It’s way too early for this. I woke up at the ass crack of dawn today, because Celestia suggested we spend the entire day together, something about me being the ambassador for Chrysalis’s Hive, yadda yadda, I have to learn how to be a politician. Well, that should be really easy, all I’ve got to do is be a scumbag, and as a human being, being a scumbag is almost second nature for me. Or at least it should be, Skitter said I was ‘too soft’ while training, and that was after I shoved him over while he was trying to pounce on him.

No, I wasn’t soft, I was just really concerned for my friend’s well-being. My friend, the one that can easily break my neck in the blink of an eye.

“Coffee, sir?” Scatter levitated a cup of the devil’s juice, wait, that was alcohol. This is satan’s liquid, unfiltered shit in the form of a liquid that can actually be consumed in order to keep you awake. And while I hate coffee, that coffee did look very, very tempting right now given that I could barely keep my eyes open… Man, what I would give to have some Redbull-

No, that was worse than coffee since it tasted like shit and made you feel like shit after drinking it.

“Are you certain you don’t want to be paid for guarding me?” I asked, taking the cup from Scatter’s magical grip.

“I’m sure, sir. Not only is it an order, but an honor that Queen Chrysalis would trust me with her consort.”

“And me!” Skitter butted in.

“You’re a meat shield,” Scatter said in a teasing tone.

“So are you!”

Both bugs stuck their tongues out at each other like adults. Siblings, no matter the species, will be asshats to each other. Then deep down, they love each other dearly, and would do anything for each other. Unless you were the prince of the fire nation that became friends with an air bending monk, in which case your sister can, wants, and will try to kill you because she’s gone mentally insane and hates you. Or something, I don’t know. It’s been a good half a year since I’ve seen that one show, the Last Blender or something.

I chuckled as Skitter had pulled his sister into a headlock as I sipped my coffee. Despite the apparent rough housing, nopony paid us no mind, they only took their foals and went in the opposite direction of my drones, my drones that were acting like children. Oh right, that amazing pony racism, you gotta love it because ponies are pretty damn racist even if they don’t believe they are. They only lynched zebras in the past, and each other pre-unification!

God, this race is fucked up, but at least they’re actually nice to other members of their species, unlike human beings.

D’aww, Skitter kept his sister in a headlock, but was now nuzzling and kissing her forehead. Scatter’s wings just buzzed and hummed as she accepted her sibling’s affection. You could almost forget that both of these buggies were capable of systematically killing five, fully trained royal guardsmen in the span of a minute. Or that these were some of the most dangerous ‘lings in Equestria, and their Hive for that matter. They were just so cute, and also huge cuddle bugs, so you never really noticed how dangerous they actually were.

I sat for a moment to admire the magic of sibling love; asshats to affectionate asshats in the span of five minutes.

Changelings, if they weren’t Chrysalis, who was sexy, then they were adorable.

I passed through the gates of the palace after stating my name and purpose for being here to the guards posted by said gates, and kept on walking… Somewhere. I may visit the castle a fair bit more than the average citizen in Canterlot, but I still barely knew the layout of this labyrinth. Logically this meant that I should ask for help, directions of some sort, maybe be pointed to where Celestia was at this very point and time. Given that it’s actually kinda bright now, I’m going to assume that the very Princess responsible for raising the Sun is awake at the moment.

“Sir,” Skitter tapped my shoulder. I glanced at my bug horse. “We’ve made a layout of the castle, and we believe that Princess Celestia is currently having breakfast. Do you wish to be taken to them, or just keep wandering around?” Skitter tilted his head at my facial expression. Like Skits, what the actual fuck. When, when the hell did you manage to map out an entire palace? What the shi-

“We had a few other drones map out the palace for Queen Chrysalis; this place is like a maze. We can offer you assistance, but not the map as the Queen hasn’t given you access to that herself.”

“Y’know what, Skitter? Scatter?” Scatter dropped in from some ethereal plain as soon as her name was spoken. “When we get back home, I am going to fill the two of you up on so much love that you can barely move,” both drones blinked before disappearing the moment I took my eyes off them… You know, despite how much changelings can act like overly affectionate dogs, they can also just be ninjas that are highly intelligent.

Princess Celestia was sitting at the other end of the dining hall table, looking all regal, sitting like a cat as she wiped her cheeks off… is that pizza sauce? I slowly walked into the dining room to see Luna, on the other end of the dining hall table, who was barely awake, just crunching through pineapple after pineapple. Well, if this doesn’t scream regal, pretty pony princesses, then I don’t know what does, Celestia, was stuffing herself with some leftover pizza, likely one of the eighty-seven pizzas she bought four days ago, and Luna just eating uncut, unwashed pineapples like they were actual apples.

I took a seat.

“Good morning, Fruit Punch,” Celestia greeted me with a warm, inviting smile. This smile was slightly different from the smile she wore in public, that one was slightly more subtle and her eyes often didn’t match her public face. The smile Celestia had on, was less motherly and less about upholding a perfect appearance as it was just ‘I am relaxed, and happy to be spending time with my sister’ kinda smile.

“Sup,” I relaxed a bit in my chair.

“The sky,” Luna grumbled through her pineapple.

“Who taught you the most dad joke of dad jokes in the world?” I asked.

“Thou must know that we hast learnt from the best: Thou marefriend!” Luna raised a pineapple towards the ceiling like it was a sword, and she was leading an army onto the battlefield.

“Okay, that checks out,” I chuckled. “Celestia, why did you buy my entire stock of pizza?” I asked.

“Well, I did not know when you would be selling pizza again, and you always have such a short supply due to you not renting a building to use as a restaurant. Why is that? Surely, you could be quite wealthy off of doing that,” Celestia hummed as she took another bite. “And for the life of my kitchen’s staff, they can’t figure out what you do to your pizza to make it taste so good. So I decided it would be wise to buy a surplus, so that I may have pizza whenever I please.”

“God, I fear the day I introduce frozen pizza to Equestria. You would empty out my entire stock in a week,” that got a nice raspberry out of Celly. “But I don’t set up an actual restaurant for multiple reasons,” I jabbed a hoof towards the Sun Princess. “One, taxes, you asshat.” Another raspberry. “Secondly, it’s cheaper to have a cart to sell food out of a restaurant. Also it’s for a kinda scummy reason, and a fun little trick you fell for,” Celestia tilted her head.

“Oh? Is this a part of your understanding of psychology?”

“Yeah. Humans, and I guess ponies too, love a deal. Since I’m not paying rent for a restaurant, I can charge less for my food. Notice how a single sandwich at Hayburgers is the same price as a whole meal, drink included, from my pizza cart. Given how much food you get for five bits, my cart is a good deal to the eyes of many, especially for the tastes.” I hummed. “And so more ponies come, get pizza and fries, and then…” I rubbed my hooves like a villain. “Because of my limited stock, it puts ponies in more of a hurry to buy something. Either just to try it, or because they like the food. It’s really scummy, but I hope to make enough to just sell frozen pizza to ponies so I don’t feel like I’m scamming them.”

Celestia and Luna blinked a couple times. “That is actually pretty smart, Fruit.”

“It’s what fast food places back at home do. Have limited time items on their menus, which makes people go ‘oh shit, I wanna try that.’ Or alternatively, ‘oh fuck, my favorite taco is back. Gotta get that shit!’. I think this effect kinda works on ponies more than humans; humans just don’t wanna get left out of whatever is really cool or trendy. Ponies, instinctually, are herd animals, and will probably just go with the crowd to try new things, or go with the crowd in the opposite direction of a changeling nuzzling his sister… Blah, blah, blah, psychology helps you be an exploitative, assoholic business man.”

“Fruit, how much sleep have you actually gotten within the first month of you being here?” Celestia asked. Taking a sip of tea. For some reason, she looked concerned, and I don’t know why. I only got a nice healthy amount of sleep for a whole month.

“Twenty four hours of sleep throughout the whole month. Usually I woke up with my nose in a book I bought on psychology, body language, or just some random kid’s book I thought was interesting at the moment.”

“You best be getting more sleep. Not only is it good for you, but I doubt your marefriend would be happy about your horrendous sleep schedule; you make Twilight Sparkle look sane when it comes to studying.”

“Okay, Mom, I’ll get a full eight hours of sleep every night!” I stood up and saluted my Princess before the three of us broke out into laughter.

I redirected a spell into the ground from my opponent, a unicorn guard. He had the typical white coat and blue fur that the armor projected onto the guards for security reasons. Celestia, knowing about my anime-styled training arc through Chrysalis, decided to plop me in a training field to take on one of said guards to watch me. Luna, having taken a triple strength cup of coffee to spend the day with us, was sitting next to her sister from a balcony, watching me and the guard beat the shit out of each other.

After deflecting another spell, my horn lit up and threw a cloud of dust up. While the guard was blindly shooting into my dust cloud, I dashed through, holding up a shield in case I accidentally ran into a spell. While my shield was weak(I wasn’t taught to tank hits, so I never perfected my shield spell), it would soften any hits I took. I quickly tackle the guard to the ground, grabbing the guard’s leg and pulling it up and against his back. Making use of magical augmentation to outright overpower the unicorn and pin him to the ground.

Only to let the guard back up.

“And to think you don’t want to be on guard,” both of us turned our heads to… Shining Armor, walking onto the field with a stern look on his face.

“Good work, Spearpoint, but I suspect that you will be training even harder after this?” The guard nodded.

“Yes sir!” Spearpoint saluted his captain.

“Good. you are dismissed,” Shining nodded to his subordinate, before putting his focus on me. “Wanna have a go? You have some good moves-”

“Uh… I think I’ll get my ass handed to me,” I chuckled. “I know your sister’s Twilight Sparkle, dude. In terms of raw power, you’d kick my shit in.”

“I wouldn’t say that…”

“Alright…” The two of us took opposite ends of the fields. Celestia and Luna, now with buckets of popcorn, had taken closer seats to watch the spectacle. I took three deep breaths, ignoring how my heartbeat was getting so strong that I felt my ribs shake, or how my head was throbbing. God, I feel stressed out. I took another breath and felt immediately better. Okay, don’t lose composure, Fruit. You’re only fighting somepony who completely outmatches you in magic and physical ability.

What the fuck did I just agree to?

“Begin!” Celestia shouted.

Okay, I learnt this from Pharynx, and this strategy is really good for taking on opponents who are stronger than you:

Stand around like an idiot-

I rolled out of the way of a telekinetic blast and heard the ‘thump’ of it hitting the wall behind me. I shielded and stood my ground. I need to make it clear that Shining Armor has to play offensively, because there is no way I can push somepony who held a shield up around Canterlot without simply losing. Another blast came my way, and instead of directing the spell, I rolled out the way again. There ain’t no- I brought my shield up and felt my magic nearly give out when I directed another telekinetic blast into the ground.

“Aight, I am fucked,” I sighed, before figuring I might as well rush in. Shining Armor probably knew I was planning to get close and physical, and instead of stopping me from doing that, had decided to take me head on. Every hoof I parried felt like it would shatter my ribs if it were to hit me, so I made damn sure I wouldn’t get hit. I even got a few good hits in, specifically on Shining’s right shoulder.

Don’t hit hard, just hit a point to weaken it, then strike. That is the entire philosophy behind fighting like a changeling.

Shining Armor winced as his right hoof made contact with my hoof, fully blocking the weakened appendage, before I went in and pinned Shining Armor to the ground. Only for the stallion to stop me with his left hoof, plowing it into my right cheek, before I was pinned to the ground, groaning in pain. Fuck, dude, I knew this fucker could hit hard, but that was insanely painful! Ow, ow, ow, ow, fuck, my jaw hurts!

“Haha! That was awesome! I didn’t expect you to be that good, Fruit! Not only do you know your own weaknesses, but you played into your strengths, and you’re pretty damn creative!” Shining Armor backed off of me, keeping a hoof off the ground, y’know, the one I constantly stuck at. “I see you trying to find something to exploit, and instead you make one! I need to get you into some proper guard training. You’d be a perfect fit!”

“No I wouldn’t,” I groaned. “For one thing, it sounds painful,” I sat up and started rubbing my cheek. “For another, my training course with changelings is meant to make it so instead being capable of defending ponies from a threat, I can take care of said threat in the most lethal way possible; in other words, I would be horrible at defending anypony from something dangerous.” I groaned again.

I demand Chryssy cuddles to make me feel better.

“Well, if you ever feel like joining the guard, you’re in. You not only outmatched a regular guardspony, but you actually put me on the tips of my hooves!”

“Not in raw strength or magic. You were kicking my ass in that department.”

“Dude, I stand three heads taller than you, and probably way twice that because you’re basically a twig. Of course I’ll overpower you physically, and magically since I have actual magic training…” Shining Armor lent me a hoof to help me stand up. “Well, I best find Cadance before she yells at me for wandering off when we’re about to visit a museum in the next hour, see ya Fruit!”

As soon as Shining Armor was gone, I flopped over onto my side, and groaned. God, even after all that training, I’m still not better than the Captain of the Royal Guard, but I did better than I expected to! Score! Now, if only I could workout so hard that I go bald, then, then I will have reached full strength, and the ability to beat anything in one punch! Then I can be Chryssy’s knight in Shining Armor… My head hurts. Please kill me. A black, blurry shape stood over me, looking at me with mild concern.

“Come on sir, Princess Celestia has offered to heal you up so that you may enjoy the rest of today,” it was Skitter. God dammit, Skitter why can’t you-

“Lemme die,” I groaned. “I feel like dying to death so I can be dead. My head fucking hurts like hell!”

“Can’t do that sir. Queen’s orders,” Skitter helped me up onto my hooves, and allowed himself to be used as a crutch. I waved a foreleg haphazardly, pointing at the sky to some ethereal being that put me in this situation to begin with.

“Fuck you, God!”

“Wouldn’t that be awkward because you’re dating Queen Chrysalis? Also, who is God?”

God fucking dammit, Skitter! You changelings and your dad jokes!

Author's Note

ow.