It don’t look like nothing else!
Sprout made his way down the crosswalk towards the cliffside with a bright smile on his face. There was a bit of a pep in his step, or trot in this case, as he continued on his way. His chin held high, and his eyes filled with determination. Nothing could dampen his mood, not the glares of disapproval from the earth ponies he passed, the hushed giggles from foals who couldn’t stifle them, or even the many insults that some ponies would throw at him. Nope, nothing could get Sprout down, all he was focused on was the clear sky and bright sun, he couldn’t quite explain it but everything just seemed so much more colorful and…cheaper than usual.
Sprout just shrugged it off, assuming that it was a side effect of his good mood.
What was the source of his good mood you may ask? Well, Sprout felt the absolute worst after he had demolished Sunny’s home. Thankfully, she and her friends accepted his apology, but a “sorry” wasn’t going to change the fact that Sprout was responsible for making Sunny homeless. Well, more like dwelling-impaired, because Sunny was currently sleeping at Hitch’s house for the time being until the lighthouse was finished being constructed.
Speaking of which, this was the reason why Sprout was heading to the cliffside. He had offered to help with the rebuilding as a means for lessening his community service, to which the five ponies unanimously said no. However, he had gotten an invite from that one unicorn, what was her name again, Shimmer? Glitter? Sparkle? Something that had to do with crystals and shining things.
Sprout mentally slapped himself for thinking that, remembering that it was still rude to assume all unicorns liked shiny things. The unicorn they were all friends with was interested in shiny things, but that was just her. Still, if only he could remember her name, which was gonna bug him for the rest of the day.
Anyways, Sprout had received an invite to come to the cliffside to see what the new lighthouse looked like. He remembered that it hadn’t been officially completed yet, but they had done a lot in such little time. Sprout chalked it up to the newfound god power Sunny had, which wouldn’t rule it out of the realm of possibilities. Just two days ago, Sunny made the sun stay up for longer than it was supposed to, or was it technically three days ago? Didn’t matter, Sunny was able to fix it and now the sun and moon rise and lower just as they always did.
Sprout came out of his thoughts as he neared his destination, where five ponies were sitting around a table. The unicorn looked up for a moment and waved to Sprout, beckoning him to come closer. The other ponies took notice and waved too, although less enthusiastically than the unicorn.
“Sprout, you made it!” The unicorn smiled, showing off her perfectly white pearly whites.
“Yeah…you,” Sprout greeted back, his head lowering a bit as he struggled to remember the unicorn’s name.
“Glad to see you’re still up and about,” Hitch put a foreleg around Sprout and walked him to the table, “we were all worried you’d be sulking for weeks.” He joked.
But Sprout had been sulking for weeks, he’d been miserable ever since he went, full-on tyrant. But it was okay now because those days were behind him, he’d finally be able to make amends with everyone here and things would be better.
“Oh…it’s been alright,” Sprout said as he stood against the table, “so why did you all invite me here?” He asked, assuming that what they wanted had to do with a pointy object in the middle of the table concealed by a piece of cloth.
“Well…” Sunny began, “as you know, we’ve been working on the repairs of my lighthouse and we wanted to show off the design of it before unveiling it to the rest of the town. We figured that you should be the first pony to see what we had in mind.” Sunny said, indicating to the Pegasus to remove the cloth.
She pulled it back and revealed a toy model about a foot in size, a long clear cylinder jutting out from a base with two square rooms beside it. Sprout only got to look at it for about a few seconds before a crab suddenly appeared and started bashing on the model before snapping the cylinder in half. The crab let out a squeak, which would sound like a roar if you were tiny, before he was snatched up by Hitch.
“Eh-he-he,” He chuckled sheepishly, “cool it, Mcsnips-a-lot.” He whispered to the crab, only for it to cut off a strand of his mane.
“So…what do ya think?” Sunny asked, all eyes landing on Sprout as they awaited to hear his thoughts.
Sprout had thoughts about the model, along with comments, criticisms, and several concerns. The old him would have blurted them all out right then and there, but he wasn’t that kind of pony anymore, he was reformed, better, but he still struggled to find anything good about the model. The only thing that Sprout figured to say, that wasn’t a downright insult, was,
“How far have you all started in making that actual lighthouse?” Sprout asked.
“Not too much,” The unicorn answered, “just a couple of things here and there.”
Sprout let out a sigh of relief.
“Don’t know why you’re asking us, just look at the real thing right over there,” The white Pegasus pointed.
Sprout inhaled his sigh again as he followed to where the Pegasus was pointing and his eyes widened in horror. He didn’t know how he missed it, but before him now stood a much larger scale of the model he had just seen. Now standing erect at a massive 100 feet was the newly constructed lighthouse made out of crystals and gold braces. Yet there were still some minor differences between the real thing and the model.
The more he saw those differences, the more similar it looked to what a male’s private parts looked like. The two rooms connected to the base weren’t symmetrical, one was longer than the other and the other room was a bit taller. To make matters worse, there were some crystal trees that glistened near the entrance of the lighthouse that looked an awful lot like newly grown hair.
Sprout was at a loss for words, his mouth hung open so wide that his jaw might come unhinged. All he could do was gawk at the towering monstrosity before him.
“See, he must like it!” The unicorn beamed, “It’s left him speechless.”
This was a joke, a prank, or some cruel form of revenge on Sprout for his actions. There was no way they built their house to look like…THAT, on purpose.
“Oh…oh I get it.” Sprout chuckled.
The five ponies looked at Sprout with curious looks.
“What’s up, kid?” The multicolored Pegasus asked.
“This is revenge,” Sprout couldn’t help but grin, “for destroying Sunny’s house, right? You guys made it look like that just to make fun of me, huh?!
“Sprout, what are you talking about?” Hitch put a hoof on the red stallion’s shoulder.
“What am I talking about- look at it!” Sprout pointed an accusing hoof at the building, “There’s no way you would build that and didn’t know what it looked like!”
The group looked at the tower, then back to Sprout, then to the tower, then back to Sprout. This continued five more times before Hitch spoke up, “It…looks like a lighthouse. What else does it look like?”
Sprout was silent, the gears in his head were turning.
“No.” He flatly said.
“No?” The group echoed with curiosity.
“You want me to say what it looks like, and I will not say…that word.” Sprout declared, partly because he didn’t want to fall for their trap and the other part was because he remembered the days when his mommy would scrub his tongue with soap whenever he said words like that.
The group looked back to the lighthouse, trying to see what it is that Sprout was talking about.
“…An upside-down ‘T’? Hitch guessed.
“Ooh, ooh! I know,” The unicorn bounced, “it looks like a cannon, doesn’t it! Just wait till you see the light show.”
“Uh…” The Pegasus with a phone rubbed her chin, “Maybe one of those massage rollers?”
“Or maybe…” The other Pegasus wondered, “a giant mushroom?”
“How about this,” Sunny, being the one with the natural ability to compromise, “Izzy, why don’t you go turn on the beacon? That way we can show Sprout that it’s a lighthouse.”
“Can do!” The unicorn saluted before walking off in that way unicorns walk toward things. She disappeared behind the twin doors and entered the building.
“You’re gonna love this,” Hitch leaned in to whisper to Sprout, “it took a lot of work to get the beacon working.”
Thanks to the tower being transparent, the gang was able to watch as the unicorn hopped onto a platform that floated upwards towards the top. However, the platform never made it to the top as it stopped just inches from the top before suddenly levitating back down. Then it went back up and down again. Up and down, up and down, up and down. The platform started off slow until it sped up to fast movements. With one final movement, the platform shot upwards and practically sent the unicorn flying.
A stream of a rainbow shot out from the roof of the tower, sailing so high up that it touched the clouds before it somehow bent and flowed down towards the sea. The rainbow was now in the shape of an arch poured from the lighthouse. Then the rainbow started to fritz, causing smaller spurts of the stream to pour out from it.
Once the light show was over, the gang said nothing. All of the ponies just stared at the tower with blank faces as the cogs turned within their brain.
“Oh sweet mother of Twilight,” Sunny spoke with wide eyes, “we’ve built a massive penis.”
“Oh yeah,” the Pegasus with a pink mane squinted at the tower, “it does look like a dong now that you mention it.”
“Wait, I don’t see it.” The Pegasus with an addiction to attention moved her head to several positions to try and angle her vision so that she could see what her friends were seeing. “How are you guys- OH I see it now.” She declared, taking a picture of it on her phone.
Hitch quickly snatched the phone from her, despite her whine, and quickly deleted the picture.
“How did we let this happen?” He groaned.
The unicorn from before came bounding back towards the group, “Heya folks, what’s so funny Sprout?” She asked the red earth pony, who was currently rolling on the grass in a fit of laughter.
“The lighthouse looks like a cock.” The white Pegasus stated flatly.
The unicorn took one look at the lighthouse before she joined Sprout in a fit of laughter, rolling on the ground.
“W-we can still salvage this!” Sunny tried to stay positive, but the loose strands popping out from her hair made it clear she was failing. “Maybe if we bend it to the side a little, or raise the side rooms it might-“
“Sunny,” The unicorn stopped laughing and put a hoof on her shoulder, “I think we both know that whatever we add to it, it’s still gonna look like a stallion’s private part.”
“Well then, what do you suggest we do?” Sunny glared.
The unicorn produced six plot convenient sledgehammers and passed them around. Eventually, she landed on Sprout who was returning from his laughing fit.
“A-are you sure?” He asked, eyeing the handle of the sledgehammer with uncertainty.
“Of course! Who better to help us in destroying Sunny’s home than the guy with experience!” The unicorn beamed.
Sprout looked over to Sunny, who now had glowing wings and a horn.
“It’s okay sprout.” Sunny reassured. “This time we have an actual good reason to destroy my home. So, whatda ya say, friend?”
A warmth filled Sprout’s heart at the mention of the word ‘friend’. Despite everything he’d done, these ponies were still willing to give him a second chance and be friends with him. With newfound determination, he took hold of the sledgehammer.
With that, they all charged to bring down the phallic tower.
