The Last Earth Ponies

"Button, you need to get a job!"

Button Mash shielded his eyes from the harsh daylight. "Mom!"

"No whining!" Cream Heart scolded as she finished opening his bedroom drapes. "You stayed up all night playing video games again, and now it's almost noon!"

"But it's got to be my destiny!" Button defended has he got out of bed. He rubbed his eyes and pointed at the directional pad symbol on his flank. "Because that's what my cutie mark is telling me."

"Well destiny isn't going to pay the bills, mister! You're not in school anymore. You need to get a job, and get your own place!"

"I told you, I'm gonna be a game tester, or live streamer, or designer, or something."

"If you want to be a programmer, you need to go to college! And you'll need at least a part-time job while you do that! A real job!"

"What do you want me to do? Flip hayburgers?"

"Yes, Button! Anything other than playing games all night and sleeping all day!" She grabbed his saddlebag and strapped it over him as she shooed him out the bedroom doorway. Just before he exited the house, she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"What was that for?"

"Because I love you," she said simply. "Now go on! And don't come back until you've filled out at least three applications!" She closed the door behind him.

"Sheesh! What put a stick up her flank!?" he grumbled as he walked into town.

Cream Heart stomped back through the kitchen in frustration. Even she was a bit taken aback by how cranky she had been lately. She made the bed for her son, again. "Ugh! I should have made him take a shower before trying to get a job interview. It reeks in here!" She folded the sheets nicely, fluffed the pillows and spread out the covers. Cream Heart's nostrils flared and her tail twitched. The room reeked of musky male.

She trotted back out to the kitchen and flipped the page of the calendar. "Oh. Right. The vernal equinox." She shuffled her hind legs. "Well, that explains the irritability." She added a trip to the apothecary to her list of chores for the day. But first there was the sink full of dishes to get to. Then the upholstery. And then... She sighed. "It never ends..."

~

Cream Heart glanced at the kitchen clock. It had been hours and Button hadn't returned yet. The apothecary would be closing soon and then she'd have to hurry back to get dinner started. She trotted into town to the familiar shop. She pushed the door open with a jingle of the bell.

"If you've got time to lean, you've got time to clean!" the proprietor of the store shouted.

"Right after this level," the colt said.

"Turn off the JoyBoy and get to work! Quit Minesweeping, and start actual sweeping!" He shoved a broom into the colt's hooves. The older stallion looked across the aisle at the entrance. "Come on, we've got a customer." He walked behind the register as Cream Heart approached the counter. "What can I do for you today Ms. Heart?"

"Just the usual, Dr. Pillsnier. It's spring."

"Ah. Right." He filled out a slip and called out, "Rookie! Get over here!" Button Mash walked out from the back with the broom in his hoof.

Cream looked at him in surprise. "Button? You work here now?"

Dr. Pillsnier scoffed. "Barely. And not for much longer if he doesn't get his act together. Rookie?"

"Yeah?"

"You know how to count at least, right?" Pillsnier asked.

"Yeah."

"Here, fill this out." He gave him the slip of paper.

"Beat the Heat... Extra Strength? What, do you have a fever?"

"Ah, ah!" Pillsnier chided. "We do not ask the customers personal questions, lad! Just go find the inventory jar and bring it out here to the counting table." A few minutes later, Button walked back out with a jar that was closer to the size of a small barrel. "Okay, now pour some out onto the table, and count them as you put them into this bottle until you have this many," he explained, pointing at the number on the slip.

Button did so. "Whoa, look at the size of these!" The capsules were the size of grapes. "How in the world are you supposed to swallow these!?" He looked at the label. "One per day... Not to be taken orally? How else do you take a pill?"

"What did I just say about questions!?" Pillsnier yelled. He turned back to Cream Heart, embarrassed for both of them. "Sorry about him." He discreetly packed the applicator wand in a plain bag and passed it to her across the counter.

She blushed. "It's okay. Um, when does his shift end, today?"

"Five. If he makes it that long." Button gave him the filled bottle and brought the big jar back to the inventory stock while Pillsnier rang her out.

Cream Heart trotted home. She opened her bag and took out her prescription. She loaded the applicator wand with one of the capsules, according to the instructions, to be taken vaginally. Nestled against her cervix, the dissolving capsule wouldn't cure her estrus by any stretch, but it would help as much as anything could with her agonizing heat.

"Anything except a stallion," she grumbled, with the wand in her hoof, getting ready to insert it.

Outside, the sound of the town's sirens started to rise. She set the wand on the bathroom counter and ran to the door. In the sky, several pegasi were flying low, distributing hastily copied fliers. On the road, Button Mash came galloping towards the house with one of the papers.

"Mom! MOM!" he yelled, screeching to a halt in front of her.

"What in Equestria is going on!?" she asked. He gave her the paper. It was urgent news from the princess that a giant asteroid was going to destroy the world in less than a day's time. "Is this some kind of sick joke!?" She looked at the other panicked ponies as the sirens continued to blare, and then back at the official royal seal on the flier. It was really happening. The end times.

"Mom, what are we gonna do!?" he asked. She didn't have an answer for him. Her first instinct was to grab whatever they could and hole up in the basement. But the flier made clear that there was no protection from a 'global killer' asteroid. Nothing would survive, not even bacteria.

Strawberry Sunrise ran over to her. "Cream!" she called out. "A bunch of the other town ponies are heading to Zecora's place in the Everfree for an end-of-the-world party!"

"Who could party at a time like this!?" Cream asked.

"The world's about to end. Crying about it won't change that. So let's live while we're still alive! It could use a bit of the ol' Strawberry-Cream tag team."

Cream Heart pursed her lips, contemplating the idea.

"There's gonna be potion dosing, cider drinking, and debauchery! You should come!" Strawberry's eyes shifted over to Button. "Both of you." Cream Heart narrowed her eyes. Strawberry shrugged. "I hope to see you guys there," she said before she turned to leave.

Button looked at his mother. "What's debauchery?" he asked. "Is that that game that's like horseshoes, but with balls?"

"No, sweetie, that's Bocce."

"Oh. So... are we going? Because I have other things I could be doing."

"Like what!?"

"Like finally one-hundred-percenting Exhale of the Feral!" he said, pulling his JoyBoy out of his bag. "I finished all the shrines, and I almost have all nine hundred seeds!"

Cream Heart frowned. "Is that really how you want to spend the rest of your life?"

He nodded. "Yeah! Check it out! You can climb mountains and stuff!"

Cream Heart looked toward Smokey Mountain, to the west. There were so many things that she had wanted to do. There were so many things that she had wanted for him, and to do with him. But she had always put them off. It was okay, she had reasoned. There would be time. And now there was no time left. And she had let him waste so much of his life in front of that screen. She grabbed his hoof. "Pack a bag!"

"Why, where are we going?"

"Camping! You're going to climb a real mountain for once in your life!"

The trip took the rest of the day, and they climbed the steep path well into the evening before they finally reached a good spot near the summit. She pitched a tent and made a campfire. Button barely enjoyed it before he passed out in the tent for the night. The end was less than eighteen hours away. She envied his ability to sleep in the face of oblivion. She sat and watched the slowly dying embers turn to ash shortly before the eastern horizon began to glow.

She gently shook Button awake to come sit beside her on a log. They watched the sunrise from high above Ponyville Valley. She held him close to her side. If there was a better way to spend the last day on this mortal plane, she couldn't think of one. She leaned over and kissed his forehead.

As they sat there, a beam of light appeared around them and they started to drift up into the air. Looking up, they could see a huge, mysterious craft hovering above them. It pulled them inside and the hatch closed behind them, dropping them into a loading bay of some kind with a massive view window. The world below them seemed to fall away as they accelerated up into the sky and moved across the land at incredible speed, yet they felt no movement.

A door leading to the loading bay opened and a couple of tall, bipedal creatures holding batons of some kind approached them. They each wore matching one-piece jump suits and made a series of noises that seemed to be some form of speech, though neither pony could understand them. The tone of the creatures seemed calm, but imperative.

They moved towards Button first. Cream instinctively put herself between her son and them. They closed in and reached out to grab her. She turned suddenly and bucked her legs, catching one of them in the kneecap. One of the others jabbed her with a baton, shocking her with a jolt of electricity and sending her reeling onto the floor. Two others grabbed Button, and pulled the saddlebag straps off him.

"Hey!" He objected as they reached inside and pulled out his JoyBoy. "Hey that's mine!" He yelled louder. They switched it on and looked at it. They turned it over to look at the bottom and opened the small latch. "NO! Don't take out the batteries while it's on! That..." They did exactly that. "Erases the save file..." He groaned. They dumped the JoyBoy and the batteries back into the bag.

The two that were still wrangling him pulled him toward the doorway. Cream was back on her hooves. "Leave him alone!" she growled and charged at them. One of them pointed a small device at her and a pair of wired barbs shot out and struck her in the forehead. Her advance was stunned but she didn't go down. It only made her angrier as she grit her teeth against the pain and put one hoof in front of the other in shaky but sure steps. Another one jabbed her in the neck with a baton and put her down again. Her senses were a dull haze. But she could hear Button's fearful screams as they placed her on a gurney and carried her after him down the hallway.