Fallout: Equestria - The Lunar Archives

Fallout Equestria: Lunar Archives
Chapter 11: Dreams

I fell into the sweet embrace of sleep such an afternoon of walking and mowing down raiders deserved. Falling deeper and deeper…and deeper… “How deep is this dream?” I looked around at the walls passing upwards with speed. “Why am I still falling?” I looked down to see the glint of rapidly approaching needles. “Is that a spike pit?! AHHH!!” I flailed moments before being skewered.

I shot up in the bed flailing before breathing enough to calm down. Hooves were checking all over my person for new holes. Nothing. “Thank the goddesses… no new holes.” I sighed slumping on the sheets.

“Wait… didn't I go to bed with a purpose?” I pondered before sitting up again remembering my intended duel with Luna. “You were supposed to fight me, coward! Not send me right back!” I punched a hoof into a pillow. “Eh!”

My justified fury fell upon deaf ears as the only sights and sounds to be had were the old dark room and the gentle patter of something on the roof. Rain?

I rolled out of bed and walked over to the curtains and gently nudged them aside. The darkness beyond seemed palpable yet waving as water fell over the ancient glass. The cul-de-sac was dark and empty. The rest of the houses but opaque shadows, and the lights of applewood were far out of focus. “Huh, I guess rain is real. And the Lightbringer I keep hearing so much about finally decided to drop some here… neat!” I shrugged letting the blinds drop back, was kinda dark and creepy out there not being able to see anything.

Squeeeak~

A metallic squeak came from behind me and I snapped back fast enough a less paranoid mare’s neck would have snapped. A lone desk lamp loomed over the Sweetie-Belle figurine… and it was on. There’s no way this house had power, the terminal sure, but everything else? Couldn’t be.

I stepped towards it as the light itself blew my night vision and turned the rest of the room into a blur. Such an intense little halo for such a small object… such a small…divine… Holy little thing. Such a pretty mare…and so close to the goddesses I could almost feel it.

“Go on~ Take it.” echoed around me.

The words wheezed and felt like hot humid breath on my ear. Yet when I looked nopony was there. “Alright, who’s there?!” I looked around the dark room but there was nothing but a blur. I reached for my flintlock but my saddle bags were gone. “Who are you?”

“Nopony important.” the voice wheezed sounding deep and strained, yet disturbingly familiar. “Just take it, You deserve it after all.”

No matter where I looked, the voice always seemed to be just over my shoulder. Wheezing, breathing, tainting. “I’m not taking the figurine. It belongs to Button Mash.”

“If he’s even alive.” the voice chuckled with the sound of clanking metal and straining lungs.

“Then it belongs to his mom!” I retorted. The moral high ground was mine!

“Exaaaaactly~” the voice hummed. “And that's why you should take it~ She doesn’t need it.” I looked left towards the source.

“You WANT it.” Behind my right ear, I looked again. “She won’t even notice it’s gone” on the left again.

“Im not….I don't…” I looked at the figurine.

“Don’t what? Deserve it? To bring such a pretty little thing to Daddy? To place it on the altar of your gods? To bask in the wayward souls such a relic will save?” The light over the little doll grew brighter. The longer I started the more intense the light grew, until the lifeless eyes of the Sweetie-Bell figure looked directly at me and her mouth moved to say in the same raspy voice. “To be loved?”

I recoiled from the figurine, what the actual fuck?! “Where the Buck are you?! Who are you?!” I was ready to throw hooves! “Im no thief!”

“It’s not theft, it’s just ‘accelerated archeology~’ Taking what you deserve. After everything you’ve done for that crazy ghoul? A whole night playing into her delusions?!” it wheezed. “Even actors get paid and this is but a PITTANCE!” They exclaimed as the figurine exploded into porcelain shrapnel and slime, smashed by an unseen hoof.

I managed to duck under some of the flying bits but the slime was thick and yellowish, hunks of brown and it smelled like... “Is this grease?” I mumbled looking down at some that got on my hoof. “I’m not taking it!” I resolved. “At this point just cause you’re being a creep about it!”

“Me? A creep? I didn't know we'd make so many breakthroughs tonight.” the mystery mare chuckled. “Admittance is only the first step towards recovery. Well.. that sounds like something PJ would say anyways.”

“You leave Pickle Jar out of this! Who are you?! Show yourself!”

“So demanding~ I love it. You’re lucky I’m so.. Mmm…generous~” It savored the word. “As I said, I’m nopony important~”

“Bullshit!!” Nothing this creepy isn’t important!

“How about you take THE ANSWERS YOU’RE GIVEN?!” It roared as the desk lamp was crumped next! The bulb popped in a blinding flash.

Opening my eyes the darkness gave way to terminal light. Standing before me was a mare three times my size. A familiar gray coat, orange spectrum mane, and adorned horn to hoof in gold and jewels that jingled with every movement. Anklets, rings, necklaces, and studs throughout the remains of a stable suit struggling to contain bulging rolls of fat. “What the…”

“As I said, nopony important. Just you~” My neck tilted back just to look past the rolls of lard and rubies on her neck to see her sneering face. She reeked of rot and halitosis. Her teeth were either gold or rotten and her mane a jungle of grease and haphazard jewelry.

“By Luna’s raging inferiority complex there’s no way you’re me! More like you ATE three of me!” I pointed out hoping she wasn't actually going to eat me. The idea made me skitter back just in case.

“I’m not ‘just’ you,” she emphasized taking a step towards me, shaking the floor and making me scoot back further. “I’m everything you deserve~ Everything you’ve deserved for the overflowing generosity you’ve provided.” she prodded me in the chest with a slick gilded hoof.

I gulped unable to escape the mental image of being swallowed whole by an overweight me! “Everything I.. deserve? But I brush my teeth!”

“Ughh, you’re thick.’ she exacerbated and coughed hacking phlegm onto the floor. “After everything you've given of yourself. If you want food, you deserve food! If you want riches, you’ve earned riches! You want love? Well, you Fucking take it! You had NOTHING, and gave everything!”

“That’s… not how generosity works! You’re supposed to give without expecting anything in return!”

“Well duh, you think I don't know that? Everypony in here knows that.” she tapped her temple. “Think about it. Call it luck, karma, or even cosmic justice if you want. Everypony says it's wrong to expect something in return, but deep down.. they all pray the universe rewards them in kind. I vowed to be generous, I AM generous.”

I couldn’t believe my ears, eyes, or nose. “No! You’re just some sick and twisted nightmare from a bucked-up part of my mind.” Her description of generosity was about as shallow as she was thick. “I’m not like that! I’m better than that! The goddesses know I’m better than that.” I stood up to the gold-plated larder. Stood up to ‘Generosity’. If she was part of me, she couldn't hurt me, right?

Generosity wheezed harder and growled stamping a hoof. “If you’re going to cling to your goddesses like a lost puppy, imagine what we could give them. I could give you everything, anything you desire! If you’d just listen to me-”

“No!!” I brick-walled.

“Fine!! If you think stubbornness will keep us away you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Us? What do you mean us?” I squinted.

“Yes us. You, me, and the rest of the circus bouncing around in your deranged head. I was generous enough to call dibs on taking center stage first to ‘spare you’ the others. They'd eat you alive. Unlike me, I’d saute you first, and add a little oregano.” she panted. “You’re welcome by the way~ call me when you’re done pussyhoofing on your useless morality. Be a good little filly for five minutes, It won’t last forever. We all know what can break you.”

“Nuh uh!” flawless comeback. “Even if you are a part of me, that makes me the whole. Being the sum of all my parts I will always be stronger than you. You can’t break me!”

The room began to rumble, then shake like an earthquake. The walls began to crack letting light pour through the seams of reality.

“Uh oh…”

Generosity looked around at the collapsing scenery and growled gritting her teeth. “This is my domain damn it! Do you wanna be broken? Cause I will bucking break you!” She looked over her bloated shoulder with a jingle to the TV in the back of Button’s room. “Check behind the TV.”

With her final words, the surroundings shattered, and Generosity dissolved into yellow goo, seeping into the receding shadows. Leaving me alone…in a blank white void… again!

“Phew, she's gone… I’m gone?” I said aloud freeing all the stress with a drawn-out sigh.

“Yes, that was rather unpleasant. Apologies I couldn’t get here sooner.” It was that mare’s voice from the other dreams. “Connecting without a mortal coil has gotten quite diff-”

“Luna!!” I pointed right at the disembodied voice as I got off my rear. All that fighting myself only served to work me up enough to fight a goddess! “Show yourself so I can kick your ass like a real mare!” I spun around looking for the mistress of stars and dreams. I don’t care if I was on her home turf, she was going to pay for all these nightmares! “And what the flying duck fuck was that?!” I waved around at all the places Generosity had once been.

There was a long pregnant pause and silence filled the void around me.

“Sister have mercy, he told you didn’t he?” she sighed as the holy herself materialized from black dust. The purple-black alicorn in all her nighttime splendor, one of the pinnacles of all pony kind. Her wings, Her massive horn, the crescent moon stamped on her flank atop a patch of midnight black, and… is she only a head taller than me?

I dropped back onto my rear again sitting on the invisible floor of the white void in awestruck astonishment. “You… you’re…”

Luna composed herself like she was preparing to explain her existence to a lowly mortal like me... Again. “Luna, Princess of the night, mistress of dreams, Younger sister of Princess Celestia, and-”

“Short…” I added looking her up and down through my jar-lid glasses.

“I… short?” she blinked like her entire speech flew out a third-story window.

“Yeah short, like… you’re only a foot taller than me.”

“I umm.. That's… well above average pony size if I recall. I just…” she glanced nervously around the void. “Did the radiation make ponies taller?”

“Well no, but you’re only a bit taller than Moonstone. You’re like... I was…” I scratched my mane before shrugging. “Kinda expected you to be taller? Like three times taller, with a halo, and being escorted by a small army of angelic bat ponies. Really showboat your way in here and live up to that inf-”

She stamped a hoof and her horn glowed black. “One more word about this supposed inferiority complex and you’ll face evicting Dream-Pickle right now!”

My mane stood on end and my heart stopped. “Nonononono! Thats okay! What inferiority complex?! I never said anything about an inferiority complex! Who said that? I didn’t!” I gave my best winning smile. I was nowhere near mentally ready to face dream PJ right now!

“Really now?!” she stepped closer, lowering her horn at me. “You’re sure you have nothing to say about it? Cause I can summon her right now if you think my sister and I aren't equal in everything but age.”

I leaned back as far as I could to keep the horn from poking me in the chest. I nodded as fast as I could with my eyes closed tight and my forelegs shielding my head. “MMHMM!!” I mmhmmed.

The glow stopped and the princess calmly sat down. “Good~ It's hard to feel inferior when your sister dumps all of Equestria on your withers now isn't it?”

I nodded, slowly lowering my hooves. How was I supposed to fight her now?…

“Tea?” she asked as a small table and ornate black tea set simply poofed into existence.

How was I supposed to fight her now?!!! “I umm… yes please…” I squeaked sliding up to the small table before being hovered over a small cup to take in my telekinesis.

“I suppose we should get down to business now. I intended for the mysterious benefactor charade to last longer, but it seems somebody ‘jumped the gun’ as the soldiers say.” she sipped, and hesitantly so did I but couldn't taste a thing. “How’s Pinkie-Pie fairing?”

“She was… uhh…” I tried to find a delicate way to not say she was sitting on a mountain of mint-als.

“High as a kite?” she added raising a brow partway through sipping her tea.

“I was gonna say good. But.. yeah.” I scratched my mane.

“And what did she tell you?” She asked sounding like that was the real question.

“Well umm..” I ummed racking my brain for memories from my drug-fueled trip to the past. “She said we were related, that I was inbred…” I looked up from the tasteless tea to see the princess nodding along. Maybe I should skip over the part about the big stallions. “Something about an archive and how she’d tell me how to find the keys to it later? The password to a basement and a bit about geese being gentrified ducks?”

“Hmm..so that's the lock method she chose to go with…” Luna pondered aloud.

“E-excuse me?” I meeped across the table. Where did my half-earth-pony bravado run off to?! She's right there! She needs to pay for throwing me in the pit of underwater ghoul mes!

“Oh, it's nothing. Just that Pinkie-Pie, much like her friends, grew super fond of secret projects as the war raged on. You’ve read Little Pip’s book haven’t you?”

“Uhhhhh…” I uhhed as a bookshelf materialized next to me with only the ‘wasteland survival guide’ on it.

“I see..” She sipped. “Very well, I’ve worked with far less, though I’d recommend reading a copy at your earliest convenience. I believe Ditzy-Doo sells them.” she nodded.

“Why does everypony keep bringing up this Little Pip character? She keeps cropping up like..all the time.” The shelf behind me started filling with little figurines of everypony who mentioned her thus far.

“Simple,” she said matter-of-factly “She saved the wasteland about a year ago and currently controls the SPP weather towers alongside my sister.”

“WHAT?!” I spewed tasteless tea across the little table and right onto a small umbrella that appeared between us.

“Honestly you need to read her book.”

“Celestia’s alive?! I thought she died with you 200 years ago so save our flanks from the bombs, or pay for our sins, or evade taxes or something!” How much hoof waving was too much hoof waving?

“We didn’t pay taxes.” sip “We received taxes.” She answered casually as the umbrella disappeared leaving a tea puddle on the dream floor.

“Not my point!”

“Neither is it mine.” she set the teacup aside. “My sister being quasi-alive and hanging out with Little Pip is less important than the task I have for you. Something along the lines of and I quote ‘some kind of grand and over-the-top quest I have to go on to save all of Equis or something.” For the love of the goddess in front of me she was quoting me?!

I blinked sitting there, mouth agape until her horn glow closed it for me. “You know I was exaggerating right?” I asked.

“I do, But I don’t. As you know back when I sat on the throne I decentralized the government into 6 ministries. One for each of Twilight’s friends, correct?”

I nodded along having at some point replaced the tea cup with a juice box. I remembered history class…

“Each of them helped run equestria while I held executive power. They ran everything they did by me for approval, even all the little secret projects to help the war effort.”

I kept nodding, sliding the straw in and out of the box as I listened. The dream slowly shifted to look like the stable chapel with Luna herself sitting on the Altar.

“Out of all of them, minus Applejack being too honest for such things, Pinkie-Pie proposed the least amount of wartime projects. The most secretive and tricksy of them all was the most blatant about her operations… and atrocities.”

“And you thought this was suspicious?” I asked conjuring another juice box out of dream stuff.

“I was… very stressed at the time, so.. Yes.” She admitted with a brief flutter of her massive wings. “It seemed outside her nature to not have something secretive going on, even if it was a prank or somepony’s birthday party. I tried looking into her dreams but they were about as nonsensical as yours.”

“Most ponies would call that paranoid…” I added conjuring a spoon and a canned taco to eat out of.

“That’s…. Are you summoning snacks in the middle of my exposition?”

I looked down at the empty juice boxes and the canned taco. “Uhhh….no?” This is a dream, so I am technically not lying!

Luna facehoofed. “Did Scootaloo not build a single stable with royal etiquette in mind?”

“Apparently not~” I added eating a scoop of tacoy goodness. “You were saying something paranoid about secret projects and Saint Pinkie?”

“Saint?” Luna paused “Oh right, you’re one of those… Ahem.” She coughed, and a small halo of light appeared around her. “I believe there was a project Pinkie didn’t tell me about. And I want you to find it. This ‘Archive’ she mentioned.”

“Saint Pinkie? A project she hid from a goddess herself? Pleeeease~” I pleased, Pshawed even. “Why would she hide anything from you? Her job was just to make ponies happy right? And apparently, crack down on sympathizers or something.” I asked, nomming more dream tacos.

“That’s what I’d like you to find out. I suspect some time midway through the war she started working on the project without telling me. Whatever it was she deliberately kept it hidden from me and likely never finished it. I’d like you to find it.”

“Is this the part of the story where I ask why?”

“Yes…”

“Why?” I asked fulfilling my prophecy.

Without missing a beat. “Because you’re the only Pinkie descendent available who isn't busy shooting his way through New Pegas with a pinkie robot.”

“You mean Los-pegasus right? Cause I’m like… sleeping in it right now.”

“No, a completely separate place, some kind of naming agreement between Horse and the warlords. Anyway.” she coughed. “The door to your stable only just recently opened after 200 years and your father is too old for grand adventure. Which leaves you.”

“Why not anypony else from the stable? Like PJ? Or Tulip? I’d read the slutty wasteland adventures of Tulip-patch any day.” I squinted grabbing another juice box from the pile I dreamed of next to me.

“This is not the ‘why me?’ speech I was hoping for.” she sighed. “Convenience. You left the stable when everypony else thought it was suicide. You’ve got enough of that nebulous pinkie-sense rattling around to talk to her. Your sense of self-preservation in the face of real danger is… adequate. You’re the most mentally suited to the task…. And B-Rad vouched for you.”

“You know Brad?!”

“I know everypony don’t I?” she raised a brow

“Too shay…” I squinted while a glowing green radroach manifested atop the rest of my dream pile.

“So do you accept? Long ago, such projects tipped the scales of war in our favor. But in the wasteland, such projects are incredibly dangerous in the wrong hooves.”

“I see…” I looked down at the juice box between my hooves. “I don’t have a choice do I?”

“Not unless you want some ancient weapon of mass destruction to end up in the hooves of somepony like… I don't know. The Stone brothers?”

The background of my dream filled with the mental image of Brick and Rocky Road twirling cartoonishly evil mustaches and pressing a big red button. Old Mountain exploded into a mushroom cloud of rainbows, tentacles, and Pinkie clones. “Fair point…”

“Your imagination is very active… and accurate,” she comments ducking under a rogue Pinkie clone flying by.

“So I’ve been told. And I accept.” This was an opportunity I wasn’t going to pass up.

“Excellent, now we-”

“IF!!” I raised a hoof!

“If?... if what?” she asked sounding concerned.

I pointed off to the side and by the powers of lucid dreaming a spotlight flashed on. The white mist of dreams parted to reveal a boxing ring, red and blue, folding chairs, the works!

“You can’t be serious…” she blinked.

“I’ll accept your quest IF you fight me in the ring! Mare to mare, mono e’ mono, I’d even go as far as raw hoofticuffs!”

“Sweet sister you’re serious…”

“I’m bucking serious! I demand vengeance for that dream where you threw me into a pool of zomb-mes! The drowning in chalk dust, The constant flashbacks to getting bashed in the face with a stall door! And all those other bed-wetting nightmares when I was a kid! I’ve had enough!”

“Three-quarters of those weren’t even me…”

“I don’t care!” I pointed harder at the ring. “Fight meee!!”

With a deep breath, Luna stood from the altar and the halo flickered away. “Very well, If that’s what it takes to get you to help so be it.”

“Don’t try and talk your way out of it. I’ve been ready to… you what?” I stopped looking up at the goddess casting a shadow over me as my stuff dissolved away. She seemed bigger.

“I said yes. You’re not the first to ask for something like this.” In a flash, we both teleported into the boxing ring. The only difference was that we both had headbands and a pair of boxing gloves. “Earth pony rules or unicorn rules?”

“I…I uhh…” I looked down at the boxing gloves. “There’s rules?”

“Of course, you didn't think we were gonna beat each other to death with hoofball bats did you?”

I stared long and hard at her trying to come up with an answer not deserving of divine judgment.

“I should have known. We’ll use unicorn rules then.” her horn glowed and wrapped her gloves in the same glow. “Simply use your telekinesis to hold the gloves instead of your forehooves. Less dangerous, low injury chance, and turns an exercise of brawn into an exercise of the mind.” she nodded assuredly.

I did the same, hovering up my gloves. “Oookay.. So I just hit you right?”

“Yes, Since we're not keeping score just swing until you feel better about all the nightmares.” She did a few small jabs with the gloves. “I must warn you though. I had over a millennium to practice shadowboxing before you were born. I even made dreams for Rocky PalPonna you know~, so don't hold back.”

A lone sweat drop ran down my temple. “I…I uhh… I’ll have my vengeance?” I meeped.

“That's the spirit.” she tapped her gloves together. “Put 'em up.”

I hoisted gloves, I needed to psyche myself up, this was my one opportunity to get back at her for all the nightmares! I can do this! DING!DING! “Veeeeeengeance! Reeee!!” I swung right with all the energy my horn could put into it.

Great force, such passion, all focused on my initial right hook. Time slowed as the princess swiftly dipped under my glove, and in a brief glimpse of a blurry black glove approaching the side of my face, everything flashed white.

***

I shot up in the bed panting and looking around the room frantically. I was still in Button Mash’s room. “What happened? I was about to...” I paused as the fleeting memories of recent dreams surfaced before slipping into oblivion. “Goddess bucking damn it!!” I punched a hoof into one of the plush pillows. “I was gonna kick her ass! And she KO’d me?!” I yeeted the pillow to the other end of the bed. “Nyeeeehh!!”

Darkness, mixed with the gentle glow of Button’s terminal and my pip-buck screen. The pitter-patter of rain fell on the roof above while down below it sounded like Moonstone and Lucy were arguing again. Probably over who got what side of the bed, or maybe Lucy wanted all the covers to herself? Who knows? There was that repetitive ‘thump’ coming from the walls too. Lucy and Moonstone were probably too busy fighting to hear the bats smacking into the side of the house… repeatedly and with a passion judging by the intensity. How such defective creatures manage to survive in nature I’ll never know.

I exhaled, letting the frustration flow out with it as I slumped on the bed. “I’ll get her next time…” with a squint, I looked down at my pipbuck. “30 minutes… I was out for 30 minutes and all that happened. I hate nap dreams!” I groaned and blew away some of the mane that fell over my face. “Stupid Generosity…stupid OP goddess one tapping me in my epic dual of vengeance..” I grumbled hovering the pillow back from across the bed.

I looked around the room hoping the urge to sleep would return soon so I could dive back in for a round 2 with Luna when my eyes fell upon the TV. Twas the largest screen I’d ever seen really, a massive box of a thing that took up the entire far wall of the room.

“Check behind the TV.” echoed in the back of my mind before fading with the rest of my dream’s memory.

“She was probably just messing with me… right?” I thought aloud looking over at said TV. “I mean… what could possibly be back there anyways? I…” I paused looking at the TV all the longer. “Buck it!” I rolled out of bed and trotted over.

“I’ll settle this once and for all. Generosity is full of herself and there's nothing back here…” I faced the TV with trepidation and my pip-light. I knew not why I was procrastinating but I cracked and started shoving a small pile of cardboard boxes away from the edge of the TV. “If I find a skeleton back here I’m gonna-..”

I blinked, Wedged between the back of the TV and the wall was a tight bundle of papers- no, magazines. Dozens, wrapped in plastic and neatly stacked together. “No way…” The odds that all of these were preserved were next to nill yet, as gingerly as my horn could manage, I slid them from behind the TV.

Atop the dusty stack was a faded yellow sticky note that read:

‘I know these are here. -Mom’

She probably wrote it decades if not centuries ago, but why would she leave a note? I learned why. With shaky legs, burning muzzle, and blood running down my nose I learned why. Dozens of near-mint-condition Wingboner and Playmare magazines sorted chronologically, with bookmarks no less! He had three years of consecutive issues packed in here, and after the Ponish characters were Neighponese ones with just as many nonsensical titles as the posters.

“Holy horseapples I found his stash…” I couldn’t believe it, and I did my damnedest not to squee as I sifted through the wrapped magazines. “I Didn't know a mare could fold like that…and that's just the cover?!”

I flipped through more “Sweet fucking Celestia… “ I pulled an odd one wedged between several magazines, something large and folded up. With the utmost goddess-given level of delicacy I could manage, I unfolded something that would blow any mare away. A full body, signed, pin-up of a VERY lewd Sweetie-Belle presenting it all with bedroom eyes that could kill. No censor bars, no captions, and no serial number… this was one of a kind. She made this! There was something written in the blank space. “Sorry you couldn't come on tour with me… college schedules can suck like that… miss you Buttons. Mash ‘A’ for me~ Sweetie…Belle… X heart X.” I read aloud.

My heart leaped and I rapidly folded the poster back up and slipped it back into the safety of the plastic. “HolyshitHolyshitHolyshiiiiit!” I wheezed. “The mare from the stable history book isn’t supposed to be that hot! Nor did it say anything about who this Button-Mash stallion is!” I inhaled and finally…regretfully… squeed like a little filly. Pranced in place to boot. “Eeeeeeehehehee!! The nerd living with his mom was plowing one of the founding three! Eeeeheheheee!”

You know what this means dear archive reader?! It means that I of all ponies had a chance with literally anypony! It’s great, wonderful, a revelation! A- it hit me. “Luna’s horn in my ass… this is what Generosity meant by breaking me isn’t it?”

I looked at the long-gone stallion's collection in all its plastic-wrapped glory. Even two centuries old it glittered with value and my very being ached to take it all. The pile alone surpassed my life’s work in volume several times over, I’d never need to draw flank again. I could trade away half of it and still have enough to satisfy the rest of my life. And here it was… unguarded, waiting 200 years to be found. “I.. I…”

I gulped and tried to find some moral high ground to cling to in the face of this tsunami of greed. What would the princesses do? I looked at the tiny princesses who were both sitting nearby reading tiny versions of the magazines. “Okay… if the goddesses can’t help me, I must consult even older greater powers.” I racked my mind for the memories of the ancient rules I learned from the other kids in middle school. “The Bro Code…” I remembered “Rule 69 sub-clause C1. A bro’s stash is sacred until 20 years after death.” Not even the goddesses could compel ponies to action like the Bro code could… and they compelled A LOT of ponies.

“Okay… okay… Button’s has definitely been dead for ten times the recommended safe period. But sub-clause D says taking ALL of it would be a ‘dick move’. And the punishment for a dick move is… as severe as it is nebulous.” I gulped eyeing the pile. “What if I… only take a few things from it? That should be okay, right? If I find his body I’ll bury the collection with him, that's fair... Yeah! He’d be honored! Grateful even to be reunited with his stash.”

With moral high ground found and compromises made, I just needed to pick 1 thing… just one. I whipped out my archive and slid the one-of-a-kind Sweetie Belle between the pages. “Peeeerrrfect~” I cooed closing the book with due reverence. “The Bro code is satisfied. And all without giving in to Generosity.” I looked back to the bed. “I should probably go back to bed. Get round 2 in with Luna before I apologize for consulting one of the only powers to rival her’s.”

I traded the archive for Brad and squeezed him.

‘Squeeeeak~’

My life being slightly more complete hearing that sound, I placed him atop the pillow and buried my face in him. I’m sure he’s hanging out with Luna right now.