Flies, Lord of Thee

by inDerpxar

A High IQ with Zero Common Sense

A High IQ with Zero Common Sense

It was a dark and stormy night. Flies sat on her bed, staring at the floor. It was flat, as always. She briefly pondered why nopony ever makes floors that aren’t flat. Then she realized that if somepony could make a curved floor, they could make it exponentially curved and simulate gravity around planets. That made her sad because a museum near her used to have an exhibit like that where you could roll marbles around planets and it was really fun. She had gone to the museum years later, only to find out that museum curators are plant and one of them had gotten rid of the exhibit. When she ruled Equestria, museums would be better, and would retain exhibits long enough for previous visitors to relive their childhood.

She glanced back at her laptop on the cluttered desk beside her. The screen was still blank. The word processing program’s page was blank. Her mind was blank blankity blank.

“Writing is stupid. Your face is stupid,” She said to nopony in particular.

Getting into Celestia’s School for Stupid Unicorns, or whatever it was called, had been easy. A few well-placed death threats and beeping packages on the doorsteps of certain university officials, and she was in. Piece of cake. Speaking of cake, her plan called for some diphenhydramine citrate. She’d need to get some of that at the drug store, preferably in high concentration. After getting into the school, however, she soon came to realize that she might actually have to put some effort into her studies. And effort requires work, and work requires time, and time is money, and money is the root of all kinds of evil, so schoolwork was evil. The good news was that this school was only for unicorns, so the school was racist. She loved racist ponies. Unless they weren’t unicorns, because it’s plain wrong to be racist against unicorns. This project she was working on was due tonight, and she was supposed to write something on a current event. She had briefly considered writing a report titled “Breaking News! I’m Taking Over the World.” But that would take away her element of surprise, and if anything, Flies was a subtle pony.

Her roommate came into the room. “Hi, Flies!” She said with a smile.

“I’m taking over the world!” Flies replied.

“That’s nice. I’m going to bed.” The other unicorn hopped into her bed and began wiggling her way underneath the covers.

“Oh. Goodnight then, Liar.”

“Name’s Lyra.”

“Whatever.” Flies glared at her computer screen some more. The computer refused to cooperate and type her report for her. She really needed to start researching Markov text generators. “Hey, what stupid current event should I write about for this stupid class?”

Lyra glanced up from her pillow, noting the empty computer screen and her roommate’s sulkier-than-normal attitude. “For Professor Literary’s class?”

Flies nodded. “Stupid class.”

“I dunno. How about the parasprite invasion that destroyed half of Ponyville the other day? And how it could have been avoided had the polka festival the week before not been canceled? Something like that.”

Flies blinked and studied the computer screen more intently. She jumped down from her bed and settled into her desk chair. “Thanks, you’re a pal. I won’t murder you in your sleep.”

“No problem.” Lyra waited until she was certain that Flies was deeply engrossed in her writing project, then cast a protective spell around herself as silently as possible. Better to be safe with this pony. Still, it could be worse. She wasn’t sure how, but it probably could be worse.

Flies banged away at her keyboard with her hooves, because she was awesome and could use her keyboard with her hooves. It totally wasn’t because she was too lazy to learn the long skinny appendages spell her roommate was always talking about. She liked her roommate. Lyra wasn’t all that bad, as far as roommates go. Flies had overheard one pony talking about a psychopony who lived on campus that was always irritable, called other ponies names all the time, and always got upset over the smallest things. Imagine how terrible it would be to have a roommate like that? She shuddered at the thought of it. But Lyra was awesome. Flies wouldn’t murder her anytime soon. She meant it when she said it.

* * *

Doctor Deep Thought was a psychiatrist. On certain days, he loved his job. He would sit his clients down, they would talk, he would ask them questions, they would hand him a check, and that was that. On most days, he could wade through floods of emotional baggage, holding onto his steadfast logical mindset as an anchor in the storm. Other days, he would get one particularly talkative mare, and he would doodle on his sketchpad and pretend to listen for hours. The mare would leave feeling better, and he would have a few notepad pages full of random junk that he would throw away later. Some days it was boring, but Dr. Thought was a good listener, and he didn’t mind so much. So long as his bills were paid, he was content.

On other days, however, he had clients like this one. Dr. Thought gazed across the top of his spectacles at the unicorn filly that was sprawled out on her back across his couch. He dug deep into his flawless memory to the classes that he had about psychoponies back during his ten years of psychology schooling. He knew that two concerned parents outside were awaiting his diagnosis as to whether this filly was even sane or not.

“Miss Butterflies…” He began.

“Call me Flies.”

“Miss Butterflies,” He calmly reiterated. “I’m going to ask you a few questions, and I want you to respond with the first answer that comes to mind. Does that sound all right?”

“Sure, whatever.”

“Imagine if you will that you are standing by a switch on a pair of train tracks. There is a lever in front of you that you can pull to divert the train to either track. The train is going too fast to stop. There is one pony tied to the tracks on the second rail, and five on the first. If you do nothing, the train will hit the five ponies on its current rail. If you pull the lever, the train hits the one pony. You have no time to untie any of them or stop the train; all you can do is decide to pull the switch or not. What do you do?”

“Those glasses look dorky on you.” The filly immediately answered.

Dr. Thought blinked. “I’m sorry, what?”

“You said to say the first thing that came to mind. While you were talking, I was staring at your face thinking how dorky you look in those glasses.”

With a sigh, Dr. Thought removed the glasses and stowed them away in a pocket in his jacket. “Is that less distracting?”

“You’re totally blind without them, aren’t you?” Flies asked.

Dr. Thought regarded Flies a bit before speaking again. “Please answer the question, Miss Butterflies.”

“Oh, that. I think I know what you mean, but could you repeat the whole thing again? I wasn’t listening.”

With infinite patience, Dr. Thought repeated the scenario. As soon as he finished, without hesitation Flies blurted “I’d blow up the train.”
Dr. Thought blinked. “Come again?”

“Well, there are only five train switches in this area, so I can narrow down which switch I’d be at. And I already have explosives planted at each, and the only reason I’d be down at the train switch would probably be to blow up the train in the first place.”

“Miss Butterflies…”

“But only if nopony was on it. If it were a passenger train, I’d probably put the switch in the middle, so that way the train would derail and fall off to the side. Then I’d go tell the train operator that he was stupid for not noticing the ponies on the tracks, punch him in the face, and then help the rest of the passengers out of the train. Most trains don’t blow up when you derail them. That’s only in movies.”

Dr. Thought opened his mouth to speak again, but Flies kept going.

“Actually, come to think of it, the only way that flipping the switch would be the only option for me is if I was in some kind of anti-magic field and was tied up with only one foreleg free, because I have the explosives set at a particular magic frequency. See?” She lit her horn for a brief moment, and there was an explosion off in the distance. “Oh, and if I had one hoof free, I could pull out the knife I keep in my mane and cut the ropes. And it would take a really stupid criminal to tie me up and leave one foreleg free. So he’d have to have just finished tying me up, explicitly leaving one leg free, giving me no time whatsoever to cut my bonds, in order for this scenario to work. In that case, he’d probably still be there, in which case I’d ask HIM to make the decision.” Finally out of breath, Flies paused a moment.

“What I meant was…” Dr. Thought began.

“Oooh, ooh, better yet, I’d just start calling him out for the stupid buffoon that he is. What kind of idiot would tie up five ponies on one track and one on another, anyway? If you want them dead, tie them all together a few hundred feet up the track before the switch, so nothing can stop the train and they’re all guaranteed to die. I mean, if you want them dead, do it right. Don’t be stupid about it.”

Dr. Thought nodded a bit as he wrote on his notepad, ignoring Flies for the most part as she ranted and raved about “far more effective” ways of killing ponies. Today was going to be a long day…

* * *

Flies sat on Celestia’s old throne, a regal-looking crown perched atop her head. She figured that she looked kind of silly wearing it, but when you’re supreme overlord over all of Equestria, you don’t mind looking silly. It’s like that fairy tale “The Emporer’s Clothes.” The moral of that story was that when you’re in charge, you can do whatever you want and nopony will say anything about it. That was the moral, right? Flies made a mental note to actually read that story and figure out if that was the moral or not. But for now, she was in charge, she looked silly, and hey, she was down with that.

Outside, a red glow lit the city as ponies ran back and forth screaming. A layer of smoke and soot covered almost everything, and there was a terribly freakish thunderstorm going on without any rain falling. Overall, it was kind of nasty outside, and Flies was glad that she was indoors in the throne room where absolutely nothing could go wrong. She cast a soundproofing spell on the walls of the room, and noticed how amazingly easy magic is to use when you’re an alicorn. Take that, unicorn race! She realized with evil glee that now she could be as racist as she wanted, what with how rare alicorns are. She glanced at the old-fashioned oil lamp beside her. It looked more like a squished teapot, really, with a long, skinny spout on one end and small donut-shaped handle on the other. On the top of it was a lid with curious carvings that looked like somepony with too much time on their hands had just started doodling. All in all, it was a wholly unremarkable lamp, except of course the fact that it was made out of solid gold and decorated with tons of precious stones. Since she was supreme overlord over all of Equestria, though, Flies knew that she was crazy rich already, so compared to her net worth the lamp wasn’t all that valuable. But something about it caused some kind of strange curiosity to well up inside her. Maybe it was the huge label on the side that said “RUB ME” in big, friendly letters. She wasn’t sure.

Idly, she levitated the hefty lamp up into the air in front of her, and stared at the transcription on the side. “Rub me…” She said aloud. “What does it mean?” She pondered the meaning for a good minute or seventy, but nothing came to mind. Based on what she knew of the lamp (which was nothing), she could safely say that if she rubbed the lamp, it might or might not do something. When she first came into this room earlier that day to take over the throne, it was there, sitting right beside Celestia. The princess had been very interested in hearing what the lamp was, so Flies happily made stuff up that sounded cool. In retrospect, she probably should have kept the princess around long enough for her to rub the lamp first, but her foresight was 20/400, so here she was.

“What’s the worst thing that could possibly happen?” She asked nopony in particular and batted the lamp with a hoof. Nothing happened. “Meh, that was boring,” She said and tossed the lamp to the side.

“Oh come on! You’re supposed to RUB it! As in, actually RUB it! Not just touch it like it’s a puddle of unidentified slime or something,” Said a voice. It came from inside the lamp.

“Fine, if you want to be all picky and technically correct about it,” Flies replied. She levitated the lamp back in front of her and rubbed it with a forehoof. “There, happy?”

“A little lower,” The voice directed, and Flies obliged. “Ahh, right there. That’s the spot. Man, that spot’s been itching me for centuries. Now can you scratch me right beside the handle?”

“I have hooves, you stupid dolt of a lamp. How am I supposed to scratch you?”

“Oh,” Said the lamp. “Well, fine then. I’ll come out and do it myself.” With a brilliant flash of light, a blue wisp of smoke popped out of the lamp’s spout and congealed to form what looked like half a pony, with a tail and two hind legs sticking out into the air, and the rest fading away into a thin trail that led back into the lamp’s spout. “Ta da!” The half-pony declared.

“Oh, look. A floating rear end. Am I supposed to be impressed?” Flies asked.

“Haha, oops. I keep doing that.” The half-pony vanished back into the lamp, and with yet another brilliant flash, the front half reemerged, this time with the back end of the pony trailing into smoke. The pony looked like a blue earth pony aside from the whole being transparent thing, and Flies honestly couldn’t tell if it was a stallion or a mare. It had two jewel-encrusted bracelets, one on each foreleg, and a totally dank earring to boot. The half-pony thing stretched, flexing gigantic muscles, and made a half-yawn, half-roar sort of sound. “Ahh, that’s much better.” It glanced around the room a bit as if looking for Flies.

“I’m over here,” Flies said, “It is I who has summoned you from a void between worlds to…”

The half-pony turned and got its first look at Flies. “OHMYGOSH A PONAY! IT’S SOOOO CUUUUTE! I JUST WANNA HUG IT!” It immediately rushed towards Flies, forelegs outstretched, and scooped her up, cuddling her close to its chest. “ZOMG IT’S SOOO CUUUTE! I LOVE PONAYS!”

“Put me down, you ignorant foal! I am supreme overlord dictator over the entire planet, and I shall smite you down if you refuse to unhand me! I have an army that can lay waste to your hometown and holy cow you’re huge.”

The half-pony immediately placed Flies back down upon her throne and backed up a bit, still towering over the alicorn by a factor of three or four. “Uh, yeah, sorry. I got a bit carried away. You’re just SO CUTE! I’ve never seen a pony that’s as cute as you are before!”

Flies narrowed her eyes and glared at the half-pony. “Really? When you’re one yourself?”

The creature gasped. “I’M A PONAY TOO?!??” Somehow, it snapped its hoof, and a gigantic mirror appeared in front of it. “WHOAZ! I’M A PONAY! I’M ADORABLE!” It paused for a second. “I’m… adorable?” It snapped its hoof again and the mirror disappeared. “Well, that’s new. And slightly embarrassing. Anyways,” It said, turning back towards Flies, “Hi! I’m a genie! Your wish is my command!” It fell on its face in front of the dais.

“You’re a what now?”

“A genie!” It bounced back up and floated in front of her. “We’re totally the most awesomest creatures ever. We live in these little lamps, and we’re super powerful, and whenever someone rubs our lamps, we give them wishes and stuff. And we’re fantastic, because we can use MAGIC!”

Flies looked unimpressed, so the genie continued. “Yep, you heard me right! Real, honest-to-goodness magic! Some creatures, cultures, and religions believe that it doesn’t even exist, but I’m here to tell you that I am a true, certified magic user. No need to be shocked, awed, or overwhelmed. I can use magic. I’m really that awesome.”

Flies lit her horn and levitated the lamp a bit, tapping it against the side of her throne.

“Oh,” The genie said. “You can use magic too…” There was a pause. “Awkward.”

“So aside from using magic, can you actually do anything impressive?” Flies asked.

“What a question!” The genie drifted over until it was right in Flies’ face and waved a forehoof right in front of it. “I can do… anything,” It whispered.

“Now we’re talking!” Flies said with a smile.

“Exactly!” The genie backed up a bit. “I can make you supreme leader over any realm…” It paused for a moment, regarding Flies as she sat on the throne. “Okay, looks like you got that part covered already. But the point stands! I can do absolutely anything for you! I’m awesome.”

“Fine then,” Flies said, “Can you…”

“One moment!” The genie interrupted. It floated away from her, spun in a circle, and held up a hoof. “You get this many…” It stared at the hoof for a second. “Right, hooves. I mean, you get three wishes total. That’s it. You’re done. So think carefully, and choose wisely.” It grinned slyly at her.

“Ok, then,” Flies said. “I wish for infinite wishes.”

The genie sighed. “No no no no no! There are rules, as well. Rule number one is no wishing for infinite wishes, and-“

“Then I wish for rule number one to be revoked.”

The genie continued talking. “Rule number two is no revoking of rules-“

“So I wish for the rules to never have existed, and then I wish for infinite wishes.”

The genie kept going, “And rule number three is an extremely long and binding legal document that lists every possible way you could revoke the rules, and does so in an extremely complicated manner that only a lawyer would understand and dare to cross. It then has very specific wording that expressly prohibits you from breaking said rules.”

Flies pondered for a moment. “So what you’re saying is, I can’t get infinite wishes no matter how hard I try?”

The genie nodded. “Yep.”

"Even if I get a lawyer to look at Rule 3?"

"Even if you get a lawyer."

“How about if I just rub the lamp again after I’ve used my three wishes, and get three more that way?”

The genie blinked. “Um…”

“And you didn’t expressly mention the three-wish limit in your list of rules, so that limit can be revoked quite easily. Or, how about I wish for twenty-five trillion wishes? I’m technically immortal now that I'm an alicorn, but it’ll take me a few thousand years to get through all of them, and when I’m close to running out, I’ll just wish for a few billion more.”

For a moment, all was silent as the genie just stared at her. It blinked a couple of times and shook its head as if to clear it. “Wow, you’re good. Okay, let’s just say you have infinite wishes, then.”

“Great!” Flies said and beamed a smile at the genie. “Then I wish that I would think of a good thing to wish for.”

The genie groaned. “I have a terrible imagination. This might take a while.”

Flies nodded. “So do I. Take your time.”

There was silence for a few minutes as both of them sat and thought. At long last, both of them had simultaneous eureka moments. “Aha!” They both cried.

“I wish to know what gender you actually are!” Flies said.

The genie gave her a glare. “I’m a dude. I’m totally a dude. Don’t I look like a dude?” He snapped his hoof and the mirror reappeared. He stared at himself a bit. “Well, I think I look like a dude.”

“You totally don’t.”

The genie muttered something under his breath. “Just a sec. Lemme look at the locals.” He disappeared through the wall a moment and came back looking exactly like a mare. “There. That better?”

“Now you look like a chick.”

“No way!” The genie looked in the mirror again. “I look like a girl? But I’m imitating someone out there who looks nothing like you at all. And you totally sound like a girl. You’re a girl, right?”

Flies sighed. “Yeah, but it’s part of being an alicorn princess. We kind of start looking like guys.”

“Oh,” Said the genie, “Odd. Okay, then.” He vanished through the wall again, and came back a stallion.

“Much better. So, now that that’s taken care of, what was your idea?”

“Well,” The genie began, “You’re queen already, right?”

“Well, I prefer Supreme Dictator Overlord, but yes,” Flies answered.

“Great! So there are probably ponies out there who don’t like you, and who you don’t like, right?”

“Of course. I’m kind of a tyrant. Well, it’s my first day on the job, but I’m totally going to be a tyrant.”

“Perfect! I can murder some of them for you! Sure, you could send out a squad of soldiers or something to do it for you, but I can do it far more cleanly. Nopony would be able to trace it back to you.”

Flies’ eyes lit up. “That’s brilliant! And delightfully evil! So who should I kill?” She pondered a moment more. “I can’t think of anyone. How about I have a list of everypony’s names within a five mile radius?”

The genie snapped his hoof again, and a scroll materialized in front of Flies. She unrolled it and started looking at names. “Why and how do you snap your hoof like that, anyway?”

“Oh,” The genie said, “I guess I didn’t realize that I was doing it. Force of habit, really. I usually have these long appendages on the end of my arm, and it’s totally easy to snap them.”

“Kay,” Flies said. “Oooh, her name’s Fluttershy? Whoops. I’ve been calling her Slyfutter her whole life. That’s embarrassing. How about you change her name to Slyfutter so I was right this whole time?”

“Done,” Said the genie. The text in front of her morphed, and the name was changed.

“Oh, her name’s Rarity? That’s a stupid name. Change her name to Commonty.” Even as she said it, the name changed. “Oh, and name this Ditzy Doo character Derpy. That’ll make those angry apes in my head happier. Ah, and this girl has like ten names? Colgate, Minuette, Aquafresh, and so many more. That’s plain confusing. Just name her Blueface. Ooh, and this one here says ‘Bulk Biceps,’ but that’s a silly name. Name him Snowflake. And this guy’s Flash Sentry, but I think ‘Brad’ is a better name for him.” She paused for a moment and watched as all the names changed.

“You done?” The genie asked.

“Yeah, I’m good. Go ahead and change them all back. Now what was I looking for?”

“Somepony you wanted to murder.”

“Right!” Flies said, “Now who do I want to murder?” She started reading the list again. “No, I said I wouldn’t brutally murder him. No, I said I wouldn’t kill her… No, I said I wouldn’t kill her either…”

The genie watched as Flies kept going down the list, rejecting every name she came across. “Let me guess,” The genie said, “You don’t have any idea who you want to murder?”

“Nope!” Flies said. “So my next wish is for a horribly evil creature that I can kill.”

The genie blinked, and a gigantic raving mad demon dog thing appeared in the room and roared in rabid rage.

“Great! Now kill it!”

The genie pointed at it, and the demon dog thing disappeared from existence as quickly as it came. Flies rubbed her forehooves together in evil glee. “Haha! I’m such an evil dictator!”

The genie planted a hoof into his face.

Suddenly, the doors to the hall flew open, revealing a blue alicorn. Her mane billowed backwards and her eyes flashed white with rage as she screamed into the room. “HOW DAREST THOU! HOW DAREST THOU DEFACE THE ROYAL CITY IN SUCH A MANNER!”

“Oooh, ooh!” Flies said, bouncing up and down in excitement. “Turn her into a filly!”

“WHAT? NO! THOU MUST NOT…” The alicorn shrieked, but it was far too late. Flies and the genie watched as the alicorn shrank in size in front of them until she was nothing more than a small filly. “I’m gonna totally hurt you for this!” She squeaked in a tiny voice.

Both the genie and Flies stared at her. Both had the same reaction. “OMG SHE’S SO CUUUUTE!” They cried in unison.

Author's Note:

And suddenly Flies is already supreme dictator over all of Equestria. I kinda am enjoying writing this story out of order, to be honest. It allows me far more artistic freedom. It also makes it easier for me to make it up as I go along. Worry not! I do know how she rose to power, and I might even address it in the next chapter. She's gonna be in charge for a while, though, and not everything is going to go smoothly, even with an all-powerful genie by her side.

Also only three sections to this chapter. I may be settling down into my writing groove a bit more. Time shall tell!

Do please note that Doctor Deep Thought isn't stumped as far as diagnosing Flies psychologically goes. I just don't know enough about psychology to know if there's a way to classify her or not, so I chose to keep him mostly silent as Flies babbled on and on (As she always does when she finds a good listener). If anybody more qualified than I can classify her, let me know! I learned all I know about psychology from a sociopath. True story.