Flim and Flam and the Road to Old Donado

Chapters

The Rails out of Ponyville
The Streets of Manehattan
Rumble in the Broncs
The Six-Hundred-Sixty Length High Club (Part One)
The Six-Hundred-Sixty Length High Club (Part Two)
The Last Lesson of Carriage Callow
Flight of the Pinkie-esque

The Rails out of Ponyville

“…and, lastly, seven hundred thirty bits from the Appleloosa Municipal Orchard.” Applejack nodded at the attorney’s assessment, and both earth ponies shut their ledgers in satisfaction. “That closes out the accounts and wraps up this year’s cider season, as far as we’re concerned. If you could sign here, so my clients could get their money out of escrow….”

While Applejack struggled to use a quill pen in the manner that all earth and pegasus ponies are doomed to whenever cruel fate demands that they write, the attorney turned from the desk to face his clients. Sprawled on worn sofas in the front room of the Apple family home, they weren’t doing a particularly convincing job of pretending to care.

“Flim, Flam. We’ve been paid now.”

Flam yawned loudly. “You’re quite sure, old bean?”

“I know the scent of money. Now, we’ve been invited to stay for a celebratory dinner with the Apples, and then we can head to the bank in the morning, and – ”

The lawyer stopped speaking as Flim jumped to his hooves, throwing one foreleg over his shoulder and began whispering in his ear.

“Or…you can stay for dinner and we can go to the bank now, before it closes.” Flim’s voice became lower still. “I know you’ve already drank the Ponyville cider, Nickel, but I’d rather bath in the boiled remains of my own relatives then spend another saccharin moment with these types. You understand, of course.”

Nickel Guise, Esq., forced a smile. “Always a pleasure, you two. Do try and remember everypony to whom you owe money this time.”

“Wouldn’t dream of forgetting, Nickel.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You didn’t ask a question.”

“Eighty-one thousand, four hundred and forty-four bits.” It was the count their lawyer’s ledger said they should have, it was the count the bank teller said they got, and it was the count they re-confirmed just now, nodding in satisfaction. They clinked together two bottles of cider, leaned back on their haunches, and threw back their drinks.

Flam made a very satisfied sound as the last of his bottle was emptied, and he magically hurled his bottle towards the waste bin – missing the target and smashing it against the kitchen pantry. The broken glass did not appreciably alter the amount of litter already on the floor of their studio apartment. “Alright. Now we can pay our first installment on probation. Should make Pearl happy.”

Flim finished his as well, and did not even bother aiming for the waste bin, which was probably the cleanest part of the whole apartment. “Or – or – hear me out, brother. We could spend the money on something even better, like – wait for it – ” Flim here raised his voice. “ – literally anything else at all.”

Flam’s mustache twitched. His twin had been getting rather more irritable than usual of late. “I want off of probation, brother.”

“So do I! But at this rate, we’ll be off probation in…oh, longer than all recorded history to date. Even with the whole lot of us all paying off the same debt together, and even allowing for Vinyl and Octavia and Iron Will to be pulling in a bit more income than us, we’re still doing this for a few hundred years!” Flim’s magic seized another bottle of cider, shaking it vigorously. “Brother of mine, you know I’m a big fan of living. I may in fact be one of survival’s biggest fans. But if all I’ve got to look forward to until I die is weekly probation check-ins, justifying my every action to a unicorn in stretch pants, then pass the locoweed and let me move on.”

The mustachioed unicorn’s magic took the bottle from Flim, before he could shake it entirely apart, and set it aside. “Enough, Flim. You don’t rant like this unless you’re trying to convince me of something. You must have a plan.”

“You heard that this place called ‘the Crystal Empire’ suddenly appeared out of nowhere while we were in the dungeon, right?”

Flam raised a brow. “Yes. It was rather a big deal. It was in a few of the papers, even.”

“And it had been missing for a thousand years. Notice how there’s been a lot of that going on lately? Things missing for a thousand years coming back? Princesses? Evil spirits? Cities?”

“And the chosen heroines of Equestria are dispatched to go deal with it, while life goes on for the rest of us.” Flam forgot himself, and opened the bottle he had taken from Flim, a violent spray then soaking his face, hat, and the unauthorized pin-up of Daring Do on the wall behind him. He sighed. “What of it?”

Flim overlooked his brother’s drinking problem, and continued with his point. “And that’s why nopony ever makes any money off of these things. The Princesses always send the Elements of Harmony or something to go deal with them, and I think we can tell from the state of Sweet Apple Acres that they aren’t getting compensated. So I say we figure out what the next place to reappear is going to be, and we make sure we’re there first – to collect a fat finders’ fee, or to loot the place before anyone can stop us, whatever seems to be the better option at the time.”

Flam shook the cider from his hat. “I understand how ‘step three’ is ‘profit’, and I get why ‘step two’ is ‘as yet undefined’, but I don’t see how we even have a ‘step one’ here. How exactly do we figure out what long-lost barely-known mythical place is going to suddenly reappear?”

“Good guesswork, a little research, and some pattern recognition. I won’t bore you with all the details right now, but two words: Old Donado. It was very likely real, and it fits the criteria – the last time anypony knew anything about it, it was under the thumb of a strange evil being, and then it suddenly fell out of contact with all its neighbors. A few explorers looked for it, but most ponies concluded the world was better off without, and that’s it, it’s gone. And all of this happened between nine hundred and eleven hundred years ago, as close as I can work out.”

Flam sopped up the cider in his mustache with a napkin. “So it might not even be a thousand years ago, and we’ve got no reason to think that a thousand years means anything in this case anyway. Any other catches?”

“Well, there’s the little issue of not being certain where it is. Oh, and that, when it reappears, the strange evil being who ruled it will likely be back, too.”

“So basically this is a horrible plan.”

“Or we could hang around Ponyville picking up odd jobs for eight months to satisfy Pearl’s demand that we’re gainfully employed and wait for another cider season to work. And do it over and over again until we die.”

Flam stared at Flim for a while. Flim smiled at his brother. “So, Flam, what’ll it be?”

“I…think we need a third opinion.”

“Who’d you have in mind?”

“The old girl should be getting off work about now, right?”

Trixie’s apartment, while by all objective measurements smaller than the twins’ own, managed to feel roomier by the simple virtue of being cleaner than a sty. There still was barely room for the three of them, but at least nothing hazardous or disgusting had to be shoved aside to make that room.

The mare ignited some incense with her magic, before reclining with the brothers at her low table, a plate of warm biscuits between them.

“I have to say, old girl, the rock farm has really mellowed you out lately.” There was some concern in Flim’s voice.

“The rock farm has nothing to do with it,” Trixie said languidly. “There’s a zebra potion-maker in the Everfree Forest, she sold me some fantastic herbs.”

“And why do you take these herbs?” Flam asked, while a dim light of recollection flickered in Flim’s mind regarding the zebra.

“Because I’ve been reduced to working on a rock fa – oh. Yes. Biscuit?”

“Pass. This isn’t you, Trixie. You don’t calmly accept fate, you don’t hold steady employment, you don’t eat strange herbs to deal with your identity issues, and you don’t use the first person! You need out of this place, out of these routines! You need an adventure!”

“I can’t have an adventure, Flam,” Trixie growled, obstinately refraining from her characteristic speech patterns. “I’m on probation.”

“Breaking news, old girl!” Flim said, pounding the table with his hooves. “You’re going to die on probation! Are you really done living your life?” She growled again. “Forget it, brother. I told you she wouldn’t go for it. This place has finally taken her – now she’s just as boring as the rest of them.” He showily rose on his hooves.

“Lies!” She shouted, in a low and thundering voice, as she in turn stood, eyes glowing. “The Great and Powerful Trixie will hear no more of them! Is she not the mare who called down the thunder and destroyed the Burning Mare, who held off waves of the Night Guard to cover your escape, who nearly sacrificed herself to lure a herd of angry buffalo off a cliff, and who impressed tens of thousands with her amazing talents on the saxophone?”

Flim smiled. “She is now! Good to have you back with us, old girl!” He walked around the table and threw a foreleg over her in a hug, while Flam stood, came around the other side of the table, and did the same.

She stammered as she calmed down and the fierce magic faded from her eyes, and then sighed. “You’re right. Trixie does need out of this rut, probation officer be hexed. What did you have in mind?”

By Ponyville standards, the train station was crowded – which is to say that there were about twenty ponies present, counting the staff and guards.

Flim and Flam straightened their bow ties and stood in line for tickets; their wait was not long, as the wall-eyed grey pegasus ahead of them received hers and flew off in the general direction of the track. Flim stepped up, a wide grin on his face.

“Two tickets to Manehattan, dear filly.”

The ticket seller, a small yellow earth pony who looked to have earned her cutie mark no more than a week ago, chirped happily. “Yes sir! Two tickets to – ”

“Halt.” A dark gray pegasus in the armor of the Night Guard stepped up. “You’re Flim and Flam, aren’t you? I need to see signed documents from your probation officer that you’re approved to travel.”

“Told you this wouldn’t work, Flim….” The mustachioed brother whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

“Of course it will, Flam….” The bare-faced one whispered back.

“What are you two muttering about? I need travel approval documents.” The pegasus advanced on them, his wings flaring. “And what did you say your destination was?”

Flim’s magic shimmered again, tugging his bow tie, smoothing his vest, and adjusting his hat. Flam followed suit.

“We’re off on the rails to Manehattan!”

The sudden musical accompaniment was startling, but not disconcerting to anyone but the guard – these were ponies that lived in the same town as Pinkie Pie, after all.

Flam spun and waved a bag of coins at the ticket seller again. “Two tickets please, if you don’t mi~ind!”

She started to get the tickets again when the pegasus interposed. “No! Rules are rules – probationers need to present written approval to travel.”

“Oh don’t you worry we’ve got it, you can be sure of that –” Flim sung, as he sidled around the pegasus, closely invading his personal space. “Show ‘em, Flam!”

“I was so sure it was here…must’ve left it in my other hat!” Flam replied, shrugging helplessly as he waved his empty hat from side to side.

“We’re off on the rails to Manehattan!” the two harmonized.

“Not without paperwork you’re not!”

“We just haven’t got the time!”

“No paperwork, no train ride!”

Flim draped himself over the pegasus guard, flabbergasting the stallion beyond the thought of retaliation. “Oh we’d like to take you along, that sure would be nice!”

Flam’s magic dragged his brother off of the stupefied guard. “But frankly this whole thing is against legal advice!”

“Three tickets to Manehattan, please.”

“Here you go, mysterious cloaked stranger!”

Hearing the song, other ponies began to file into the train station from off the streets – just because Pinkie Pie had made random songs acceptable didn’t mean they had become routine. Two more guards moved to join their comrade, looking to him for an explanation of the situation. The first was still too stunned to offer one.

“We certainly do get around! Like the Statue of Harmony, we’re Manehattan-bound!”

“Though it’s technically out in the harbor, it surely had to pass through the city at one point, didn’t it?” Flam mused, tapping his chin with his hoof.

“History’s not your forte, brother, just let it go.”

“Sir,” one of the newcomer guards, in matching armor but with fewer stripes, asked, “Are we stopping them?”

“The – the song’s legal, they just can’t leave on the train, that’s all!”

“We’re off on the rails to Manehattan! Well look out – ” The brothers slid forward into the crowd, bypassing the guards. “Clear the way!” They spun around and strutted back towards the thoroughly confused pegasus ponies. “Because here we come!”

Flam stroked his mustache again. “They say out there the feathers beat you senseless while they laugh.”

“Sounds like there you’ll finally meet your better half!”

Flam laughed, and then stopped short. “Wait – are you talking to the guard, or me?”

His brother melodramatically pressed his hat to his heart. “Why should I insult one of Equestria’s finest? They’ve only implied that I might end up in the dungeon again!”

The brothers snorted at each other, and then caught up to the beat. “We’re off on the rails to Manehattan!”

“All aboard!” the conductor cried.

“And aren’t you feeling…kinda dumb?” they asked each other. They nodded with determination, glancing at the mysterious cloaked figure boarding the train behind the guards’ backs.

“No obstacles will arise that we can’t overcome!” Flim sang.

“For no world with Pinkie Pie in it could be anything but fun!” Flam explained. Many of those present who were not guards, and thus not responsible for figuring out what in the hoof was going on, nodded, finding this reasonable.

“We certainly do get around…” the twins continued, turning to face each other, as the Friendship Express built steam and its wheels began to grind forward.

“Like a juvenile member of the Apple family suffering from one last identity crisis before succumbing to a lifetime engaged in the manufacture and distribution of apples and apple-related products, we’re Manehattan-bound!” Their hooves rose and fell a few more times on the station platform. “Or like a pair of con artists who’ve grown weary of gainful employment after just four months and have learned that the first clue to fabulous riches can only be found in the warehouse district of a certain major harbor, we’re Manehattan-bound!”

A few more moments of tap-dancing followed. “Giving the game a bit away, don’t you think, brother?”

“Nothing distracts like the truth, brother!”

“We’re Manehattan-bound!” As the magically conjured invisible brass section finished its piece, the brothers flung their hats skywards, and then those others present at the station could only see a great white light, as the hats burst like fireworks.

When the light cleared, the train was plodding its way down the track, and the Flimflam brothers were out of sight. A murmur went up among the assembled.

“Sir, do we stop the train?”

The first guard shook his head, trying to clear it. “No – no. They don’t have tickets. If they’re on the train, they can’t hide, and the conductor knows his business. But search the station – who knows what else they’re up to?”

“Tickets please,” called the conductor, an earth pony with a most impressive set of mutton chops.

The mysterious cloaked figure, her hood now thrown back, held up three with her magic. The conductor raised a brow as he approached, eying the superfluous tickets. “Where are your companions, Miss?”

Trixie grinned warily. “They…had to use the little colt’s room. They’ll surely be along shortly.”

On cue, the door on the far side of the car burst open, as two unicorn stallions in striped vests rushed in, wheezing heavily. “Just…made it….”

The conductor’s brow raised farther still. Trixie laughed nervously. “They…had a lot to drink in the line for tickets,” she said in explanation.

“…next time, brother…a less terrible plan….”

“…we both know I can’t promise that, brother.”

She laughed again, though it had lost the nervous energy and just became small and horrified. “And the less said about that, the better.” She reinforced her fake grin and held the tickets up higher.

The conductor glowered and tore the stubs of the tickets off with his mouth, before continuing down the car, giving Flim and Flam a long, disapproving look as they reclined on the benches near Trixie.

“So what do the others think?” Trixie asked, quietly. “It’s obvious why Lyra and Bon-Bon declined, but surely Iron Will would have been interested?”

“We…didn’t exactly tell any of the others. If we told them, Nickel Guise would have to find out, and that just wouldn’t be good. Not ahead of time, anyway.”

Flim nodded at his brother’s statement. “You can’t ask lawyers like him for permission – only forgiveness.”

“Preferably while waving a comically large bag of money in front of his face.”

“Comical and large. Can’t skimp on either – there’s no bulk discount on forgiveness, not with his ilk.”

“Honestly, old girl, have you never had a lawyer before?”

Trixie shook her head. “Only yours.” She paused, as the brothers snickered. “You know, at the trial – oh, grow up, you perverts!” She sighed. “So you mean to tell Trixie that we’ve skipped town, leaving Lyra, Bon-Bon, Iron Will, Octavia, Vinyl Scratch, and your attorney – who previously stalked you halfway across Equestria in pursuit of vengeance – on the hook for our restitution and with no hint as to why or what our plan is?”

“I know this sounds like a terrible, poorly-thought-out idea that will come back to bite us in the flank – and that’s only because it is.”

Flim cleared his throat and glared at his brother. “But it’s still better than the rock farm, right?”

She gazed solemnly out the window at the passing scenery. “Yes. Yes it is.” After another long pause, she rubbed her eyes with her hoof, irritably. “Where in the hoof is the drink cart? Trixie is far from being in the proper state of mind for this lunacy.”

“Not time to drink yet, old girl,” Flim said, opening his suitcase and beginning to magically lift books from it. “First, we need to do our research.”

“Research?” Trixie asked, incredulously. “Do I look like Twilight Sparkle?”

“Of course not – you’re way hotter, and everypony but our lawyer knows it,” Flim said, soothingly. Trixie puffed her chest and smiled, taking the compliment. “That said, if we don’t want to end our days as the ominously placed desiccated skulls the likes of Daring Do are always stepping over, we might want to make a little effort to know something about something.”

“Also,” Flam added, “and no criticism, old girl, but you didn’t get us a sleeper car, and it’s at least sixty hours to Manehattan. So get cozy.”

Trixie peered at the paperback book Flim had tossed her. “ ‘Daring Do Does Stalliongrad’….”

“Ah! Wrong one, wrong one!” Magic pulled one book from her, and thrust forward a different one. “That’s, uh, fiction. My mistake, don’t know how it got in the bag! This one instead – The Real World of Daring Do and Adventure Archaeology.”

For a few minutes, everypony was silent, as they began their reading. Only the chugga-chugga of the engine and the rocking of the carriage on the rails punctuated the turning of the pages.

“…if this representative of the kind of research material we have, Trixie is pretty sure that we’re still going to end up as ominous skulls.”

“…yeah, let’s go ahead and order those drinks.”

The Streets of Manehattan

“All aboard from Jenny City! Next stop, Manehattan!” cried the conductor, trotting through the cars. Flam prodded a sleeping Trixie with his hooves, trying to awaken her. It was not a quickly accomplished task.

“Isn’t this exciting?” asked a young palomino earth pony with a fedora on his head and an image of a toothy reptile on his flank. “So many millions of ponies, all choosing to live together! Manehattan must have more friendship and love than anywhere in Equestria!”

Flim was long past raising an eyebrow at this point – this stallion had boarded the day prior, and had been gushing far too much about love, tolerance, and friendship. There really was only one reasonable explanation.

“Your first time in Manehattan, then, friend?” he asked, as he put a foreleg on the earth pony. “Make sure to take in all the sights, to be sure! Like, see there?” Flim gestured out the window of the train with his other foreleg. “You’ll definitely want to hit the Statue of Harmony first! And then, conveniently located nearby, there’s the Equine State Building – make sure they let you onto the observation deck, and don’t take ‘no’ for an answer!”

“Observation deck, got it!”

“Damn right you do, old bean! Follow it up with a show at the Fancy Pants Center, and then take the Crouplyn Bridge over to Colty Island for a night of fun like you wouldn’t even have thought possible!”

“You sure do know a lot about this city, mate! You live here?”

Flim smiled. “You wouldn’t believe what I know about this town, friend. Now go on! Adventure awaits! Oh, and don’t worry about buying tickets for the streetcars – tourists ride free.”

As the palomino eagerly trotted off to get his luggage, and Trixie, stretching and yawning, began to get her own, Flam sidled up next to his brother. “What was that just now?”

“What was what, brother?”

“You can’t see the Statue of Harmony from here, the Equine State Building is miles away, the good parts of Colty Island closed before we were even born, and the Fancy Pants Center is in Chihocko.”

“Did you hear him going on about friendship? He’s obviously a changeling spy. I was just doing my civic duty, Flam.”

“What are you two foals babbling about?” Trixie asked, still yawning, as she staggered towards them, magically dragging a suitcase behind her and wearing her saddlebags not-quite-correctly.

“Nothing of relevance, old girl. Ready for your first trip to Manehattan?”

“Should ask you two the same. You’ve never been.”

“Well…no,” Flim admitted, scratching the back of his head with his hoof. “But we spent one summer lodging with a bachelor herd from The Broncs, so with all the stories getting told, we pretty much learned everything a pony needs to know about being a Manehattanite by osmosis.”

“Whatever.” Trixie yawned again. “What’s our first order of business? Please say ‘find a hotel.’”

“No need – already know the one we’ll be staying at. Just have to get there! Forty blocks south of our station.”

“Flim?”

“Yes, Trixie?”

“Buck. You.”

It took Trixie about forty-five seconds after leaving the train station to learn her first lesson about being a Manehattanite.

As almost all of these lessons are learned, it came as the result of being nose-to-nose with a steam carriage in a crosswalk. “Outta the way, you crazy broad!”

Flam darted forward, interposing himself in front of Trixie, and slammed his forehooves on the hood of the carriage. “Hey, I’m trottin’ here! I’m trottin’ here!”

Flim gently tugged a shell-shocked Trixie forward while Flam continued to shout.

“Yeah, well, same to you, pal! Blow it out your gizzard, you griffin-lovin’ – yeah, yeah, you better run!” Flam gave the trunk of the steam carriage a final slam with his hooves as it drove off the down the road, the driver still waving angrily at them. A moment later he was caught up with his brother and Trixie, shaking his head angrily. “Cheese and crackers, let’s get off the main drag, find a quieter side street.”

“Trixie – Trixie could just wake up and pay better attention to the traffic signals next time,” she offered, still a few shakes betraying themselves in her voice.

“Wouldn’t help, old girl, wouldn’t help. Stay alert, but you just have to give this city back as good as it gets if you want to stand a chance.” They turned at the next corner, and trotted down an alley between two rows of tall brick buildings.

A few blocks later, they heard shouting and saw a blur of motion approaching them.

“Stop him! Stop him! He’s got my money!”

A blue earth pony galloped towards them, hooves pounding on the dirt alley. Far behind him, a small green earth pony trotted, far slower.

Flim and Flam rolled their eyes. Trixie’s magic seized a drain pipe and ripped at its fittings, bending part of it at a right angle.

A sickening thud briefly preceded the blue pony’s tumble into the dirt. The approaching green pony winced, then smiled and approached more quickly.

“Hey, thanks! You stopped him!” the young green pony said, brightly. The unicorns could not help but notice the pair of dice on his flank.

“It…was nothing,” Trixie said.

“Not to me it wasn’t! He had my money! Here, let me give you something….” The green pony reached for a wallet on the prone blue pony’s body.

“We’re fine, my fellow, just fine. Come on,” Flim said, gesturing with his head for his companions, who were nodding agreement.

“No! I insist!” the pony said, mouthing the wallet and moving for Trixie’s saddlebags.

Flam sighed. “Look, kid.” Again he interposed himself between Trixie and a threat. “I don’t mean to tell you your business, but you’re doing it wrong.”

“Erm?” the green pony gulped.

“You’re pushing too hard, and you don’t have enough ponies to pull this scam off properly. I know a third pony means one more to trust and split the take with, but if you’re running this kind of con, you’ll find it does wonders for your success rates – and you need at least a third for most of the best cons anyway, so you might as well get them in on the ground floor now.”

“…oh.”

“Plus, as your friend found out, this is a terrible scam to run on unicorns. Pegasus and earth ponies are fine, pretty much anypony can handle being tackled by a big lout if it all goes pear-shaped, but you don’t know what a unicorn’s going to do. Some of them might forget to use their own magic; some of them might clothesline you with an entire gaslight pole. So before you set the wheels in motion, you really must check for the horns.”

The young pony nodded. “Anything else, sir?”

“You also just can’t go breaking rule number one like that.”

“…rule number one, sir?”

“Right, rule number one.” Flam grinned, as his horn glowed; Flim stepped up next to his brother, charging his magic as well.

The earth pony yelped as their magical force hurled him backwards and pinned him up against the brick wall. The twins delivered their lesson at maximum volume, each of their mouths an inch from each of his ears: “Don’t! Buck! With the Flimflam brothers!”

Their magic receded, allowing the fainted earth pony to collapse into the dirt beside his colleague.

“Starting to get Manehattan yet, Trixie?” Flim asked, as they began again on their journey.

“Trixie is…learning a lot today,” she admitted.

A bit more than thirty blocks later, with the noon sun blazing down, the three unicorns took a breather in front of their destination.

“The ‘Dew Drop Inn’?” Trixie looked around. “Do any of these ponies even know what ‘dew’ is? Trixie hasn’t seen a blade of grass since halfway through New Jenny.”

“I’m fairly certain there’s a central list of punning names for motels and roadside stores, and everypony draws from the same list, regardless of whether the pun is locally appropriate. Anyway, this place comes highly recommended.” Flim adjusted his luggage, looking for his money.

“…by one of your old buddies in a bachelor herd?”

“How did you know?”

“Lucky guess,” Trixie replied, eying the free-swinging sign over the entrance, the dozens of dark ammonia-scented stains on the walls, the garbage cans last emptied prior to the return of Princess Luna, and most prominently, the large sign across the street promising “MARES! MARES! MARES!” in flickering lights. “Let’s get this over with.”

The front lobby was everything it could be, given the exterior – grimy, badly lit, and somehow smelling of tobacco smoke, mildew, and concentrated body odor at the same time and in equal strengths. The brothers stopped to do a double-take, finding it eerily similar to the last lodgings they had lived in prior to their most recent incarceration.

“Yeah, whaddaya want?” the desk clerk asked, as was required of him.

“Lodgings for three, good fellow, for at least the next three days,” Flim said, forgetting himself and his current location.

The clerk stared, chewing his lunch of hay. Finally he swallowed. “We don’t rent to dames.”

Trixie’s eyes narrowed.

Flim coughed, startled. “You’re not renting to a ‘dame’, friend. You’re renting to me.”

“We don’t rent to a pair of fops and their live-in fillyfriend, either.”

“Mind your tongue - !”

“Don’t worry, Flim.” Trixie stepped forward. “The matter is handled.”

The brothers took a long step backwards, tasting the electricity in the air.

“Look, broad, rules are – ”

“You impudent foal! Do you have any idea who you are dealing with?”

It was not that the desk clerk had never heard this before – indeed, it was hardly an uncommon threat in Manehattan – but something about the force with which it was delivered, the voice of the Legion delivering it, and the energy crackling off the horn of the pony speaking all served to grasp his attention.

However, his reply was not sought.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie has lowered herself to patronize your wretched establishment with her glorious personage, and you dare demean her status? You dare speak ill? You question her presence because of her gender? We rule this land! Do you think it is Prince Blueblood and Shining Armor who spin the heavenly bodies? This is a mare’s world, you spiteful little gelding, and your existence within it is tolerated at our pleasure and ours alone!”

The clerk’s eyes flickered back and forth, in terror, between the mare in front of him, and his lunch below him, the latter of which was now on fire and the former of which seemed prepared to do it to the rest of his possessions and possibly also to his body.

“Now rent me a room!”

Flam dabbed his eye. “So proud of her.”

An hour later to the minute, Trixie let out an impressive, window-rattling belch. Given the company she was in, in the two-bed hotel room, she didn’t ask to be excused.

“Good?” Flim asked.

“Overpriced, definitely made of parts other than were mentioned, and every bit of it fried.”

“Yeah…” Flam said in a faraway voice, sniffling.

“Kind of makes you homesick, right, brother?”

“A bit,” Flam admitted.

“So now what? Trixie will not linger a minute longer in this wretched hive than she needs to.”

“Well.” Flim said, inhaling. “Here’s our next issue. The only solid information on the location of Old Donado is not located within any artifacts of Old Donado itself – because nopony has any – but on artifacts of a neighboring civilization which also vanished a few centuries ago – not nearly a thousand years, though. A large portion of these artifacts are found within the Private Wing of the Royal Museum of Mysterious Antiques; the remaining artifacts are held by a local businesspony.”

“Wait – so we could’ve gone to Canterlot? You…are aware that’s a much, ah, shorter journey, right?” Trixie asked, looking with renewed distaste at their surroundings.

“We could’ve gone to Canterlot and had to break into one of the most secure facilities in Equestria, facing charges of high treason when we were caught. Or we could break into a nondescript warehouse in Manehattan.”

“Why would the artifacts of an ancient civilization be in a warehouse?”

“Because the museum they used to be in burned to the ground, and the owner’s plan for a new museum - suited to hold his extensive collections - hasn’t passed the zoning board – not for the past year. So they’ve been sitting in limbo in a row of storage lockers at the docks.”

“Seems simple enough,” Flam said, nodding.

“You had to say it, didn’t you?” Flim admonished his brother, three hours later.

The sun had already mostly vanished behind the taller buildings, which was fine for their work. Trixie lightly bit her tongue as she concentrated, horn glowing, magic probing the wards of the storage locker.

“Shh,” Flam said. The sweat roiling down Trixie’s face had the same cause as the sweat which was now drying on his own. His head ached. His horn ached. His soul ached.

Sweat mixed with tears in Trixie’s eyes, but she dared not blink, inching the force of her magic just a little farther, just a little –

– in front of her eyes, her parents waved their mangled forelegs, screaming, from the burning wreckage, begging for her to run, just run and never look back –

“Gyaaah!” she shouted, falling back on her haunches as her magic faded.

“Definitely an after-market lock. Anything legit would just notify the feathers if there was any tampering,” Flam said, explaining what they already knew, as he rubbed the base of his horn again.

“The front door through the wards turns you into a frog; the sides induce internal bleeding; and the back door was designed by a real sadist,” Flim added.

“Yes, yes, Trixie noticed, thank you. So, Plan B?”

“I think we can safely skip ‘ask nicely’. Let’s get the keys.”

“Think the owner of the warehouse has them, Flam?”

“Not a chance. Oh, he might have the set that open the original locks, but there’s no way these wards were put on here with his knowledge. It’s nothing like legal magic.”

“So we need to hit up this ‘local businesspony’?” Trixie followed up.

“Indeed. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, but it’s time we go find Tough Lucky.”

“‘Tough Lucky’?” Trixie asked, as the three got to the side of the road and waved for a taxi.

“Yes,” Flim replied. After a moment, he wondered aloud, thoughtfully: “I have no doubts as to what a cutie mark of two baseball bats with railroad spikes driven through them crossed behind a pony skull would mean, of course, but one must ask how he explains it to anypony else.”

“Flim?”

“Yes, Trixie?”

“Buck. You.”

Fortunately, the local branch of the baked goods cartel was apparently about as clandestine as the Cutie Mark Crusaders (though substantially less endearing): to learn the activities of Tough Lucky, the three unicorns had to go so far as to ask their taxi driver if he knew anything.

“Well, it’s a Wednesday, so he’s probably going to be down at the Gallant Fox until after midnight, and then his handlers will try to keep from setting fire to too much of Manehattan on his way back to his heavily-guarded penthouse, which has so far resisted all intrusion by rival families and the Night Guard.”

Their silent stares were interrupted by audible blinking.

“Special agents from Canterlot, right? I know how it goes. Fifty bits is the going rate for this kind of information. Best of luck to ya, pals.”

“Yes, yes…er, how much extra for discretion?”

“Discretion’s already been paid for, by the highest authorities. Just try not to get ya selves killed.”

The taxi dropped them off, without their requesting, a block from the Gallant Fox nightclub. Flim paid the ten bit fare and the fifty bit surcharge, and they stared down the street, thoughtful.

“You don’t suppose we’re on a mission from Goddess again, do you?”

“I sure hope not, Flam. You don’t make any money on those, and I’m really not up to learning more about who I really am right now.”

Trixie looked up at the store at which they had been deposited. “The signs are pointing to ‘yes’, though. ‘Jammy T’s Assorted Wax Molds, Metal-Casting, and Locksmithing.’ ‘Discreet, private, cash-only.’ ‘Photographers will be stabbed; survivors will be stabbed again.’ ‘Absolutely no Night Guard allowed.’”

“Oh!” Flim said, brightly. “Jammy T’s expanded to Manehattan? Good for her, I always knew she had what it took. Let’s go say ‘hi’! Who knows, maybe she has some merchandise we could use!”

Trixie smoothed her mane, staring into the fillies’ room mirror.

“We probably only have one shot at this – we can’t count on catching a ride from a government informant again, and once he leaves the nightclub he’s untouchable.”

With another magical tug, she checked the fit on her uniform. White shirt, black vest over it. Not a perfect fit, but not worse than that of the real employees, either.

“We’ll have to operate independently – with the three of us acting as waiters, we’ll be able to briefly talk to compare notes but we can’t linger too long together.”

It wasn’t at all alluring, and that was fine – the performers needed no competition, and she needed no attention, not this time, not for this job.

“Between the three of us, we should be able to get close enough for long enough to get an impression of his keys before he leaves. That’s all we need. But no matter what happens, we have to get this done, and tonight, or we go home in failure and probable added time in the dungeon.”

She took a deep breath, and opened the restroom door, and stopped in her tracks.

The brothers were surrounded by ponies much larger than them, with an olive-green pegasus with a slick-black mane pressing close to them.

“We – we didn’t know about the no-unicorn rule! Honest!” Flam stammered, and Trixie would have to say that it sounded like genuine fear in his voice.

“It’s our first day! No one told us!” Flim added.

“Oh now that’s a pity,” the pegasus said, as much oil in his voice as on his mane. “Maybe if you’d been long-time employees, we could see fit to grandfathering you in for Tough Lucky…but your first day? Sounds to me like you lied to your employer about your qualifications.” The pegasus tutted, while another pegasus pony to his left, this one pearl-white with an icebox for a cutie mark, hovered in the air, brandishing a length of chain.

“Look, we’re sorry – we’ll just go, okay?”

“Oh no, no, no. No. See, I don’t think you sound…apologetic enough. Not for lying to your boss about being unicorns, and not for trying to get a job serving an important and security-minded pony like Tough Lucky.”

Trixie remained still, slowly closing the restroom door to a crack with her magic while keeping her eyes glued on events as they unfolded.

“It’s not illegal to be unicorn waiters,” Flam said, defensively.

The olive-green pegasus laughed, and a moment later, the other ponies surrounding Flim and Flam laughed as well. “You’re right! It’s not. That’s why we’re not involving the Night Guard now, are we? No, see, we’re gonna engage in a little of that ‘alternative dispute resolution’. We’re gonna go upstairs and, in an intimate and controlled environment, express the concerns we have about each other, openly and honestly – you two and me and Bugsy and Rocko and Brickmuzzle and Sammy Ballcutter.”

“Sammy…” Flim winced. “…Ballcutter? Is that a…nickname?”

“Yeah,” admitted a magenta earth pony with an abysmally deep voice, “my real name’s Sunny Ballcutter.”

“Now let’s trot, shall we?”

Trixie watched as the brothers and their captors disappeared up a flight of stairs.

She shut the door the rest of the way, and looked back into the mirror, eyes wide, trotting nervously in circles. “Right! Friends abducted. Probably beaten; probably won’t be killed – not for just that. Sends a message better if left alive.” Trixie racked her brain. “Screwed if we don’t get the keys. Tonight. But no unicorn waitstaff. How else? How….” A lantern went on over her head; first she smiled, then she sighed. “Terrible idea. But it’ll probably work.” She ripped off her waiter’s uniform, and slipped out of the bathroom, and, eyes darting for any sign of more of Tough Lucky’s security, she snuck down the employee-only hallway.

Her eyes darted to the plates on the doors as she moved quickly down the hallway. “No…no…perfect.” She knocked on the door with her hoof.

“In a minute!” came a disgruntled mare’s voice.

Trixie smiled, and applied a surge of her magic to the door lock. Unlike the warded masterwork down at the docks, this lowly array of tumblers didn’t have a prayer. The occupant of the room gave a little yelp as she forced her way inside.

“Special Agent Lulamoon, Equestrian Royal Guard. Here’s five hundred bits, go get yourself an alibi – you do not want to be here when this goes down.”

The slender, long-legged pale rose earth pony looked down at the small bag of coins, up at the unicorn, and down at the coins.

“Go!”

The earth pony mouthed the bag of coins and exited the room. Trixie magically closed the door and looked quickly through the performer’s wardrobe.

“No…no…no…” She grimaced. “How can any mare in this town be so skinny? Ugh, fine.” She seized a red dress with a density of sequins possible only with the aid of magic, and inhaled as she slipped it on. “Now, need a song, need a song….” She looked over the dressing table, and then over the rest of the room. “No song. Horse apples.”

“On in five!” somepony shouted from up the hall.

“No song. Make one up. Erm.” She trotted nervously in place again, this time her movements a bit more restricted by the tight dress. “Introduce self. Rhyme things with name. ‘Trixie.’ ‘Big, see’. C…nothing for C. D…absolutely not. F…I’ll work something out. Right. One chance. Have to succeed. Every moment failing, boys are getting beaten.”

“And how do you feel, Brickmuzzle?”

“Resentful, Weed Dough, resentful. Unicorns tried to hurt our boss, and now more unicorns show up, not thinking about how that might make us feel.”

The olive-green pegasus nodded. “And what does that make you feel like doing?”

“Like laying two yards of chain across somepony’s face.”

“That’s not a healthy feeling, Brickmuzzle. You’d better stop bottling it up. How about letting it out of your system?”

“On in one!”

“…showtime, Trixie. Showtime. No fireworks this time. Make them yourself.” She nodded with determination at the mirror, and trotted out to the stage.

If the band cared that an azure unicorn had replaced a pale rose earth pony, they did not show it. The house lights past the curtain went down, the crowd cheered, and the piano, drums, and strings all started to play.

Trixie gulped. “Those boys owe me so bad for this.”

And so she stuck one foreleg out past the curtain, to the cheers of dozens of stallions.

“I don’t understand,” Flam spat. “What do you ponies want from us?” He couldn’t muster the strength to stand, not at this point.

“I want to hear you say you’re sorry, and mean it. So far, I’m just thinking you’re sorry you got caught – and that’s not the same thing in my book.”

“Hey – Weed Dough. Sounds like the show’s starting. Should we get down?”

“When we get what we’re looking for from these guys, sure.”

Through the air duct came the first words of the song. Flam’s eyes went wide at “Hey, there, boys, it’s…Trixie….” He looked to his brother, also prone on the floor, to ensure that they had heard the same thing. Flim nodded.

“You’ll have my apology when you stop tickling me, you feathered oaf.” Flam hoped he would regret saying that for a long time, because if he only regretted it for a short time, that probably meant he was dead.

“Sounds like we’re a long way from finished. Bugsy, I think it’s your turn to share something with the group.”

“She’ll make you feel real…big, see?” Trixie sang in a voice she hoped sounded sultry, as she strutted down the catwalk towards the crowd.

The target was obvious. Tough Lucky amounted to more or less three stallions: the one standard model, one additional for excess fat, and one further for excess muscle. All three inhabited one gold-coated, purple-maned pegasus body, with a pinstriped jacket designed to showcase the ominous cutie mark. He was wolf-whistling as hard as the rest, and was hardly the only customer in the club – but he was the only one with two bodyguards close at hoof. Can’t go straight for him. Too suspicious. Work the crowd.

She planted one hoof on the face of a stallion that had gotten a little too close to the stage. “All your cares she’ll go and fix…see?” She pushed, and the stallion offered no resistance as he fell back onto his haunches, jaw hanging open, tongue hanging out. Another little saunter forward, and a spin, flicking her tail back and forth. “Need a real colt; no more hicks, see?”

More wolf-whistles told her she was on the right track. Now establish use of horn as acceptable, desirable. One step, two steps, and she was looking in the eyes of a lonely executive, still wearing his tie from the office. Her magic shimmered, lifting his tie towards her. “Stay with me and have a few kicks, see?”

Tough Lucky’s guards stood up, nervously.

“Just sit back and…” she sang, pushing him against his own tie, even while her own face got closer and closer to his. “…take your licks, see?” she half-sang, half-whispered, tickling his ear hair with her tongue.

The executive’s face melted – figuratively – and he fell to the floor, legs limp, as Trixie released her magic.

Tough Lucky waved a hoof at his guards even as he hooted appreciatively, and they sat back down.

“We can do it with the seaponies, ‘cuz I’m a…nixie.” She smirked, and some of the stallions still had the presence of mind to laugh.

“We can do it with wings, ‘cuz I’m a…pixie.” She rested her eyes on Tough Lucky meaningfully; the enormous pegasus grinned. She took her cue and sauntered towards him.

“Any regrets, brother?” Flim mouthed silently as the called Rocko stretched a length of rubber hose.

“That I’m not down there watching this,” mouthed Flam back. Flim nodded meaningfully.

“You won’t want it to be quick, see…” she sang, as she closely invaded Tough Lucky’s personal space – though with his clear approval. She laid hooves on his enormous shoulders, which required her to spread her own forelegs quite wide, and smiled. Not in his upper pockets. Damn and blast. She slid her hooves down his front. “Better bring your biggest…stick, see?” Hooting followed from the patrons. There! Bottom pocket, hanging loose, my left.

Flim winced, which Flam thought was odd as he was the one being beaten at the moment. “Is she doing it alphabetically?” he asked, not quite aloud.

“Ultimate pleasure…” she began, as she fluttered Tough Lucky’s jacket with her magic and stepped inside it before gravity could reassert. “…with each of the clock’s ticks, see?”

Wax mold retrieved; applying. She stared into Tough Lucky’s eyes, keeping his off her horn. “Does your candle have a long enough wick…see?” She hugged him, holding tightly under his jacket. Impression made, retrieving. Cover of enormous jacket to hide reconcealment of wax mold. She pushed back again, putting herself back against the catwalk. “Are you stallion enough for…Trixie?”

“She’s out of letters….”

“What youse say?”

“I said uncle.”

“What’s that?”

“Uncle! Uncle!” Flam cried, not so much having to urge forth the tears as unstop them. “Uncle! I beg you! Uncle! Please stop hitting me, Uncle, I swear, I’ll be a good colt, I’ll wax your moustache and shine your horseshoes, just please stop….” He sobbed, and Flim felt himself free to join his brother.

In a moment both unicorns were crying hysterically, their tears pooling on the floor. Weed Dough’s underlings looked to him awkwardly. “Boss…this is kinda messed up.”

“…yeah. It just got really weird. Alright, boys, we’re done here.”

The thugs trotted out of the room, leaving the Flimflams alone.

After a solid minute, they managed to stop crying, but still wheezed heavily.

“Uncle was the only one who ever good to us….”

Flam chuckled, eyes still bloodshot and tear-soaked. “Yeah. But those featherbrains don’t need to know that.”

“Let’s go get the old girl before she tries to come up with any more lyrics.”

“Are you stallion enough for…Trixie?” she sang one last time, vamping, and with a final swish of her tail disappeared behind the curtain, to the whistling and hooting and stomping of hooves.

The band stared at her. She shrugged. They shrugged, and finished up the song, as she trotted down the hallway. She gave a small yelp as two stallions rounded the corner, and then calmed on seeing who they were.

“Trixie has it. Let’s go.”

And in a thrice, they were out on the street, waving for a cab; in a Manehattan minute, they had one.

“The Dew Drop Inn, my good fellow,” Flam said, spitting into his hoof to see if it was coming up blood. Miraculously, it wasn’t.

“Nay, good sir,” Flim said, doing the same check with similar results. “First, to any small purveyor of groceries.”

Trixie caught her breath, raising a brow. “Groceries?”

“Ice, specifically. Need to press some to every part of my body.”

“Same here,” Flam said.

“Ah. Trixie will in that case avail herself of some boiling bleach, in which she will bathe.”

“Fair enough, old girl, fair enough. Although….”

“Yes?” Trixie asked, when Flim failed to finish his thought.

“You…may want to take the dress off first.”

Trixie looked down at her body and uttered an oath.

“I’m not saying you should give it back – Celestia forbid! – just, well, hot bleach might not be the best thing for it.”

She harrumphed. “I don’t know what everypony’s on about. It doesn’t even fit me.”

“Looks fine to me. Flam?”

“Better than fine. Sir?”

The cab driver looked back behind him, and nodded. “As we say in Mother Country…Blin, dyevochki, posmotritye na eto tyelo!”

“There you are then, old girl. A stunning endorsement, if I’ve understood it.”

She rolled her eyes.

Hours later, the brothers continued staring at their grimy hotel ceiling while wrapped in towels and ice. The clock on the wall went tick…tick…tick and then the hand advanced a little farther.

“Well. It’s tomorrow.”

“Indeed.”

They stared for a bit longer. Finally, Flam called out: “How are you feeling, Trixie?”

“Almost clean!” she called back from the bathroom. “Maybe…another half hour!”

“Half hour. Sounds fine,” Flim said, nodding. “The keys will be nice and cool, it’ll be getting on towards the middle of the shift so the feathers will be busy…and plenty of time until anypony comes poking around those storage lockers.”

“Everything coming up Flimflam this time. Sounds simple.”

“You did it again, brother. Why did you do that again?”

“We have the keys, Flim. What more could go wrong?”

With a mighty heave, the door to the storage locker slid open. The contents were remarkable both in what was present and what was absent.

“Well, for starters, Flam, the lockers might not contain artifacts at all, but instead a hole in the earth leading to an underground passage of mysterious origin.”

Trixie moaned in exasperation. Flam shook his head angrily. “This, dear brother, falls into ‘your fault’, for not knowing the lockers’ contents, not ‘my fault’, for tempting fate.”

The magician looked closely at the floor. “The artifacts were here. This has all been recently disturbed. The hole has been used recently, too.”

“Diamond Dogs?”

“Maybe. I doubt Tough Lucky knows about any of this; the wards weren’t fresh, I doubt anypony has been in here for a while…except for our tunnel-makers.”

“Well, let’s go.” Flim trotted forward.

“Flim?”

“I didn’t get my flank beaten by the baked goods cartel so a bunch of thieves could beat me to what I planned to steal first!”

Unable, at this time of night, to meaningfully refute that reasoning, Flam and Trixie joined him, and the three leapt into the darkness.

Rumble in the Broncs

“Princess Luna!” Flim stammered. “We…we can explain!”

“Most excellent!” And with that, the Princess of the Night sat down on the ground. “Begin.”

“…here? Now?” Flam gulped.

“We may leave, we suppose…but Our zealous Guardians of the night may be less keen to hear thine explanations, and the traditional penalty for thy seeming crimes is death.” Despite her ‘offer’, the Princess made no show of standing up from her place just inside the sole entrance to their impromptu igloo of debris.

“Well, Your Royal Highness, here’s how it happened….”

“I didn’t get my flank beaten by the baked goods cartel so a bunch of thieves could make off with important national treasures!” Flim shouted, looking remarkably good while doing so.

“Yes, brother, for Equestria!” Flam replied, the misty moonlight shimmering off his honed flank.

“To glory!” Trixie cried, horn gleaming heroically.

Luna gave them a long, skeptical look.

Flim coughed. “…this is probably not the time to, um, enhance the truth, Trixie.”

Trixie blushed. “Would you believe that is how Trixie remembers it?”

Luna arched one brow. “We would not.”

“Oh. Well then….”

With no particular statement being made as to why they were choosing to do this, the three unicorns leapt into the darkness.

“Thuuuuuuunderhooves!” nopony would later admit to shouting.

“Ooof!” they all grunted, though not quite synchronously, as they landed, sprawled, after tumbling down a steeply angled tunnel for some dozens of yards.

“Is this a…” Flim gagged, and forced himself to his hooves. “This is a sewer.”

“This way,” Trixie said, gesturing with her horn.

“How do you know?” Flam asked.

“Hobo code,” she replied, lighting up the side of the sewer tunnel with her magic.

Flam peered at the scratchings on the masonry of the tunnel wall. “I…don’t recognize the freshest of these symbols, I’m afraid, old girl.”

“‘Cult, thieving and abducting, possibly murderous.’ Trixie had also failed to recognize it, once.” She turned back and looked Flam hard in the eye. “Once.”

Three unicorns trudged forward through the sewers, hooves squishing in the semi-solid sorts of muck which were imperfectly carried by the liquid sorts of muck, following the clues and signs as to the next turns to take, where they could spot them.

“So, Trixie…” Flim gulped. “When you say ‘possibly murderous’, do you mean….”

“Does Trixie mean that a cult taking up residence in the sewers with a network of added tunnels, which has already robbed a warehouse full of ancient and possibly magical artifacts belonging to a cartel boss, might be prepared to kill ponies who stumbled upon their secrets?”

“Yes,” Flim said, nodding, “that.”

“Trixie would consider that a best-case scenario. They may also conduct abduct ponies to perform living equine sacrifices to their dark masters. The hobo code does not cover that particular nuance.”

“Was it so much to ask that ~~ripping off~~ tangling with the cartel would be the easy part of this endeavor?” Flam complained to nopony in particular.

“Shh!” was Trixie’s retort, as they neared another intersection. Her ears tilted. The Flimflams frowned and listened as well.

Barking, rhythmic. The click of canine claws on masonry. If they were to transcribe the barking, it would have gone a bit like: “Woof-woof-woof. Oooooh-woooooooooof-woof. Woof-woof-woof. Oooh-wooooooof-woof.” Such merely goes to show how silly an exercise transcribing an ominous onomatopoeic chant would be.

They crept forward ~~after taking five minutes to argue about whether this was really a good idea~~ heedless of the danger, at last beholding the source of the noise – a great vast central chamber, obviously considerably expanded from the original city plans for the sewers: some original masonry, some repurposed, and some walls and pillars carved from living rock. Where their tunnel emerged into the room, a catwalk extended forward, suspended a dozen yards over the lowest floor – and there a company of Diamond Dogs, squat and armored, marched in place. At the opposite end of the catwalk, the chamber’s central pillar, ensconced in a balcony, and upon that balcony, a trio of equine forms in hoods and cloaks.

The unicorns pulled back into the tunnel, burying themselves in shadows, as the leader of the cloaked trio opposite them shouted down at the marchers below.

“Canine brethren! Rejoice and be glad, for the hour of glory is upon us! With your tireless efforts, the rituals are nearly complete!”

The dogs let out a throaty cheer, a chorus of jubilant howls.

“Now, disperse and take one last respite to freshen yourselves for new duties, for our lord is soon to return to this world, and we must all be prepared to heed his whims!”

One dog at the head of the pack, in marginally shinier armor than the rest, turned to his fellows, and in a great whining voice, translated that: “Company – dismissed!”

A cacophonic chorus of grunts and barks acknowledged the order, and the formation dispersed, the dogs filtering into a number of different side passages off of the chamber floor. The cloaked trio opposite observed this, and then turned, heading away from the unicorns down another catwalk.

“Trixie?” Flim asked, a bit of shake to his voice. “You’ve been in this sort of mess before, right?”

“…something like this, yes.”

“On a scale of ‘1’ to ‘pray for the sweet mercy of the embrace of death’, how bucked are we?”

Trixie considered this. “Seven.”

“Seven, huh? Seven’s the sweet spot.” Flam nodded in satisfaction, while peering out over the catwalk onto the chamber floor for any stragglers. “Good enough that something can be done, bad enough that something must be done. Looks like the coast is clear if we hurry.”

“Hold on – in case a patrol wanders back in….” Trixie did not finish her thought verbally, instead opening her saddle bags and presenting black hooded cloaks for the twins’ and her use.

~~“A bit coarse, aren’t they, old girl? And they hardly go with the vests, much less the hats.” Flim asked.~~

~~“For just once, could you two~~ try ~~to be a bit less girly than Trixie?” she snarled.~~

While their horns distinctly distorted the shapes of their hoods compared to the figures they were now trailing, at the moment there was no test of their disguise – the chamber was growing steadily quieter as the echoes of departing hoof beats and footsteps grew further away.

~~“Wait a moment!” Flim whispered excitedly as they passed the central pillar of the chamber. “Over there!” A half-dozen opened crates, still mostly full of various scrolls, tablets, and trinkets made of metal and stones, lay just at the edge of the central balcony. “These are most of the missing artifacts – they must have just needed some specific things for their ritual.”~~

~~“Bit of a need to hurry, brother!”~~

~~“Then stop arguing and just stuff some of these things in your saddlebags! We might not get a chance later! These things usually end with us running in panic!”~~

A careful but determined trot down several more catwalks later, the trio took cover behind a large sewer pipe – seemingly pried from its proper place in the municipal construction months or years ago – and peered over it.

The figures, whom they now felt comfortable identifying as donkeys from the shape and coloration of the muzzles protruding from the hoods, stood at three points of an equilateral triangle inscribed in the large stone balcony protruding over a long drop and a raging storm sewer channel. The triangle did not concern them quite so much as the glowing and slowly spinning circles of red and blue light hovering just above it, and not nearly so much as the tiny black sun growing still farther up.

Over and over, the donkeys chanted: “We light the candle, we open the book, we unring the bell.”

Trixie whispered in horror: “We just went from seven to nine and a half.”

~~“If only~~ somepony ~~hadn’t insisted we stop to loot the place first….”~~

“Now what, Trixie?” Flim asked in a hush, ~~ignoring his brother’s completely accurate criticism.~~

“We, we, stop it somehow…” Trixie stammered, leaning forward against the sewer pipe to peer closer. The massive pipe rolled slightly with her weight, and suddenly a wicked grin replaced her worried expression.

The Flimflams, to their credit, caught on immediately, as their horns glowed and their hooves rose into place in preparation for a mighty shove.

“…we unring the – ” The two donkeys near the unicorns, with their backs to the pipe, had only the nudge of the rolling steel against their hind legs as a signal that not all was as it should be, before getting caught in the roll and tumbled on the ground and up around the pipe and back onto the ground and up again – the farthest donkey, who at least was looking in the right direction, turned and tried to outrun the sewer pipe, failing only because he ran quite out of balcony.

With a final thud, the sewer pipe and all three hooded donkeys sailed over the edge of the balcony. The unicorns peered after to admire their hoofdiwork – at least one of the donkeys looked to still be conscious after impact with the water, but all three were being carried swiftly away by the surging sewers.

“See?” Flim asked, laughing desperately with relief. “Nothing at all to worry abou – what?” He turned, acknowledging Trixie and his brother’s taps on his shoulders. “But – we vanquished the summoners!” he protested, in response to seeing that the tiny black sun and had not vanished and in fact was a bit larger and more substantial.

“Apparently the important bits were already finished, brother; whatever they called is still coming. Any ideas, old girl?”

“The first few moments after arrival are critical.”

“You mean we could beat it then?” Flim asked, hopefully.

“Probably not even on our best day, and this isn’t it. But if we’re going to convince it to at least not kill us….”

Flam nodded, getting the drift, as he pulled his hood back over his head and trotted to one of the three spots on the triangle. Flim and Trixie took their places a moment later

And so, snarling and spewing, arrived the demon: blue in coat, cloven of hoof, pure crimson eyes, with great twisting horns on its head.

“Hail to our lord…!” Flim, Flam, and Trixie said in unison.

“Grogar lives again!” the demon cried, as a great shimmering red band materialized around his neck, carrying golden seals inscribed in forgotten tongues and a silver-white bell. As the band finally solidified completely, he stepped his hooves down upon the stone floor, leaving behind the now-insubstantial and rapidly-fading dark star.

“…Grogar!” the unicorns concluded.

“Forever may his night reign!” Trixie added, apparently out of habit.

The demon looked around. His eyes appeared to lack any subparts such as irises or pupils, so they could not tell exactly what he was looking at. After twenty seconds that felt like three hours at the gallows to the unicorns, he finally spoke again: “This place is different. It is not my kingdom.”

“It is not your old kingdom, my lord!” Flim said, brightly. “Over the centuries, it has fallen apart – we have just taken the important relics for use in our new base!” he further guessed, with remarkable accuracy.

The demon nodded, accepting this. “Then, from our new base, we shall go forth and conquer – ”

“No need, my lord!” Flam interrupted. “In your name, your loyal minions have already conquered the world.”

The demon blinked. “What.”

“The entire thing. All of it,” Trixie agreed, “is already in our – your – hooves.”

“How? Without my power, how did Ponyland and Dream Valley fall?”

“Just two unknown places in a whole series of conquests!” Grogar did not seem to have a wide array of facial expressions, but was working on skepticism right now, and Flam looked desperately to Trixie for assistance.

Trixie grinned. “Your minions were so filled with fervor for your reign, O Mighty Grogar, that they could not restrain themselves to wait until the stars were right!”

“Then…the ponies are all gone?” He definitely sounded confused.

But at this, his ersatz acolytes were equally so. “Oh…um….”

“Ah.” The demon’s confidence returned. “Of course not! You may have conquered this world, but only I possess the power to banish them from it! Show me, then, to the dungeons, so that I may purge their kind from my world!” Grogar started to trot towards the only proper exit from the balcony.

“Oh!” Flim said, keeping pace with the demon. “Well, they’re not in the dungeons, either. The ponies are your slaves. They get to keep living, and we exact enormous tribute from them in your honor.”

Grogar halted. “…my minions have never done it this way before.”

“And…” Flam started, and then paused, looking for his next thought.

Trixie supplied it. “And did your previous minions ever build you the eternal empire worthy of your glory?”

The question, of course, answered itself, and the demon resumed trotting forward. “Of course not. But what you say is – ”

“Don’t you doubt us, my lord!” Flim begged.

“You so clearly deified – ” Trixie added.

“You’re in our world now, not that world,” Flam pointed out.-

“…and we’re your friends on the other side!” they sang together.

“Wait,” asked Princess Luna, “thou sang?”

“We panicked. It’s sort of one of our default modes.”

“Who’s whose friends on the other side?” were the echoes of a canine voice that rumbled up from the chamber below them.

Grogar stared. The unicorns stared, smiling, for a moment. Flim caught up first. “Just your loyal acolytes down there, preparing the celebrations for your return, nothing to fuss about, don’t worry!”

“Come, Lord Grogar – ” Flam said, trotting forward faster down a new catwalk, having smelled a familiar and pleasing odor from its far end. “ – let us show you to your kingdom!”

At the far end of the next catwalk was another tunnel, this one probably part of the actual urban plan; directly inside was a steam carriage. Grogar eyed it unwarily as Flam leapt into the driver’s seat; a moment later, Trixie and Flim shoved him into the back.

“Sit down in our carriage; put yourself at ease!” Flam sang, as his magic engaged the engine and the turbines came quickly up to speed.

“Know that we live to do – well, anything you please!” Trixie added, rubbing the shoulders of the confused demon with her hooves as she piled into the seat next to him.

Flim threw himself to the front passenger seat, and Flam kicked the carriage into drive, propelling it forward up the sewer tunnel. The barefaced Flimflam twisted around in his seat to face Grogar, and continued.

“You’ll soon see your kingdom – taste it’s sweet fruits too!
You’ll own the worship of every filly and foal – ”

He glanced aside and muttered “That is what he wants, isn’t it, Trixie?”

Trixie shrugged.

“ – every mare and stallion too!”

Grogar frowned. “And what of the other races? The donkeys? The troggles? The humans?”

Flim and Trixie looked to each other, while Flam concentrated on driving – and then the carriage emerged from the sewer tunnel, out into the open air of the southern Broncs. The odor was noticeably, but not greatly, improved. The demon swiveled his head, looking at the great brick buildings – some as high as eight and nine stories! – rising up around him.

“We count the asses
Among our masses
And even the odd parasprite!” Flim added quickly, while the demon seemed to be distracted, and then the three unicorns focused on what they felt was the most important point:

“And we’re your friends on the other side!”

“But no humans?” Grogar asked unevenly, as the steam carriage tore through the dark streets. “To have many slaves is good, but if none of them have hands….”

Flim whispered to his brother. “Hurry, Flam – I don’t like his tone and I don’t know what he’s talking about….”

“Our first stop, my lord!” Flam shouted immediately, slamming the carriage’s brakes far too fast. Only the demon’s enormous curved horns shielded him from pain on his impact with the seat in front of him – nopony had bothered to explain safety belts. Flam nodded to Flim, and Flim darted inside the establishment.

“This entire place is my kingdom? This city of ponies?”

“This city is just one of many in your kingdom, Lord Grogar – and many besides ponies live here!” Trixie said, hopefully, glancing back at the door to the establishment.

Flim emerged a minute later, hopping back into the seat, and magically producing several bottles from a brown paper sack. “The drinks, the drinks, the drinks will tell –
How our system is working oh-so-well!”

Trixie used her own magic to pop the caps on bottles, and then hovered them in the air before Grogar. “The drinks, the drinks, just take three….”

Grogar’s eyes widened with delight as the first taste hit his tongue, and Trixie assisted him in enjoying still more of it.

Flam accelerated, pulling onto a major avenue. “Take a little trip to The Hub with me!”

“The Hub, brother?” Flim whispered again. “Not the Great White Way?”

“The Hub is closer from here. And I think The Broncs is more ready for us than Manehattan.”

After finishing the last bottle, with Trixie’s unrequested assistance in obtaining every last drop, the demon hiccupped, and then frowned. “Tell me of the Resistance. There must be one, or else you maggots would already have built my palace!”

The unicorns returned to a false grin, while they thought fast.

“While most worship Lord Grogar happily…” Flam began.

“…a few ponies call themselves Royalty!” Flam added. “Just three of them, right?” he asked his companions. They shrugged. It was easy enough to forget about Cadence, who could remember if there were still others? “Their grandeur’s high…”

“But their power’s low!” Trixie insisted. “To you they’ll be a most unworthy foe.”

“Not that anything could threaten you, right, Lord Grogar?” Flim asked, wheedling his voice.

“Of course not!” Despite his assertion, the unicorns only looked convinced of this.

Flam brought the carriage to a spinning halt, completing three full revolutions before it came to a rest in front of a noisy bar in The Hub – a five-way intersection in the heart of The Broncs.

“Now they just gotta get smote,” Flim continued, “But smiting takes time.
You’ve just gotta reign, look out over this whole place…
…but a kingdom needs its King.”

Trixie leapt from her back seat up to the trunk of the carriage, standing and singing out into the night.
“It’s the King,
It’s the King,
It’s the King you see…” she offered, looking straight at a pair of Night Guards while pointing at Grogar.
“And if we may be so bold,
It’s the King that you need.”

The Night Guards kept their eyes on the unicorns and their strange charge, while continuing to eat their breaktime meal of sugary pastries.

Clearly feeling, to the unicorn’s relief, the effects of three bottles of fortified nectar, Grogar tumbled out of the carriage onto the street, and stumbled to his hooves. “Fine work you have done, making the best of this city of ponies.” He hiccupped. “You are quite certain, though, that no humans number among my servants?”

“Again with the ‘humans’? What’s up with this?” Flam muttered to his brother and Trixie.

Trixie shrugged. “Apparently they have hands. Hands are a poor-pony’s substitute for minor unicorn magic, and he had planned on banishing all ponies. So presumably he expected these ‘humans’ to take their place.”

“I don’t know,” Flim muttered. “With him, I’m getting the feeling that it might be more of a sex thing.”

“You usually think it’s a sex thing, Flim. But Trixie does not discount the plausibility of that, this time.”

“We’d better hurry.” Flam cleared his throat. “The humans were gone before our time,
They were hunted all their lives….”

“They were hunted by the griffons and the changelings and the dragons…
And if any survived….?" Trixie trailed off.

“They were slaughtered with knives!” Flim added, with a lot of energy.

Flam and Trixie stared at him for a second, aghast, while the Night Guards suddenly decided to wrap up their break.

Flim continued, mournfully. “So look to the future, because afraid we be….”

The three unicorns embraced, and harmonized. “Equestria is very most probably human-free.”

The two pegasus Night Guards trotted towards them. “Excuse me!” one called. “Are you alright? Do you need help?”

Grogar eyed them, and then turned to look to his acolytes for an explanation. “Scouts for the Resistance,” Flim whispered.

Grogar looked to the pegasus ponies again, as Trixie leaned over and whispered in his ear:

“Take this land,
Come on, Lord,
Won’t you take this poor, wretched land?”

The demon steadied himself on his hooves – or strived to – and snorted furiously at the approaching pegasus ponies.

“Yes…..” Trixie whispered low. Pulling her hood down to obscure her face as much as she could, she spun to face the Night Guards. “Are you – ready?”

“Are you ready?” the Flimflams echoed.

The Night Guards halted, as Grogar began to stomp his hooves.

“Are you ready?” she asked again. “Hail Lord Grogar!”

“Hail to Lord Grogar!”

The unicorns didn’t miss a beat as the demon’s horns charged with magical energy.

“All hail Lord Grogar!” Trixie called.

“All hail to Lord Grogar!” the Flimflams responded.

The demon discharged his horn in a torrent of magical blasts, shredding the pavement near and around the Night Guards with dozens of energy bolts.

“Three cheers for Lord Grogar!
Can you feel it?” she asked, as Grogar glowed anew. New power surged in his horns, and the Night Guards darted on wing in opposite directions, just being missed by a sphere of energy nearly as large as the carriage Grogar had arrived in.

“You’re reigning, you’re reigning, you’re reigning alright;
We’re seeing you deified…”

With the impact of the energy sphere into the street, the whole block rumbled, and the patrons inside the bar cried out while large chunks of masonry began to fall from the front façade onto the street next to the carriage.

“But if something breaks, don’t blame us….”

The shout came from one of the Night Guards, ducked behind a corner of building, doubtless speaking for the benefit of a magical communicator. “This is Patrol 54! Shots have been fired at The Hub, we need backup, now!”

The unicorns smiled behind Grogar’s back.

“Because we’re your friends on the other side!”

And then they dived for cover, as Grogar charged for another attack.

“We got what we wanted!” Flim said jubilantly behind the cover of a pile of bricks.

“And now he’s been had!” Flam replied excitedly.

“Shhh!” Trixie concluded.

Another blast hit the pavement, and the building behind them rumbled anew. From the receding screams, the patrons of the bar appeared to be escaping out the back fire exit – a moment of good news they appreciated before the front half of the building fell forward, and down.

“And then what?” Luna asked.

Flim grinned sheepishly. “And well, then, we were trapped under all this debris!”

Luna pointed to behind the three unicorns. “Yonder opening maketh a fine window. Thou sawest more.”

“Ah. Well.”

“They’re coming in from the left, Grogar!” Flim shouted through the air passage. He grinned as a pegasus managed to body-check the demon into a gaslight pole. “Sorry! I meant my left!”

Grogar growled in rage, and displayed a talent the unicorns had not previously seen – straight iron rods suddenly emerged from the pavement, crossing at angles that both caged the offending pegasus pony and ensnared his wings and legs.

“Muledoon!” the pegasus cried, towards his partner, as he struggled against his new prison.

Patrol 54 reports officer incapacitated by magical attack. Elevating two-star alarm to three stars. Get somepony to get some lights and a strobe on this guy, figure out what we’re dealing with.

Seeing this issue, the other pegasus took wing, getting clear of the ground, and charged at Grogar again – only to have to veer off to dodge another spray of magical fire. Losing more than a few wing feathers to glancing shots, he cried out as he lost his trajectory and clipped the side of a building.

“Grogar does not fear this resistance! Grogar will crush you all! Grogar will - ” The demon stopped, peering into a blinding, strobing spotlight coming down at him from the sky. Disoriented by some combination of flickering lights and fortified nectar, Grogar took a good ten seconds to get around to launching a blast of magic at the source of the light. Somepony in the skies above yelped, and vanished into the darkness, even as they dropped their spotlight, which landed a few yards from Grogar and directly atop somepony’s brand new steam carriage, penetrating all the way through the floorboards.

Civil Pegasus Patrol reports magic-using quadruped, likely sheep, maybe goat, blue in color, definitely has horns. CPP came under fire. All nearby patrols, engage and pin. The Anti-Unicorn Squad has been alerted. The Hub incident is now at a four star alarm.

“Hey!” a large red earth pony shouted, rounding the corner from the back of the ruined bar. “Baah baah Blue Sheep!” He waited for Grogar to turn to face him, and for his mates – seven of them, earth ponies of various colors, all of them angry at not being as drunk as they’d like – to catch up. “You bucked with the wrong party!”

Be advised, patrols, we have vigilante civilians engaging the suspect. Alarm remains at four stars.

The unicorns, from within their igloo of debris, winced at the new fight, and watched carefully as the fracas began. Seeing one earth pony too drunk to dodge an incoming bolt from Grogar, they all nudged him in unison, knocking him sprawling to the pavement but under the path of the blast. The red stallion that head-butted Grogar, fast and strong as he was, was beyond their help – ram horns beat pony skull, and he was knocked back flank over teakettle, prone and stunned.

On the roof of the tallest building of the Hub, two pegasus ponies in matte black uniforms landed, setting down their cargo – a unicorn in a similar uniform, and the weapon he was carrying.

The Aussies are in place, patrols. Keep the suspect engaged and distracted.

This they had no difficulty doing. Several patrolling pegasus ponies who had begun closer to the action now joined the earth pony civilians in the fray, dodging, weaving, and bucking, trying to land blows on the demon ram before it could blast back at them. With a new surge and blast, sending a group of ponies crashing like tenpins, they all, to the last of them, failed.

The unicorn on the roof, who had been marked at birth with the appellation “Ice Cold” and had no real need for a badge because his cutie mark had taken the shape of the symbol of Manehattan’s Finest, peered down the scope of his weapon. With infinitesimally precise control thanks to his well-practiced magic, he lined the crosshairs carefully over the ram’s head, and then, checking the windage, he whispered to his escorts and spotters: “Do I have a trigger order?”

Aussies, you have your trigger order.

Ice Cold, elite markspony of the Anti-Unicorn Squad, never smiled except at these moments. “Night-night.”

For a civilian unicorn to recreate the weapon Ice Cold was using would require only the technical skills of, say, the Flimflam brothers; it was merely a particularly well-built harpoon gun launched by very powerful springs. To create the ammunition would require no less than three poaching expeditions into the heart of the Everfree Forest: herbal and alchemical coatings shielded the dart’s trajectory from minor magical influences; one array of poisons induced unconsciousness and paralysis; the other array of poisons targeted and (usually temporarily) knocked out the specific neurochemistry found in unicorns that enabled them to control their magic.

Thunk.

Ice Cold stared down his scope in horror. “You have got to be bucking kidding me!”

Grogar had difficulty seeing exactly what had happened, but from his peripheral vision he could piece it together – a large dart had passed through the loops of both of his horns, not more than brushing his coat, and had, with only a glancing strike, gotten stuck in the keratin of his far horn.

The demon turned to face the source of the attack, but saw only a building. It would have to go. Even while his horns fired dozens of bolts at the windows and roof, he continued to build a secondary energy orb, nursing it to larger and larger size.

“Buck!” Flam cursed from his place in the igloo. “I really thought the Aussies could have taken him!”

With a whomp, Grogar launched his orb, and the whole building trembled, its façade giving way immediately, while he continued also spraying the smaller bolts at anything that seemed to conceal a threat.

“And he keeps unleashing stronger and stronger attacks….this isn’t good.” Trixie shook her head.

“But is it because he has no limits, or because he’s too drunk and angry to remember them?”

While they pondered Flim’s question, an airship appeared overhead, sweeping the streets with spotlights.

Aussies, you are ordered to withdraw and provide cover for civilian evacuation. All Manehattan units, be advised we are at five stars, repeat, five stars. Royal Guard Heavies have arrived. All Night Guards, first priority is assistance of civilian evacuation from the fire zone. The Heavies know their business.

Thundering bass beats from the airship’s lower cannons announced the arrival into action of the Royal Guard, as dozens of pegasus ponies flew out from the sides, and their wingless colleagues fast-roped down. Grogar shook on his hooves, but only from the shockwaves of the cannons – and possibly that fortified nectar again – not from any fear of the scores of ponies now surrounding him.

The commander of the Royal Guard unit issued no challenge or warning – she merely waited a few seconds to see if the demon showed any signs of surrender.

Another attack warmed itself on his horns.

That being quite the opposite, ponies surged in from all sides. Unicorn magic threw up barriers and shields around the battlefield that the Hub had become, tightening the circle and restricting Grogar’s movements, while the others made their strikes. The demon, for his part, fought like one, kicking, butting, and hurling whatever magical attacks he could in the few instants he had between getting bucked or slammed. Even the bolts, though, did not strike more than one or two ponies at a time, for past that they would be absorbed by another unicorn barrier.

“He’s slowing down,” Flim whispered. “I think they’ve got him.”

“Oh bu – ” Flam cursed again, as Grogar went flying out of the crowd entirely and tumbled to the pavement thirty yards away – not under his own power, as it happened, but by the assistance of a buck from an enormous green earth pony mare by the name of Corporal Whopper.

As it turned out, she had been a little too successful for everypony’s good.

The Heavies turned around and began charging for Grogar, who now found himself with all of his enemies in a single arc of fire and a good four or five seconds to charge his attack – which was all that he needed this time.

The Royal Guard got a small taste of what their changeling enemies had undergone some months earlier, as the demon’s shockwave sent them hurtling far into the air – a painful inconvenience for the pegasus ponies, a terrifying near-death experience for the others – and with them, the airship they rode in on, which had come quite detached from its gas bag and was now bouncing across the skyline, rooftop to rooftop.

Flim, Flam, and Trixie stared in horror.

…we are now at the six-star threshold. Repeat, the alarm is now at six stars.

The demon ram strutted in the square, bleating in pride. “Grogar has crushed the puny resistance! This world now belongs to Grogar! Grogar the Surpeme!”

“C – congratulations, my lord!” Flim half-heartedly called out from the igloo. “All shall tremble beneath your iron hooves!”

Remembering his acolytes, the demon turned towards the debris pile. “…yes. They shall.” He warmed another sphere on his horns.

“Well.” Flam said, leaving the curse unsaid this time. ~~“So, ah, now that we’re about to die….”~~

~~“Yes?” Trixie asked, with sudden interest and enthusiasm.~~

Two spheres of light exploded in the sky, but too far up to be Grogar’s work, and still a few hours too early to be the sun or the moon.

Merely the royal sisters in charge of them.

“Grogar of Tambelon! Stand down!”

“And, well, Princess, you saw the rest.”

“But did thou seest the rest?”

The ram spun to the alicorns behind and above him, eyes flickering from one to the other, from the alabaster goddess of the purifying light and the midnight blue goddess of the sacred darkness, and to the energy gathering at each of their respective horns.

His attack orb as grand as he could muster it, large enough to encompass both sisters, he launched it.

Beams of radiant energy came forth from the alicorn horns connected with his orb, stopping it in its tracks.

Growling, Grogar summoned forth all of his will, and forced the orb forward.

With purity of cause, the Princesses strengthened their magic, and pushed.

…

Schplort.

“…‘schplort’?” Trixie asked, who had been too afraid to watch.

“Oh, I’m gonna be sick,” Flam said, directly before following through on his word.

“…so much blood,” Flim mumbled. “How could one sheep hold that much blood?”

“One…sheep?” Trixie asked, and then brightened. “They got him? They got him!”

“They got him, alright. They got him all over…everything. Guess he was just about out of juice.”

“Right,” Flam said, finishing heaving. “Now let’s get out of here. In the confusion, nopony has to know…oh.”

A certain midnight blue goddess has stepped in through the opening to their igloo.

“Princess Luna!” Flim stammered. “We…we can explain!”

“Most excellent!” And with that, the Princess of the Night sat down on the ground. “Begin.”

“And then we started telling you how it happened.”

“To sum up: thy plan went as follows. One, thou wouldst pretend to be the demon’s followers. Two, thou wouldst get the demon drunk. Three, thou wouldst get the demon ‘lost in a bad neighborhood’.”

“Exactly!” Flam said.

“And the result is a block in ruins, hundreds injured and some missing still.”

“You see, we sounded like heroes right up until we had to go and talk about the consequences of our actions.” Flim sighed.

The Princess raised a brow. “If thou hadst left the villain alone, and he in turn had been detected by somepony with Our or Our Sister’s ear, doubtless the Elements of Harmony could have undone this monster with less collateral harm.”

The unicorns did not respond to that charge.

“But, if the villain had gone undetected, the terror he mighteth have unleashed would be far worse, and we might be speaking of ponies dead, not injured.”

The unicorns nodded eagerly.

“Thou hast done…acceptably well.”

They kept nodding eagerly.

“Our Sister will not learneth of thy presence here, nor shall Our Guards. Thou, in turn, will not returnst to the demon’s lair; other evils likely abideth there still, and must be dealt with by others. Others…not thee.” She paused for a moment. “Go.”

The three unicorns scurried out of the igloo, into the morning light. Construction crews were hard at work starting to put their city back together, while Night Guards checked in with and reassured hundreds of worried ponies.

In a moment, they were just three more ponies, only slightly more exhausted than most, trotting through a Manehattan morning. Three orders of hay fries from a pushcart sufficed for breakfast as they found an omnibus heading in the general direction of their hotel. They were quiet for a few minutes. Finally, Flim spoke.

“And you two mocked me for stopping to loot.” He summoned from his saddlebags a small scroll.

Flam sighed. “We don’t even know what all we took, or if any of it will help.”

“Sure we do! While it was your two turns to explain ourselves, I took the chance to sneak some peeks at what we took.”

“Oh?”

“Oh indeed! The bad news is, our next stop is going to require us to cross an ocean. The good news is…after we do that, we’re going to Monte Cowlo!”

Trixie nodded and yawned. “That’s…that’s nice.”

“Nice? Our adventure is going to take us to one of the toniest casino-hotels on the planet – we’re probably going to trip over secret agents just checking into our room!”

Trixie yawned again. “And Trixie will be thrilled…after she’s slept for three days. Good night, you two. Don’t bother waking Trixie when you bring her up to our room.”

The Six-Hundred-Sixty Length High Club (Part One)

The morning was still young, but the city barely slept, and certainly never slept in. Everypony had a place to be, and for some reason apparently nopony was there yet, as Trixie and the brothers struggled against crowds trying to go in every direction but theirs. Even the seagulls flocking above and swooping below seemed to be busy for busy-ness’s sake, although that didn’t stop one for making a play at Trixie’s street-cart breakfast of fried ice cream.

The sudden appearance of a small force field around the food, thrown up with a reflexive skill honed by a childhood in an orphanage with the likes of Flim and Flam, thwarted the gull and bounced him into a passerby’s saddlebag.

“Yes, yes,” Trixie muttered, as the brothers continued to force through the crowd ahead of her. “So glad we could leave behind the Fleabag Arms so we could hurry up and fly steerage.”

“Steerage?” Flim called back, without turning his head, needing his physical attention entirely on the crowd. “We’re not flying steerage, old girl. First class.”

“What?” she shouted back. “How in the hoof can we afford first class?”

“You’d be surprised how much money you can save by not actually paying bills.”

“Mind you, it’s not great first class,” Flam added, as he forcefully shoved aside a trio of giggling schoolfillies who were blocking his path. “Just the one stateroom and places at the table come mealtime.”

A few minutes more and they burst out of the press of the crowds and found themselves on the airship docks.

“We’re looking for…the RMS Moon’s Proud Glow,” Flam said, reading from the tickets. “That should be right over – ”

A dozen pegasus ponies in Night Guard uniforms cantered by. “We need security sweeps on all outgoing ships! They’re not getting out of this city on our watch!”

The three let silence linger for a moment as the Night Guards split into pairs and moved for the individual airships.

“…that was probably about us, wasn’t it?” Flim asked.

“It usually is,” Trixie sighed. “We’ll need disguises. Come on.”

Twenty minutes later, three ponies trotted out of the public restrooms – two unicorn stallions with black manes, bright orange coats, and crudely-drawn smiley faces for cutie marks; one unicorn mare with a green mane, purple coat, and no thought to concealing her wand-and-crescent cutie mark.

“You two look ridiculous.”

“You’re not so well yourself. Green? Really?”

Trixie harrumphed.

“Anyway, this should get us pack the checkpoint. Unless we accidentally disguised ourselves as some other wanted criminals…again.” Flam sighed.

Their party approached the gangplank, at which only two ponies stood guard – one brown earth pony colt in a navy blue coat and white hat with a pencil in his mouth and a clipboard in front of him; one blue unicorn mare in a Night Guard uniform. Both looked bored; the ship was technically open for boarding by passengers but wasn’t scheduled to depart for hours, and it was not the way of most passengers to be early.

“Your tickets, please,” the earth pony asked, and was answered with three of them, delivered by Flim’s magic. “Misters and Miss Mane. Thank you for flying Whinny Star today.”

The Night Guard eyed them skeptically. Trixie and Flim and Flam smiled.

The earth pony stamped the three tickets with a small amount of luminescent potion, and was apparently satisfied with the results. “Welcome aboard.”

“Hold for a security check,” the Night Guard said, without much courtesy.

What the three were expecting to happen next was for the Night Guard unicorn to scrutinize them closely, while running through a small stack of photographs to see if they matched. What they were not expecting was for the unicorn to cast a quick spell, causing the dye on their manes and powder on their coats to glow unpleasantly hot and fall away, while Trixie’s mane-altering spell on her own head was suddenly dispelled. Nor, precisely, were they expecting loud klaxons to fill the air.

Once those things did happen, though, they were not altogether surprised to suddenly be encircled by pegasus ponies on hoof and on wing, spears out and ready.

“Well, horse apples,” Flim accurately assessed.

The other horseshoe dropped half a minute later, as a gold pegasus with a fiery mane in a jet-black uniform landed in front of them. Flim and Flam, who had spent a lot of time observing a particular unauthorized painted pin-up calendar, supposed that this mare was closely related to Spitfire.

“Spears up, boys,” the pegasus spat, as she brushed Flam’s mane with her wing. “A changeling spy’s got as much use for mane and coat dye as a pegasus has for a scooter.”

Hearing her voice, they were not dissuaded from their supposition.

“Still raises a question, though – why are you three boarding a ship in disguise?”

Flam cleared his throat. “It’s not illegal to travel incognito, ma’am.”

The pegasus looked into Flam’s eyes. Flam looked into hers. Flam therefore didn’t see a sucker punch coming from her foreleg, and he fell forward, pressing his hooves to his chest in pain.

“Stuff it, dirt-bound. I’ve got a city block leveled by a demon, a changeling spy loose in the city, and zero time for this crap. Now, if you missed it, the badge on my uniform says Royal Guard, not Night Guard, so the law means jack squat to me if I think the safety of Equestria’s on the line. Next answer I get better be real or you all can make your third try with the nice fellas at Cloudcatraz.”

Flim stared in horror for a moment, as did the earth pony working for Whinny Star.

“Please, Miss, we didn’t mean any harm,” Trixie cut in. “We were just boarding in disguise to make sure we could set up a surprise party for our employer without him noticing.”

“Really,” Spitfire’s relative asked, skeptically.

“Really!” Flim replied, having the presence of mind to sound like he meant it. Flam may have also replied, among his gasps for air.

“And this employer is…?”

Trixie didn’t hesitate. “Fancypants.”

The pegasus squinted. “There’s no ‘Fancy Pants’ on the manifest – ”

“Actually, madam,” the earth pony squeaked. “He is.” He mouthed the clipboard over for the Royal Guard’s perusal.

“…I see,” she admitted, reluctantly. “Well, can you prove that you’re his employees?”

“We…” Trixie eyed Flim.

“…we can, yes. Ah, can I reach into my saddlebag without getting a spear to the face?” The pegasus nodded. Flim’s magic produced a long scroll. “Ah, our real names are, in fact, Flim Flimflam, Flam Flimflam, and Trixie Lulamoon. You’ll find us mentioned by name in paragraph two, and our signatures at the very bottom…..”

She grumbled as she looked through the scroll for all of half a minute. “For the love of – I hate legalese. Dusksong, is this legit?”

The unicorn Night Guard whose spell had first sounded the alarm peered at the contract. “I think so.”

“Good. Fine. Back to your posts, boys.” She looked Flam, who was finally up on all fours again, in the eye. “I’d apologize for the inconvenience, but you were the idiots who thought you’d wear disguises past a security checkpoint. So I’ll just say ‘have a nice day.’”

A minute later, the three were trotting up the gangplank into the airship, tugging their luggage behind them.

“Good show, old girl,” Flam said, his breath fully returned. “How’d you catch Fancypants’ name on the manifest, at that angle?”

“Trixie didn’t,” Trixie admitted. “Trixie was expecting to have to immediately explain that he was traveling incognito as well, to protect the privacy of a certain fillyfriend of his, herself a mare of some importance. And then Trixie thought we’d improvise from there until we were either believed or a chance to escape came up.”

“But, as it happens, Fancypants is on this flight. That’s bloody inconvenient,” Flim muttered.

“…we still owe him money, do we?” Trixie asked, sighing.

“A hundred thousand plus interest and penalties, unless he’s still willing to take a performance and we can still get the band together to give him one.”

They navigated through the passenger deck and found their way to their stateroom. Compared to the Dew Drop Inn, their apartments, or in fact any place they had legally resided, ever, it was a significant improvement. There was hot and cold running water, the carpet and wallpaper had been installed by professionals who had very likely been mostly sober, and the beds –

“Trixie suggests that we avoid the problem by staying here the entire voyage,” the mare offered, while luxuriating in silk sheets, down duvets, and a mattress that had been alchemically adapted from a cloud for non-pegasus use. “Right here,” she moaned in something the brothers found uncomfortably close to ecstasy, as she sank a touch further into the not-quite-cloud.

“It’s a comfortable room,” Flim admitted, as he stretched out on his own bed. “But it would be a bit of a waste of first class, wouldn’t it? And we did actually pay cash for these tickets.”

“So what are you suggesting, brother?” Flam asked, as he nearly drifted off to sleep on the third bed.

“We just…well, he’s a reasonable pony! We just go up to him and explain the situation…”

“And lie a lot.”

“Well, obviously, we explain the situation and lie a lot, and I’m sure he’ll let us by. And then we can spend the voyage doing whatever we want, walking around like free ponies!”

“And then Trixie can go back to bed?”

“If she likes, yes.”

Finding many excuses to stay in their stateroom just a little longer, they didn’t actually go looking for Fancypants until the ship had disembarked four hours later, finding the blue-maned unicorn at a billiards table on a lower deck.

“What ho, Fancypants! What a surprise to see you here!” Flim called, smiling like an entire love-in.

The unicorn with three crowns on his flank eyed them with a neutral expression, magically setting down his billiard cue.

“Now, we know we’re a little bit arrears on our contract with you…” Flam began.

“But surely a generous stallion like yourself can afford us a little more time?” Trixie finished, nearly purring.

Fancypants blinked. “A little more time, yes, I suppose.”

“Wonderful! Are…are you going to insist on the penalty provisions, or can we still render services?”

There was another moment of hesitation. Three unicorns eagerly awaited the answer of one.

“I’ll be honest with you, little ponies, I’ve entirely forgotten about the whole matter. Why don’t you just consider the contract dissolved and the debt forgiven, and we’ll just call the whole thing off?”

The three stared for a moment.

“Well, I, I suppose that would be fine…wonderful, really….” Flim stammered.

“Very good.” Fancypants raised his cue again to line up his shot, and Trixie and the brothers took that as their cue to leave.

They made sure there was a good solid deck of ship between them and Fancypants before they spoke again.

“Well, buck,” Trixie muttered, and the brothers nodded, of one mind.

“Either the head of the largest trading company in Equestria managed to forget about a hundred-thousand bit contract that he personally arranged….” Flam began.

“Or ‘Fancypants’ is the changeling spy,” Flim continued.

“Argh!” Flam groaned. “Could this trip get any more complicated?”

Trixie’s eyes widened. “Hide!” she hissed, not waiting for them to comply before shoving the brothers into a side corridor with her magic. She joined them an instant later.

“And I said, ‘darling, I was hoping to have a flutter there – and with spots that large, I’d be taken for a native!’”

Two unicorn mares laughed uproariously as they trotted down the halls. The other, catching her breath, replied “Oh, Rarity, you are always such a riot!”

Trixie and the Flimflams watched as the well-dressed mares continued out of sight, and then galloped quickly to their stateroom, locking the door behind them.

“You had to say it, brother. You just had to bucking say it! Now our probation officer’s daughter is on the boat, too.”

“That – that cannot be my fault!”

“It is! Because the universe hates you, and you keep reminding it that you exist!”

“So much for relaxing,” Trixie grumbled, as she looked through her luggage.

“What are you saying, old girl? Now we have no choice but to hide here!”

Trixie turned back to the bickering brothers. “It is common gossip in Ponyville that Fancypants is dating Rarity. That they are both on board a ship in Manehattan, over a thousand miles from their homes, supports this. A changeling has replaced Fancypants. The changeling is very likely feeding off of Rarity’s love. Now, finish this thought, foals: ‘A changeling spy who evaded the Royal Guard took the place of a major unicorn captain of industry and fed off the love of one of the Elements of Harmony. Undetected by anypony aboard the vessel, the spy then proceeded to….’”

The twins stared in horror.

“Well, boys? Is the next part of the story something pleasant?”

“…the spy was redeemed by the love of somepony so pure?” Flam offered.

“Ah, yes. Of course changelings can’t abide purity in their food. That’s how the invasion of Canterlot was so easily thwarted, and why Princess Celestia had no difficulty stopping the changeling queen. They barely even needed Twilight Sparkle or her sister-in-law, Princess Whatever.”

“Cadence.”

“Gesundheit.”

“Well.” Flam cleared his throat. “What can we do about it? Do we know a spell to beat a changeling disguise? And by we, I mean Trixie, because I know Flim and I don’t. I could give it a wicked hangover, though.”

“No. Barely even can beat mundane disguises. Would like to know how the Night Guard did, earlier.” Trixie stamped her hoof on the carpet irritably. “We need to figure out what it’s up to.”

“We also need to stop it from feeding on Rarity. I’m sure that won’t starve it, but every bit of love we can keep it from siphoning is less that it can use for whatever dastardly deed it’s planning.”

Flim mused on this point. “Sounds like we need two teams, then. Flam and I will go undercover and distract Rarity – she’s sure to want to wander the ship, and enjoy the attention of interesting ponies, no matter how badly not-Fancypants would encourage her to retire to their stateroom. Trixie should shadow not-Fancypants and find out what he’s up to.”

Trixie raised a brow. “And why can’t Trixie be undercover?”

“Because Trixie can’t reliably use the first person singular without drugging herself.”

“…point.” She glared. “Trixie still finds it suspicious that your reasoning makes it your job to flirt with Rarity in disguise and Trixie’s job to sneak around the airship stalking a master spy.”

“Sorry, old girl,” Flim said, while getting out more mane and coat dye from his luggage. “See a speech therapist if you must.” He paused for a moment, noticing the audibly shocked silence from his brother and his old friend behind his back, and hung his head in regret. “I…didn’t mean it like that, old girl, I really didn’t.”

“F - forget it, just forget it!” she stammered, her voice choked with outrage and humiliation.

“It’s okay, Trixie, it’s okay,” Flam said, hugging her. “We love you the way you are. Flim was just having a Flim moment.” Flam shot his brother a nasty look as he turned around, and then sighed, his expression leveling out. “Now, everypony needs to settle down. It’s a long way still to Old Donado – well, probably, we don’t actually know exactly where it is yet, but you know what I mean – and if we’re going to get through this, we’ve got to stay on the same team.”

“Right,” said Trixie, drying her eyes on Flam’s vest. “And right now, that means stopping a changeling spy.”

Promise Sparrow, four year veteran of Whinny Star Lines, first class steward, hated everypony.

There occasionally appeared to be exceptions, but those always turned out to be something else layered on top of hate, rather than an alternative to it. For instance, he found in some ponies kindred spirits – and he hated them too, because they reminded him of himself. Other ponies he found useful or helpful – and he hated them, for enabling somepony like him to exist in the world. He hated ponies that went along with the system, for being sheep, and ponies that bucked the system, for getting in the way of his smoothly ordered plans. He hated stallions because they were competition and mares because they never showed interest in him. Earth ponies, because using their mouths all the time meant they were unhygienic; pegasus ponies, because feathers were annoying to clean; his fellow unicorns, because they never bothered to understand anypony else’s problems.

And while he respected the two orange-coated unicorn stallion brothers in sharp suits that were currently patronizing the bar, leaving fat but not insulting tips, and being the center of attention among the upper class twits it was his privilege to serve, he hated them particularly fiercely. Aside from the fact that they were blatantly nouveau riche, he wasn’t yet certain why, but he knew a reason would come to him. One always did.

He kept polishing the bar while waiting for his answer.

“I must say,” began the mustachioed brother, “traveling with this level of sophistication – both in facilities and in company – ” with the latter his gaze lingered just long enough on a certain national heroine to be significant – “is a privilege harder and harder to come by these days. Wouldn’t you agree, Boreal?”

“Quite, Austral, quite.”

Most likely, Sparrow decided, they had lower class roots – their long suit coats completely obscured their cutie marks. Servants and soldiers and officers would do such a thing as part of their uniforms, but for civilians to do so would imply some level of embarrassment over whatever they once had been. This annoyed and amused him at once – the brothers were lying to him, which he hated, and lying to the others, which he enjoyed.

“Oh? And how do you usually travel, good sirs?” The old money unicorns were letting Rarity take the lead, as far as Sparrow could tell – while the brothers had a way of seizing attention, most of their audience seemed a bit hesitant, still weighing the kind of company the brothers were.

“Mountain caravan, if you can believe – far too much business in the Alpacalachians of late. It would be frightfully more convenient if those ancient relics could turn up somewhere on Whinny Star’s service routes now and again – but no, always in the middle of nowhere.”

“And, sure, the llamas are amusing enough company, if rustic to the extreme, but try – just try,” the one calling himself Boreal cut in, “getting a creature with such thick wool to understand one’s need for a proper tailor.” He gave an exaggerated shudder, and the others, sensing that a joke had been told, laughed.

The odd thing, Trixie thought, is that not-Fancypants hadn’t even tried reclaiming the center of attention, either of the elites in general or of Rarity in particular. The best case, she thought, was that the spy was merely adapting to an undesirable situation; the worst case was that, by distracting the attention of those most likely to notice his strange behavior, Trixie and the brothers were playing right into the spy’s hole-ridden hooves.

For now, he had retired to his stateroom, but this did not much deter Trixie’s surveillance; drilling a hole through a wall had been her first step, before the brothers had even arrived in the ship’s parlor to steal the spotlight.

Sadly, the spy wasn’t doing anything so obvious as changing back to normal once out of sight, but he was up to…something, Trixie couldn’t tell quite what, only that it involved several different pieces of luggage and the stateroom’s sink.

She stopped, pulling her head back, and looked both directions down the hallway. If caught, there would be no explaining this. But there was no ready sign of the staff, and she leaned closer again. Something in the sink was bubbling – and in fluorescent colors, at that.

She muttered softly. “A potion, then? But for whom, doing what?”

Another employee of Whinny Star, whom Sparrow hated, sidled up next to him behind the bar.

“Well, Miss Orion?” Just because he hated the silver mare didn’t mean she didn’t have her uses.

“They’re not on the manifest, of course.”

“I thought not,” he replied, eying the bottles under the bar and wondering which would be the most suitable instrument of his wrath.

“But the fellows who they most obviously really are – well, they’re our sort.”

“You jest. They stink of new money.”

“They’re not even that. They’re not Whinny Star’s sort. They’re our sort.”

“Oh. Oh.” Sparrow smiled. “How…interesting.”

“And how is the capital these days?” ‘Boreal’ asked, while suspending a freshly-emptied glass with his magic. “Always meaning to take the time to actually see some of somepony else’s museum pieces, but, well, our list of obligations is longer than that of Photo Finish’s faux pas last autumn. Ah, my gratitude good sir, my gratitude,” he said, as his glass was filled. He took a long, satisfied swig, and smiled.

Rarity gave half a smile. “Why, good sir, I wouldn’t have taken a gentleman as sophisticated as yourself for a drinker of cider.” The old money stared in something in the same kind, though not quite the same degree, as horror.

‘Boreal’ looked down at his glass. No wonder it went down so much easier than the first four rounds. He looked back up and gave a smile and a shrug. “And I wouldn’t have taken a firm as illustrious as Whinny Star as a server of cider. Seems we’ve all learned something regrettable about ourselves today.”

Not-Fancypants was out of the stateroom now, and Trixie was following – cautiously, an intersection behind. She ducked behind another corner, nearly spotted, when he turned aft instead of fore, as she would have guessed – making his way to the galley, she realized, after the fact. She gulped, and steeled her courage – this was the part of the story where things were likely to get unpleasant.

Rounding the corner again, she didn’t precisely follow not-Fancypants – figuring on the galley as the only place he was likely to be going, she thought a shortcut might be a better idea. Of course, it would require passing through the crew-only corridor, but the odds of being intercepted by one of the crew in this short distance were –

“Excuse me, Miss? Are you lost?”

She sighed, got over it, turned, and smiled brightly. “Why, yes. The chef? Trixie must inform him of certain dietary requirements for tonight’s dinner.”

The pegasus colt in the Whinny Star uniform blinked. “Oh, I can relay that for you, Miss.”

“Oh, excellent! Please tell him that Trixie is unfortunately afflicted with anatidaephobia, triskaidekaphilia, and sucrose-dentia. Surely the implications for the meal are most obvious.”

“Hold on – ‘anna today what?’”

“Oh, my. Can you remember all that? Or perhaps write it down?”

“Erm…” the pegasus looked around helplessly for a pen.

“…perhaps Trixie should just take care of it herself?”

The colt laughed nervously. “I’m sorry, that would probably be for the best, Miss. The galley is right down that way, you’ll find the chef there.”

Trixie smiled and winked and trotted away, and the colt felt a little weak in the knees, and that was that – she came near the kitchen doors. She pulled herself up on her hooves and peered through the glass – there was the chef, talking to not-Fancypants.

And there was not-Fancypants, hitting the chef in the head with a spell. The victim staggered backwards, his eyes twirling in their sockets, before hitting the deck. Trixie dropped beneath the glass and gulped, hoping she wasn’t seen.

She listened, trying to quiet the beating of her heart.

The galley door she wasn’t hiding behind swung open. Quickly she summoned a surge of magic to her defense, even as she saw the glow of a magic attack coming.

“Gentlecolts, ladies – dinner is served.”

“Pity that not everypony is here,” said a pony in a fancy chef’s hat, as the Whinny Star stewards set out the dishes. “I swear to you, the plum sauce is to die for.”

Trixie’s world came back into view, but not fully into focus – her vision was still blurred, and her head still sore. It only took a moment’s consulting of her inner ear to determine why – she was hanging upside down. “Ooogh….”

“Oh, jolly good, you’re finally awake!”

Trixie couldn’t yet focus on the voice’s source, but could guess well enough. “Say something only the real Fancypants would say.” She tugged her legs, trying to figure out what was hanging her. A quad of leg irons, it felt like, suspended from the ceiling.

“Well, you certainly wowed them at the Roan Palace with the saxophone. When did you think your band would get around to actually fulfilling your contract?”

Trixie started to nod in satisfaction, then stopped, feeling sick from the blood in her head. “That’ll do. When did the changeling jump you?”

“About a moment after I set down my luggage, I’m afraid. And you didn’t answer my question.”

“Trixie has no idea when or how to make the Flimflam brothers honor their promises.”

“Well, you certainly sound the real deal yourself.”

She finally was able to force all of her senses to cooperate, and peered around at her surroundings. They were regrettably familiar-looking. “Are we in steerage?”

“Is that what this place is called? Well, then, I suppose so. Not a lot of traffic down here. You’re my first new guest in hours. Not even anypony to bring you down here – just a pop and sparkle, and there you were, hanging from the ceiling like me.”

Trixie stared intently at the leg irons, while speaking. “The changeling was making a potion with the contents of your luggage. Or the luggage in your stateroom, anyway. And trying to add that potion to the dinner. Any ideas?”

“Nothing in my luggage that would do much, I’m afraid. The spy must have brought his own.”

“Hmmph.” Trixie found the locks on the irons, and began probing them magically. The locks weren’t simple, but neither were they warded, and with just a magical turn and twist and a little pressure on the pins – she hit the ground, not quite cat-like, certainly not on all fours. “Ooof.”

“Well, I say. Spiffing that you can do that, dear filly. Is escape artistry part of your act?”

In truth, Trixie had long found that escape artistry was not a worthwhile performance, since it wasn’t much to watch and, paradoxically, earth ponies were the least impressed by it, since they tended to assume every unicorn knew how to open locks magically rather than it being a fairly uncommon and difficult talent.

In further truth, she learned escape artistry as a filly, when Flim and Flam would prank her by locking her in dark rooms in the corners of the orphanage – which would have indicted them as thoroughly awful ponies, except that they were only getting their just desserts back from the time Trixie forced them to eat rocks while everypony watched. Which would have in turned raised further questions about who started the cycle of childish revenge –

“Yes, it is.”

Say what one must about honesty and harmony, lies could be very convenient.

Now right-side up, she steadied herself and let her blood balance itself out a bit before working on Fancypants’ locks. These were even faster, and to her annoyance, he was able to actually catch himself, falling a bit more gracefully.

“Well, I rather suppose we need to save the day now, hmm? Quite exciting, I think – always envied Miss Rarity those opportunities.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Stay quiet, stay behind Trixie, and don’t do anything stupid.”

And with another surge through the tumblers at the door to their cell, they stepped out into a silent, shadow-wrought, ship.

The Six-Hundred-Sixty Length High Club (Part Two)

“I blame you, brother.”

Trixie dragged herself a few inches forward on the wet sand with her hooves, and coughed. “Personally, Trixie blames all stallions.”

Two unicorns crept up the stairs, listening intently. The deck onto which they emerged was dark, quiet, empty.

“I say, it felt like we were down there for months. I thought you knew your way around steerage?”

“Apparently not Whinny Star steerage,” Trixie muttered back at Fancypants. Any edge on the spy she had hoped to gain by escaping the leg irons had probably been thwarted by the sheer maze that had been the underbelly of the ship. “And at least Trixie was aware of the existence of steerage. You’d have trot right out a cargo hatch and never been the wiser.”

“Was only meaning to ask, young filly, not to demean. Where is everypony?”

Halfway from aft to fore through this deck of the ship, through quite a few crew-only corridors, and not a soul had appeared to challenge them.

“Do…do you think that he killed everypony? But why leave us alive, then?”

Trixie silenced the stallion with a ‘shh’, and put her ear up to a wall. They had arrived in a block of staterooms, and she thought she heard something over the ambient noise of the ship’s passage through the night sky.

After a long moment in which she realized what she was hearing, a blush overtook her face, and she pulled away from the wall.

“Well?”

“The good news is that at least two ponies in there are quite alive.”

“Implying there is bad news?”

“Those ponies would be quite unwilling to stop and answer any questions.”

He nodded, picking up on the innuendo. “If two are alive, more may be.”

Five minutes later, they met back up, having listened at every door on the deck.

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

Trixie’s eyes widened. “The dinner service…the potion.”

“Miss Rarity…”

“Flim and Flam…”

A wave of anger overtook them both simultaneously, as they advanced on each other, accusatory growls overlapping.

“They had better not take advantage of her – ”

“If she were to seduce them then so help Trixie – ”

Eyeball to eyeball, they glared for a long moment.

“This…blast, this is just what the changeling wants, isn’t it? To sow discord. Apologies, dear filly; we must continue to work together if we are to save the day.”

“Our rooms are on the next deck. We might as well…”

Fancypants nodded in response, and they continued to tread across the floor. Now that they knew what some of the ship’s ambient noises in fact were, things did not seem so quiet as before – no one was talking, no, but ponies could make noises other than by speaking, and once one accounted for muffling by the ship’s walls, suddenly the ship actually seemed, in fact, disconcertingly noisy.

Hoof by hoof, they advanced towards Fancypants’ stateroom. Perhaps some evidence of the spy’s plan could be found there –

“Did you say something?”

“What?”

Eyes scanning left, right, and center, they neglected to look up.

With a whomph, Fancypants let out a squeak of a grunt as four sharp hooves drove his body and face into the deck. Trixie had barely time to jump in surprise before the figure in a midnight blue ninja suit clobbered Fancypants twice more in the head with each of her forehooves.

“I’ll destroy you!” Rarity cried, before Trixie slammed against the other mare, pushing her against the wall, trying to pin her with her forelegs. The two struggled against each other. “You take the face of my beau, and then use it to seduce her? I’ll make an end to you, changeling!”

“Rarity!” Trixie yelled. “He’s the real one!”

The alabaster mare calmed for a moment. “Oh. Oh, well - ” Trixie saw the rage reassert itself in time to push back and keep Rarity pinned. “ – cheating, unfaithful – ”

“Rarity! Rarity! Trixie is not interested in a rich playboy! There is nothing going on!”

She calmed down again. Then she screwed her face in confusion. “How would you characterize the Flimflams, then?”

“Poor playboys – oh, shut up. The changeling jumped us, and we’ve been out since before dinner. What’s been going on?”

Rarity gestured, and Trixie relented with her grip, allowing the mares to get back on all fours while Fancypants continued to groan and rub his head.

“Dinner was what you’d call an average affair, not particularly haute cuisine, but shortly afterwards most of the passengers and officers dashed off to secluded areas. Some time later, probably after the low-level crew had leftovers, the rest of the crew too, disappeared. Only I was unaffected.”

Trixie glared. “Why?”

“It was probably in the plum sauce. I was wearing a very fine ensemble, the product of my own hooves, and so I could not bear to risk staining it. Everypony else partook of the sauce, and everypony else seemed affected.”

“And the brothers?” she asked, as the two mares helped Fancypants to his hooves, using what little magic they had that might serve to straighten his senses.

“Flim and Flam?”

“…they were supposed to be in disguise.”

“It wasn’t a terribly good one, dear. But I let them carry on because I was curious to see where they were going with it. In any event…” Rarity gestured with a hoof down the hallway. “It affected them, I believe, differently.”

Trixie peered, noting the long line of fresh stain on the wall and carpets – stains the staff had been too distracted to see to cleaning. “Damn foals forgot that they’re allergic to plums.”

She tested the handle, and then rapped on the door of the stateroom she shared with the brothers. Flim’s weak voice called back: “Who…ergh…who is it?”

“Trixie. Open the door.”

There was a hesitation, and then a reply: “Listen, old girl, whatever you’re feeling right now, it’s – it’s not real, it’s what – ”

“Trixie is not under the influence of the changeling’s potion, foals. Open the damn door, before Trixie adds ‘new lock’ to our end-of-voyage bill.”

The three outside listened to somepony inside stagger towards the door, and after a minute, it swung open, Flam’s eyes rolling in their sockets and his grip barely able to hold himself up off the floor by hanging onto the handle.

“Pretty sure we’re already getting billed, old girl.”

The unicorns of some greater dignity stared in horror, while Trixie merely shook her head in disgust.

“How could you forget you were allergic to plums?”

“How did you remember?”

“How could Trixie forget how you two ruined her tenth birthday party!”

Fancypants’ question was, while equally unhelpful, more on-point for the uninformed observer. “How could anypony get vomit inside a light fixture?”

Flim coughed, from his position on the far side of the stateroom, perched over a bucket. “Fancypants, good sir.” He heaved. “Do we still owe you money?”

“…rather a lot of it, but, ah, I’ll wait for you to clean up a bit. I prefer my coinage with a bit less in the way of emesis on it.”

“Oh, we don’t have the money.” Flim stood, weakly. “Just wanted to make sure you were the real Fancypants.”

“…it’s that out of character for me to forgive a debt?”

“Just to forget one.”

A few minutes more passed, as with the aid of some magic they settled the brothers’ stomachs and with the aid of some water they cleaned the brothers’ faces of remaining disguise and vomit. Fancypants proved a surprisingly adroit hoof at the task, but on reflection, the brothers realized this made sense, too: even stallions of wealth and taste sometimes went to those sort of parties.

“Well, the five of us ought to be able to tackle one changeling, don’t you think?”

Everypony turned to look at Rarity for confirmation. She shrugged. “The girls and I tackled a hundred on our own during the invasion. But…well, none of you are Twilight Sparkle. Or Rainbow Dash. Or Applejack. Or even Pinkie Pie.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “We’re also not Fluttershy.”

“That’s…well, that’s not usually a terrific disadvantage. But we ought to be able to manage a simple melee with only the one of them, yes. Shall we go save the day?”

An instinct for narrative thread, more than any actual evidence, led them to the bridge of the ship, where a single pony worked the helm – a pony still dressed as a chef. Fancypants cleared his throat, and the pony turned around, startled. His eyes moved quickly across the five unicorns staring him down.

Flam spoke first. “Well, since you’ve beaten us, why not tell us your plan?”

The pony blinked. “What.”

“You’ve clearly bested us, and have us at your mercy; don’t force us to die without knowing what was going on here.”

“I – I haven’t beaten you! You outnumber me!”

Flim laughed. “Yes, but we’re simple unicorns of no particular talent, while you are a master changeling spy. Anypony can see the chips fall.”

Rarity nodded sagely. “Flim is correct. One must face death with a bit of dignity, but still the curiosity ravages. For do changelings not feed on love? Lust is not quite the same thing, is it?”

The pony faded into a changeling, black and marked with holes and bearing both horn and wings, keeping his back to the wheel. “Love is meat, lust is sugar. Sometimes easier to come by, good for a quick burst of energy, but not healthy for a long-term food supply.” He cast an eye to his flanks, as the five unicorns began to spread out around him.

Flam raised a brow. “And what do you need all this energy for?”

“The RMS Moon’s Proud Glow is going to make a very special delivery to the Griffon Kingdom.”

Fancypants frowned. “You’re going to start a war?”

“War increases urgency. Beings act on their feelings faster, more decisively. And then separation between soldiers and families makes many opportunities of its own – look, you’re plainly not beaten – beaten ponies don’t surround the victor!”

“Well, if you insist,” Rarity said, and then pounced, the first in the dog pile.

Five wrestled with one, and then, at the end, two wearing Trixie’s face were pulled up.

“…dammit.” Flam rubbed his face with his hoof. “Trixie, how do you feel about Twilight Sparkle?”

One Trixie froze.

The other scowled. “That pathetic little foal! I am ten times the magician she – ”

Flim gave a savage buck, slamming her into a control console, limbs entangled with levers and rods.

She moaned, tears streaming down her face. “Flim…how could you…”

“Wrong answer, changeling! Trixie has gotten over her Twilight issues. Tie it down.”

Fancypants and Rarity stepped forward, a length of rope magically suspended.

“Please, Flim, no, don’t do this – I was just saying what you needed to hear, I was just thinking of what would prove to you the fastest, please, Flim – ” She writhed, as the unicorns wove rope and tied her securely. “Please, Flim, I…I love you – ”

A savage punch from his foreleg left her head lolling.

Flim spat. “Pronoun trouble.”

Rarity stared for a moment. “I must confess as to being a bit surprised you found it that easy to strike somepony wearing her face.”

Flam laughed. “Are you kidding? After the time she held our heads down and made us eat rocks while the whole orphanage watched?”

The real Trixie, for her part, was already at another set of consoles, reading the instruments, paying no more heed to her double. “He said he was going to deliver us to the Griffon Kingdom? That’s strange – if we were on this heading, then that would mean – ”

Fireworks exploded outside the bridge’s windows, sending in a torrent of shattered glass.

“ – that we were already almost there.”

“ATTENTION UNIDENTIFIED AIRCRAFT! YOU ARE NOW IN GRIFFON AIRSPACE! YOU SHALL TURN BACK AT ONCE, OR FACE DESTRUCTION!” The voice boomed in from all sides, in a way that suggested magical transmission, rather than somepony – or some griffon – being nearby with a megaphone.

“Well, horse apples,” Flam said, setting himself on the helm. “Let’s get to the turning-back-at-once bit, shall we?” His hooves rolled the wheel hard right.

Nothing happened.

He rolled the wheel hard left.

Nothing happened.

He looked back to the others, helplessly. “The rudder chain’s been severed.”

“So what now?” Trixie asked.

Fancypants shook his head. “We die, dear filly. That’s all there is to it.” His dour pronouncement attracted four stares. “Well, it’s not so bad, is it? We’ll all have time to say our goodbyes, and everypony else on the ship will have been, ah, ‘getting some’, for the past few hours – there are worse ways to make one’s exit.”

His words hung in the air.

“Yeah, screw that,” Flim said, grabbing a few levers at the console. “Rarity, disable those safeties over by where you’re standing. We’re going to drop below their sensor altitude and avoid the next barrage.”

The alabaster unicorn pulled a pair of levers. “And how shall we accomplish that?”

“By doing something remarkably stupid.”

One could question why an airship would even have a lever marked “emergency gasbag disengage”, there being almost no circumstances in which using it was a good idea. But Flim’s was not to reason why, his was to do and to die – or to live, as was here his objective.

Five ponies on the bridge, and a hundred-odd more on the other decks, felt a lurch in their stomachs as the Moon’s Proud Glow suddenly felt the cruel whip of that most harsh mistress, gravity.

Pierre Grande, Commandant de l'Armée de l'Air des Uni Griffon, peered at the large map table in front of him with a predator’s eye, while underlings pushed around tokens representing sensor contacts with long sticks.

“Commandant,” one of his flyers reported over a magical communicator, “we have examined Sector 49. It is the wreckage of an Equestrian civilian airship.”

The commandant spat. “Merde! We have downed a pony vessel? With warning shots?”

“It appears so, Commandant. There are many survivors amongst the wreck.”

“Well, help them, imbecile! We shall send more assistance at once!” He waved a talon at his underlings, who began contacting other patrols. “A war with Celestia is not to start on my watch!”

Far from the rescue operation, carried far on their particular piece of driftwood by their position on the ship, five particular unicorn ponies pulled themselves onto cold wet sandy shores.

“I blame you, brother.”

Trixie dragged herself a few inches forward on the wet sand with her hooves, and coughed. “Personally, Trixie blames all stallions.”

Rarity, too, pulled herself along, trying to get her mud-glommed coat out of the seawater. “Trixie has the right of it. If somepony hadn’t been all manly and stoic and provoked somepony else….”

“Then we would’ve been hit by griffon artillery and died.”

“They would’ve done a fly-by first, to see who we were! We could’ve flagged them down, responded, advised them of our troubles!”

Flam, the furthest up on the beach, turned himself and let the sun dry him for a bit. “Would have been wonderful to have heard some of those ideas then.”

A few more minutes of bickering, gasping, and heaving, and eventually all five were standing, somewhat dry, on the beach.

“To get the obvious question out of the way,” Fancypants started, “where are we? Island?”

Flim wrung the last of the water out of his hat, and put it back on his head, resolutely. “We fan out, walk for a bit, and meet back here in…shall we say half an hour? One along each direction on the shore, the rest of us in straight lines inland? We’ll get the lay of the land, and – ”

Ten minutes later, all five had met up again – two along the shore coming at each other, three along the island.

“It’s not a terribly large island, is it?”

They sat, and mused.

“I found some luggage,” Fancypants offered helpfully. “A lot, actually, think some of it is yours.”

“Oh,” Flim replied, distractedly. “Good.”

“There are trees,” Rarity said, “and…a natural spring, for water, that is a lucky thing. It’ll be like one of those survival stories.”

“These are all evergreen trees,” Trixie observed. “None of these bear fruit or berries worth the eating.”

Rarity nodded, with determination. “Well, then we had best be about it and resort to cannibalism now, while the eating is still good. It makes most sense to eat one of the Flimflam brothers – being twins they offer less in the way of genetic diversity and are therefore redundant. Trixie, since you will be mating with the survivor, the decision of which one we shall eat is up to you.”

Everypony stared in horror.

The alabaster unicorn rolled her eyes. “Or, you know, we could eat the grass. I know it’s not civilized, but really now. This is survival, we can lower ourselves to earth pony standards for a bit.”

“Oh. Right.” Flim chuckled.

Over a long day, they chopped wood with magically wielded sharp stones, gathered material for a fire, collected water in magically-woven watertight baskets, and built a camp.

Sitting down at the fire come the evening, each had the same question for each other: “Okay, I know why I can do this, but how are you doing this?” (Trixie of course substituted out certain pronouns.)

“A fellow can’t go on safari with important clients?” was Fancypants’ explanation.

“Trixie knows camping and squatting quite well, thank you.”

“When you tag along with a bachelor herd going overland, you pull your weight.”

Eyes turned to Rarity.

“I read a lot of adventure stories.”

“No offense, Rarity,” Flim started, and Flam knew that offense was to follow, “but I had a picture of you as the sort who would insist on a two-story floral-print tent on a camp-out.”

She smiled. “Of course. If it all possible, and especially if it were for pleasure, a lady should insist on the best. But our goal now is to survive. When Rainbow Dash stranded Pinkie Pie and me in the desert and left the two of us to find our way back to civilization on a handcar, I did not quibble about coordination.”

Flam scratched the top of his head, while they waited for the pot of herbs to brew into some kind of drink on the fire. “Wait…that happened? But I thought she was…Rainbow Dash is ‘loyalty’, right?”

“That is the title Twilight Sparkle gave her, yes, after knowing her for less than two days. I would have disputed that, but the universe seemed to take Twilight’s side, seeing as how she made it work, so …bravo to her insight, I suppose.”

The pot whistled, and Fancypants lifted it with his magic, pouring it into tea cups they had found in a piece of lost luggage.

“So when do you suppose we will be rescued?” he asked, as he passed around the herbal brew.

On the one hoof, they agreed, there had been a shipwreck, and therefore patrols would be out looking for survivors. On the other hoof, though, they would be much quicker to assume that any missing souls had perished, unless they were somehow led to this island.

“So it’s more a question of who has incentive to look extra hard for us. I’d think we’re fine there,” Flam said, “seeing as we have a major corporate figure and one of the Elements of Harmony here.”

Rarity and Fancypants looked at each other, and then back at Flam, guiltily.

“Well…”

“I did not notify my company of this trip.”

“And I didn’t tell my friends.”

Trixie stared. “You were eloping?”

“What? No! It was just a little weekend getaway – no need to bother my friends with the details….”

“You were eloping!”

“We were not eloping,” Fancypants said, sternly. “Do not carried away.”

“You shared a stateroom!”

“As did you, with two stallions.”

“Yes, but that’s different. We’re broke.”

Flam waved it all aside. “So you’re saying that your friends and your company don’t realize you’re missing, and don’t know where to start looking for you? Until somepony finds the passenger manifest, sees that you aren’t among the recovered survivors, and puts two and two together?”

“And then assumes we perished.”

They mulled on this.

“Well,” Rarity asked, “is anypony looking for you three?”

Flim nodded with pride. “Of course! We have a long list of ponies looking for us. We make enemies in every town we visit, just for this purpose.”

Fancypants frowned. “Wouldn’t most of them also just assume you died, and be happy with that?”

“Not our lawyer! We owe him far too much money for the grave to keep him at bay.”

“Your lawyer.”

“Right, the brown earth pony who thinks he’s dating Twilight Sparkle.”

“He does?” Rarity looked skeptical. “Oh, my, he’s in for some disappointment.”

“That is his lot in life, but between him looking for us, and Twilight looking for you, we might just get rescued yet.”

“Has he considered Applejack instead?”

Flim winced. “I try not to think about his love life except where it directly advances my interests. But knowing him, he probably has.”

A day passed, and then another, and then ten more.

“I suppose that’s it, then,” Rarity sighed, playing tic-tac-toe against herself in the dust, trying to work out a winning strategy. “Your lawyer realized there are more important things than money, and Twilight wrote a very moving letter to the Princess about how one should deal with the loss of a treasured friend. And the Princess is quietly moving to find a replacement Element of Generosity. Shouldn’t be hard – if I qualify, most ponies could. Now, perhaps if the Element were of Fabulosity….”

“Not to keep harping upon the whole ‘we’re going to die’ thing,” Fancypants added, “but I’ve been estimating the rate at which we deplete the forage and the rate at which it regrows. This island really is much too small; we’ll be out of food in a month.”

Trixie stared into space. “So…the decision of whom to eat…that falls to Trixie after all, yes?”

“No,” Flim said.

“…because you’re going to offer yourself as the sacrifice?”

“What? No!” Flim shuddered. “I have a plan. It’s a…a very last-resort plan. Flam…walk with me, we need to talk this over.”

“You mean…?”

“Carriage Callow’s last lesson, Flam. The Elder Con.”

The brothers nodded solemnly, and trotted away from the evening’s campfire.

Rarity and Fancypants regarded Trixie with curiosity.

“What was that about?”

“You’re sure about this, Flim?”

“If anypony can make this work…this might be all that’s left to try.”

Trixie frowned. “…don’t know. Carriage Callow spent more time with the boys than with the girls.”

“Some sort of secret unicorn magic? But why would they keep it under their hats until now?”

“You know you might not come back from this.”

“If I don’t, you can date Trixie.”

“…don’t be like that.”

“Just do it, Flam. Now.”

“We’ve been in tight spots before. Trixie can’t see what they would only try…oh no. Oh no no no no!”

Flam trotted back towards the clearing, and behind him was…Flim, but not Flim. Flim covered with pink coat dye taken from the recovered luggage, Flim with a wide manic grin on his face, Flim bouncing with energy.

Flim with a squeaky voice.

“Hi! I’m Bubble Berry!”

The Last Lesson of Carriage Callow

“Flim! Flam! Get yo’ butts up here.”

The young Flimflam colts were not known for their obedience, but they still listened when certain ponies called for them. “Yes, Uncle Carriage!” They joined their mentor, an old blue unicorn with a gray mane, at a picnic table up on the roof of the Clover Home for Orphaned Unicorns. His magic carefully centered a knife, and then smoothly cored an apple. The brothers knew better than to rush the old stallion, especially when he was wielding sharp objects.

“Yo’ mom – she went back in front of Foal Protective Services, you know. Said she’d kicked her drinkin’ for good this time, ready to take you two back.” He sliced the apple, and gave the brothers two of the pieces, keeping the rest for himself.

Flam grumbled. “She just wants more aid money.”

“Now you shut yo’ mouth! I know she ain’t always been a good mom to you, but she is yo’ mom and she tryin’ real damn hard to make the family thing work. Tryin’ hard than most would, her position. FPS don’t usually give yo’ kids back after you lose ‘em three times. But they figurin’ on it, sincere as she been.”

Flim was as disgruntled as his brother. “Yeah, and?”

“That means you two goin’ away again. Now, yo’ mom tryin’ real hard for you to be a family, so I don’t think you ever comin’ back here – you near enough adults now anyway. But if you do, well, I don’t figure on bein’ here.”

“You’re leaving the orphanage, Uncle Carriage?”

“I’m leavin’ the livin’.”

“You’re dying? But you ain’t sick, are you?”

“Nah, I ain’t sick. I just a mean angry old cuss who lived too damn long and lived too damn hard for most of it.” He looked wistfully out over the rooftops of Canterlot.

“But Penny Wing’s got you on the clean living now, right?”

The old unicorn nodded, sadly. “Yeah, bless her heart, she does. She got my drinkin’ mostly under control, she got me to stop smokin’, and a few other vices I don’t even tell you two punks about, she stopped them too. But damage done, boys. My heart, liver, lungs, loins, gut, they all be ‘Too little too late you damn fool’ and I be all ‘I know, I know, I just wanted to not give scandal to all them foals’ and they be all ‘well and fine for yo’ soul but you still die soon’ and I be all ‘I know.’”

The boys stared for a while. “Sorry to hear that, Uncle Carriage.”

“Promise me, boys, that at least you drink in moderation.”

“We don’t drink at all, Uncle Carriage! We’re too young.”

“Don’t feed me a line, Flim! There be some ponies here who listen to Penny Wing and won’t ever drink, and good for them, but that ain’t you. You two already robbin’ my liquor cabinet. ‘course, it ain’t liquor you gettin’ most of the time, but that just ‘cuz I on to you for a while now. Drink a little when you need to be social, and drink when you happy – ‘cuz that ain’t a time that happen too often – but don’t drink when you sad or mad and don’t ever drink to get drunk. You read me, boys?”

“Yes, Uncle Carriage.” It was an admonition they would frequently feel bad about ignoring over the years.

“But I didn’t call yo’ butts up here to listen to an old stinker sob, though. I got one last thing I wanna teach you.”

Flim and Flam nodded eagerly. Uncle Carriage had taught them cards, had taught them smooth-talking, had taught them music and dance, had taught them how to win a lady’s heart (if not how to keep it) – lots of things.

“This ain’t no standard lesson, though. This lesson maybe you don’t want to learn. This a magic lesson.”

“Ain’t Penny Wing the one who teaches us magic?” Aside, of course, from the hangover cure.

“Yep. What I teach you, this a special kind of magic. And you learn to do magic my way, you ain’t ever be the best of the best at the normal kinds. And you ever get too good at the normal kinds, you ain’t ever learn my magic.”

Flim and Flam regarded each other – only the cutie marks and the start of some extra mane stubble on Flam’s muzzle distinguished them. They looked back at Carriage.

“Are we ever going to be the best of the best anyway, Uncle Carriage?”

“‘course you ain’t! You poor, you troublemakers, and you bright but you ain’t that bright.”

“So we don’t lose anything by hearing you out?”

“Maybe yes, maybe no.”

They considered this ambiguity. “Let’s hear it, Uncle Carriage.”

The elder smiled. “Now, look across the street, boys. You see all them pretty young fillies?”

They followed his gaze to a courtyard in front of a small library, an extension of some royal academy. It being lunch time, many of its students were picnicking on the grass – atop the grass, that is, not making a meal of the grass; these were not ponies recently acquainted of want. “Yes, Uncle Carriage.”

“Well, all them little fillies are studying real hard at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. They learnin’ all kinds of magic, and they gonna be real good at it, no mistake. But they ain’t gonna know everything. Y’know why?”

“No, Uncle Carriage.”

“‘course you don’t! If you did, I wouldn’t have to tell you now, would I? Well, they don’t know everything ‘cuz they learnin’ about magic the scientific way. Now, science is fine, don’t get me wrong, science does the job ninety-nine times in a hundred, science made us a whole lot of fine things that work real well, but there some things it just plain misses.”

The brothers nodded.

“Now, think on this. One of science’s real basic ideas – so basic they don’t even mention it, most of the time – is that you can’t break the rules of the universe. You see the problem?”

“No, Uncle Carriage. You can’t break any rules. That’s what makes them rules, ain’t it?”

“Nope. Think about rules for a minute. Alright, what happens if you out of bed after curfew?”

“Penny Wing whoops our butts with a big ol’ stick.”

“And what happens if you unsupervised in the fillies’ dorm?”

“Somepony screams bloody murder, and Penny Wing whoops us our butts with a big ol’ stick.”

“And what happens if you lay a hoof on my 959 Curricle without my say-so?”

“You whoop our butts with a big ol’ stick.”

“So you can break all these rules, only there be consequences, so you don’t – unless you think you won’t get caught, or maybe it worth it anyway.”

They nodded.

“Now, let’s talk about one of science’s ideas of a rule. What happens if you make a triangle on a chalkboard, and all three sides are exactly as long as each other, but the angles ain’t all exactly the same?”

Flim frowned, recalling his geometry lessons. “You – you can’t.”

“You can’t? But who whoops on your butt with a big ol’ stick if you do?”

“Nopony! You just – you just can’t do it!”

“But what if you really need to do it? What if it the only thing that’ll save a starvin’ little filly from dyin’ in the cold with a bundle of matchsticks?”

“It doesn’t matter whether it’s right or wrong, Uncle Carriage, you just can’t do it!”

“So science rules be different, huh?”

“…yeah, yeah they are.”

“And that where all them pretty little fillies across the street start from. And a damn good way of thinkin’ of things, too. But it ain’t the only way. And I’m gonna teach you another way: my way. Not everypony can handle thinkin’ of things ol’ Uncle Carriage’s way, ‘course, and even if they do, surer than Tartarus smells like warm dog piss most of ‘em can’t make it work for ‘em. But you boys…” He regarded them for a moment, and nodded, satisfied that his earlier assessments had been correct. “…you might just have it in you. Trot with me.”

Carriage got off the picnic bench, and started down the fire escape stairs – the brothers followed him, and soon they were in the streets.

“There a couple of things that all gotta come together to pull this off. So before you start goin’ ‘Uncle Carriage, you drunk again’, shut yo’ pie hole for a damn minute and let an old colt talk, you got that?”

“Yes, Uncle Carriage.”

“Now, here’s the first thing you’ve got to know. Reality ain’t quite like that. The rules don’t enforce themselves. There’s a…a spirit that infuses the whole damn universe. It be like, Princess Celestia, but writ large all through everyone and everything and everywhere. This spirit, it got a personality. It love us, mostly, and it get a laugh outta messin’ with us, but it also its job to enforce all the rules.”

“But it didn’t whoop on me with a big ol’ stick or nothing when I tried to make that triangle you were talking about, Uncle.”

“‘course it didn’t! It got more subtlety than that. Let’s talk rules again: what happens when you bite that filly Trixie’s ear off and smear her blood all over her dolls?”

“W – what? I would – I couldn’t ever do something like – ”

“‘course you can’t, ‘cuz you ain’t a psycho! It ain’t even a rule to you because it just ain’t somethin’ you’d ever do! But make no mistake, it is a rule, we’d all whoop on you with big ol’ sticks you ever did somethin’ like that. And that the way of the spirit of the universe – most its rules, it don’t even occur to you to break. Oh, you’re aware of them, and them fillies over there study them, but how do you break ‘em? If you ain’t well and truly crazy, it don’t even occur to you to try, or how to begin!”

“But somepony can break those rules?”

They trotted alongside the pegasus airfields, and for a few minutes in silence he had them watch the ponies coming for landings – usually just the ones with lots of cargo to carry; unladen pegasus ponies had less need for a long strip. A few of the ponies – such as sleeker mares glistening from flights through rainstorms – they stared at longer than others. Eventually, Carriage started speaking again.

“That spirit, it has personality. Most the time, it enforce rules. What happen if a pegasus try to fly? Most times, pegasus fly. What happen if you try to fly? You plant yo’ face in the mud, and we all laugh, ‘cuz you a prideful little unicorn punk who got what comin’ to him. And most earth ponies try, same thing. But about once a generation, the spirit decides to let one pony – it almost always earth pony, ‘cuz the spirit love earth ponies better than us, it only give us magic or wings ‘cuz it feel guilty about not lovin’ us so much as it love earth ponies – the spirit decides that it be really, really funny if that one pony get to break rules.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know who that pony is now. I knew one from then. Panda Moan, colt with black and white spots. He open my eyes to all this.”

“He could break rules?”

“He could fly. See, what he’d do is he’d trip over somethin’, ‘cuz he real clumsy, only he’d get distracted on the way down – usually a pretty mare, that his way – and start thinkin’ about somethin’ else other than fallin’, and then he’d miss the damn ground. And then he just be hoverin’ there, like it ain’t no thing, and then he starts swoopin’ and loop-de-hoopin’ like he a pegasus.”

“Because it was funny?”

“To the spirit, it was. I tried that the same way he did it, I got a mouth full of mud and I had it comin’. See, to the spirit, it was only funny ‘cuz he was doin’ it.”

Flam frowned. “So that’s this magic? Something only one earth pony in a generation can do? What good is that to us?”

“I told you, shut yo’ damn pie hole and let me get around to it. The first trick to my magic is knowin’ that they some ponies in the world who get to play by different rules. Big one is the earth pony like that – the earth pony the universe think it funny to let them break rules. They other kinds too, but you probably ain’t ever going to run into them other kinds, I don’t think.”

“You’re not drunk again, are you Uncle Carriage?”

“I’m comin’ to it! Now, here’s the next part. Blank canvas now, think about new things. Say you runnin’ a con. Now, gimme your thoughts here. If you pretendin’ to be somepony else, you believe you that pony?”

The brothers disagreed on this.

Flim argued first. “You can only make somepony really believe you are somepony if you really believe that you are that pony, Uncle.”

“You can’t ever lose sight of your goals, Uncle,” Flam argued back, “you’ve got to always remember what you really want out of the game, so that you can back out if things go screwy. And you don’t need ponies to ‘really’ believe you – just a little bit, enough to get what you need. Most ponies don’t pay that much attention anyway.”

“You both right, mostly. If you just hopin’ to stud with a pretty mare for the night, and she kinda interested too and just lookin’ for an excuse to say ‘yes’, you don’t have to believe all that hard. If you want somepony to give you money and you give ‘em nothing, you have to believe pretty hard. But there something out there that pay real, real close attention.”

Flim raised a brow. “The spirit of the universe?”

“Damn right. The spirit can be fooled, but it’s real hard, and you have to believe harder than anything – you have to know, harder than you know the sun’ll come up tomorrow, harder than you think you know yo’ name – you have to know in every fiber of you that you somepony else. And if you believe that hard, the spirit might just buy it.”

Flam shook his head. “It doesn’t matter how hard Trixie thinks she’s Daring Do, I know she ain’t Daring Do. She doesn’t even have the hat.”

“‘course you know, ‘cuz you ain’t a fool! But the spirit don’t see things the way you do. The spirit don’t use eyes, it don’t use ears – it reads into yo’ soul. And yo’ soul don’t wear a hat. So yeah, just believin’ hard, that ain’t good enough all by its lonesome to con ponies, because ponies look to all kinds of outer cues too, but the spirit pretty much just look inside. But it look real hard. You got to make your soul the very spittin’ image of that other soul.”

“And then what, Uncle Carriage?”

“And then the spirit think you somepony else. And that can be huge, if you know what you doin’.”

Flam looked skeptical. “You mean if I can make the spirit think that I’m Panda Moan, then the spirit will think that it’s funny to let me fly?”

“Yep. ‘cept Panda Moan dead, and the spirit know it, so you can’t pretend to be him anymore. You got to find the next earth pony that break rules. They somewhere out there – maybe they flyin’, maybe they spittin’ fire, maybe they steppin’ between shadows, I dunno. When one dies, the spirit makes another one, but I dunno if that means a new one born or a new one find his cutie mark in makin’ the spirit laugh its butt off.”

The look of skepticism on Flam’s face continued unabated. “So you’re teaching us this lesson now in case someday we find the new earth pony so we can then pretend to be him?”

“I teachin’ you this lesson now because you gone soon and I dead soon and I ain’t got time to wait to find the new one before this little bit of secret knowledge disappears forever. Ain’t a lot you other little punks I think can know this – oh, some worth it, more ‘n a few deserve it more than you two, but you what I got to work with in ‘can make it work.’”

They lingered in front of the gates of the Royal Palace, beholding the glory and splendor that was Canterlot Castle – through such bars and past such guards as they needed to peer through to do any beholding.

“Uncle,” Flim asked, brow furrowed, “What if we find that new pony, but there’s no way we can make ourselves believe we’re them?”

“My lesson ain’t done, Flim. Some unicorn magic goes into this, you know.”

“But what if they’re…well, a mare?”

Carriage stared into space, deep in thought. “That a good question, Flim. I guess I always thought of mares doin’ better at proper magic and colts doin’ better at wild magic, but maybe it ain’t always that way, come to think. Magic to change colt to mare or back, in the body and all, that be real damn hard – maybe no one but Princess Celestia do that, and even she don’t do that. But all we got to do is fool the spirit with the soul.” He muttered to himself, starting to trot again down the sidewalk of Canterlot’s main boulevard, and his pace had picked up.

“Yeah, yeah, that might work.”

“Uncle?”

“I gonna show you the details, boys, but souls? They songs, or near enough. They got melodies, rhythms, beats, harmony. You ever pretend on bein’ a mare, it like singing a mare’s song with stallion voice –ain’t sound quite right, least not outta you. I knew some ponies that maybe had colt bodies and mare souls, but that ain’t you two. But you improv a little, you shift the pitch, you put same song on new octave, one right for yo’ throat – and sudden it sound right, like that how it always meant to be. Maybe you ain’t quite original, but maybe you just as good.”

Flim nodded eagerly. “And that’ll fool the spirit?”

“Buck me if I know, boy. I ain’t even consider it ‘til you ask it. This wild magic, Flim, this secret magic. Now then.”

Carriage took a seat under a fragrant cherry tree, and then did Flim and Flam. They took in the breeze passing between tall buildings, and the scent wafting from a quiet garden in the cool of the day.

“I gonna teach you hear those songs, and I gonna teach you play ‘em back by ear. The day ever come you find that pony, maybe you play his song. You find her a mare, you gonna need another step, ‘cuz you gonna need to get her sheet music, and that trick all on you to figure. But meantime, I teach what I know, and we gonna practice ‘til Penny Wing come find us and tan my blue hide with a bluer streak for not havin’ you two ready for yo’ mom to pick up like I said I would. You got that?”

“Yes, Uncle Carriage!”

One earth pony and two unicorns trotted through rain-slicked streets while the pegasus ponies above arranged a spectacular downpour.

“…and you’re sure it’s her?”

“You gave us the last clue, old bean – Twilight Sparkle herself couldn’t explain what she does. Is it in Twilight’s nature to give up on understanding anything?”

Their lawyer sighed, as a passing carriage wheel sent up a muddy spray onto his vest. “No, it’s not. But if I’m going to help you shake down a pony who deals in black magic and forbidden artifacts so you can borrow, free of charge, an illegal magic mirror….”

“We’re certain it’s her.”

“Although we’re not certain this is going to work,” Flam added. Responding to his brother’s glare, he only could say “What? We aren’t. This is wild magic.”

“It should work,” Flim reassured their lawyer.

“Well, at least tell me this is all you two are going to need from me for this hare-brained scheme.”

“I would, but you’ve asked us time and again to stop lying to you.”

“Ah, Miss Pinkie Pie!” The market was closing as a drab earth pony trotted up to a fluorescent one. “On behalf of my clients, I’ve been asked to deliver a message.”

“He’s got her attention, right?”

“Right. She’s not even looking this way.” Flim turned back to the tall mirror they had positioned on the roof of an unsuspecting sofa merchant, and peered into its depths – swirling colors told him that the magic was working, but that it wasn’t just right yet. He frowned, and nudged one of the gems in the mirror’s frame with a tap of magic.

“Don’t!” Flam spat. “I’ve almost got them. You just worry about reading; I’ll worry about focus.”

“Oh, silly! You don’t have to lie to me. I know they’re only sorry because they got caught, and they only sent you to talk to me so they can scry on me with a magic mirror.”

The brown pony’s mustache drooped. “You…already know that? Then why aren’t you stopping them?”

“Oh, because they’ll need to have done it, some day. What I don’t know is…why are you helping them?” She tapped him on the muzzle with her hoof; her eyes accusatory, his ever-widening.

“What are they talking about down there?” Flim wondered aloud.

“Don’t know, don’t care; all that matters is that he got her to sit still for once.” Flam’s magic reached out and tapped all seven of the mirror’s gems at once, and he listened closely to the resonance. “Just a little more…there.”

Flim looked back into the mirror, and saw new swirls of colors, mostly in shades of rose and pink, and then he pushed himself to look deeper and deeper. There was a whole world here – the song, when made into something for the eyes, was a fractal, with no final level of detail that was sufficient – one needed first and foremost to grasp the pattern, the overarching truths that generated all that could follow.

She offered him a hankie, and he took it in hoof and dabbed his eyes. “You’re right. Until I’ve ever lived for myself, at least once, how can I ever be good enough for anypony, much less her?”

“That’s the spirit!”

“The day after the cider season, I’m leaving those two behind and going on an adventure!”

“Yes!”

“I’m going to the gates of Tartarus!”

Her smile weakened. “That’s…well…”

“And I’m going to buck Cerberus in the knees!”

“ – maybe a little too much spirit – ”

“And when all the Prison Lords of Tartarus stand arrayed against me, I’m going to say ‘send out the Devil’s Advocate, because I’m ready to take his overpaid flank to the cleaners!’”

“ – I’m not super-duper sure you’re totally getting the real spirit of this – ”

“Flim! Flim! Have you got it?”

He gasped, pulling back from the mirror, sweat pouring through his coat and mane, soaking into his hat. “I think so, brother. But….”

“I think she’s about to move – do you need to keep reading?”

“No, no,” Flim replied, doffing his hat and shaking it dry. “A thousand years in there couldn’t answer all my questions.”

No birds and few bugs lived on the island – only the wind through the trees, the waves on the none-too-distant shores, and the distant chatter of their fellow forsaken dabbed the vast canvas of silence, so they kept their voices low. “You know you might not come back from this.”

Mere hours of practice with Carriage Callow, and while Flam had never been very good at any of it, Flim had admitted that Pinkie’s song was orders of magnitude beyond the difficulty of anything that he had come close to mastering. He tried to laugh it off now: “If I don’t, you can date Trixie.”

His brother scowled. “…don’t be like that.”

Hesitation was of no more value, and he prodded him with his hoof. “Just do it, Flam. Now.”

It was possible to engage the song solo – that was how Carriage had learned to do it – but it was much easier with a unicorn partner. With the aid of magic, hypnosis could start a metronome, and a little stage costuming could give a few intro cues.

A small flash from Flam’s horn, and Flim found himself swan-diving into a rose-colored maelstrom.

To be drunk was to blur reality into a softer focus; it may have been less accurate, less detailed, but it was sometimes more pleasant.

To be sober was to see things as clearly as one’s disposition would normally permit.

As far from sober as sober from drunk, some wags would call ‘knurd’ – seeing all things as they really were.

It was a state one would readily associate with the divine, or the powers accorded to the divine – and there were two basic reactions one could take to beholding true nature. One could recoil, be filled with despair and horror – and those who openly theorized about ‘knurd’ usually assumed that this was the only sane reaction.

At first glance, some ponies thought that to be Pinkie Pie was to be pleasantly drunk all the time – or to be under the influence of other strange substances: to love and laugh at everything because she just couldn’t comprehend the darkness.

They didn’t realize that to be Pinkie Pie, in truest essence, was to see everypony and everything as it really was, and to not care about the muck and the spots: to just want to give it all a big hug and dance with it and put a smile on its face, whether or not it had a face or feet or anything at all to hug. Oh, she could be wronged, and she would sometimes hold a grudge afterwards; there was nopony perfect under the sun. The song began with the melody, not the instruments. That was Pinkie Pie: an angel of rapturous joy shining through an imperfect pony lens, and usually succeeding at that.

My entire life has been wrong, the last vestiges of him realized. I’ve always known music and smiling and dance, just like this. But I only ever used them to look out for me and mine. I’ve never understood the true power of laughter like I do at this very moment.

Explosions of rose petals and colorful balloons stripped away all that he considered his own, until there was barely a shred that could be called “Flim’s”. I swear to the Princesses, from this moment forward, I’ll never set out to harm another living soul, he thought with the last thing capable of thinking, the last thing that was his.

And then?

Flim ceased.

“Hi! I’m Bubble Berry!”

Flight of the Pinkie-esque

A great cry arose from the small island.

Flam looked straight ahead, blank-faced.

The screaming continued.

“Are you about done?” he asked.

“Nooooooooooooooooo!”

Fancypants rubbed his head with his hoof. “I must confess to lacking some understanding, chap,” he began, speaking under the mares’ screams, “but our fillyfriends seem rather put out and it’s making me a bit apprehensive.”

“Well,” Flam started to reply, before wincing and shaking his head. He wished for a watch, so that he could check it.

Finally, Trixie and Rarity faced the natural consequences of screaming for minutes straight without ever stopping to take a breath. Pinkie Pie might have been able avoid these consequences–in fact, she certainly could–but Rarity was no horn blower and Trixie was in too much a state to remember the circular breathing techniques necessary to a saxophone.

In short, they fainted, and quiet returned.

Bubble Berry looked on in confusion.

“They…don’t seem happy to see me,” he said. His voice had a squeak highly uncharacteristic of a Flimflam.

Part of the trick of the song was to not break the spell too early, Flam recalled, not when it was in this early vulnerable stage. “Not at all! The sight of you was just so unexpected, and they were so very startled, Berry boy!”

“That didn’t sound like excited—”

Flam cut him off: “What would you know, Bubble Berry? You just got here!”

“That’s a really good point! I haven’t even had a look around yet!” He immediately began to bound off, bouncing up and down, up and down, making strange ‘boinging’ sounds like a spring despite there being no part of his anatomy that had any business making that noise.

Fancypants attended himself to the business of wringing out rags of cold water over Rarity and Trixie’s foreheads until they finally came to—meanwhile Flam started to pursue Bubble Berry, changed his mind, reconsidered two more times, and then finally decided on chasing his wayward not-brother when Bubble Berry turned up right behind him.

“Wow! You look just like the pony with the moustache I just left! Do you have a twin?”

Flam realized that there was probably no safe answer to that question, and elected to avoid it entirely, keeping one eye on the awakening mares in case they were going to scream again.

“It’s not a terribly large island, is it, Bubble Berry?”

“I should say not! There’s so little grass here, I’d think we’d be dead in a month! Who were we planning on eating?”

Of the four slackened jaws in response to this statement, Rarity collected herself first, if only briefly—“It really is her, isn’t it?”

“It’s something very close to her,” Flam replied, out of the corner of his mouth. “Something, hopefully, close enough.”

Rarity nodded. “Berry, darling, we were hoping not to eat anypony—but we must get off this island soon, as you’ve noticed.”

“Well, good luck with that! I don’t know how we’re going to pull that off with four unicorns and an earth pony.”

“Dear sir,” Fancypants started, “there are five—” and was then shut up by a hoof to the mouth, courtesy of Trixie, who had by now caught on.

“Four rather dense unicorns and one earth pony with a record for thinking inside the chimney,” Rarity moved in, giving a knowing smile. “If anypony can get us out of here, it’ll have to be you.”

“Huh. Hmm. Hmmmmm.” Bubble Berry hummed to himself, screwing his face while he thought about this. He trotted back and forth on the beach, thinking furiously.

“Berry boy—” Flam failed to ask.

“Shush.” This was from Rarity, not from the former Flim. “Communication is not one of her strong suits. Her plans work better when she doesn’t explain them carefully.”

“So this must be one of the toy line episodes, handed down from corporate—but there’s nothing around here that looks like it goes in a box, I mean, it’s just trees and rocks and I don’t think corporate would put out a diorama of an island unless it was a tropical island and the ocean’s barely even ever been seen before if at all and argh!”

Flam was about to try to interrupt again, and this time was shushed by both Rarity and Trixie at once, both mares’ hooves touching inside his mouth. It was an odd sensation.

“It’s no use! I don’t see what toy is going to get us out of this! I’m gonna go talk to Ted.”

And then Bubble Berry reached into the air, and appeared to grasp something in his hoof. The unicorns who knew that they were unicorns thought that they heard the sound of a door opening, but that was absurd, there were no doors here—Bubble Berry disappeared through the door that obviously couldn’t be there, and then they heard the blatantly fictional sound of the door closing.

“So, um…” Flam looked around. “Is that, uh, a thing that happens?”

Rarity shook her head, wide-eyed. “I can’t say that I’ve ever seen anything quite like that…but it’s not out of character.”

“So when does he—she—come back?”

“Couldn’t begin to tell you.”

For a few minutes, they waited.

For a few minutes more, they paced around the spot where Bubble Berry had vanished.

Then they waited in a more comfortable place, by the fire.

Then the minutes turned into hours, and Flam taught Rarity the trick behind tic-tac-toe (“You’re not stupid—how do you have this blind spot on this one thing?”), and Fancypants and Trixie played snooker using a miniature fold-out table from Fancypants’ luggage (“Trixie’s mind boggles that such a thing exists—corner pocket, foal, watch and learn”), and then, as the sun neared the horizon, there was that obviously fictional noise again.

“Whew!” Bubble Berry sighed, as he trotted back into visible reality, closing a door that wasn’t there behind him. He wiped his brow with his hoof, and shifted a new set of saddlebags on his back as he took a seat by the fire. His coat glistened with sweat (and pink dye), and none could fail to notice the big red lip prints on the side of his face. “Boy, those were a bunch of really great guys and gals. Just really fun-loving. Aren’t Canadians wonderful?”

None of the others had the remotest chance of answering this question intelligibly. Instead, they just stared.

“Oh! I was supposed to get something, wasn’t I?” He mouthed his saddlebag off, setting it on the ground, and rummaged through it. “Ohmm! ‘ere ‘e ‘o!” he mumbled, pulling a small strange contraption out of his saddlebag with his mouth, and setting it down on the ground.

“And that’s what gets us out of here…?” Flam asked.

Fancypants scrunched his face in contemplation. “Is it some sort of magic amplifier that will let us teleport home?”

Berry raised an eyebrow. “How would that sell? No, Ted said he hadn’t seen the storyboard for this episode yet, so he had to build the model for me by sort of guessing and hearing what we had to work with.”

“…model,” Flam said. “That’s a model?”

“Absolutely-dutily! I mean, Ted’s a hard worker but it’d be a bit much for me to ask him to build an aircraft capable of flying us all out of here when they’ve got the movie to work on. So we’ve just got to build this, but bigger.”

Flam scratched his head with his hoof. “And this is…what, again?”

“A heavier-than-air craft with a winded-elastic propulsion drive!”

Trixie’s magic plucked at one part. “Are we to take this bit here for a rubber band?”

“Yeppers!”

Fancypants was peering closely at the model, and scratching in the dirt with his hoof, outlining a diagram. Rarity glanced over his shoulder, shook her head, and corrected the angles and proportions. “So this is to what scale, darling?” she asked Berry.

Another rummage through the saddlebags—Berry used only his mouth, and no trace of magic—produced a small strange equine figurine that closely resembled Rarity in color of mane and coat, though its mane was thoroughly unstylish: a clear straight band bound the tips of its long purple hair together, and perfectly straightened, the mane lacked any kind of pizazz. This strange little toy Berry set onto the model plane.

“Ted had one of these on the shelf, so he built it to this scale. I’m supposed to give this back, though, so don’t lose it!”

Rarity did some mental math, trained from years as a tailor, as she calculated the proportions of the thing that apparently was supposed to be a model of her own self. Six lengths by two lengths…. “Bubble Berry, you do realize that this plan requires a rubber band…hmm…a hundred and forty-four feet in circumference?”

“Does it? Wow, that’s a lot of feet. Can you imagine all the socks that would take?”

Rarity knew enough now to ignore that. “For that matter, where are we going to get any rubber bands? This island is terribly short of shopping establishments.”

Berry threw a forearm over Rarity, and gave her a brief noogie. The alabaster unicorn, for her part, was too flabbergasted to respond. “You’re so silly, Rarity! Of course we’ve got to improvise. There’re pine trees on this island, right?”

“…right…” Flam answered, not seeing where this was going.

“And pine sap is sticky! And if you stick your hoof to it and then pull back, it’s all boingy-boingy, just like a rubber band! Q. E. D., pine sap can substitute for a rubber band!”

“Obviously,” Trixie cut in, rolling her eyes. “That’s just science.”

Fancypants considered this, being reasonably certain that latex and resin were entirely different things. “Notwithstanding that, ah, interesting interpretation of materials science…wouldn’t we need a rather awful lot of pine sap to make that work?”

“Yep! I mean, at least enough to fill a hundred and forty-four socks!” Berry nodded excitedly. “So you’d better get cracking!”

Trixie scowled. “And by ‘you’ you mean ‘all of us’, right?”

“Right! All you unicorns!”

“Now hold on, Berry boy,” Flam said, smelling an old trick. “What exactly will you be doing?”

“Supervising!”

Even Bubble Berry could not fail to guess at the meaning of five angry stares: more was required in the way of explanation.

“Musically supervising!”

Fiercely applied unicorn magic began to chisel at long straight branches—and, where necessary, make a gnarled branch straight enough to work.

“Your thoughts, Rarity?” Flam asked, squinting at the end of a branch. “Is it in Pinkie’s nature to dodge work?”

Rarity’s magic carefully augured a thick stick with a sharp stone. “Dodge work? No, that’s Rainbow Dash. But pick an assignment perhaps a bit easier? Let me put it to you this way—when Winter Wrap-Up rolls around, Pinkie Pie is ice-skating.”

Rarity looked up at the other three unicorns who knew that they were unicorns.

“‘Winter…Wrap-up’?” Flam asked.

“Who, pray tell, wraps up winter?” Trixie followed on.

“Indeed, my dear—why not just use magic, like in Canterlot?” was Fancypants’ contribution.

A touch of hometown pride and defensiveness surged in Rarity’s heart, and she stepped forward, releasing her magical grip on the stick. “Well, now,” she coughed, looking around. “When the time has come to welcome spring,” hints of rhythm began to infiltrate her voice, and a close listener might even say she sounded like a rather different pony altogether, “and all things warm and green—”

At once the pink pony, who had previously been rummaging through the luggage in search of instruments, was upon them, hanging upside down from a rope descending from nowhere in particular and clad in black ninja gear. “Whoa whoa whoa!” Bubble Berry held his hoofs forward, waving them wildly in alarm at Rarity. “First off, we don’t have anywhere near the choral line you need. And second—oh, jeez, you can’t do this one! I’ll check with Sarah if I gotta, but I’m pretty sure Danny’s still got some rights on this, and we’d have to negotiate something—his agent’s gonna want to know when the next royalty checks come in, and frankly I think Danny’s got a right to know, but when does this episode even air? I don’t know, Ted doesn’t know, Jayson and Meghan don’t know, and if they don’t know then I’m not sure this is even really a thing!” Berry huffed quickly, beginning to hyperventilate, while all four of his legs began gesticulating even faster. “Ohjeezwhatifthisisn’tevenreallyanepisode? Whatifthisisn’tactuallyashowafterallbutsomeothermediumlikeanovelizationthosecantotallydeviatefromcanonandaddstufflikeseaponiestosellmorecoloringbooksormaybeit’saflashgameandthosetotallyaren’talwaysfinishedbeforeuploadormaybeitsthatmobilegamewiththegemsandtheparaspritesandwedon’tevenreallyexistuntilsomeonedoestherightmicrotransactionsorworseyetwhatifthisisrealllifeohnoohnoifthisisallrealthen—”

The rest of his panicked rant was muffled, and then aborted altogether, by a pair of lips pressing suddenly and deeply against his. Trixie held his face in her hooves until, at last, the rope from which Bubble Berry was hanging noticed that it was attached to nothing at all and fell, dragging the pseudo-earth pony with it to the ground.

“Well now,” Fancypants said, “that seemed to do the trick.”

“You…” Flam stammered. “You kissed him.”

“His mind was going to a dangerous place; Trixie distracted him. Quite well, Trixie might add.”

“You kissed him!”

“If he began to question his reality the spell might’ve failed!”

“You kissed him!”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “Oh, for the love of—” And then she threw her forelegs around Flam’s shoulders, and kissed him as well. Pulling away, she asked: “Are you happy now? That you’re even?”

“Yes! I mean no! I mean, I don’t want to be even! I mean—Fancypants, Rarity, back me up here!”

The stallion of sophistication shook his head. “Sorry, dear fellow, I’d have to say that she did the best she could, under the circumstances.”

Rarity slowly pulled her own jaw back up to its factory setting. “I obviously didn’t just watch Trixie make out with a male version of one of my best friends, so clearly the last two minutes or so never happened.”

Bubble Berry bounced back up on his hooves, recovering from his brief blackout. “So yeah, Winter Wrap-Up waaaaay off-limits. Maybe a parody from another company? That could work, yeah!”

The pink-dyed unicorn leapt onto a nearby boulder, and began tapping a beat with his hooves.

Rarity, Flam, Fancypants, and Trixie looked back down at their tools and materials, and magically lifted the not-yet-treetaps back up to continue their efforts.

“Just whistle while you work!” Berry sang.

The seamstress was more known for her sudden vocal shifts than her whistling, but she gave it the old college try nonetheless.

“And cheerfully together we can escape this sorry place!
So hum a merry tune…”

Flam carefully aligned a crude chisel, trying not to think about Trixie, Trixie’s lips on his brother’s, Trixie’s lips on his own, the smell of Trixie’s breath, that Flim had been the first to taste of it but wouldn’t even remember what was the sense in that and that thrice-damned humming was not helping him concentrate!

Bubble Berry continued to belt out his song. “It won’t take long when there’s a song to help you set the pace!”

“This is wretched!” Flam shouted as he spun and advanced on Berry; a careful listener would’ve thought that they heard a record scratching. “The beat is weak, the rhyme is corny, and it doesn’t even fit! This is hard work in an outdoor environment, and it sounds like you’re having us tidy house for a bunch of gem-mining midgets—” Then Flam stumbled, his vision going blurry and his head rushing with blood as he accidentally glimpsed into a dimension beyond the beyond, a place which only certain beings native to his own level of reality could bear to comprehend—clearly being near Bubble Berry had its risks.

When he at last recovered, Flam looked up into Berry’s hard cold stare. His hairdo had drooped ominously, already nearly straight. “You want a work song? Alright, Flam. I’ll give you a work song.”

The morning sun broke the horizon, and tall waves broke against the sides of the island; the knowing unicorns were already hard at work, using everything they had in the way of magic and muscle to pull ropes and chains against stubborn trees.

“Hrgh!” Trixie grunted, what little bulk the rock farm had given her already atrophied.

“Huaaah!” Flam replied, straining forward against the impromptu horse collar his rope was tied to.

“Uuuugh,” agreed Fancypants, as with his added force the roots of the tree began to creak.

“Uwaaaahaaahaaa!” Rarity called, finally applying enough pressure to bring the tall pine toppling over, crashing into sand and surf, just as another wave struck and sprayed them all with cold salt water.

Bubble Berry trotted nearby, brandishing a club in his mouth; now dressed in something between a Whinny Star uniform and a Griffin military uniform—nopony had the chance to ask how, as he gave them an icy glare and a menacing wave of a baton the moment their work began to slack.

“Eeeeerggh!”

“Ooooogh!’

“Unnnh!”

“Yaaaah!”

Another tree, drained of sap, toppled over, more timber for the construction—but still more was needed.

Berry trotted by; Trixie averted her gaze. “Look down, look down, don’t look him in the eye!”

The others agreed, as the next tree began to strain under their pull. “Look down, look down, that isn’t Pinkie Pie.”

Fancypants’s footing slipped in the sand as the tree began to topple, and he tumbled into the sea. Pulling himself out, he sang “The waves are strong—it’s cold as hell below!”

“Look down! Look down!” The others admonished, gesturing for him to watch his footing. “There’s twenty trees to go!”

“It’s all…so wrong,” Flam added, his gaze heading skywards towards the not-yet-set moon. “Sweet Luna hear our prayer!”

“Look down! Look down!” was the sang reply, as Trixie admonished him with a hoofslap to the back of the head, “Sweet Luna doesn’t care!”

By now all could agree that Rarity did not sound quite like Rarity, although Fancypants had adequate appraisal of her vocal range to not be concerned. “I know…they’ll wait! I know that they’ll be true!” Visions of Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Twilight, and Applejack danced in her mind—Pinkie Pie was temporarily excluded for obvious reasons.

Bubble Berry snarled, and she shuddered back to herself, shaking her head and remembering why this was all necessary. “Look down! Look down! They’ve all forgotten you!”

Desperately weak from hunger, Trixie stopped her work to lower her head and grab a mouthful of forage from the island—a slap from a forehoof halted her, and Bubble Berry glared. “While I am me, food isn’t free—back to the dust!”

“Look down! Look down! It’s us we’ve to save!
Look down! Look down! Or else we’ve seen our grave!”

Bubble Berry stood atop the flying machine, trotting back and forth with satisfaction, before turning to one of the groundling unicorns, leaping down to look him in the eye.

“Now you with the hat that looks so dumb!
The trees are down and the model's done!
You know what that means!”

Flam smiled wistfully. “Yes, it means we are free….”

Berry snorted. “No.” He whipped a piece of paper out of his Griffin army saddlebag and stuck it to Flam’s chest.

“Follow to the letter this itinerary!
Carry out directions and don't ask why!
You know it's a dangerous task!”

Flam carefully read through it, having pulled it in front of his face with unicorn magic.

“I'm to wind the big band?”
His face fell in despair, as he pleaded for sympathy.
“It's near a quarter-furlong long,
And I'm aching!”

Berry let his baton swing back and forth from its loop around his neck.
“You'll ache again!
Unless you learn the meaning of my law!”

Flam took a step back from Berry and his club.
“I know the meaning of those nineteen lashes…
...the pains of your law!”

Berry took a step forward.
“Five lashes for what you did!
The rest because I found it fun!
And your hat looks so dumb!”

He held his hat forward, waving it in front of the pink unicorn. “This hat is a straw boater!”

Berry waved his, a flat-top cap with a visor and gold braiding, right back.
“And mine's a kepi! You should get one as well!
You should get one...yours looks so dumb!”

The others interrupted in chorus, as they took their positions by the propeller, tail, and ground-brake:
“Look down! Look down! It's us we're to save!
Look down! Look down! Or else we've seen our grave!”

“I’m not…entirely certain…that this worked,” Fancypants mumbled, as he sat between two mares, Berry having planted himself in the pilot’s seat and Flam grunting and sweating to turn the propeller and wind the band just a few hundred more times.

Trixie rolled her eyes. “What’s to be uncertain of, foal? In five minutes of musical montage, we built a flying machine and deforested the island. If that’s not successful wild magic, what is?”

“We are still on the island, dear filly. And I’m quite certain that pine sap is used to make resin, that is, to make things harder, not—”

“Fancypants, darling,” Rarity cooed. “Don’t draw attention to these things. Pinkie Pie’s plans always succeed. Unless it’s funnier for them to fail. Or unless somepony needs to learn a valuable lesson about themselves.”

Flam finished winding the propeller, setting a safety latch and jumping aboard.

“Well,” Fancypants continued to protest, “perhaps we’re all to learn a valuable lesson about materials in general and the specific fact that pine sap loses its elasticity quite quickly.”

Flam trotted towards his place on the bench, nudging Fancypants out of the way so he could sit by Trixie. “Get beside me, Discord. You are thinking not as the universal spirit does, but as rational ponies do.”

Rarity’s magic nudged one lever, and the ground brakes of the flyer were released.

Fancypants shook his head again. “We could’ve built a boat with all of this.”

Rarity chuckled. “Oh, come now, a—”

Berry spun around in his seat, a look of panic on his face. “Oh, horse apples, you’re right!” He jumped up on his hooves. “A boat! That makes way more sense! I mean there’veneverbeenboatsontheshowbeforeunlessyoucountthepiratereferencesbutthosecouldbeskypiratesandcomeonlet’sthinktoylineheredoesthetargetdemographicevenplaywithmodelplanesImeanDUHnobutboatstheyworkboatsfloatinkiddypoolsandbathtubsandtheytotallymakewaymoresenseohcrapohcrapwhydidn’tTedandIthinkaboutthatmaybeTedjustthoughtaplanewascoolertobuildbutcoolerhasneverreallyguidedcorporate’sideaofwhattoystoaddandsowhatiftheepisodewasreallysupposedtobeaboutaboatohcrapthenthismightnotwork—”

And then Berry’s flailing legs smacked the release lever on the propeller catch, and the plane shot forward, rolling along the now-deforested island.

The crashing waves drew nearer, and nearer, as ponies tried to make up their minds whether to bail out, and then the crashing waves were no longer before them, but below, as the flier caught a draft and gained altitude.

The island, and what luggage they had left behind, became a part of their past, and their indeterminate future appeared to consist solely of what course they could chart between the realm of pegasus ponies and seaponies.

Berry giggled. “Boy, I hope we were pointed in the right direction! I mean, I’ve got this fancy lever up here butTeddidn’tactuallyrememberhowtoincorporatecontrolintoasimpleplaneandhesaidhe’dgohometolookituponlinebutthenwegotdistractedwhenalltheseladiescameinwithabigcakealllikeHeyIsThatPinkiePieandIwasn’tbutheyfreecake—”

Fancypants sighed. “Is he going to be like this…the whole trip?”

Flam shook his head. “I’m not going to kiss him, he’s my brother!”

“Trixie has learned her lesson and will have no more drama, thank you.” Certainly not until she had made up her mind about whether she preferred mustache or no mustache, anyway, she thought.

Rarity rolled her eyes. “If you’re waiting for me to kiss your brother impersonating my dear friend, you will wait for quite some time.”

They looked at Fancypants. He snorted in amusement. “I like mares, and I have the last set of ear plugs. So, as they say in the low-rent parts of Canterlot,” his magic withdrew from his damp coat pocket the a pair of small corks, “sucks to be you, dear chaps.”

The flying machine continued its journey eastward.