Gratificationby KorenCZ11ChaptersInvitationOperationObservationPontificationInvitation“Dad, Dad! Did you see this!?” Prism called from upstairs. I hadn’t seen whatever he was talking about because I was in the middle of doing our taxes for the previous year. It was January again, and in spite of everything Twilight says about Ponyville’s low taxes, that doesn’t mean the system she implemented to calculate them isn’t absurd. ‘This is the way the humans do it,’ she says, but as it turns out, the way they do it is insane too. The Government knows how much I spent and how much I owe, but they make me calculate it, and then they send agents to your door when you do the math wrong, no matter the direction. Between royalties from the Wonderbolts, our income as teachers, and the bonuses we get for being flight instructors at the school, there’s a lot of taxable income to sort out, and there are taxes on literally everything. The car payment, the house payment, city taxes, federal taxes, income taxes, and who knows what else. It’s such a pain, but I don’t have practice today and Dash is working with the girls this evening, so I’m getting a head start on these. However, with my motivation to work on these dropping, I attended Prism instead. “No. What is it?” Prism flew into my study and held out his phone for me to see. “There’s a new Roboknights movie coming out!” My eyes saw the ad for the movie, but my ears heard ‘there are new model kits I want you to buy me!’ Still, I humored my son. “Alright. When’s it coming out?” He turned the ad to himself to read it. “Uh… this weekend? First showing is Friday.” “We have a race on Saturday; are you sure you wanna do that to yourself?” I could see the fight on his face. He hates to be unrested for his races. It’s never a question of whether or not he wins, he’s a college level flier at fifteen; but he’s a perfectionist, like his mother. He is also a Roboknights fanatic. “Yes,” he said, slowly, as if he really didn’t want to say the word. “Alright, sure. I’ll give you some money and—” “No, we should all go!” He cut me off. I blinked. “Huh?” “Yeah! It’s a sequel movie, Dad! Roboknights: Seed - Freedom!” There were so many Roboknights. It rang a bell, but this was his thing so I more or less let him do it. “A… sequel movie?” At this point, I’d triggered the ‘I get to explain my obsession’ flag, and Prism followed accordingly. “Yeah! So, like, Seed originally came out back in 2002, and then Seed 2 came out in 2004, and now they’re releasing a movie set after Seed 2!” Prism wasn’t even a glimmer in my eye back in 2004. I’d just gotten into the Wonderbolts back then. “The movies really are creatively bankrupt these days, huh? A new movie after twenty years?” He scratched at his head, clearly not hearing what he wanted to. “Well, I mean, it could be worse. The last Roboknights movie was based on the first part of a novel from over thirty years ago, so…” And now you’ve upset him. Just let him explain it. “Alright, sure. What’s this one about?” “Oh, here’s the trailer!” His phone in his hoof again, he played a trailer for the movie… totally in Umanese. The characters and the robots were ringing in my memory, but the voices were all wrong and I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. I swallowed. “Prism, buddy, this is going to be in Equestrian when we watch it, right?” “It has subtitles!” Right. I took a deep breath. “Are you sure it has to be us? Can’t you take your friends?” He rolled his eyes. “But none of my friends have seen Seed! And we all watched it together!” I raised a brow. “Really? Even Fallacy?” “Fal isn’t allowed in the theater anymore.” Not surprising, but I still had to know why. “Because…?” “Well, we went to go see that tokusatsu movie—” He says, like I know what ‘tokusatsu’ even means. “And prices for theater food is kind of a scam, so… you know.” So Discord’s son used his powers to create some kind of extravagant meal in the middle of the theater and was caught by the staff. Encouraging him to sneak Fallacy in is probably not good dad behavior, so I’m going to be stuck listening to a foreign language and reading a movie for however long. I sighed. “Yeah, I gotcha. How long is this?” “Two hours, ten minutes.” Goddess among us. “Okay, well, lemme talk to your mom about—” “Oh, she’s already in. It’s Seed, Dad, it’s one of her favorites.” Now I remember. This is the one with Mountain Glow and After Burner that we watched before I introduced Dash to Mom a few months ago. Which is why we’ve all seen it. Or, at least the first half of the first season, anyways. I don’t think I recognized a few of those characters. And the lips on those ponies! They made them look like they all had plastic surgery! That’s new animation? “Ah. Right. And your little brother?” “His favorite Roboknight is supposed to be in it, so he was down to go too.” “Of course he was.” Haze’s next performance isn’t until March so the theater club has been off since school started back up a few weeks ago. Give in Soarin, you’re stuck. Wait, the last hope! “What about Cheesette? Wouldn’t you rather go with her?” Now he just looked guilty. “So, Cheesette likes pies.” I feel like I know where this is going. “Yeah, no, I know that. Pretty sure most of the city does.” “And last time I took her to a movie, she managed to sneak one in that she made specifically to eat while watching the movie…” “And someone complained and she is also no longer allowed into the theater.” Prism rubbed his hooves together. “Yeah…” Figures. Hmm. any more ways out of this? I did give him that homework assignment… I sat up straight and cleared my throat. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on…” Prism took a breath in return. “... and our little life is rounded with a sleep. “Sir, I am vexed. “Bear with my weakness. “My old brain is troubled. “Be not disturbed with my infirmity. “If you be pleased—” I held a hoof up. “Alright, you pass.” Prism threw his hooves up. “Yes! Finally! I swear, I read that stupid book for a whole damn month!” I would like to be proud of my poor son, but he’s about to make me sit through this movie, and I just know there will be model kits either on the day or within the week. The hobby shop he likes to visit is right there in the mall too… “Good job, Prism. We’ll go see the movie Friday after school.” My boy hugged me. “You’re the best, Dad!” Ah, my little rainbow. I hugged him back. “So, there’s this new Roboknight in the movie…” One rainbow like another. OperationPonyville mall, also known as Neon Dream, was located in District 7, northeast of Ponyville Castle, two districts directly north of our house. As the school was located in district 1 with the castle, the drive from school to the mall was almost more inconvenient than walking. It took about fifteen minutes either way, and since this trip would not end until after we visited the Hobby Max to see if they had any of the new kits in, we figured it was best to just bring the car. “Ro-bo-knights! Ro-bo-knights!” Dash and Prism chanted, like, the whole way there. When we finally made it through all the traffic, I’d had just about enough of the chanting and the Umanese songs. I turned to the two of them and said, “You guys know that the movie doesn’t start until five, right? We’ve got an hour to kill.” Mother and son looked at each other, then came back with a new chant in the same rhythm. “Hob-by-Max! Hob-by-Max!” Haze put a hoof on my shoulder. “It’s no use, Dad. They’ve been like this all day.” “I know, Haze, I—” On the screen of the phone in Haze’s hoof, there was none-other than yet another Roboknight from this same series in black and white pantone. “Et tu, Brutae?” Realizing he’d been caught, he quickly locked the phone and put it in his pocket. “No, wait! It’s not what it looks like!” As if she were drawing the dagger herself, his mother shot a hoof at him. “You’d better bet it is! He started reading that manga during class this week!” Haze covered his face with his hooves. “I thought we were over this! Why are you still spying on my classes?” Dash smiled like this was some kind of achievement. “Please. Just because we talked doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop being your mom, dude.” “You don’t spy on Prism’s classes!” Despair overtook Dash’s face. “I don’t have to spy on Prism’s classes to be told about his grades…” Thus the twelfth dagger fell. With the air of despair that had now filled the car, I decided it was time we got out. “We are gonna miss our chance to go to Hobby Max if we don’t go do that now.” “Y-yeah, H-hobby Max…” Prism said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “Why does this feel like it’s my fault?” Haze asked. “It’s not my fault, is it?” I lovingly patted my youngest’s shoulder. “Shut up and get out of the car.” “Okay.” Our little unit out of the vehicle and moving into the building from the parking garage, the mall was bustling with life. Living up to the name, we entered on the first floor where neon signs illuminated every inch of hanging space there was, advertising everything from groceries to arcade games, clothes to sports gear, photography to cars, and even a rock wall and a bungee trampoline. And that was just the first floor. This mall had go-karts and laser tag, an entire floor and a half dedicated to the food court, and finally, the top floor, which was just the theater. Like every Friday afternoon, there were ponies, of all shapes and sizes, with a hoofful of other species here and there filling every corner of the mall. It wasn’t quite prime time though, so it was busy but not crowded. Hobby Max was a little cut out on the third floor with all the toy shops, card dens, board game houses, and bars one could find in Neon Dream. There was about one for every major game and a bar for at least six different nationalities and five or so sports teams on either side of the small city that was this building. Capacity here was something like two thousand ponies per floor, it was insane. While Hobby Max mostly served its board game and tabletop game customers, there was a quarter of the store devoted to Prism’s expensive hobby. The nice thing about the miniature figure games is that they shared paints in common with Prism’s model company and he could get whatever he needed for color correction or outright custom paint jobs for his little toys. He got really out there with them sometimes, especially after Mom took him under her ‘wing’ to teach him how to work a chisel. He wants to enter a building competition this year, and to really up his game, he’s been getting the really cheap ones to practice highly detailed paint jobs on. Between that and his architecture talent, he’s come a long way into recreating scenes from the shows. I know Seed isn’t his favorite Roboknights series, but as he’s told me whenever he gets a chance, the newest kits always place the highest. Not exactly a big surprise when a big toy company is holding the competition. “Sup, Rainbowmanes,” said the owner, a bespectacled stallion by the name, Injection Mold. “You going to see the new movie today?” “Absolutely!” Dash shouted, checking the back wall for the more expensive figures. She wasn’t the architect nor a ‘Snow’ like me and the boys, but she was pretty good with her hooves all the same, and was the most easily sucked into whatever hobby the boys had picked up. From playing blocks with Prism in his foalhood to acting out parts for Haze, she was Wonderbolt Mom extraordinaire. Her obsession was Roboknights: Wing, and she liked the one with feathers. She owned every model of the thing, save the very elusive, recent-ish Master Grade, or, medium-sized kit, from four years ago. That said, she only started building them when both the boys found it was a good way to bond with Mom. At this point, she’s developed it into her own hobby and our room looks less like where we sleep, and more like a shrine to the Wing Zero. “You uh… get one in yet?” Injection sighed. “You know I don’t know when they actually reprint these things, right? I get whatever they send me, whether I order it specifically or not.” He pointed to a big black box with the title Roboknight from Seed on the front. “You see that Freedom EX? I ordered that thing when they were announced last year in May. I didn’t get the thing until the beginning of December and they released overseas in September!” Prism put a wing on her. “You really should just order online if you want it so badly.” Dash stamped her hoof. “I’m not gonna overpay a scalper for this! I’ll get it here, or we’ll go visit Uma as, like, a family vacation some day, and I’ll get it there.” “It’ll probably resold over there too.” Haze mumbled. “Oh!” Prism got up on two hooves to meet Injection over the counter. “Speaking of the Freedom, did you get the new one yet?” Injection smiled. “You mean this one?” On the counter, he set out a brand new box for the latest version of the Seed title suit, the Freedom Roboknight. Prism’s eyes went wide and he immediately inspected the box from every angle. He turned it this way and that, then settled on the side with all the pictures of the model kit after it had been assembled. The pony robot was blue and white for the most part, sacrificing the once prominent gold for a more bright orange-red and light gray. He didn’t smile which put my wallet at ease. “That’s it?” Injection nodded. “That’s it.” The unicorn stallion lit his horn and floated a completed but unstickered model out from under the counter and onto the top for Prism to see. “Look, I’m gonna be honest with you, this has the recent awesome build quality from all the latest kits, but I’ve seen the movie already and… well, let’s just say that there’s more coming. A lot more.” Once again, my wallet shivered. Prism inspected the completed model, moving it around, putting it in silly poses, standing it up on two hooves, spreading out the wings. “Man, sometimes, it sucks being a mainline fan. The last anime was… meh, but the kits were so good! Ugh, why hadn’t they figured this crap out during the orphans era?” “I know, it’s terrible.” Injection then brought up some older kits that I had never seen before. “But, I did get in some older stuff from Seed since they’re reprinting like, everything because of the movie.” And then, something terrible happened. Haze focused like a laser on a pair of kits toward the end of the pile. “That’s… that’s the one!” The kit he’d singled out was an unusual one with a big red ‘V’ on the top of its head like an ornament and similar to the Freedom, the entire inner frame was a not gray color, this one being bright red. Of course, it was aptly named ‘Red Frame.’ Funny how that works. He moved to the box and picked it up. “Just like in the comic…” A magenta eye drifted my way. I’d already seen the prices, and to be honest, I expected to come in here and spend a whole lot more, so this was within my expectations. “One each, under 30 bits.” Haze smiled, Prism frowned, and Dash raised a brow, making a face a lot like Applejack. “What?” My wife put a wing on my shoulder. “Look, Imma need you to go up. Like, a lot.” I narrowed my eyes. “Why? We haven’t finished doing taxes yet, we don’t know if we’re gonna owe money or not!” “I’m just gonna send our shit to Twilight and make her do it.” “Dash, that’s awful.” She wagged her hoof at me. “Oh, it is, but this is her fault, and she knows it. She’ll help a friend out. And besides, she’ll get it done quicker too since, ya know, she already has all our tax information.” I shook my head. “It is really annoying that she won’t just send that out.” “Right.” I saw her eyes flick left, then back to me. “So, I know we’ll get some of our taxes back after we file. And I want something.” “Did we not come here because Prism wanted to see this movie?” “No, we came because I wanted to see this movie, mister, ‘I need to talk to your mom first.’” Damn punk ratted me out. “What do you want?” “The EX.” I turned my head to look at the piles of kits with the big black Freedom EX box sitting on top. Just below it was a price tag. “Dude.” “Don’t dude me! It’s totally gold on the inside, and it has wings that fly off on their own to shoot lasers!” I looked at my disappointed rainbow headed son and found my resolve. “No. It’s not fair.” Dash glared at me and pulled me aside. It was all the same, we still had half an hour to kill, and Prism as paralyzed by all his options while Haze was about ready to tear into his new kit. Once we were away enough to be by all the miniatures and paints, she sat down. “Come on.” “No! It’s a hundred and seventy bits! We’re here for Prism, you can’t get that now!” “We are here for Prism, and he’s passing Equestrian now that he finished that book of plays you gave him!” She scratched at her rainbow mane. “So I don’t actually want that for me.” It made my heart sing to know how much she’d go through for our boy. “Aww, sweetie.” “Don’t you aww sweetie me!” She turned the other way. “I’ve got an image to keep up and I’m…” but she could barely contain it. “Just so proud!” She fell into me and leaned her head against my neck. “But like, I don’t want to be weird about this. We just went through all that drama with Haze and your mom, and my parents would’ve gone super hard if I’d managed a passing grade in Equestrian on my own, but like, I don’t want them to feel like I'm playing favorites again after all the crap, ya know?” I put a foreleg around her shoulders. “So you want me to look like I’m playing favorites just so you can get the credit for rewarding Prism?” Dash smiled bright as a rainbow. “Absolutely!” I leaned down and kissed my wife. “Well, you are my favorite…” She kissed me back, now practically hanging off me. “So, buy me an expensive toy?” “No.” “What!?” “Dude, we’re about to go see a movie! Do you want to be holding that thing, or worse, let it sit on a sticky theater floor for two hours?” She rubbed her chin. “That… I hadn’t considered that.” “I know. I’m gonna ask Injection to hold this stuff for us and we can pick it up after the movie.” Dash sighed. “Alright, Dad, you win.” “I mean, sure, but if I’m going to commit to spending almost two hundred bits on Prism, we’ve got to do something for Haze too. His birthday is in eleven days, after all. Give me something satisfying, and I’ll blow the cash.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh, I’ll give you something satisfying, you handsome, even-hooved, former wonderbolt!” That was a promise, not a threat. “Come on, Dash, we’re in public…” “Oh, I don’t care. You’re gonna regret having to be a coach tomorrow. Telling me no, giving me conditions…” Then she really gave me a kiss, and if the kids weren’t here… they’d have to change the rating in the theater. “Goddess, I love you.” Before this got too out of hoof, I pulled her off me and wiped the spit off my mouth. “I love you too. But we should go get our tickets.” She gave me a swat on the flank, never losing eye contact until she got to the counter. “Hey, so, since we are about to go see the movie, could you hold onto these for us until we get out?” “Yeah, sure Mrs. Soarin.” I joined Dash at the counter. “Alright kids, release the plastic crack for a bit.” Haze let go of his red robot with difficulty, and Prism had been picking out paints to stand next to the completed model. “Oh, what?” Prism asked. “Buddy, did you pick one out?” I asked. He shook his head. “Nah, I’m gonna wait til after the movie. For as much as I like the Strike and all of its upgrades, this one is kinda… lame. I thought, if I could paint it, then maybe, but… I just can’t think of a color scheme or what else I’d do with this.” Dash and I looked at each other. “If you could get anything in the store, what would you want?” Prism looked behind us to Injection Mold. “You still got that Pehenex?” He shrugged. “I told ya, they go fast.” “Damn. Then, maybe the SFEX or the PG Unicorn.” “Unicorn?” I looked around the store until I spotted a huge box on the very top shelf behind the counter. White armor segmented by glowing red inner parts with a bright gold V-fin like most of the rest of the Roboknights. He has like four of these things already, but none of them came in a box that big. Or were that expensive, holy crap. 1/60 scale? I had to ask. “Injection, how big is that thing?” “The PG?” he asked. “I’d say it’s like, a foot and a half or so, to a foot, to half a foot. It is not small.” I turned back to Prism. “Dude, would you even have a place to put this thing?” Totally stoic, he said. “I would make a place for it.” This is not what I’d signed up for. That thing is almost fifty bits more than the other kit. “Cool. It’s 4:45. We’ll be back, and the movie starts in fifteen. Let’s go.” ObservationSurprisingly, the theater was mostly full. Save for the seats no one would pay for, just about every seat had been reserved. Luckily, we made our purchase much earlier in the week when I knew this was happening, but I was still shocked to see so many ponies. Even stranger so many mares. I knew Dash liked her particular Roboknight, but that can’t be why all these other mares are here, can it? Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mare other than Dash go near Hobby Max, and since that was our local shop, we were here for Prism almost every other week. As far as it goes, most ponies wouldn’t call me a bad dad. Where I openly venture into that territory on purpose, however, comes to sneaking food into the theater. Sure, call me a hypocrite and all that, but thirteen bits for a bowl of popcorn and butter I could get for half a bit down in the supermarket below is absurd. Also bought there are boxes of candy and soda bottles, not as egregious as the popcorn prices, but still at about half the price of what they sell right here. Wings make it easy to conceal things, and since the packaging is literally the same, they wouldn’t really know without checking surveillance footage, which is far too much work for the disinterested teens who work here. “See?” Dash said as we found our seats, “Just don’t go crazy with it! Normal stuff gets by, and as long as you don’t literally show anybody, nobody knows.” Haze rubbed his temple. “Not only are we an incredibly privileged family for other reasons, we’re also a cheap family who won’t just buy theater food.” Prism turned to his brother. “Bro. It’s thirteen bits. That’s half the price of your imported Real Grade Roboknight kit! Oh, wait, you were reading that manga, weren’t you? Are you subscribed to Shuppansha or something?” Guilty, Haze’s ears folded. “No…” “Uh-huh. Eat your candy.” Prism slid a box of sour gummy ponies from between his feathers and dropped it in his brother’s lap. He’s still mad about his grades being brought up. One of these days, he’ll pass history and science. One day. “Look, guys, we do what we can to enjoy the things we like, and we pay for them when we can afford them,” Dash lectured. “Some things are worth paying for, some things aren’t worth it, and some things can’t be paid for in the case of Haze’s manga. Nopony has it licensed and it was translated into Equestrian by fans. It’s not his fault he literally couldn’t pay for it even if he wanted to.” Not playing favorites, huh? I’m surprised she looked into that. “There you have it boys, even your mom knows the world’s not black and white.” She clicked her tongue at me. “Who are you, Applejack?” I ignored that. “But, at least attempt to do things the right way when you can.” Haze sighed. “Except here, apparently.” “Because it’s a scam!” Prism shot back. The argument would have escalated if the lights didn’t dim. “Hey, do this later. It’s starting.” The theater went silent, phones were put away, and trailers filled the screen. First was a new comedy movie. I wasn’t paying much attention and more focused on my little chocolates and nothing that was said took me away from them. Trailer two was for another animated movie. It was about a highschool volleyball team. I believe Prism and Fallacy watched this at one point because I remembered the jumpy orange pony. There was a buddy cop movie where the duo are charged with the teenage daughter of one of them while working. Comedy ensues. The next one featured dudes talking more at each other than to each other and transforming into colorful suits while using some sort of prop weapons with mediocre special effects. Apparently, this was a long running franchise that not a soul in my family really had any knowledge about. Finally, the lights turned off, and the theater’s own ‘don’t talk, turn your phones off, be polite’ warning played. With that out of the way, the movie opens hot in the middle of some kind of war between two factions. Prism had a few of these roboknights on his shelf, but they were also kinda wrong somehow. Like, all the things that looked familiar and had similar names had these extra fins and spikes and laser weaponry that I didn’t usually associate them with. Then, up in space, our title characters show up. Squeals abounded as the lead character, Mountain Glow, filled the screen getting into the new Roboknight we just looked at down stairs. Him working with the protagonist of Seed 2, Tomorrow Edge, whom Prism vocally dislikes, fly down in the blue and red roboknights and just cut everypony to pieces. They don’t kill ponies though, since that’s the role of the new world police force or whatever. A lot of talking in Umanese, and flashing lights with robots fighting. As a certified manchild, my attention spiked when the robots were on screen, and cratered when they weren’t. For the next hour or so, I did my best to not fall asleep. Some new country wants to join the police force or whatever, Mountain Glow thinks he’s being cheated on by his marefriend, Lily Cross, with the new pretty boy who looked… strangely similar to the real bad guy from both seasons of Seed, but was apparently totally unrelated. There’s another b-plot where another new mare character has the hots for Mountain Glow and gets rejected by him so Lilly is also not feeling great, and like, the new character literally turns traitor for that later on. It was like a bad soap opera with the evil twin and everything. The initial trailer Prism showed me made me think this art style was good and dead for a reason, but the movie had a few scenes during the parts I fought for consciousness that straight up looked bad. The ballroom dance scene had maybe three frames of animation and a whole lot of sad computer generated 3D. It was odd, because sometimes the robots were 3D, but they looked even better than usual when they’re properly animated. It was almost like they forgot how to animate their characters at the beginning of the production and ran out of time before they could finish this. Prism tells me this is one of those anime studios that don’t screw their workers over with absurd hours and deadlines and it felt unusual for what I remember being very good animation on the last movie all the way through. It really does feel like the style is what’s causing most of the problems. Still, after that very long, very boring series of scenes, we got back to the robots. Some war had started somewhere else, and the world police and this new faction set out to take care of it. Somebody says there’s nuclear warheads out there and it needs to be stopped. After a while, and I guess, finding out that the blonde guy has some kind of mind control powers, or maybe they all do, Mountain Glow goes off against orders to chase a guy he knows who may or may not actually be there. A warhead launches, the new country takes Lilly away to ‘safety’ and everybody does their best to stop the warhead. Then, the new country’s roboknights, which I assume is what Injection Mold meant when he said ‘more,’ show up to confront Mountain Glow and Tomorrow Edge. Both of them get bodied because the new black knights are just as powerful as the main knights from the last series for some reason, and they are only winning because the new suits are an actual downgrade to the ones from Seed 2. Mountain Glow and Tomorrow Edge are both saved when After Burner makes his second appearance in a crab like Roboknight and goes hoof to pincer with the black knight, fighting him, saving the guys, and running away. What was weird about the crab suit is that Prism has one that looks almost identical to it, save for the strange backpack it wore. Unlike the other roboknights that look like they were ‘borrowed homework,’ this one was straight up the same. The old ship that the crew traveled on in the original Seed gets destroyed, but everyone with a name survives and we relocate. From this point onward, the movie begins to get silly and lose the serious tone entirely, but I wasn’t against that. Mountain Glow is all sad because they stole his girlfriend, After Burner beats the crap out of him, Tomorrow tries to stop it, only to get his face punched and thrown away, which I genuinely laughed at, only to be shushed by the other members of the audience. After this happens, the view from the enemy ship goes from zero to one hundred as not-the-other-villain goes on about assigning cutiemarks to ponies before birth to ensure everyone has a scripted life to follow by using his and apparently Lilly’s mind control powers that she has now, I guess. Lilly is still downbad for Mountain Glow though, and she refuses pretty boy’s advances. What was his name? I have no idea. If I didn’t already know the character, they were very easily forgotten since this was a movie about Mountain Glow and Lily more than anything. As it turns out, the old suits got a few upgrades and because they were literally superior the whole time and just… hanging out in storage or something, the gang takes them back out to save Lilly. There is another new ship hanging around, and to make it not look like the country that Mountain Glow’s sister and After Burner’s marefriend, Copper Ash, runs, they ‘pretend’ take it over with like, five ponies. Even this silly movie had enough respect for its villains to make them realize it was total garbage, and then they prepare to fire the same super weapon from Seed 1 and 2 because destroying it the first two times wasn’t enough. They nuke a city off the map with that and then threaten to do it to Copper Ash’s country, but our crew says they have the old suits again, and that turns them into a target. As it turns out, hitting a moving spaceship from the moon with lasers and mirrors is fairly difficult, so our crew gets away and into range of the super beam. Pretty boy, which is his name now, starts to get desperate and he straight up tries to rape Lilly. I was not prepared for this kind of turn at all. The movie had been getting sillier; this felt… so, so out of left field. Anyways, he’s a joke and Lily really sticks it to him, so he just slaps her and storms off to join the space fight. Given the earlier scene in the cave where they just have a mare taking a shower and nearly showing all her parts to the world, I wasn’t sure just how that would go. Two fronts break out, one to deal with the fleet, and another to deal with the moon laser. Tomorrow goes after the fleet where Lilly is, while Mountain Glow and After Burner fight the bad guys. Lilly is saved after what is a hilariously easy fight as Tomorrow tears through everything in his way in the old Destiny. On the other side, Mountain Glow and After Burner fight off the black knights, but once Lilly is lost, prettyboy gets back in the fight in his two pony knight which was white and gold and had laser cape and was super cool, and I unfortunately saw that spark of inspiration in Prism’s eyes when he saw it. Whenever that got released, wherever it was released, we’d have it ordered within a week or two. At first Mountain Glow is losing, but then Lilly shows up with a new backpack for the Strike Freedom, wearing a space suit that is so skin tight that she would be less explicit if she were naked. It was almost worse than a wonderbolt’s uniform. Almost. This silly upgrade gives Mountain Glow the power to stop all incoming fire and use a laser hidden in the knight’s head to destroy all his enemies. For some reason, now we don’t care about killing enemy pilots I guess. After that, After Burner kills the main black knight, Tomorrow kills the rest of them in one of the coolest scenes in the movie in which he moves so fast that he creates afterimages of himself to shadow clone his way through all the b-grade black knights. The b-plot is resolved after mare side character 1 talks it out with mare side character 2 in the middle of a fight and I guess she’s redeemed after that or something. Sure, just let traitors back on the ship in space where things can very easily go very wrong. Not that I expected a whole lot of logic out of a show where After Burner hides his Justice inside the crab knight, breaks out of it, and then uses that stupid, super long horn on the suit as a beam blade and headbuts his final opponent to death. It falls into the category where it’s ‘so stupid it’s cool,’ and I was not the only pony in the theater who laughed out loud. The movie ends with After Burner and Copper Ash finally getting married, and Mountain Glow and Lily Cross strip down and go make out on the beach. Roll credits. PontificationThere was chatter abound upon leaving the theater. However, from my little unit, there was none. Prism, Haze, and Dash were all deep in thought and I hadn’t quite sorted out my feelings on the movie either. Still, it was getting late and I was about ready to eat. “How about food, guys?” I asked. Brought from their trances, Haze was the first to recover. “Hobby Max first!” He must be really into that manga. “Hobby Max first. But still, food?” “Pizza?” Dash suggested. Haze and I nodded, while Prism fell back into his trance. I clapped in his face. “Prism.” “Huh? Oh, sure, whatever is good.” And right back he went. “Oh-kay. Let’s hit up Hobby Max then.” We went down the elevator with a few other ponies as the mall was full now, and we made our way to Hobby Max. Everybody was gathered around the tables and playing one of the miniature games, and there were even ponies on our side of the store looking at kits. Still no mares though. It boggles the mind. “Injection Mold, we’re back!” Haze announced. The bespectacled unicorn left his game, since I guess he was playing with the group, and came back to the counter. “So you are! How was the movie?” Haze scratched at his cheeks. “I have… opinions, but it was fun, at least. You know, that part where After Burner used the horn was like, super dumb, but it was so funny. He felt almost like comic relief, from punching the crap out of Mountain Glow to the Crab stuff. When he was on screen, the movie was really fun. And when he wasn’t… well, then it was a poorly written romance, I think, with a hoofful of poorly written politics to go with. The not fun kind of stupid.” Injection definitely wanted to say something, but just couldn’t in the end. “Yeah, no, I think you’ve summed it up pretty good.” he turned to Prism, “But you saw the last knight, right? The white one?” Somepony finally speaking his language, Prism perked up. “Yeah! That was so cool!” but then he frowned. “But I worry about how they’ll do the gold. Worst case, they give me baked in parts with stickers. Another bad case, they give me the curry gold all over and it looks like shiny puke and I have to paint it a ton. In the best case, they’ll give me a plated sheet, but that’s gonna make it like, a 40 bit HG which I wonder if is worth the price. I like it and all, but I might just get the regular black knights and paint them. How about that new Freedom and Justice though? I really like the new freedom, the backpack matches the suit way, way better than the original one ever did.” “But they took away all the blue!” Dash objected. “Oh, well, yeah.” Prism agreed. “I liked the blue!” she continued to complain, “That was my favorite part of the knight! The way it compliments the gold and makes what’s normally a pretty bland, standard design for this series stand out. With the wings all spread and it using lasers and stuff, that’s what made it cool. The new one is just like. Meh.” Injection nodded. “I see. Well, even if you don’t care for the new Freedom, what did you think about the movie?” Dash frowned. “The drama was kinda overblown. After Burner and Copper have my favorite romance… in Seed at least, and they were barely in the movie at all. Mountain Glow being perfect, except when he’s a bitch, and Lily being 100 percent faithful all the time made it kinda… boring I guess. Like, if the new girl even had a chance with Mountain Glow, or the blonde pony… who definitely wasn’t Rail Crescent from Seed 1 and 2, had a chance with Lilly, maybe it would’ve been better, but they gave so much time to setting up the conflict which was all bullshit anyways that it didn’t land at all. If they want me invested, then I need a spicy bad romance where everybody is a piece of shit and them actually being faithful is the payoff, ya know, like Seed 1. Dumb horn gimmick though? 10/10. I’d give the movie a solid 6.” Oh, my Goddess, is that why Dash likes Wing so much? Because it’s literally that? “Now hold on,” Prism argued, “A 6? Really Mom?” She shrugged. “I mean, yeah. It was alright, it was kinda funny sometimes, but I wouldn’t watch it again. You saw the ballroom scene, that was where they failed hardest with the bad romance. If these characters weren’t so used to each other or didn’t have such established reputations, maybe it would’ve been better, but be real with me Prism; do you actually remember anything that was said during the politics parts that you always say you like so much?” Damn, she got him good. Still, he fought for it anyways. “Well, no, but it’s Roboknights, that’s like, part of the checklist. The battle was so cool! And that was like, a solid hour and the whole last half of the movie. The lasers and the lights and the fighting and that weird scene where the blonde pony tried to… ya know. I wasn’t ready for that. It at least deserves a 7. Maybe even an 8.” “No, no.” Haze refuted. “That wasn’t super necessary. He could’ve done his heel turn any other way and they still could have made him look like a bad guy; they chose to go this route because sex sells. There were a lot of scenes in this that were just horny for the sake of it, for that matter. Why did that mare have to take a shower? Why did at least an entire minute of screen time get devoted to Lilly’s tail after she put that skin tight suit on? Not that this is anything new for Seed, but they didn’t even try to justify some of these camera angles and some of it was just there for the sake of the checklist rather than using the checklist creatively to fill out the movie. I wouldn’t call it slapped together, but you can tell this movie was just fanservice; cool robot fights, and pretty mares.” What a take from Haze. Little twelve-year-old has such a wide view on storytelling. Guess that’s what happens when you actually read books from an early age. “Well?” Injection mold asked, “How would you rate it, mister expert?” He sucked air in through his teeth. “Objectively? It doesn’t deserve more than a 4. The writing is mediocre to bad, the characters are bland, the drama is fake, and sometimes, the animation is bad. However, because I like pretty mares and cool robots, I’d bump it up to a 6 because the second half was just that much fun.” Dash wrapped herself around her beloved baby. “Oh, don’t say that! I know you’re growing up, but I don’t want to hear about it!” “Yeah, well, too bad, Mom.” He didn’t push her off immediately, which is a far improvement from a few months ago. “I’m about to be thirteen. You need to get over yourself.” She squeezed tighter. “Ah! Where did my baby go?” She pressed her head to his, then sighed and let go. “I can’t believe he’s gone.” Injection laughed. “It’s nice to see you guys on better terms. Still, we haven’t heard dad’s opinion yet. How about it?” I stroked my little beard. “Honestly? I think I would’ve liked it better if I didn’t have to read the movie. I definitely missed some stuff, but hearing everything they had to say about it makes me think it wasn’t all that important to begin with. I’ll be boring and give it a 6 with the rest of them. There were some really dumb but really funny moments, and the second half of the movie was far, far more fun than the first half. I might be willing to rewatch it when it gets dubbed into English, but it would be background noise and not something to focus on.” Injection Mold nodded. “I hate to say it, but I definitely agree with a lot of points you guys brought up. Still, because the robots were cool, we’ll be getting a shipment of the new stuff here in the next few weeks and I can set some stuff aside if you want me too. As always, they’re rereleasing some of the older kits from the series now too, so I might get some of that too. Anything you want to reserve?” “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Prism raised a hoof like he was in class. “Destinys, of the same grade! I wanna recreate that shadow clone scene with a bunch of them!” Of course he does. Injection wrote that down and took out two boxes from under the counter, one HG and one MG, both the Destiny Roboknight. “I have these two in right now. I’m sure I’ll get more of each, but you know how the company has been with Master Grades lately, so probably the High Grades more than the MGs. Do you want one today?” “Yes! The HG, please.” Injection put that with the Red Frame by the till. “Cool. And what about the critic?” He thought about that carefully, focusing on the kit he wanted so badly. “Maybe the other frame colors? Blue and Gold are a thing, and after looking online, I know there’s a black and green one out there too. I don’t know what kinda grades they were released in, but if I can get them in Real Grade, I’d like that.” Injection frowned. “That’s a bit of an ask. Gold has one normal release, but it’s a variant and not the standard version. All the variants of red, blue, and gold were special limited releases, the black one only comes in MG, and the green and purple ones are super rare and were only released as gradeless 1/100s. I’ll look into getting the gold one, but for the rest, you’d be better off looking online.” Haze sighed. “Sad, but I’m not my brother, so I doubt I’ll blow my allowance on obsessively collecting these things. I’ll come back for the common one if you can get it, but if you can’t, it’s cool.” “I’ll keep ya posted, chief. Anything else, Rainbowmanes?” Dash looked at me and flicked her head toward the expensive kit, and I shook my head. “Nope, that’ll be it.” She clicked her tongue but didn’t argue further. She knows it wouldn’t be fair, and we came out to see this movie together for Prism in the first place, and he’s still getting a new toy out of it. Maybe close to his birthday I can find that thing he specifically asked for, or whatever new stuff has come out by then. Sure, it’s only January now, but May will be here faster than we know it. If Prism can keep a passing grade in his classes, then he’ll have really earned it. “Cool.” Injection scanned the two boxes and put them in a bag for us. “That will be forty seven bits for the HG Destiny and the RG Red frame.” I put my card on the counter and watched as the digital currency drained away. Add the pizza we’re about to eat and that will be a hundred twenty bit day and all we’ve done is go see a movie and get dinner. Ah, how simple life used to be. Injection gave me my card back and passed the bag to Dash. “Thanks for coming to Hobby Max! See you next time!”
Invitation“Dad, Dad! Did you see this!?” Prism called from upstairs. I hadn’t seen whatever he was talking about because I was in the middle of doing our taxes for the previous year. It was January again, and in spite of everything Twilight says about Ponyville’s low taxes, that doesn’t mean the system she implemented to calculate them isn’t absurd. ‘This is the way the humans do it,’ she says, but as it turns out, the way they do it is insane too. The Government knows how much I spent and how much I owe, but they make me calculate it, and then they send agents to your door when you do the math wrong, no matter the direction. Between royalties from the Wonderbolts, our income as teachers, and the bonuses we get for being flight instructors at the school, there’s a lot of taxable income to sort out, and there are taxes on literally everything. The car payment, the house payment, city taxes, federal taxes, income taxes, and who knows what else. It’s such a pain, but I don’t have practice today and Dash is working with the girls this evening, so I’m getting a head start on these. However, with my motivation to work on these dropping, I attended Prism instead. “No. What is it?” Prism flew into my study and held out his phone for me to see. “There’s a new Roboknights movie coming out!” My eyes saw the ad for the movie, but my ears heard ‘there are new model kits I want you to buy me!’ Still, I humored my son. “Alright. When’s it coming out?” He turned the ad to himself to read it. “Uh… this weekend? First showing is Friday.” “We have a race on Saturday; are you sure you wanna do that to yourself?” I could see the fight on his face. He hates to be unrested for his races. It’s never a question of whether or not he wins, he’s a college level flier at fifteen; but he’s a perfectionist, like his mother. He is also a Roboknights fanatic. “Yes,” he said, slowly, as if he really didn’t want to say the word. “Alright, sure. I’ll give you some money and—” “No, we should all go!” He cut me off. I blinked. “Huh?” “Yeah! It’s a sequel movie, Dad! Roboknights: Seed - Freedom!” There were so many Roboknights. It rang a bell, but this was his thing so I more or less let him do it. “A… sequel movie?” At this point, I’d triggered the ‘I get to explain my obsession’ flag, and Prism followed accordingly. “Yeah! So, like, Seed originally came out back in 2002, and then Seed 2 came out in 2004, and now they’re releasing a movie set after Seed 2!” Prism wasn’t even a glimmer in my eye back in 2004. I’d just gotten into the Wonderbolts back then. “The movies really are creatively bankrupt these days, huh? A new movie after twenty years?” He scratched at his head, clearly not hearing what he wanted to. “Well, I mean, it could be worse. The last Roboknights movie was based on the first part of a novel from over thirty years ago, so…” And now you’ve upset him. Just let him explain it. “Alright, sure. What’s this one about?” “Oh, here’s the trailer!” His phone in his hoof again, he played a trailer for the movie… totally in Umanese. The characters and the robots were ringing in my memory, but the voices were all wrong and I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on. I swallowed. “Prism, buddy, this is going to be in Equestrian when we watch it, right?” “It has subtitles!” Right. I took a deep breath. “Are you sure it has to be us? Can’t you take your friends?” He rolled his eyes. “But none of my friends have seen Seed! And we all watched it together!” I raised a brow. “Really? Even Fallacy?” “Fal isn’t allowed in the theater anymore.” Not surprising, but I still had to know why. “Because…?” “Well, we went to go see that tokusatsu movie—” He says, like I know what ‘tokusatsu’ even means. “And prices for theater food is kind of a scam, so… you know.” So Discord’s son used his powers to create some kind of extravagant meal in the middle of the theater and was caught by the staff. Encouraging him to sneak Fallacy in is probably not good dad behavior, so I’m going to be stuck listening to a foreign language and reading a movie for however long. I sighed. “Yeah, I gotcha. How long is this?” “Two hours, ten minutes.” Goddess among us. “Okay, well, lemme talk to your mom about—” “Oh, she’s already in. It’s Seed, Dad, it’s one of her favorites.” Now I remember. This is the one with Mountain Glow and After Burner that we watched before I introduced Dash to Mom a few months ago. Which is why we’ve all seen it. Or, at least the first half of the first season, anyways. I don’t think I recognized a few of those characters. And the lips on those ponies! They made them look like they all had plastic surgery! That’s new animation? “Ah. Right. And your little brother?” “His favorite Roboknight is supposed to be in it, so he was down to go too.” “Of course he was.” Haze’s next performance isn’t until March so the theater club has been off since school started back up a few weeks ago. Give in Soarin, you’re stuck. Wait, the last hope! “What about Cheesette? Wouldn’t you rather go with her?” Now he just looked guilty. “So, Cheesette likes pies.” I feel like I know where this is going. “Yeah, no, I know that. Pretty sure most of the city does.” “And last time I took her to a movie, she managed to sneak one in that she made specifically to eat while watching the movie…” “And someone complained and she is also no longer allowed into the theater.” Prism rubbed his hooves together. “Yeah…” Figures. Hmm. any more ways out of this? I did give him that homework assignment… I sat up straight and cleared my throat. “We are such stuff as dreams are made on…” Prism took a breath in return. “... and our little life is rounded with a sleep. “Sir, I am vexed. “Bear with my weakness. “My old brain is troubled. “Be not disturbed with my infirmity. “If you be pleased—” I held a hoof up. “Alright, you pass.” Prism threw his hooves up. “Yes! Finally! I swear, I read that stupid book for a whole damn month!” I would like to be proud of my poor son, but he’s about to make me sit through this movie, and I just know there will be model kits either on the day or within the week. The hobby shop he likes to visit is right there in the mall too… “Good job, Prism. We’ll go see the movie Friday after school.” My boy hugged me. “You’re the best, Dad!” Ah, my little rainbow. I hugged him back. “So, there’s this new Roboknight in the movie…” One rainbow like another.
OperationPonyville mall, also known as Neon Dream, was located in District 7, northeast of Ponyville Castle, two districts directly north of our house. As the school was located in district 1 with the castle, the drive from school to the mall was almost more inconvenient than walking. It took about fifteen minutes either way, and since this trip would not end until after we visited the Hobby Max to see if they had any of the new kits in, we figured it was best to just bring the car. “Ro-bo-knights! Ro-bo-knights!” Dash and Prism chanted, like, the whole way there. When we finally made it through all the traffic, I’d had just about enough of the chanting and the Umanese songs. I turned to the two of them and said, “You guys know that the movie doesn’t start until five, right? We’ve got an hour to kill.” Mother and son looked at each other, then came back with a new chant in the same rhythm. “Hob-by-Max! Hob-by-Max!” Haze put a hoof on my shoulder. “It’s no use, Dad. They’ve been like this all day.” “I know, Haze, I—” On the screen of the phone in Haze’s hoof, there was none-other than yet another Roboknight from this same series in black and white pantone. “Et tu, Brutae?” Realizing he’d been caught, he quickly locked the phone and put it in his pocket. “No, wait! It’s not what it looks like!” As if she were drawing the dagger herself, his mother shot a hoof at him. “You’d better bet it is! He started reading that manga during class this week!” Haze covered his face with his hooves. “I thought we were over this! Why are you still spying on my classes?” Dash smiled like this was some kind of achievement. “Please. Just because we talked doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop being your mom, dude.” “You don’t spy on Prism’s classes!” Despair overtook Dash’s face. “I don’t have to spy on Prism’s classes to be told about his grades…” Thus the twelfth dagger fell. With the air of despair that had now filled the car, I decided it was time we got out. “We are gonna miss our chance to go to Hobby Max if we don’t go do that now.” “Y-yeah, H-hobby Max…” Prism said with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. “Why does this feel like it’s my fault?” Haze asked. “It’s not my fault, is it?” I lovingly patted my youngest’s shoulder. “Shut up and get out of the car.” “Okay.” Our little unit out of the vehicle and moving into the building from the parking garage, the mall was bustling with life. Living up to the name, we entered on the first floor where neon signs illuminated every inch of hanging space there was, advertising everything from groceries to arcade games, clothes to sports gear, photography to cars, and even a rock wall and a bungee trampoline. And that was just the first floor. This mall had go-karts and laser tag, an entire floor and a half dedicated to the food court, and finally, the top floor, which was just the theater. Like every Friday afternoon, there were ponies, of all shapes and sizes, with a hoofful of other species here and there filling every corner of the mall. It wasn’t quite prime time though, so it was busy but not crowded. Hobby Max was a little cut out on the third floor with all the toy shops, card dens, board game houses, and bars one could find in Neon Dream. There was about one for every major game and a bar for at least six different nationalities and five or so sports teams on either side of the small city that was this building. Capacity here was something like two thousand ponies per floor, it was insane. While Hobby Max mostly served its board game and tabletop game customers, there was a quarter of the store devoted to Prism’s expensive hobby. The nice thing about the miniature figure games is that they shared paints in common with Prism’s model company and he could get whatever he needed for color correction or outright custom paint jobs for his little toys. He got really out there with them sometimes, especially after Mom took him under her ‘wing’ to teach him how to work a chisel. He wants to enter a building competition this year, and to really up his game, he’s been getting the really cheap ones to practice highly detailed paint jobs on. Between that and his architecture talent, he’s come a long way into recreating scenes from the shows. I know Seed isn’t his favorite Roboknights series, but as he’s told me whenever he gets a chance, the newest kits always place the highest. Not exactly a big surprise when a big toy company is holding the competition. “Sup, Rainbowmanes,” said the owner, a bespectacled stallion by the name, Injection Mold. “You going to see the new movie today?” “Absolutely!” Dash shouted, checking the back wall for the more expensive figures. She wasn’t the architect nor a ‘Snow’ like me and the boys, but she was pretty good with her hooves all the same, and was the most easily sucked into whatever hobby the boys had picked up. From playing blocks with Prism in his foalhood to acting out parts for Haze, she was Wonderbolt Mom extraordinaire. Her obsession was Roboknights: Wing, and she liked the one with feathers. She owned every model of the thing, save the very elusive, recent-ish Master Grade, or, medium-sized kit, from four years ago. That said, she only started building them when both the boys found it was a good way to bond with Mom. At this point, she’s developed it into her own hobby and our room looks less like where we sleep, and more like a shrine to the Wing Zero. “You uh… get one in yet?” Injection sighed. “You know I don’t know when they actually reprint these things, right? I get whatever they send me, whether I order it specifically or not.” He pointed to a big black box with the title Roboknight from Seed on the front. “You see that Freedom EX? I ordered that thing when they were announced last year in May. I didn’t get the thing until the beginning of December and they released overseas in September!” Prism put a wing on her. “You really should just order online if you want it so badly.” Dash stamped her hoof. “I’m not gonna overpay a scalper for this! I’ll get it here, or we’ll go visit Uma as, like, a family vacation some day, and I’ll get it there.” “It’ll probably resold over there too.” Haze mumbled. “Oh!” Prism got up on two hooves to meet Injection over the counter. “Speaking of the Freedom, did you get the new one yet?” Injection smiled. “You mean this one?” On the counter, he set out a brand new box for the latest version of the Seed title suit, the Freedom Roboknight. Prism’s eyes went wide and he immediately inspected the box from every angle. He turned it this way and that, then settled on the side with all the pictures of the model kit after it had been assembled. The pony robot was blue and white for the most part, sacrificing the once prominent gold for a more bright orange-red and light gray. He didn’t smile which put my wallet at ease. “That’s it?” Injection nodded. “That’s it.” The unicorn stallion lit his horn and floated a completed but unstickered model out from under the counter and onto the top for Prism to see. “Look, I’m gonna be honest with you, this has the recent awesome build quality from all the latest kits, but I’ve seen the movie already and… well, let’s just say that there’s more coming. A lot more.” Once again, my wallet shivered. Prism inspected the completed model, moving it around, putting it in silly poses, standing it up on two hooves, spreading out the wings. “Man, sometimes, it sucks being a mainline fan. The last anime was… meh, but the kits were so good! Ugh, why hadn’t they figured this crap out during the orphans era?” “I know, it’s terrible.” Injection then brought up some older kits that I had never seen before. “But, I did get in some older stuff from Seed since they’re reprinting like, everything because of the movie.” And then, something terrible happened. Haze focused like a laser on a pair of kits toward the end of the pile. “That’s… that’s the one!” The kit he’d singled out was an unusual one with a big red ‘V’ on the top of its head like an ornament and similar to the Freedom, the entire inner frame was a not gray color, this one being bright red. Of course, it was aptly named ‘Red Frame.’ Funny how that works. He moved to the box and picked it up. “Just like in the comic…” A magenta eye drifted my way. I’d already seen the prices, and to be honest, I expected to come in here and spend a whole lot more, so this was within my expectations. “One each, under 30 bits.” Haze smiled, Prism frowned, and Dash raised a brow, making a face a lot like Applejack. “What?” My wife put a wing on my shoulder. “Look, Imma need you to go up. Like, a lot.” I narrowed my eyes. “Why? We haven’t finished doing taxes yet, we don’t know if we’re gonna owe money or not!” “I’m just gonna send our shit to Twilight and make her do it.” “Dash, that’s awful.” She wagged her hoof at me. “Oh, it is, but this is her fault, and she knows it. She’ll help a friend out. And besides, she’ll get it done quicker too since, ya know, she already has all our tax information.” I shook my head. “It is really annoying that she won’t just send that out.” “Right.” I saw her eyes flick left, then back to me. “So, I know we’ll get some of our taxes back after we file. And I want something.” “Did we not come here because Prism wanted to see this movie?” “No, we came because I wanted to see this movie, mister, ‘I need to talk to your mom first.’” Damn punk ratted me out. “What do you want?” “The EX.” I turned my head to look at the piles of kits with the big black Freedom EX box sitting on top. Just below it was a price tag. “Dude.” “Don’t dude me! It’s totally gold on the inside, and it has wings that fly off on their own to shoot lasers!” I looked at my disappointed rainbow headed son and found my resolve. “No. It’s not fair.” Dash glared at me and pulled me aside. It was all the same, we still had half an hour to kill, and Prism as paralyzed by all his options while Haze was about ready to tear into his new kit. Once we were away enough to be by all the miniatures and paints, she sat down. “Come on.” “No! It’s a hundred and seventy bits! We’re here for Prism, you can’t get that now!” “We are here for Prism, and he’s passing Equestrian now that he finished that book of plays you gave him!” She scratched at her rainbow mane. “So I don’t actually want that for me.” It made my heart sing to know how much she’d go through for our boy. “Aww, sweetie.” “Don’t you aww sweetie me!” She turned the other way. “I’ve got an image to keep up and I’m…” but she could barely contain it. “Just so proud!” She fell into me and leaned her head against my neck. “But like, I don’t want to be weird about this. We just went through all that drama with Haze and your mom, and my parents would’ve gone super hard if I’d managed a passing grade in Equestrian on my own, but like, I don’t want them to feel like I'm playing favorites again after all the crap, ya know?” I put a foreleg around her shoulders. “So you want me to look like I’m playing favorites just so you can get the credit for rewarding Prism?” Dash smiled bright as a rainbow. “Absolutely!” I leaned down and kissed my wife. “Well, you are my favorite…” She kissed me back, now practically hanging off me. “So, buy me an expensive toy?” “No.” “What!?” “Dude, we’re about to go see a movie! Do you want to be holding that thing, or worse, let it sit on a sticky theater floor for two hours?” She rubbed her chin. “That… I hadn’t considered that.” “I know. I’m gonna ask Injection to hold this stuff for us and we can pick it up after the movie.” Dash sighed. “Alright, Dad, you win.” “I mean, sure, but if I’m going to commit to spending almost two hundred bits on Prism, we’ve got to do something for Haze too. His birthday is in eleven days, after all. Give me something satisfying, and I’ll blow the cash.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh, I’ll give you something satisfying, you handsome, even-hooved, former wonderbolt!” That was a promise, not a threat. “Come on, Dash, we’re in public…” “Oh, I don’t care. You’re gonna regret having to be a coach tomorrow. Telling me no, giving me conditions…” Then she really gave me a kiss, and if the kids weren’t here… they’d have to change the rating in the theater. “Goddess, I love you.” Before this got too out of hoof, I pulled her off me and wiped the spit off my mouth. “I love you too. But we should go get our tickets.” She gave me a swat on the flank, never losing eye contact until she got to the counter. “Hey, so, since we are about to go see the movie, could you hold onto these for us until we get out?” “Yeah, sure Mrs. Soarin.” I joined Dash at the counter. “Alright kids, release the plastic crack for a bit.” Haze let go of his red robot with difficulty, and Prism had been picking out paints to stand next to the completed model. “Oh, what?” Prism asked. “Buddy, did you pick one out?” I asked. He shook his head. “Nah, I’m gonna wait til after the movie. For as much as I like the Strike and all of its upgrades, this one is kinda… lame. I thought, if I could paint it, then maybe, but… I just can’t think of a color scheme or what else I’d do with this.” Dash and I looked at each other. “If you could get anything in the store, what would you want?” Prism looked behind us to Injection Mold. “You still got that Pehenex?” He shrugged. “I told ya, they go fast.” “Damn. Then, maybe the SFEX or the PG Unicorn.” “Unicorn?” I looked around the store until I spotted a huge box on the very top shelf behind the counter. White armor segmented by glowing red inner parts with a bright gold V-fin like most of the rest of the Roboknights. He has like four of these things already, but none of them came in a box that big. Or were that expensive, holy crap. 1/60 scale? I had to ask. “Injection, how big is that thing?” “The PG?” he asked. “I’d say it’s like, a foot and a half or so, to a foot, to half a foot. It is not small.” I turned back to Prism. “Dude, would you even have a place to put this thing?” Totally stoic, he said. “I would make a place for it.” This is not what I’d signed up for. That thing is almost fifty bits more than the other kit. “Cool. It’s 4:45. We’ll be back, and the movie starts in fifteen. Let’s go.”
ObservationSurprisingly, the theater was mostly full. Save for the seats no one would pay for, just about every seat had been reserved. Luckily, we made our purchase much earlier in the week when I knew this was happening, but I was still shocked to see so many ponies. Even stranger so many mares. I knew Dash liked her particular Roboknight, but that can’t be why all these other mares are here, can it? Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mare other than Dash go near Hobby Max, and since that was our local shop, we were here for Prism almost every other week. As far as it goes, most ponies wouldn’t call me a bad dad. Where I openly venture into that territory on purpose, however, comes to sneaking food into the theater. Sure, call me a hypocrite and all that, but thirteen bits for a bowl of popcorn and butter I could get for half a bit down in the supermarket below is absurd. Also bought there are boxes of candy and soda bottles, not as egregious as the popcorn prices, but still at about half the price of what they sell right here. Wings make it easy to conceal things, and since the packaging is literally the same, they wouldn’t really know without checking surveillance footage, which is far too much work for the disinterested teens who work here. “See?” Dash said as we found our seats, “Just don’t go crazy with it! Normal stuff gets by, and as long as you don’t literally show anybody, nobody knows.” Haze rubbed his temple. “Not only are we an incredibly privileged family for other reasons, we’re also a cheap family who won’t just buy theater food.” Prism turned to his brother. “Bro. It’s thirteen bits. That’s half the price of your imported Real Grade Roboknight kit! Oh, wait, you were reading that manga, weren’t you? Are you subscribed to Shuppansha or something?” Guilty, Haze’s ears folded. “No…” “Uh-huh. Eat your candy.” Prism slid a box of sour gummy ponies from between his feathers and dropped it in his brother’s lap. He’s still mad about his grades being brought up. One of these days, he’ll pass history and science. One day. “Look, guys, we do what we can to enjoy the things we like, and we pay for them when we can afford them,” Dash lectured. “Some things are worth paying for, some things aren’t worth it, and some things can’t be paid for in the case of Haze’s manga. Nopony has it licensed and it was translated into Equestrian by fans. It’s not his fault he literally couldn’t pay for it even if he wanted to.” Not playing favorites, huh? I’m surprised she looked into that. “There you have it boys, even your mom knows the world’s not black and white.” She clicked her tongue at me. “Who are you, Applejack?” I ignored that. “But, at least attempt to do things the right way when you can.” Haze sighed. “Except here, apparently.” “Because it’s a scam!” Prism shot back. The argument would have escalated if the lights didn’t dim. “Hey, do this later. It’s starting.” The theater went silent, phones were put away, and trailers filled the screen. First was a new comedy movie. I wasn’t paying much attention and more focused on my little chocolates and nothing that was said took me away from them. Trailer two was for another animated movie. It was about a highschool volleyball team. I believe Prism and Fallacy watched this at one point because I remembered the jumpy orange pony. There was a buddy cop movie where the duo are charged with the teenage daughter of one of them while working. Comedy ensues. The next one featured dudes talking more at each other than to each other and transforming into colorful suits while using some sort of prop weapons with mediocre special effects. Apparently, this was a long running franchise that not a soul in my family really had any knowledge about. Finally, the lights turned off, and the theater’s own ‘don’t talk, turn your phones off, be polite’ warning played. With that out of the way, the movie opens hot in the middle of some kind of war between two factions. Prism had a few of these roboknights on his shelf, but they were also kinda wrong somehow. Like, all the things that looked familiar and had similar names had these extra fins and spikes and laser weaponry that I didn’t usually associate them with. Then, up in space, our title characters show up. Squeals abounded as the lead character, Mountain Glow, filled the screen getting into the new Roboknight we just looked at down stairs. Him working with the protagonist of Seed 2, Tomorrow Edge, whom Prism vocally dislikes, fly down in the blue and red roboknights and just cut everypony to pieces. They don’t kill ponies though, since that’s the role of the new world police force or whatever. A lot of talking in Umanese, and flashing lights with robots fighting. As a certified manchild, my attention spiked when the robots were on screen, and cratered when they weren’t. For the next hour or so, I did my best to not fall asleep. Some new country wants to join the police force or whatever, Mountain Glow thinks he’s being cheated on by his marefriend, Lily Cross, with the new pretty boy who looked… strangely similar to the real bad guy from both seasons of Seed, but was apparently totally unrelated. There’s another b-plot where another new mare character has the hots for Mountain Glow and gets rejected by him so Lilly is also not feeling great, and like, the new character literally turns traitor for that later on. It was like a bad soap opera with the evil twin and everything. The initial trailer Prism showed me made me think this art style was good and dead for a reason, but the movie had a few scenes during the parts I fought for consciousness that straight up looked bad. The ballroom dance scene had maybe three frames of animation and a whole lot of sad computer generated 3D. It was odd, because sometimes the robots were 3D, but they looked even better than usual when they’re properly animated. It was almost like they forgot how to animate their characters at the beginning of the production and ran out of time before they could finish this. Prism tells me this is one of those anime studios that don’t screw their workers over with absurd hours and deadlines and it felt unusual for what I remember being very good animation on the last movie all the way through. It really does feel like the style is what’s causing most of the problems. Still, after that very long, very boring series of scenes, we got back to the robots. Some war had started somewhere else, and the world police and this new faction set out to take care of it. Somebody says there’s nuclear warheads out there and it needs to be stopped. After a while, and I guess, finding out that the blonde guy has some kind of mind control powers, or maybe they all do, Mountain Glow goes off against orders to chase a guy he knows who may or may not actually be there. A warhead launches, the new country takes Lilly away to ‘safety’ and everybody does their best to stop the warhead. Then, the new country’s roboknights, which I assume is what Injection Mold meant when he said ‘more,’ show up to confront Mountain Glow and Tomorrow Edge. Both of them get bodied because the new black knights are just as powerful as the main knights from the last series for some reason, and they are only winning because the new suits are an actual downgrade to the ones from Seed 2. Mountain Glow and Tomorrow Edge are both saved when After Burner makes his second appearance in a crab like Roboknight and goes hoof to pincer with the black knight, fighting him, saving the guys, and running away. What was weird about the crab suit is that Prism has one that looks almost identical to it, save for the strange backpack it wore. Unlike the other roboknights that look like they were ‘borrowed homework,’ this one was straight up the same. The old ship that the crew traveled on in the original Seed gets destroyed, but everyone with a name survives and we relocate. From this point onward, the movie begins to get silly and lose the serious tone entirely, but I wasn’t against that. Mountain Glow is all sad because they stole his girlfriend, After Burner beats the crap out of him, Tomorrow tries to stop it, only to get his face punched and thrown away, which I genuinely laughed at, only to be shushed by the other members of the audience. After this happens, the view from the enemy ship goes from zero to one hundred as not-the-other-villain goes on about assigning cutiemarks to ponies before birth to ensure everyone has a scripted life to follow by using his and apparently Lilly’s mind control powers that she has now, I guess. Lilly is still downbad for Mountain Glow though, and she refuses pretty boy’s advances. What was his name? I have no idea. If I didn’t already know the character, they were very easily forgotten since this was a movie about Mountain Glow and Lily more than anything. As it turns out, the old suits got a few upgrades and because they were literally superior the whole time and just… hanging out in storage or something, the gang takes them back out to save Lilly. There is another new ship hanging around, and to make it not look like the country that Mountain Glow’s sister and After Burner’s marefriend, Copper Ash, runs, they ‘pretend’ take it over with like, five ponies. Even this silly movie had enough respect for its villains to make them realize it was total garbage, and then they prepare to fire the same super weapon from Seed 1 and 2 because destroying it the first two times wasn’t enough. They nuke a city off the map with that and then threaten to do it to Copper Ash’s country, but our crew says they have the old suits again, and that turns them into a target. As it turns out, hitting a moving spaceship from the moon with lasers and mirrors is fairly difficult, so our crew gets away and into range of the super beam. Pretty boy, which is his name now, starts to get desperate and he straight up tries to rape Lilly. I was not prepared for this kind of turn at all. The movie had been getting sillier; this felt… so, so out of left field. Anyways, he’s a joke and Lily really sticks it to him, so he just slaps her and storms off to join the space fight. Given the earlier scene in the cave where they just have a mare taking a shower and nearly showing all her parts to the world, I wasn’t sure just how that would go. Two fronts break out, one to deal with the fleet, and another to deal with the moon laser. Tomorrow goes after the fleet where Lilly is, while Mountain Glow and After Burner fight the bad guys. Lilly is saved after what is a hilariously easy fight as Tomorrow tears through everything in his way in the old Destiny. On the other side, Mountain Glow and After Burner fight off the black knights, but once Lilly is lost, prettyboy gets back in the fight in his two pony knight which was white and gold and had laser cape and was super cool, and I unfortunately saw that spark of inspiration in Prism’s eyes when he saw it. Whenever that got released, wherever it was released, we’d have it ordered within a week or two. At first Mountain Glow is losing, but then Lilly shows up with a new backpack for the Strike Freedom, wearing a space suit that is so skin tight that she would be less explicit if she were naked. It was almost worse than a wonderbolt’s uniform. Almost. This silly upgrade gives Mountain Glow the power to stop all incoming fire and use a laser hidden in the knight’s head to destroy all his enemies. For some reason, now we don’t care about killing enemy pilots I guess. After that, After Burner kills the main black knight, Tomorrow kills the rest of them in one of the coolest scenes in the movie in which he moves so fast that he creates afterimages of himself to shadow clone his way through all the b-grade black knights. The b-plot is resolved after mare side character 1 talks it out with mare side character 2 in the middle of a fight and I guess she’s redeemed after that or something. Sure, just let traitors back on the ship in space where things can very easily go very wrong. Not that I expected a whole lot of logic out of a show where After Burner hides his Justice inside the crab knight, breaks out of it, and then uses that stupid, super long horn on the suit as a beam blade and headbuts his final opponent to death. It falls into the category where it’s ‘so stupid it’s cool,’ and I was not the only pony in the theater who laughed out loud. The movie ends with After Burner and Copper Ash finally getting married, and Mountain Glow and Lily Cross strip down and go make out on the beach. Roll credits.
PontificationThere was chatter abound upon leaving the theater. However, from my little unit, there was none. Prism, Haze, and Dash were all deep in thought and I hadn’t quite sorted out my feelings on the movie either. Still, it was getting late and I was about ready to eat. “How about food, guys?” I asked. Brought from their trances, Haze was the first to recover. “Hobby Max first!” He must be really into that manga. “Hobby Max first. But still, food?” “Pizza?” Dash suggested. Haze and I nodded, while Prism fell back into his trance. I clapped in his face. “Prism.” “Huh? Oh, sure, whatever is good.” And right back he went. “Oh-kay. Let’s hit up Hobby Max then.” We went down the elevator with a few other ponies as the mall was full now, and we made our way to Hobby Max. Everybody was gathered around the tables and playing one of the miniature games, and there were even ponies on our side of the store looking at kits. Still no mares though. It boggles the mind. “Injection Mold, we’re back!” Haze announced. The bespectacled unicorn left his game, since I guess he was playing with the group, and came back to the counter. “So you are! How was the movie?” Haze scratched at his cheeks. “I have… opinions, but it was fun, at least. You know, that part where After Burner used the horn was like, super dumb, but it was so funny. He felt almost like comic relief, from punching the crap out of Mountain Glow to the Crab stuff. When he was on screen, the movie was really fun. And when he wasn’t… well, then it was a poorly written romance, I think, with a hoofful of poorly written politics to go with. The not fun kind of stupid.” Injection definitely wanted to say something, but just couldn’t in the end. “Yeah, no, I think you’ve summed it up pretty good.” he turned to Prism, “But you saw the last knight, right? The white one?” Somepony finally speaking his language, Prism perked up. “Yeah! That was so cool!” but then he frowned. “But I worry about how they’ll do the gold. Worst case, they give me baked in parts with stickers. Another bad case, they give me the curry gold all over and it looks like shiny puke and I have to paint it a ton. In the best case, they’ll give me a plated sheet, but that’s gonna make it like, a 40 bit HG which I wonder if is worth the price. I like it and all, but I might just get the regular black knights and paint them. How about that new Freedom and Justice though? I really like the new freedom, the backpack matches the suit way, way better than the original one ever did.” “But they took away all the blue!” Dash objected. “Oh, well, yeah.” Prism agreed. “I liked the blue!” she continued to complain, “That was my favorite part of the knight! The way it compliments the gold and makes what’s normally a pretty bland, standard design for this series stand out. With the wings all spread and it using lasers and stuff, that’s what made it cool. The new one is just like. Meh.” Injection nodded. “I see. Well, even if you don’t care for the new Freedom, what did you think about the movie?” Dash frowned. “The drama was kinda overblown. After Burner and Copper have my favorite romance… in Seed at least, and they were barely in the movie at all. Mountain Glow being perfect, except when he’s a bitch, and Lily being 100 percent faithful all the time made it kinda… boring I guess. Like, if the new girl even had a chance with Mountain Glow, or the blonde pony… who definitely wasn’t Rail Crescent from Seed 1 and 2, had a chance with Lilly, maybe it would’ve been better, but they gave so much time to setting up the conflict which was all bullshit anyways that it didn’t land at all. If they want me invested, then I need a spicy bad romance where everybody is a piece of shit and them actually being faithful is the payoff, ya know, like Seed 1. Dumb horn gimmick though? 10/10. I’d give the movie a solid 6.” Oh, my Goddess, is that why Dash likes Wing so much? Because it’s literally that? “Now hold on,” Prism argued, “A 6? Really Mom?” She shrugged. “I mean, yeah. It was alright, it was kinda funny sometimes, but I wouldn’t watch it again. You saw the ballroom scene, that was where they failed hardest with the bad romance. If these characters weren’t so used to each other or didn’t have such established reputations, maybe it would’ve been better, but be real with me Prism; do you actually remember anything that was said during the politics parts that you always say you like so much?” Damn, she got him good. Still, he fought for it anyways. “Well, no, but it’s Roboknights, that’s like, part of the checklist. The battle was so cool! And that was like, a solid hour and the whole last half of the movie. The lasers and the lights and the fighting and that weird scene where the blonde pony tried to… ya know. I wasn’t ready for that. It at least deserves a 7. Maybe even an 8.” “No, no.” Haze refuted. “That wasn’t super necessary. He could’ve done his heel turn any other way and they still could have made him look like a bad guy; they chose to go this route because sex sells. There were a lot of scenes in this that were just horny for the sake of it, for that matter. Why did that mare have to take a shower? Why did at least an entire minute of screen time get devoted to Lilly’s tail after she put that skin tight suit on? Not that this is anything new for Seed, but they didn’t even try to justify some of these camera angles and some of it was just there for the sake of the checklist rather than using the checklist creatively to fill out the movie. I wouldn’t call it slapped together, but you can tell this movie was just fanservice; cool robot fights, and pretty mares.” What a take from Haze. Little twelve-year-old has such a wide view on storytelling. Guess that’s what happens when you actually read books from an early age. “Well?” Injection mold asked, “How would you rate it, mister expert?” He sucked air in through his teeth. “Objectively? It doesn’t deserve more than a 4. The writing is mediocre to bad, the characters are bland, the drama is fake, and sometimes, the animation is bad. However, because I like pretty mares and cool robots, I’d bump it up to a 6 because the second half was just that much fun.” Dash wrapped herself around her beloved baby. “Oh, don’t say that! I know you’re growing up, but I don’t want to hear about it!” “Yeah, well, too bad, Mom.” He didn’t push her off immediately, which is a far improvement from a few months ago. “I’m about to be thirteen. You need to get over yourself.” She squeezed tighter. “Ah! Where did my baby go?” She pressed her head to his, then sighed and let go. “I can’t believe he’s gone.” Injection laughed. “It’s nice to see you guys on better terms. Still, we haven’t heard dad’s opinion yet. How about it?” I stroked my little beard. “Honestly? I think I would’ve liked it better if I didn’t have to read the movie. I definitely missed some stuff, but hearing everything they had to say about it makes me think it wasn’t all that important to begin with. I’ll be boring and give it a 6 with the rest of them. There were some really dumb but really funny moments, and the second half of the movie was far, far more fun than the first half. I might be willing to rewatch it when it gets dubbed into English, but it would be background noise and not something to focus on.” Injection Mold nodded. “I hate to say it, but I definitely agree with a lot of points you guys brought up. Still, because the robots were cool, we’ll be getting a shipment of the new stuff here in the next few weeks and I can set some stuff aside if you want me too. As always, they’re rereleasing some of the older kits from the series now too, so I might get some of that too. Anything you want to reserve?” “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Prism raised a hoof like he was in class. “Destinys, of the same grade! I wanna recreate that shadow clone scene with a bunch of them!” Of course he does. Injection wrote that down and took out two boxes from under the counter, one HG and one MG, both the Destiny Roboknight. “I have these two in right now. I’m sure I’ll get more of each, but you know how the company has been with Master Grades lately, so probably the High Grades more than the MGs. Do you want one today?” “Yes! The HG, please.” Injection put that with the Red Frame by the till. “Cool. And what about the critic?” He thought about that carefully, focusing on the kit he wanted so badly. “Maybe the other frame colors? Blue and Gold are a thing, and after looking online, I know there’s a black and green one out there too. I don’t know what kinda grades they were released in, but if I can get them in Real Grade, I’d like that.” Injection frowned. “That’s a bit of an ask. Gold has one normal release, but it’s a variant and not the standard version. All the variants of red, blue, and gold were special limited releases, the black one only comes in MG, and the green and purple ones are super rare and were only released as gradeless 1/100s. I’ll look into getting the gold one, but for the rest, you’d be better off looking online.” Haze sighed. “Sad, but I’m not my brother, so I doubt I’ll blow my allowance on obsessively collecting these things. I’ll come back for the common one if you can get it, but if you can’t, it’s cool.” “I’ll keep ya posted, chief. Anything else, Rainbowmanes?” Dash looked at me and flicked her head toward the expensive kit, and I shook my head. “Nope, that’ll be it.” She clicked her tongue but didn’t argue further. She knows it wouldn’t be fair, and we came out to see this movie together for Prism in the first place, and he’s still getting a new toy out of it. Maybe close to his birthday I can find that thing he specifically asked for, or whatever new stuff has come out by then. Sure, it’s only January now, but May will be here faster than we know it. If Prism can keep a passing grade in his classes, then he’ll have really earned it. “Cool.” Injection scanned the two boxes and put them in a bag for us. “That will be forty seven bits for the HG Destiny and the RG Red frame.” I put my card on the counter and watched as the digital currency drained away. Add the pizza we’re about to eat and that will be a hundred twenty bit day and all we’ve done is go see a movie and get dinner. Ah, how simple life used to be. Injection gave me my card back and passed the bag to Dash. “Thanks for coming to Hobby Max! See you next time!”
