Did you know the creator of the Saxophone almost died 7 times?
“You ever get the feeling you’re on the cusp of doing something either really great or really terrible?”
Twilight announcement mutely ricocheted across the packed lunch table, followed by the quiet slam of her metal tray against plastic.
Crammed on all sides in the teenage cacophony, were her friends, both intrigued and slightly worried about what this sudden proclamation would entail.
Sitting down with a grumble, Twilight pushed around her state sanctioned mush with a fork. Forehead wrinkled in frustration and thought. “It's like-“
“Hold that thought a moment, darling,” Rarity primly dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a handkerchief. “There’s another time-traveling assassin coming.”
Suddenly, a deep rumble groaned throughout the room, students instinctually held on to their trays and bags, watching as bits of ceiling and ages and ages of dust fell onto them. Most didn’t even stop their conversation, instead opting to try and speak over the noise as if it didn’t sound like the Earth itself was yawning.
Then just as it came it ended. All was silent as the Earth settled back into space and time like a house settling into place.
Then a bright blue, electric gush of flames erupted from behind Twilight, and the time-traveling assassin appeared.
It was covered head to toe in an old diving suit, metal helmet and all, and in one hand it carried a tetanus riddled sickle above its head. Dripping in a viscous black substance that clung to its suit and strangely smelled strongly of purple cough syrup. Not grape, just purple. An end of an oxygen tube, that had once been connected to a ship, dragged across the floor, leaking more of the mystery substance.
The students of CHS, used to this sort of thing by now, briefly looked up from their lunches and phones, saw the humanoid being about to separate Twilight Sparkle’s head from her neck, and then promptly returned to what they were doing.
“Again?” Twilight exclaimed both exasperated and exhausted, arms flailing, despite not even turning around to look at her assailant.
“These guys are getting more persistent,” Rainbow said between bites of her sandwich, watching the scene fold out, bored out of her skull, as the sickle slowly drifted down towards Twilight’s neck.
Sunset held up a single finger from beside Twilight, bits of her salad hanging precariously off her fork. “Wait for it—“
—With a sudden crackle of lighting another suited being — this time an astronaut covered in a matching glittering blue substance that smelled like coffee grounds— appeared in the lunchroom, however, it did not fully form like its ocean counterpart. Instead, only its upper body protruded through a cloud of active sparks, like someone had lit an entire fist-full of fourth-of-July sparklers all at once.
Using both its hands it carried a hulking beast of a weapon: a gunmetal gray base with seemingly random pipes, dozens of lights, even a rubber duck tied down with rope, over every inch of surface you could feasibly put something on and some you probably shouldn’t.
With a comical zzzzap! the astronaut clad being pulled the trinket smothered trigger and shot a straight beam of teal light against the time-traveling assassin, immediately dissolving its existence into nothingness, not even dust.
“—aaaannnddd time-cop.” Sunset put her finger down and returned back to her salad, mourning the bits that had splattered across the table.
Pinkie leaped up, waving at the proclaimed time-cop with a speed that made everyone in the vicinity shoulders hurt. “Bye Scully!”
Said Scully gave a two fingered salute at its sole pink cheerleader before blipping back into the nothingness it came from.
“Ya’ know,” Applejack started, whittling away at an apple at the other end of the table. “I’m gettin’ real mighty curious about what you do that makes everyone in the twenty-eighth century so anxious.”
Sunset skillfully pulled Twilight’s lunch tray out of the way as she banged her head against the table, groaning so loud it vibrated the fake wood.
“You’d think they’d at least yell something to give me an idea!” Twilight whined, looking up at the ceiling and finding no answer from the universe written on it.
Fluttershy gently patted her back in sympathy, before turning to Pinkie as she sat back down across from her. “How did you know the time-cop’s name was Scully?”
Pinkie shrugged. “I dunno, they just seem like a Scully to me!” She paused, dug into her pocket and pulled out a perfectly preserved muffin. “Banana-oat-carmel muffin?”
“Oh, yes please.” Fluttershy smiled and took the offered treat.
And all the while the lunchroom never ceased to stop talking or acknowledge the time shenanigans in the room. It was just another average day at Canterlot High after all.
“Wait.” Sunset suddenly stopped, staring off at the cafeteria doors to think for a moment. “Did we tell the new girls about the time-traveling assassin?”
Everyone at the table paused for a moment to chew thoughtfully before Rainbow Dash cut through the silence with all the grace of a speedster late to their midterm. “Eh. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
Everyone looked at each other for a moment, shrugged, and returned back to their lunchtime chatter.
Just outside the cafeteria however…
“These humans are fucking crazy!!” Aria whispered screamed, crouching just under the window in the cafeteria door, not even daring to risk a peek. “You want us to feed on crazy, Adagio? ‘Cause that's how you get kumbaya’d into oblivion! Don’t you remember what happened to Arpeggio?!”
Sonata rocked slowly in the fetal position on the floor, making it shine with her tears. “I wanna go hooome…”
Adagio, for all her years of strength and knowledge, kept her knees from buckling by holding herself up against a water fountain. She knew what came next. A plan she hadn’t had to even think of since the French made eating snails the latest fad.
“Girls…“ She licked her chapped lips, already dreading her next words. “Fuck the land. We’re going back to the water.”
