//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8- Cutie Mark Conspirators 
// Story: Building Walls, Burning Bridges 
// by MonolithiuM 
//------------------------------//

	The sun shone outside Mono's window. Sitting up, he watched the sunlight with a pouty expression. "Goddamn… motherfubbgg… AH FUCK!"

Mono tumbled out of bed to fall quite a long way to the floor, hitting the polished marble with a crunchy thud. Groaning, he shook himself and placed his hand on a beam for balance. 

"Beam…?" 

The second he put weight on the beam, it flew away from him, causing Mono to once again kiss the floor. Pulling himself up, the chibi righted himself and looked about him. The 'beam' he had leaned against was actually a part of the rolling tray table that a maid pony had brought in. 

The food that had been laid atop of said tray was now splattered against the wall. 

Snatching up his things, Mono kicked the door open roughly. He set one foot out the door, and suddenly he was flung back into his room, his body pressed against the wall opposite the entryway. Mono opened his eyes, and stared at the closed door. 

On the knob to the right was a thick rubber band attached to the wall on the left. Opening the door with this on would cause it to swing back… violently. Mono removed the band and slipped it into his bag. 

He walked out of the room and shut the door, making his way down the hall. 

"Since when is there a rug here?" 

Without heeding the obvious, he fell into a pitfall hidden under the rug. 

Flames of blistering anger erupted from the hole in the floor. 

\\\\||||////

"Somebody's pranking me, and I'm going to find them and redefine revenge." 

I was pissed. Real pissed. I stomped down through the dining room amongst several of the noble's, giving suspicious looks to all of them. I sat down and began eating my meal in silence, chewing my eggs and buttered toast slowly. 

As I ate, the Crusaders hopped onto the chairs across from me, their hooves folded calmly. I glared at them, attempting to will a black hole to appear inside of their stomachs, ripping them into shreds and pulling them through reality.

Only Applebloom and Scootaloo though, because Sweetie Belle is best pony. 

"Mono," Applebloom said primly. 

"What the hell do you want, hillbilly?"

Applebloom didn't react, she simply nodded to Scootaloo. "You owe Sweetie Belle. And us, to an extent."

I quirked an eyebrow. "Oh? I do? Well good luck getting whatever it is you're trying to extort out of me." I slurped up some of the bacon wetly. 

"I don't think you understand, Mono. We're holding a favor over you." Sweetie Belle leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. "And we can call it any time we want."

I giggled at first, because Sweetie just talked smack to me, but then my glare returned. "You serious?"

Sweetie leaned back, and they all nodded again. I sipped some of my orange juice out of a straw, and leaned back in my chair. "And if I don't accept this extortion?"

Applebloom and Scootaloo leaned over to Sweetie Belle. Sweetie Belle whispered in their ears. Something about "blackmail". The two fillies murmured "oh" and then looked back at me contemptuously. 

"Then we keep our agent on you. This agent is the best of the best, and doesn't come cheap, so you can expect to be pranked constantly."

I choked on my beverage, and it exploded out of my nostrils. "Th- that was you?!"

The three got up and began trotting away. Sweetie Belle flicked her tail once, and then snorted. "More like that was me. I have a certain way with words. Call it, persuasion." 

I sat, dumbfounded, in my chair as the three fillies trotted away. 

I grinned, crossing my arms. 

"Clever girl…" 

\\\\||||////

I stomped out of the bathroom, the soggy snake clutched in my grip. Throwing the cardboard snake to the ground, I shouted into the castle. 

"PUTTING A POP-UP SNAKE IN A TOILET BOWL ISN'T FUCKING FUNNY! I'LL TEAR OUT YOUR LUNGS, YOU PIECE OF GARBAGE!" 

I made my way around the corner, and promptly hit a painting detailed to look like the hallway, perspective and all. "GAAAAAAAH!!!" 

I smashed through it and proceeded to the gardens, where Fleur and Fancy had told me to meet them. Seeing no one in the immediate vicinity, I took a seat on the stone bench, swinging my legs absent-mindedly. 

"Okay. For someone to prank me they would need to know how I act, how I move, and where I usually go. They've been able to successfully set up traps consecutively, almost playing on my next move before it happens." 

I stared up at the midday sun with a glare. 

And what I thought was stone turned out to be meticulously-placed and well-packed gravel, leaving me buried in rubble. 

I flailed my arms around in a rage, little bits of the smashed debris flinging around. After a minute I stopped and sulked in my brooding fury. 

After a maid had come and dug me out, I headed to the library. In that short walk, I took a bean-bag to the gut, a tumble down some oil-slick stairs, and I was now soaked to the bone after opening the doors. 

Steam billowed off of my head, the water evaporating as if on a grill. Sitting down hard, I asked for the librarian. She trotted over, and I requested a book on spacial continuums. She nodded and fetched the book, and before long I was reading The Beginners Book to Teleportation and Void-manipulation. 

A full twenty minutes and not a single prank. This was good. I finished sketching the plan in a pad I had nabbed while I had a crab stuck atop my head at Doctor Stitch's office. 

Whether or not it would work or not would be based upon my suspicions of who was planning and executing all of these traps. If done correctly, the culprit would be revealed and stopped using a combination of many tools. 

Snorting, I rose to my feet and slipped the notepad inside my shoulder bag. 

I opened the door to the library and stepped on a rake. 

\\\\||||////

While I sat in the dining hall rubbing the red line across my face, I realized that I had been most likely bested. And so I sat there in defeat while the CMC once again took their seats in front of me, folding their hooves with straight faces. 

"So we assume that you've given up?"

I grunted in response. The three smiled. At once, they looked up. 

"Come on out Rainbow!"

Rainbow Dash descended smugly from the ceiling, her magenta eyes locked on my brown ones. "Well well well, seems like somepony put the high and mighty alien in his place! And who?"

Scootaloo got up onto the table. "Rainbow Dash, that's who!" She threw her hooves up in cheer. Rainbow Dash grinned, swiveling her head to look at Scootaloo. 

"That's right," she said, oozing confidence. She took a step towards me. "And that's…" Another step. "Why you don't mess…" She placed her hoof between my hands, and her face pressed against mine. 

"With Rainbow Da-" I pushed away from her, my chair sliding back with me. The trigger that she stepped on had a two-second delay, so I would be safe. 

Before she could jerk her head back, the rake flew up, carrying the chair with it. I catapulted across the table, waving to a dumbstruck Scootaloo who still had her hooves in the air. 

The chair hit Rainbow Dash in the face, and sent her onto her back. Immediately, a piece of the table sprung up and ejected her into the air. Righting herself, she saw the incoming bucket of water that the trigger had activated, and flew to her right. 

She hit a painting of the ceiling head-on, and spiraled down again. She managed to catch herself in the confusion, but was then doused by the falling water. 

The water made her feathers soggy, and she fell onto the table yet again. The impact prompted a plate beneath her to let loose the rubber band on the other side of the table, which I had previously hooked underneath on a mechanism as to conceal it. The rubber band, now propped above the table thanks to the gizmo, snapped into her backside, making her yelp in pain. 

While her mouth was open, a jar of sickly yellow fluid splashed across her muzzle and caused her eyes to water and bulge. She hit the floor reeking of two-day-old urine and shame. 

"OH FAUST SOMEPONY TEAR OUT MY LUNGS!"

I slipped my arms around the three fillies and smiled warmly. 

"So, what'd you girls need again? I'm all ears."

"IT TASTES LIKE DEATH!"

\\\\||||////

So, in the end all I had to do was join Ponyville's team during the Harmonious Sports Tournament coming up. Apparently it was still the middle of the summer, and by now I had thought about getting a calendar. 

I had already read that teleportation book, and I now saw that leaving this planet was next to impossible. 

The only way to leave was by magic. Ain't life a bitch? 

So, at the moment, all I had to do was skate by the entire money problem by using the princesses and their luxurious castle. It baffled me as to how I hadn't been accused of leeching off of them yet. 

When I got back to my room, I saw that Fleur and Fancy were inside. Both were smiling, and Fancy Pants held the pen with his magical glow. 

"Ah! So how'd it work out?"

"At first? Not so well," Fancy Pants responded cautiously. I furrowed my eyebrows. 

"Not so well? It's a fuckin' pen! What's the worst that could have happened?"

"Well, you were a bit caught up in the whole pranking business to fully realize what was going on, I suppose. Let us fill you in." Fleur sat down beside me and told me all about what my pen had caused. 

\\\\||||////

Princess Twilight hurried out of the throne room, the pen in her purple aura. "I MUST KNOW WHAT IT DOES."

Celestia burst out the wall, sending one of the doors careening down the hall in a flurry of masonry and splinters. "TWILIGHT SPARKLE. RETURN THE WEAPON AT ONCE."

Twilight held the pen closer, her glare defiant and determined. "YOU KNOW I CAN'T DO THAT, PRINCESS! THIS TECHNOLOGY COULD SAVE EQUESTRIA FROM ANY THREAT KNOWN TO PONYKIND. THERE IS NO WAY I'D BE WILLING TO GIVE IT UP."

Celestia's wings unfurled, and the marble around her bubbled and melted down into molten rock. "I GIVE YOU ONE LAST WARNING, MY FAITHFUL STUDENT. DO NOT CHALLENGE ME."

"THE POWER IS MINE!" Twilight and Celestia fired golden and purple beams at each other, quickly creating a well of magical energy in the center. The well imploded, blasting apart everything in its radius and sending both princesses in opposite directions. 

Righting themselves successfully, they both blasted through the ceiling and through several floors before bursting into the mid-afternoon sky. Twilight tucked the pen inside her tail and spun to face her mentor, only to receive a truck-sized chunk of dirt to the face. 

Twilight shook her mane of the earth and witnessed Celestia's tackle form. Celestia rammed into Twilight, and the two of them once again hurtled to the earth, exploding towers and balconies alike. 

Once in the courtyard, Twilight went on the offensive, leaping away from her challenger and firing off multiple magic bolts. The bolts glanced off of Celestia's wings, which whipped around her at incomprehensible speeds. 

Celestia locked eyes with her student while the tower in the back exploded and crumbled for no reason whatsoever. 

It looked fucking badass. 

Celestia fired her own concentrated blast of magic, spraying golden sparks and clods of dirt every which way. Twilight Sparkle appeared right behind the princess in a flash of purple, and fired a force field into Celestia's surprised face. 

Celestia, now incapacitated on the ground, edged away from the glowering Twilight Sparkle, who was now mad for power. Levitating the pen above her, she positioned it point-down towards the princess. 

"Any last words, Princess?" she spat venomously. Celestia looked around for something, anything, that could possibly save her. Spotting a lone board, she grimaced and snatched it up, bringing it up in time to block the pen's rapid descent. 

All was silent. Twilight stared at the board in shock, before placing the pen upon it again and swirling it around. Her expression of shock turned into one of excitement. 

Twilight snatched Celestia in a bone-crushing god-hug. "IT'S A QUILL!"

Celestia looked at the board, and saw that it was in fact a clipboard. She observed as Twilight wrote her own name upon it, right next to a small number. Around the small number were sketches of Mono with demon horns and swords through his chest, as well as a few beheaded versions. Among these pencil sketches were the sentences, "I AM NOT MENTALLY CHALLENGED" and "MAMA ISN'T A BAT." 

\\\\||||////

"Wow. So they had a battle royale and I missed it? Crap." I crossed my arms and pouted. Fancy levitated a scroll up to me and dropped it in my lap. He smiled knowingly.

"That's not the big deal, Mono. The big deal is…"

"Your pen was a major hit, and Princess Twilight used the entire tube of ink in one sitting. She wants more, and she wants them mass produced." Fleur's grin couldn't be bigger, and pretty soon Fancy joined too.

My look of bafflement was replaced by raucous laughter, and we were all in tears from laughing so hard. I wiped mine away and we all began to calm down.

"Well," I said, "it's a shame my plan to have the princesses kill each other didn't work out…"

"WHAT?!" 

I'M CURRENTLY