebuild Equestria at the conclusion of this story. Even more so if there were eventually sequels.
Two insurance companies went bankrupt as traders realized just who would be paying for those construction materials. Even the safe haven Treasury funds were passed over as ponies realized that the government would likely have to step in and bail everything out.
So they bought gold instead. Then Gertie ate the gold, which was just sitting there for some strange, illogical reason. Having invested all his money in gold and now finding himself penniless, Fancy Pants traded his fancy pants for a barrel.
Gertie then crashed through the Manehattan Museum of Natural History and posed alongside sauropod skeletons, at least until security asked her to leave citing that the museum was ‘no place for dinosaurs’.
Dejected, the sauropod stumbled into the street and zapped herself on an overhead powerline for the trolley. She touched it with the tip of her tail and was electrocuted again. Gertie very much disliked the stinging wire. Considering it little more than a pest, she looked around and found one of the poles supporting the powerline. Tapping the wooden pole with her tail, she wasn’t shocked, so she uprooted the pole out of the ground and flung it across the street, taking the wires out with it.
She backed away from the now dangling and sparking wires as a trolley approached. Ponies jumped off once they saw the dinosaur blocking their path. The trolley ran out of electric and coasted to a stop near Gertie. She batted it back the way it came and chased after it like a cat with a toy. When she caught up to it again, she turned around and whacked it with her tail, sending it off the tracks and careening through the streets of the city. Cabbies scattered as the trolley smashed into a bank.
Gertie caught up to the wrecked trolley and ate what was left of it. Then she ate the bank for good measure. Looking around, she spotted a massive skyscraper. She was a tall dinosaur. She wasn’t used to having to crane her neck to look up at something. Her curiosity piqued, she made her way toward the building, gobbling up anything that caught her fancy as she plodded her way there.
Once she arrived at the Equine State Building, Gertie started climbing it, much to the amazement of everypony gathered. They really shouldn’t have been all that surprised considering they were all also quadrupeds that had been shown to climb ladders and stairs, but they were shocked nonetheless. The building almost seemed like it had been designed for giant apes to climb it, but since there were none of those around, Gertie had to do it instead.
Up she climbed, munching on plants left on the windowsills and occasionally sticking her head and neck through open windows. Somepony had made the mistake of leaving the window open in the supply room. Gertie ate all but two of the paperclips. She moved on, climbing higher, and the two surviving paperclips quickly repopulated the supply closet.
Four of the fillies riding her clung to her as if their lives depended on it. Because they did. Cozy Glow, however, could fly, and she did so, tormenting the others the entire way, rather than take the time to escape. For a brilliant strategist, she wasn’t always particularly smart.
Gertie finally stepped onto the roof and was greeted by the reprise of a song she’d come to know well.
“When you get caught between the moon and Manehattan Island…”
At first Cozy Glow turned to chastise Sweetie Belle for singing yet again, only to groan as she saw that Eclipse Cross himself was on the observation deck of the Equine State Building. Sweetie Belle wasted no time joining him, turning his solo performance into a duet. “Sweet Celestia, there’s two of them.” She massaged her head with a hoof. “What are you doing here?”
“I haven’t had a hit in nearly forty years. At least if I’m here, I can sing for tips.” He held out his hat for emphasis. Nopony put any bits in it. Mostly because they were all fillies and had spent all their bits on train tickets. Never one to refuse food, Gertie ate the offered hat.
The sauropod had never been so high. She pondered that this must be how the pterosaurs of her era must’ve felt – looking down on the world. The Moon was almost close enough to touch. She reared up and stretched her neck up, reaching toward the Moon. Seconds later, the planet’s only satellite vacated the night sky forever.
Princess Luna’s scream was heard all around Equestria. Seriously, she used the Royal Canterlot Voice for it.
“I’ve heard of chewing the scenery, but this is ridiculous!” Cross slung his guitar over his back and jumped off the building.
The Crusaders dashed to the edge of the rooftop, fearing the worst, but Cross unfurled his wings and was Swept Away by the air currents. “I’m All Right!” he called, as the wind sent him over ships Sailing in the bay.
“Ride! Ride Like The Wind!” Sweetie Belle encouraged him. “You can be free again!” She sighed as he disappeared from view. “I’ll Never Be The Same.”
There was a beat, waiting for the audience to finish groaning from the previous two paragraphs, before an airship filled with Royal Guards descended on the rooftop chaos. Pegasus guards scattered as Gertie swallowed their blimp whole.
The captain was the last to bail out, and he bemoaned the loss of his vessel. “Well, it was a good year up until now.” He landed on the street outside the entrance to the Equine State Building, and felt no shame as he grabbed some fruit off a low-hanging branch.
Gertie started floating away because of the lighter-than-air ship in her belly, and Cozy Glow grabbed Petunia and flew after the escaping sauropod. The Cutie Mark Crusaders could do nothing but watch as the others floated south in the breeze. Petunia called out to them, reminding them to find a circus tent.
Scootaloo just stared after them, regretting that she was doomed by the show’s creator and writers to never fly; her perfectly good wings tucked to her side because it would be breaking character to use them and chase after Gertie. She consoled herself with thoughts of collateral damage.
Eclipse Cross hovered over Equestrian Navy ships in the harbor. “Fantasy, it gets the best of me, when I'm sailing.”
On the ships below, they were tracking Gertie’s progress high above them.
“All caught up in the reverie, every word is a symphony,” Cross continued singing.
“Permission to fire?”
“Fire at will.”
The ship's cannons went off, and Eclipse squawked in surprise as he dodged cannonballs aimed right for him.
“You were supposed to be aiming for the monster! What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Uh… drat, I missed?”
“Yes, you did. I’m not angry that you fired on a civilian. Washed up celebrities barely qualify as ponies. I’m angry that you missed. Now everypony’s going to think we’re incompetent.”
“Well, we are Royal Guards, sir!”
Eclipse Cross made a beeline for the city. Avoiding rampaging dinosaurs and flying cannonballs was still easier than staying relevant in the music scene.
Gertie floated through the sky, spinning her whiplash tail like a propeller. Petunia clung to her neck as tightly as possible, while Cozy relaxed on the dino-blimp’s back. The sauropod happily munched on clouds as she soared through the sky looking for her next meal. The clouds weren’t particularly filling, but at least there were a lot of them.
With the earth pony eye’s clenched shut, it was up to Cozy Glow to guide Gertie, and she steered her away from all nearby population zones.
Or rather, she steered Gertie straight into the heart of Cloudsdale, which after Gertie finished eating it, was indeed just empty, cloudless sky away from all nearby population centers. Not that Cloudsdale went down without a fight – the Wonderbolts appeared as Gertie was devouring the Cloudiseum. But because they were pegasi, all they could really do was fly circles around her, which wasn’t the most effective defensive strategy.
Surprise tried to zap her with lightning, but was really surprised when she flew too close and was swallowed by the ravenous dinosaur. Like all the other ponies she’d eaten, Gertie immediately spit the pegasus out. Tumbling head over hooves, Surprise quickly realized she’d been stripped. Her Wonderbolts uniform was gone, as was her G4 costume, revealing the G1 pony underneath. Surprise gasped and quickly covered herself up, before flying off camera, and returning a few seconds later as a G5 pony.
“You didn’t see that,” she said, blushing.
Cozy just patted the camera in her hooves and lipped ‘blackmail’ to the multigenerational pegasus.
Gertie’s incredible enzymes eventually digested the gaseous bag of the airship, and she crash-landed in downtown Hope Hollow, the once-again colorful town in Equestria that was visited once and then forgotten by everypony.
The ~~’luxurious Rainbow Resort and Spa’~~ Hotel Hope was the first thing to be devoured. As the building also contained Hope Hollow’s information center and library, it could be said that Gertie truly had a hunger for knowledge.*
*You could say it, but… it would be advisable to do so only if you like really bad puns and also have the ability to outrun those carrying torches and pitchforks.
Had Twilight Sparkle been there, she would’ve wept for the books.
Conveniently, she teleported the rest of the cast to Hope Hollow just as the last of the hotel/library disappeared, having finally tracked down Gertie thanks to the Wonderbolts. She immediately announced a full hour of silence in remembrance of the library.
Taking advantage of the situation, Cozy Glow, with her hair in curlers and wearing pajamas, called down from Gertie’s back, “Golly, I’d say I’m sorry for your loss, Twilight, but we both know I’ve never been a mourning pony.”
Twilight teleported to Gertie’s back and glowered at the filly. Flagrantly disregarding the destruction of knowledge was bad enough, and mocking it was worse, but the filly’s awful pun was the final straw. The bridge too far. The stone that should’ve remained unturned. She needed to be punished once and for all. Tartarus was too good for her. Being confined to a statue for eternity was too good for her. Twilight decided that the little pegasus needed to suffer.
Twilight promptly washed Cozy Glow’s mouth out with soap. Not just any soap, but the nastiest tasting soap she could find. Because she could use magic to lather herself, that choice was based entirely on Applejack’s recommendations, since the earth pony had to lather herself with her mouth. Oddly enough, her pick was Granny Smith’s personal favorite brand.
When Cozy Glow tried to say something snarky, all that came out were soap bubbles.
“Finally!” Applejack exclaimed. “Some peace and quiet.”
Gertie meanwhile had developed a taste for apricots, and devoured Moody Root’s backyard… and his house. As she was eating the Hoofington’s house, the Barrel twins zipped through the air past her. Going through the routine Rainbow Dash had taught them, they led Gertie away from downtown Hope Hollow.
The dinosaur crashed through Kerfuffle’s shop as she followed the acrobatic foals, causing the pegasus mare to stumble from the wreckage. She screamed in horror as Gertie ate her prosthetic limb.
All the ponies came to a crashing halt. Even Bucker and Pack stopped arguing.
Rainbow Dash landed on Gertie’s snout. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. That might have been cool to do back in the day, but that’s not how we play these days. Even I wouldn’t do something like that. I mean, Scootaloo’s disabled and can’t fly, but we treat her with all the same respect we show everypony else. The only ponies who don’t are bullies. You don’t want to be a bully, do you?”
“Like, what’s next – are you going to start stuttering, lisping, or have some other speech impediment?” Pinkie Pie shook her head in disapproval. “Like Dashie said, that’s uncool.”
Gertie hung her head in shame. The ‘fun’ ponies were reprimanding her.
Cozy Glow opened her mouth, but all that came out were soap bubbles. She shook a hoof at Twilight and then nodded in agreement with the others.
Even the naughty pony was chastising her. Gertie started crying.
Fluttershy landed on Gertie’s snout, gently pushing Rainbow aside. “There, there. You’re not a bad Brontosaurus, you just made a mistake. Things are different since you last walked the land.”
When Fluttershy used Brontosaurus to describe Gertie, Bucker stuck his tongue out at Pack Ornery.
The mule just rolled his eyes. “It’s Apatosaurus.”
“Brontosaurus!” Bucker screamed.
“Apatosaurus!”
“Brontosaurus!”
“Apatosaurus!”
“Brontosaurus!”
“Apatosaurus!”
Bucker was joined by the rest of the ponies.
“Apatosaurus!” Pack continued being the dissenting opinion.
Growing weary of the constant bickering between the two distinguished paleontologists, Petunia patted Gertie’s head. “Can you settle this debate once and for all? Are you a Brontosaurus or an Apatosaurus?”
Gertie nodded and brought her massive foot down on Pack Ornery, as Dirt T. Bucker took to the air. The mule looked up from the massive indentation in the ground, squished flatter than a pancake run over by a steamroller.
“Ha! The dinosaur has spoken! Brontosaurus wins!” exclaimed the pegasus, as he landed.
“I hate you all,” Pack muttered from the bottom of the hole. He climbed from the cavernous footprint and shook himself out, restoring his normal shape in the process.
With a whack of her tail, Gertie sent the mule flying over the horizon. A mushroom cloud appeared in the distant background when he landed, because apparently mules had suddenly become explosive. Conversely, he may have landed on a Ford Pinto. It was hard to tell, because he landed over the horizon, and hence out of the line of sight of the characters and even the author.
“That settles that!” Petunia and Bucker pumped their hooves in the air in triumph.
Gertie nodded.
“All those years we spent thinking those smooth stones in sauropod gullets were gastroliths, when it turns out that sauropods were actually just eating rocks. This is going to revolutionize paleontology. I’ll have to write a sequel to Heresies. There’s so much we never knew. Fossils can tell you a lot about how life used to be, but they can’t tell you everything.”
Gertie once more swallowed Twilight Sparkle.
“For example, nopony ever would’ve guessed brontosaurs would eat ponies and spit them out repeatedly.” Bucker stroked his scraggly beard and shrugged. “It’s almost as if she has an absurd sense of humor.”
With a pop Twilight teleported out of Gertie’s belly. She emerged midair, and fell to the ground in the smoldering remains of Hope Hollow. As she looked around, she realized something was missing. Something big.
“Where’s Gertie?”
“Oh, um, we thought you would know. You, um, kinda teleported her. Just a little bit?” Fluttershy hid herself behind her hair, knowing that her words would likely upset Twilight.
Twilight closed her eyes and screamed internally. Somehow her teleportation spell had been blocked by the dinosaur’s gut. She’d intended to pop between and emerge next to her friends. Instead, she’d stayed stationary and Gertie had gone… somewhere. Finding out where would be a headache – it would take hours to trace the destination from the fading residual of the spell. The only thing she could say for sure was that the troublesome sauropod had gone somewhere she had a point of reference for. Unfortunately, that really didn’t narrow down the possibilities all that much – thanks to the Cutie Map, it would be easier for her to list the towns she hadn’t been to.
It was only after she reopened her eyes that she realized that there was a leg laying in the street. It was conveniently a left hind leg, exactly the one Kerfuffle was missing. Thanks to the black & white film, the leg’s color was a slightly different shade of gray, but it looked fine, as if it had been freshly amputated. It had obviously come from Gertie’s stomach, left behind when she was teleported. It was probably intended as an apology gift to Kerfuffle. She didn’t want to think about where the dinosaur had gotten it… Somepony who’d been swallowed hadn’t been so lucky.
“Um, Twilight?” Fluttershy called out, but she was standing behind the princess, and her timid words fell on deaf ears.
Twilight waved Kerfuffle over and explained what she was going to do. Without anesthetic, it was going to hurt, especially when they had to amputate the end of the pegasus’ stub to make the new leg fit, but between her own magic and Rarity’s precise magic for the delicate parts, they managed to graft the leg to Kerfuffle’s body and connect all the blood vessels, veins, etc. Kerfluffle was whole once more, all thanks to the miracle of modern medical magic!
But that also meant that Twilight didn’t have time to autopsy the spell before the residual magic faded. They’d just have to listen to the radio and wait for reports of a dinosaur eating another town.
“That was so generous of you, Twilight. Why, I’m known for my generosity, of course, but the most I’ve ever given up was my tail, which would’ve grown back eventually if it hadn’t been magically restored by the Elements of Harmony. You’ve given up so much more than that.” Rarity started weeping tears of joy as she hugged Twilight. “It was all I could do to keep myself together during surgery. You’re so brave and selfless. You’re an inspiration to all of us!”
It was the thing Fluttershy had been trying to tell her that she’d ignored in her quest to make Kerfuffle whole again. The thing she really should have paid attention to.
A quick count of her own legs confirmed that she’d lost yet another limb to the dinosaur.
As the Princess of Friendship, she wasn’t going to ask for her leg back. Kerfuffle was so happy with it – hopping up and down and giggling, and even galloping in place. She was already going to have to ask Discord to poof her wings back into existence, she’d just have to ask for a leg too. Kerfuffle didn’t have the luxury of asking the Spirit of Chaos for favors.
Of course, if Twilight wanted true equality in Equestria, she could just ask Discord to make everypony an alicorn. Poofing wings and horns into and out of existence was nothing for a draconequus of his abilities, after all. It would likely be far more chaotic than any of the ideas Discord had ever had on his own. But really, the existing five alicorn princesses were three more than strictly necessary.
On the other side of the continent, Gertie strolled through Las Pegasus. Used to strange sights, residents and tourists alike continued on their ways, barely paying her attention. Gertie, however, was fascinated with a showmare whose outrageous costume resembled ferns from her own era, and she followed her back to Flim & Flam’s Hotel, Resort, & ~~Friendship University~~ Casino.
Gambling was a new concept to Equestrians, having been introduced the previous year at the Trump Card Church & Casino. The first of its kind, it was the unholy union of organized religion and immoral gambling. Things that should have been mutually exclusive, yet nopony questioned it. Mostly because when ponies ran out of bits they could gamble their eternal soul. Since Trump Card had long since sold his own soul to Discord, he needed as many others as he could get to fulfill his end of the deal. There was art to the deal – and that art was that the house always won, even when it lost.
But even with the deck stacked in his favor, Trump Card was an absolutely horrible businesspony, and the casino went bankrupt multiple times over the course of the year. Flim and Flam had, of course, been there to pick up the pieces and add it to their own burgeoning resort empire. Trump Card had then been elected ~~mayor president~~ god-king of Las Pegasus.
Fortunately, Cozy Glow had been left behind in Hope Hollow with everypony else, otherwise she would’ve started taking notes on how to be an evil, racist megalomaniac, yet miraculously build a following and actually get away with everything. The secret wasn’t adorableness; it was money, or at least the illusion of wealth and/or power. But because she wasn’t there, Cozy would never learn that lesson.
Gertie had no problem entering the hotel through the gilded, oversized doors. The interior of the hotel’s lobby had been over-engineered. In as much that it had been designed for ponies, yet was still completely adequate for a sauropod’s needs too.
She spotted the showmare standing in a row with a bunch of others, and while she couldn’t fit in any of the rooms other than the lobby, she didn’t need to. All she needed to do was fit her head in, an incredibly easy feat considering it was attached to twenty feet of neck. She gobbled the costumes off each of the mares in turn, and they all stayed standing, as the professional actresses they were trying to be. If the director’s latest vision involved being swallowed, stripped, and spit out, who were they to question it? They were in show business, and that was all that mattered. Dinosaur saliva could be washed off.
“Say there, brother of mine. When did we get the new animal act?”
“What new animal act?”
“~~Flim, or was it Flam… um, probably Flim? Definitely Flam.~~ The twin with the mustache pointed to Gertie. That animal act, my dearest brother, and completely legitimate business associate.”
The clean-shaven brother looked puzzled. “That’s a new one on me. Still, they say never look a gift dinosaur in the mouth. Or something like that.”
“Why, we could make her our newest attraction.”
“Neigh, brother. We can make her our biggest attraction.”
“I like the way you think! We could probably lure her into the room that’s been empty since The Flying Fieros left.”
“That’s Prairinos, brother.”
Mustachioed brother shrugged. “Wasn’t my act to sell ponies on.”
“It’s not mine. At least, not anymore. And good riddance, says I! Out with the old, in with the new! Ponies crave new thrills, and what could be more thrilling than a dinosaur? What does our newest, biggest attraction eat, anyway?”
The brothers watched Gertie for a moment.
“Showmares, apparently.”
“It’s a good thing that’s a renewable resource! There’s no shortage of young mares looking to break into show business. We’ve got to do something with the ones who just aren’t cut out for it.”
“Like that one mare. What was her name? The one who had the ‘one-time only’ act where she blew herself up with dynamite.”
“She was calling herself ‘The Great and Powerful’ something or other. Tricksy maybe?”
“We sold so many tickets to that show.” Mustached brother smiled, a faraway look in his eyes as he remembered the profits.
“Getting eaten by a dinosaur is a great way to break into show business,” clean-shaven brother proclaimed. “That’s what we’ll tell all the ones who aren’t as coordinated, attractive, or as young as the rest of our showmares.”
“A fantastic idea, brother of mine! And if we defer payment until after their respective performances…”
“We don’t have to pay them at all! You’re brilliant, as always!”
“What can I say? It runs in the family.”
“We will, however, have to come up with cheaper costumes for them to wear.”
“How about body paint?”
Clean-shaven brother shrugged. “Let’s save some bits and use spray paint instead. It’s not like it’s going to matter.”
“But we don’t know if paint would be harmful to our new star attraction though. Maybe we should hire a costume designer, and then every two weeks, conveniently on payday, we need a substitute showmare and ask her to fill in. We’ll just need to keep hiring costume designers.”
“I dunno. Wannabe actresses are one thing – nopony’s going to miss them. But costume designers? They’re always in demand. Somepony’s going to notice if they start disappearing.”
Instead, the brothers hired an inexperienced seamstress for minimum wage. Once Gertie was securely in the room that they intended to become her permanent residence, they started designing her act. Much to their delight, they discovered that while Gertie wasn’t much of a singer due to coming from the silent movie era, the dino could dance.
She tap danced for the brothers, shaking the resort to its foundation. Some nearby buildings collapsed from the repeated shaking of the ground, as did one not-so-nearby barn that had been freshly raised by Big Macintosh and Granny Smith.
Gertie then moved into country line dancing, disco dancing, hula dancing, and finally breakdancing. Local seismologists watched as their equipment recorded a prolonged magnitude 5.7 earthquake.
Mustachioed brother turned to clean-shaven brother. “I think we can work with this.”
Three days later, Flim and Flam were riding high. Ticket sales had never been better. They’d raised general admission tickets thrice and ponies still kept coming. Revenue was up. Way up. Life was good for the con artists.
Rather, it would’ve been if not for one overwhelming problem. Expenses were also up – way, way, WAY, WAY up. Simply put, Gertie was eating them out of business. Much to their dismay, they’d discovered that Gertie didn’t eat free, easily replaceable showmares, but instead preferred Jurassic era ferns and cycads. There were only a few places in the world such plants grew, and none of them were close to Las Pegasus. So they needed to be imported. In bulk.
Gertie also had a bad habit of eating anything in her room. Props, carpeting, walls, and anything else that wasn’t nailed down. Or, in many cases, things that were nailed down. If it was there, it was going to get eaten one way or another.
She also had a bad habit of swallowing paying customers. Showmares were one thing – they got paid to endure humiliation. Customers, however, demanded absurd things like refunds and compensation. They threatened legal action.
Something needed to be done.
They needed a rich patron to sponsor the exhibit.
As if on cue, Trump Card shoved his way through the mass of showmares, swatting a few on the rump for good measure. Once he was at the front of the line he demanded Gertie’s attention.
Gertie backed away from the loud stallion.
Flim and Flam knew an easy mark when they saw one.
“Say there, friend. You’re obviously interested in our star exhibit. How about we talk business in our office?”
Trump Card agreed. Five minutes later he walked out of the office, thrilled with the deal he’d signed. He also really liked the new headgear the brothers had given him – a real showmare hat.
“In the event of my untimely death, all my assets transfer to Flim & Flam’s Hotel, Resort, & ~~Friendship University~~ Casino, superseding all previous and/or future iterations of any last will & testament signed by me, Trump Card,” mustachioed brother read the fine print on the contract Trump Card had just signed. He smiled.
“Such a thoughtful gift you gave him, brother. You saw how much he liked our showmares.”
“Now we just need to make sure he doesn’t get regurgitated.”
They solved it the same way they always solved problems – bribery! They cut Gertie in for fifty percent of fifty percent of fifty percent of their proceeds. While Gertie experienced some mild indigestion, Trump Card wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
