Fancy Butterflies. The one mare who holds the entire realm of Equestria in her hooves. The one mare who has absolutely no clue what she's doing.
Fancy Butterflies, or "Flies" as she likes being called, is a mare on a mission. A mission to take over all of Equestria. Of course, it would help if she knew what she was doing, or if she were actually evil, but hey. A mare can dream, right? Once she rises to power, however, not everything goes as planned.
It was a dark and stormy night. He trudged through the rain, head low as rain beat upon his dark hood. He seemed to ignore the puddles in the roadway, choosing to slog through them rather than keep his hooves dry by stepping around them. When he came to the door, he pushed it open with one hoof and stepped inside the building without so much as pausing to look around. A brief glow lit up his horn, and the door closed behind him. The light yellow light from his horn barely illuminated his face before it dimmed again, plunging the room into near darkness once more. The stallion muttered a few strange words underneath his breath as he trotted towards a table. In the dim light, he raised one hoof and tapped a dusty glass jar. Inside, fireflies sputtered to life, and a sickly green glow lit the room. The stallion threw his hood back and oh my goodness it’s a mare. It’s totally a mare. My bad. That was my fault. It’s really a mare.
The mare stomped her front hooves on the ground angrily as she threw a temper tantrum. “Aaargh I hate this place. This is a stupid place. Why do I even come here? It’s dark, and the fireflies are stupid, and there’s rain outside all the time, and everyone thinks I’m a stallion for some reason.” She glared at the fireflies, as if they understood her and could do anything about her plight. One of the fireflies managed to escape, and lazily flew close to her ear.
“I can understand you,” The small creature said, and flew in a wide circle around her head. Hey, that rhymes.
“Shut up!” She said, grabbing the firefly in her telekinesis and shoving it back into the jar. Of course, in the process, she had to unscrew the lid of the jar, and when she did so, all the other fireflies escaped and began flying around the room. The mare started pounding her front hooves on the ground and wailing again. “Stupid fireflies. I hate fireflies! Why do I even have fireflies? Fireflies are so stupid!” As the fireflies flew around the room, the previously concentrated light they emitted waned to a dim glow that illuminated the entire room.
“Fine. I’ll turn on the light. Stupid lightbulb. I hate lightbulbs.” The mare stomped across the room, lightning bugs scattering as she approached, and stared upwards at a solitary lightbulb with a pull string. She glared at the string. “Stupid string. I hate string.” The string hung a leg’s length away from the tip of her horn, and seemed to not care how much she glared at it.
“Come down here, you stupid son of a stupid,” She said, and reached upwards with one hoof, managing to touch the string. She batted it a few times with her outstretched hoof. “How am I supposed to even pull this stupid thing?” She demanded. She attempted to stand on her back hooves, reaching up with both her front legs, but quickly fell onto her back. With a growl of frustration, she scrambled to her hooves, arched her back, and leapt upwards, grabbing the string in her teeth. She hung there for several moments, suspending her entire body weight off the string. The light didn’t turn on.
The lightningbugs had congregated in a circle around her and were observing the spectacle. “Um, you know, that’s your Ethernet cable,” one of them helpfully pointed out. The mare glanced upward to see her router directly above her, with a cable coming out of it that she was hanging from, and a tiny chain coming out of the lightbulb socket, hanging only a short ways down before ending abruptly several hooves above her head.
“How am I supposed to reach that? That’s stupid. You’re stupid,” The mare opened her mouth to say, but fell to the ground immediately when she let go of the Ethernet cable.
“You do realize that you’re a unicorn, right?” One of the other lightningbugs asked.
The mare considered this for a moment, pondering what level of stupidity that statement most directly resembled. “Fine,” she sighed, and used her telekinesis in a simple, fluid movement to pull the chain hanging down from the light.
It didn’t turn on.
She opened her mouth to utter prophetic words of wisdom concerning the folly of said light, but at that moment, the friendly stallion who worked at the electric company finished repairing the electric lines and flipped the switch to turn the power back on to her house, and the entire room was immediately flooded with light. The mare immediately fell to the ground, covering her eyes with her front hooves, and started whining.
“This stupid stupid stupid is so stupid that I should stupid it right in the stupid before the stupid…” After many other brilliant words of great intellect, she stumbled to her hooves again, eyes accustomed to the light, and glared at the fireflies again, who all wore looks of incredulity. “Everything is stupid. I’ll prove it. See this table?” She jumped on top of the table with the firefly jar on it. “This table is stupid. I bet you that if I jump up and down on it enough, it’ll break, it’s so stupid.” She began jumping up and down uncontrollably.
“Your ex is stupid,” One of the fireflies said.
“Hey! Shut up!” She paused for a moment, tapping her chin with a hoof. “Wait, he was, wasn’t he?” She hopped down from the table, falling flat on her face.
“Can you let me out now?” The one firefly in the jar asked.
“No! Shut up,” She politely screamed as she rose to her hooves. She stared at the papers on the table that she had just been jumping up and down on. Some of them looked fairly important, come to think of it, and now all of them were wet and crinkled. “Are those bills?”
Just then, the not-so-friendly stallion at the electric company who keeps track of when ponies have paid their electricity bills or not pulled the switch going to her house, and the room was dark once more. The mare was silent for exactly three seconds before sighing in frustration. “Stupid,” She said.
* * *
The mare’s name was Fancy Butterflies, and her cutie mark was a cutesy little batch of stars, hearts, and stamps which represented her talent in scrapbooking. She really liked scrapbooking, but if you asked her about it, she’d probably say it was stupid just so you would stop bugging her about it. But of course, ponies everywhere talked about cutie marks constantly, since it was a good conversation starter, so she always would just say it was a skydiving cutie mark. At which point anyone talking to her would get the opinion that she was crazy and leave her alone.
But she wasn’t crazy. On this particular morning, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and she was humming to herself as she wandered around the kitchen. “Everything is awesome…” She hummed as she poured coffee into her mug. “Everything is cool when you’re a part of the team…” She took a swig of the coffee, then immediately spat it out into the sink. “Yuck! I hate coffee. That’s silly. Why am I drinking coffee?” She threw the entire mug into the sink, where it shattered into a bunch of tiny pieces. She pulled the coffee machine’s plug out of the wall and tossed the entire machine out the window, where it hit somepony on the head. “Oh, everything is awesome…” She continued humming as she opened the door and walked outside.
“Nope, wait, that’s the closet,” She said as she came out and went out the other door.
She sighed contentedly as she stepped outside into the howling blizzard. The door closed behind her and all inside the house was still. Even the clocks, cause the batteries were all dead. A few seconds later, she rushed back inside and slammed the door, planting her hooves against the sides of the doorframe as she panted, staring forward in horror. Her hair was askew, which is a funny word that means it looked like one of those 1D guys’ hair. Her face was plastered with snow, her tail was frozen stiff, and she was shivering.
“Zomg! It’s cold out there!” She said. “I thought it was supposed to be a sunny day with the birds chirping.” She looked at the TV where an episode of some show was playing, where everypony was happily singing about wrapping up winter or something silly like that. “Ah! That’s not the weather forecast. My bad.” She stared up at her mane. “Arrgh, my hair. It’s all ruined and stuff.” She sighed and trudged back into her bathroom to make it up again.
Several days later, when she had finished fixing her hair… Wait, is that sexist? That’s sexist, isn’t it? *ahem* What I meant to say was…
Several days later, the weather was far clearer, and she stepped outside to a cheery day. The sun was shining (Well, actually, it had just gone out, but it would take about eight minutes for the light to stop coming to Equestria, so that’s really not all that important), the birds were singing, the ducks were quacking, and the foxes were screaming. Yes, that’s what foxes do. Around a particular time of year, anyway. Silly city people don’t know what foxes sound like.
“AHHCHOO,” she calmly said as she took a lovely deep breath of pollen. It felt great. She loved pollen. She found it silly. Everything was silly, which was what made it awesome.
“Good morning, Flies,” A green unicorn with a harp cutie mark called as she walked past. Fancy Butterflies liked being called just “Flies” because it sounded like she was all emo, but today it just sounded silly enough for her to giggle.
“Good mythical morning, Lyra!” Flies cheerily called back, and realizing this made her sound too sane, hastily added, “Today is the day when I shall lay waste to Canterlot!”
“Great!” Lyra responded as she continued walking past. “Have fun! I’m off to dissect a corpse I exhumed the other day.”
“Fun? How silly is tha-“ Was all Files could get out before a pink pony smashed into her.
“Did somepony say fun?” The pony asked. “Cause I like fun. It’s almost like that time when everything was covered in rainbows and I saw the sky turn pink and really how silly is that because the sky’s normally pink here and don’t you think that’s odd because the sky is supposed to be blue during the day which makes a lot more sense because of how light refracts in the upper atmosphere and oh yeah is this your coffee machine?” The pink mare grinned excitedly as she held out a perfectly intact coffee machine that looked suspiciously like the one Flies threw out of her window several days ago.
Flies stared at the machine for a moment. “No…”
The pink pony giggled in reply. “Of course it is, silly. It’s got your name on it.” She dropped the machine in Flies’ lap and rocketed off at a speed close to the speed of light.
Flies stared at the note on the coffee machine. The note that read This is Flies’ coffee machine. Keep your stinking ugly hooves off my coffee machine. “Huh,” was all Flies could say before the wormhole that the pink pony left from running away too fast sucked her in and deposited her in the middle of town.
“Well, that saved some walking,” Flies said. Ponies stared at her for appearing out of nowhere, but she mentally dismissed them all as silly anyway, and started trotting towards her favorite fruit stand.
At that moment, there was a clap of thunder, and the fabric of reality tore itself in half in front of her, leaving a gigantic oval hole filled with bright blue light. Bolts of electricity sparked from the edges of the fissure as a strange-looking ape creature stepped out of the hole. The creature had spindly forelegs and hindlegs, and stood upright on her hind legs as she regarded Flies. Strange, loose-fitting clothing covered most of the creature’s body except her head. At the end of her forehooves were long, strange spindly appendages which she was using to grasp a gigantic gun.
The creature glanced around a bit. “Ooh, look, a pony dimension.” She then brandished her gun and pointed with one of her strange appendaged forehooves at Flies. “I am you from the future. There’s no time to explain. Follow me to- EHRMAHGERD!” A gigantic crab suddenly broke out of the fissure and grabbed the creature in a claw. The crab began scuttling away down the street, smashing through market stands and buildings.
Flies stared at the gun the creature had dropped. “Hey, look, a giant gun,” She said, grabbing it with her magic and shoving it into her saddlebag. She casually walked away, ignoring a white unicorn with purple mane that began chasing after the giant crab. A few ponies started running around and screaming in terror when they saw the crab, but then they realized this sort of thing happens all the time, so they quickly calmed down and shrugged it off like it was no big deal. Half their GDP was from rebuilding things, anyway.
After a bit of walking, Flies spotted Twilight Sparkle, Ponyville’s very own alicorn princess. Turning into alicorns was all the rage these days. “Hi, Twilight!” She called.
Twilight turned away from the other pony she had been chatting to and made a face that made it look like she was trying to not make a face. “Oh, hi Flies,” She said, slapping on a grin that was just a little bit too wide. “What are you doing today?”
Flies paid her reluctance no heed. “Oh, I just got this super awesome weapon from a version of myself from an alternate dimension that I’m going to destroy Canterlot with.” Hey, if she was going to lie, she might as well keep the lie consistent. Who knows? She might actually do that today. She wasn’t exactly busy with anything else.
Twilight’s plastered grin didn’t waver. “Oh, that sounds great. Hey, have you read Lord of the Flies yet?” Twilight was always nagging Flies to read Lord of the Flies, because funny.
This time, though, Flies had the perfect answer. “Nope, too emo. Emo books are silly.”
Flies watched as Twilight’s eyes darted back and forth and the corners of her mouth started to droop ever so slightly. “Wh… Lord of the Flies isn’t emo! And you’re kind of an emo pony…”
But Flies was already walking away. “See ya, Princess! Oh, and let Celestia know that I’ll be seeing her this afternoon after laying waste to the city.”
She heard Twilight sigh, and glanced back to see the princess with her head drooping close to the ground. “Yeah, sure, whatever,” Twilight muttered.
Just then, Princess Luna flew overhead. “Oh, look, it’s Luna,” Flies said. “I bet she’s going to have a gigantically important role in this fanfic.” She didn’t.
* * *
Precisely three hours later, Flies was sitting on a mossy boulder above Canterlot, peering through a pair of binoculars at the city below. Discord was miniaturized and sitting in a small woven basket to her right, staring at her with huge, sad eyes.
“Yes, I know,” She said, turning away from her binoculars and looking at the tiny draconequus, “But it’s not my fault that the silly Poison Joke yesterday made you mute. It affected me, too. Now I’m not completely emo.” She looked back at her binoculars before smashing them to pieces across the rock. “Good. Now anyone who comes here will wonder more about why the binoculars are broken then why the city’s in ruins.” She glanced back at Discord, who was gently stroking a Luna plushie. “Stop, you. That’s just silly. Nopony cares about Luna.” She stood up and blinked away a mental picture of a horde of angry monkey-looking creatures infuriated at her for making such a comment. She should stop talking about Luna that way. Her head was always filled with such images when she did.
With sad eyes and a pouty face, Disord slowly put the plushie away.
“Good,” Flies said with a sneer. She didn’t know why she sneered, it just felt silly. And silly is the new awesome. “Now let’s destroy Canterlot.” She telekinetically grabbed a spiked mace that happened to be beside her and smashed the miniature glass model of Canterlot in front of her. It gave her great satisfaction to see pieces of glass fly everywhere and totally get in her mane and coat. Discord was great for making small glass scale models of things. “Good, now that’s done.” She brushed her hooves together in evil glee. “So what’s next?”
Discord pointed at his mouth and whined.
“Oh, right, here you go,” She said, and handed Discord the vial filled with Poison Joke cure. Discord snapped his fingers and was gone in a flash. “Well, that was silly,” She chided herself, “I should have used it on myself first. Whatever shall I do if I’m not emo?”
Instantly, she realized her entire plan was falling apart. Without being emo, how could she possibly hope to become a cyborg? Everypony knows normal people can’t be cyborgs. They have to be half-robots, and emo people already… Wait, that’s offensive, isn’t it? She shook her head to clear it, and levitated the gun out of her bag, staring at the curious trigger mechanism and the giant “DO NOT POINT AT FACE WHEN USING” labels all over it. She briefly considered firing it off into the air, but then she remembered that only silly people fire guns upwards, so she stood on top of the rock and pointed it downwards before pulling the trigger.
Apparently this gun had knockback settings that were off the charts. Flies had rocket-jumped herself far into the air, and was falling right towards the top of her own house. She was grateful for her thatched roof to break her fall. When she hit it, it immediately gave way, and she fell through it and landed on her nice, soft, comfortable granite countertop, held up by cushy cinder blocks right above the bouncy concrete floor. She laughed at the silliness of it all. “That was almost as bouncy as a trampoline!” She said before passing out from pain.
Luckily for her, she has a pretty good healing factor, so after a few minutes she was cleaning up. She hefted the broken countertop and cinder blocks out the window, mixed up some concrete to cover the busted patch in the floor, and instructed the hyenas on her roof to lie overtop of the hole she left and never move again. She sat down at her desk, opened the lid to her amazingly awesome gaming laptop that totally wasn’t a cheaply-made, overpriced Fujitsu with a terrible graphics card, and began typing out the events of her day.
It was a dark and stormy night. He trudged through the rain, head low as rain beat upon his dark hood…
It was a dark and stormy night. Flies was sitting at her desk, holding her phone to an ear with one hoof, and tapping half-heartedly at her laptop’s keyboard with the other. She had the vague idea that she was treating this doctor’s office like most ponies treat tech support, but she dismissed that thought as cute as she waited to finish being transferred for the third time.
“Hello?” Came a voice from the other end of the line. “This is Nurse Redheart from Ponyville Hospital. How can I help you?”
Flies’ ears perked up when she heard the voice and sat up straighter in her chair. They had been playing Celine Deon all night while she was on hold, which filled her mind with images of a blazing inferno and ponies screaming. She didn’t like Celine Deon.
“Yes, Hi. My name’s Flies, and I’m sick. How much would it cost me to get better?”
The nurse on the other end of the line paused for a moment. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m sick,” Flies reiterated, “And I want to get better. How much would that cost?”
“Well,” Nurse Redheart said, “What exactly is the matter?”
“I don’t feel well,” Flies moaned and flopped her head onto the table for emphasis.
“You don’t feel well? What’s wrong?”
Flies wracked her brain for some kind of credential that would give her any skill in making such a diagnosis. She came up with nothing. “How should I know? You’re the doctor!”
“Uhh, well… we can’t exactly tell you what’s wrong without doing some kind of checkup.”
“Well how much would that be?” Flies glared at the computer screen in front of her as if it were the culprit.
“A normal checkup would be around 150 bits, plus any additional tests we’d need to run.”
“What! 150 bits?!? I’m not gonna pay that!” Flies exclaimed. “What if it’s just a normal headache?”
“Do you have a headache?” The nurse asked.
“How should I know if I have a headache?” Flies asked.
“Well, does your head hurt?”
Flies paused for a moment. “I dunno. Where’s my head?”
* * *
Flies stared at the ladybug. The mare was sitting on her front porch, legs sprawled out, about two feet away from the creature. She stared at the curvature of the ladybug’s back, how it was perfectly smooth, how each wing segment cover thing was a bright, vibrant red with three black dots. She noted the large false eyes on the front, and the much smaller face just underneath. She watched as it carefully picked up each leg and set it in front of the other without so much as tripping. She stared at the ladybug.
“Ladybugs are cute,” She said. The bug paid her no heed, continuing to crawl across the concrete porch. It stopped to gingerly examine a small crumb it ran across, waving its antenna around in the air as it brought its face close. Satisfied with the existence of said crumb, it gingerly stepped around it and continued walking.
“Why aren’t you flying?” She asked the ladybug. “I mean, it doesn’t make all that much sense to have wings and walk around all over the place. It’s literally the dumbest thing you could possibly do. Why do you even have legs? Rip them off and fly all over the place, you idiot. Are you really that much of a dolt that you walk around when you have wings?”
A pegasus stallion who had been walking down the street past Flies’ house stopped for a moment and stared at Flies before flapping his wings and quickly flying away.
“I mean, that’s just outright idiotic. What sort of moron would even walk if you could fly? There’s no legitimate reason you should even have legs. What kind of idiot gave you legs? Seriously, that’s just the dumbest thing ever. You must have no brain at all. I mean, you’re small and stupid, and you obviously don’t have much mental capacity anyway, but those legs are just siphoning muscle strength, blood, and power that should otherwise be going to your wings. I mean, seriously, you having legs means there’s less blood going to your brain, and that probably means you’re stupider as a result of it. I’m asking you as a creature with a higher percentage of blood going to my brain to rip your legs off because you’ll be smarter for it. I mean, imagine the DNA complexity that could go to developing your brain and making you smarter, and you’ve wasted it by having legs. You’re an idiot. You’re dumber than every other creature out there, just because you have wings.”
Somepony behind Flies cleared their throat. “Um…”
“CREATURES WITH WINGS ARE STUPID MORONS!” She roared as she jumped up and turned to face the pony behind her.
The yellow pegasus mare with a pink mane behind her blinked a couple of times, took a couple of steps backwards, made a strange noise in her throat, and flew off as fast as she could.
Flies stared after her for a moment. “Huh, I wonder if I said something that made her upset.” She pondered this possibility for several moments before shrugging. “Nah, nothing I can think of.” The ladybug beside her flapped its wings a bit, sputtering, before taking off into the air. It buzzed in a wide arc around her before soaring gracefully into the sky. Flies watched as a bird swooped down and ate it in a single bite. “Hah, that’s life for ya,” Flies said. “I told you to rip your legs off so you would be smarter.” She walked back inside.
* * *
On any other day, Flies would consider herself a very patient pony.
“And then I told him ‘Oh no you di-int!’ but he was all ‘Oh yah I di-id!’ And I slapped him but then he said-“
Today, however, she was unable to make that claim.
“And I said that was boring, but she really wanted to go, and I couldn’t say no, y’know? So then I said-“
Flies tried to make eye contact with the pony talking. She really tried. It wasn’t her fault that her eyes kept closing of their own accord, or threatening to roll to prove her displeasure. It wasn’t her fault. Honest.
“But then Flash told Windwalker that Bulk said he liked Swirl, and I said that-“
Under any other circumstance, Flies would have just screamed at the other pony to shut the cute up and stop blathering on and on. But in this particular situation, there was just nothing she could do.
“...Y’know? So then I was all ‘Aaah,’ and he was all ‘Eeek,’ but we still accidentally ran into each other and-“
Resigned to her fate, Flies’ mind wandered back to when she was a filly. Happy and carefree, she could freely run away from such conversations. Nopony would give her a second thought, nopony would mind if she just left…
“…oatmeal! And I said, ‘Oatmeal? Are you craz-‘”
But there was nothing to be done. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. All Flies could do was wait.
“…explosions started and everypony died and then…”
Flies briefly wondered how much emotion the other mare could read on her face. She was trying her best to not give away the fact that every muscle in her body was screaming at her to just up and run away. Nothing too terrible could come of it all, right?
“…attacking! Everypony run for your lives…”
She briefly considered why she was here in the first place. It’s not that she didn’t want to hurt anypony else’s feelings by betraying her own emotions, because she generally was very open and honest with other ponies about what she really felt. But this… this was just different. She regretted every decision she had made this far that got her to this point.
Finally, the screen turned black, and the loading icon appeared in the lower right corner. Flies breathed a sigh of relief and raised the controller closer to her face as the next level started. “I hate unskippable cutscenes.”
* * *
“Can anypony tell me what they want to be when they grow up?”
Several hooves shot up around the schoolhouse. “Ooh, ooh, memememe!” A young unicorn filly in the middle of the room shouted, waving her forehoof in the air excitedly. Several other young ponies in the room waved their forelegs and called out, as well.
The teacher paused for a moment before gesturing to a colt in the front row. “Yes, Trenderhoof.”
The filly sighed a bit in frustration but kept her hoof aloft as the young colt spoke. “I wanna be an astropony! I’d get to fly around in space, shooting bad ponies, and saving the good ones from the clutches of evil aliens!”
Some of the other ponies in the room stifled giggles, but the teacher smiled calmly at the colt. “That’s great! What do you think an astropony cutie mark would look like?”
“Like the awesome-looking ship in Gallopga!”
The teacher paused for a moment, as if making a mental note to look up later what that even was. “Ok, then. Anypony else?”
Another chorus of young voices called out, and this time the teacher singled out the excited young filly. “Yes, Fancy Butterflies. What would you like to be when you grow up?”
“The supreme overlord over all of Equestria!”
The outside of the principal’s office wasn’t the most fun place on the planet to be. As the young filly Flies sat on the bench outside, legs dangling above the floor, she vaguely considered how often she sat in this very spot. Anytime any other pony was in this room when she came in, they would scoot to a seat as far away as possible from the one in which she now sat. They knew which chair was hers, just like she knew that there were 69,105 floor tiles in the room. The florescent light above her flickered at just the right frequency to annoy and terrify young ponies, the water cooler across from her bubbled involuntarily every now and then, and Flies just sat, swinging her hind legs back and forth as she waited. She didn’t even have to look around the room to know its contents. A bookshelf beside her held different books and magazines, all of them boring. A potted plant sat on top, drooping long leaves over the edge of the shelf like spider legs reaching for some hapless prey underneath. Occasionally, somepony would walk past in the hallway to her right, and she would get a brief glimpse of them as they passed the glass wall and door. But the frosted glass door on her left gave her no indication of what the principal was doing inside.
Finally, the door opened, and the stallion beckoned her inside. “Miss Butterflies.”
Flies slowly dropped down off the bench and slowly trudged towards the giant door, ears and head drooping so much they nearly dragged on the ground. She shuffled in the door into the principal’s office. It was a fairly boring room. Shelves held more books that looked boring, odd doo-dads were shoved into various corners of the bookshelves and desk, and windows overlooked the mostly empty parking lot outside, blinds covering most of the view. Flies jumped up into the chair on her side of the desk and curled up into a small ball, staring at the desk in front of her.
The principal shut the door, walked behind the desk, and sat in his large chair. A giant, thick computer monitor sat to his left, almost reaching as tall as the stallion himself. He pushed his glasses farther up his snout, propped his front legs on the desk, and regarded the note in front of him. He cleared his throat. “Inciting anarchy?” He asked.
Flies just stared at the desk in front of her rather than the stallion behind it. She knew that Princess Celestia technically was immortal, and thus her chances of being dictator over all of Equestria were slim, but a girl can dream, right? “On an annoying technicality, yes,” She replied.
The principal sighed. “The fact that we already have a perfectly fine benevolent ruler already?”
This was the largest hurdle in Flies’ path, and she was well aware of it. She had stayed awake many a night, silently pondering how to knock off or otherwise dispose of an immortal, powerful being that everypony loves in order to start a tyrannical dictatorship of her own. After this, the important question was how to stay in power, since the ponies underneath her would likely revolt at this major change. And if she couldn’t outright kill an immortal goddess, how could she imprison her long enough to have a long, fulfilling reign?
“I’ll deal with such problems when I come to them,” Flies said.
The principal sighed and rested one hoof against his face. “There are just certain things you can’t do. Without Celestia, the sun and moon would move across the sky. Without them moving, one side of the planet would burn up, and the other would freeze.”
Flies scowled. “That’s just because nopony’s intelligent enough to think of a creative solution.”
The principal blinked at her. “Come again?”
Flies sat upright in her chair and pointed at the principal for emphasis. “Remember last month when Celestia’s student escaped?”
“Princess Celestia’s student, but yes,” The principal corrected.
“Right, yeah. That Sunset Shimmer chick. She got out through a portal that only opens once every twenty moons, and nopony managed to follow her in time before the portal closed again.”
The principal scratched the side of his head with one hoof and frowned slightly. “I don’t see what that has to do with-“
Flies cut him off. “And Princess Celestia was all heartbroken and stuff, and everypony in the newspapers was talking about how they wish they had noticed that she left in time. But nopony thought of the obvious solution.”
“Which was?”
She leaned forward for emphasis. “Celestia controls the sun and moon. All she would have to do is move them backwards a bit, and the portal would open again.” Flies smiled triumphantly at her school principal, while the latter just stared forward and acted like he was trying to form words without quite knowing what to say.
Flies hopped down from her chair and strode to the door with her head high and chest puffed out. “I like you. When I become supreme overlord dictator and conquer all of Equestria, I won’t murder you and your family.” She opened the door and stepped outside.
“Miss Butterflies?”
She poked her head back into the room. “Yes?”
The principal smirked at her and pointed back at the seat. “I’m not done.”
Flies sighed and let her shoulders sag once more as she wearily dragged herself back up onto the chair and curled up into a little ball again. This principal just didn’t confuse easily enough.
“Now about your behavior in class today…”
* * *
It wasn’t her fault, Flies eventually decided. Other ponies just didn’t get it.
The young mare sat in the school cafeteria, one table entirely to herself. Other ponies who came by and noticed her sitting at the table would quickly walk away again. Some of them had restraining orders on her, and other ones were just too lazy to get their own. It was fine, really. It gave Flies time to think without interruptions. She chewed thoughtfully on her salad as she stared in no direction in particular.
“Um, excuse me?” Said a voice. Flies glanced up to see a yellow pegasus with a long, flowing pink mane that was covering half her face. She was turned at just the right angle that Flies could see a cutie mark of three pink butterflies on her side. The mare smiled weakly, showing off a shiny pair of braces. “I just noticed that um, you were sitting by yourself and I just thought…”
“I have personally analyzed the chairs at this table and have come to the conclusion that they are unsafe,” Flies said. “This table is older than the others, and I managed to find the owner’s manual for it in the school’s archives. Based on strength test ratings conducted on this model of table, with stereotypical material wear-and-tear, I have come to the conclusion that this table will not properly support the weight of ponies who are particularly fat. It is therefore my duty to sit here and warn fat ponies not to sit here, as doing so would endanger their personal health and safety as well as my own. This I have done for the past six months while I await the stupidity of bureaucracy to catch up to my intellect and replace the table, as I have asked them several times to do.” Flies gave the other mare a cursory inspection. “But you don’t look all that fat, so you’re probably fine sitting here.” She took another bite of salad.
“Um… thanks I guess…” The mare hesitated a bit, half looking like she was about to bolt away, but eventually made up her mind and sat down across from Flies. “Um, hi. My name is…”
“Slyfutter. Yeah, I know.” Flies prided herself with having an eidetic memory for names. “You’re the one who likes animals, right?”
The other mare paused for a moment and muttered under her breath. “Um, if that’s what you want to call me, that’s ok I guess.” She spoke up a little louder. “Yes, I love animals. They’re so cute and fluffy and I have this pet bunny who-”
“That’s great,” Flies said. “But aren’t you supposed to smell terrible if you’re living with animals and such?”
“Well, not really,” Slyfutter said brightly, “My bunny Angel is house trained, and he’s so well-behaved that-“
“Cause I had this one idiot who thought I was her friend, and she lived in this pig pen, and she had this dog. And the dog was super smelly, and the girl was, too. And one day I told her that. I said ‘You smell and your face is ugly.’ And we didn’t really talk all that much after that. But anyway, the point is that the dog smelled and so did she.”
“Wouldn’t that be because she was living in a pig pe-“ Slyfutter began.
“And I knew this other stallion, and he had all these hamsters. He was obsessed with them, really. He had these funny plants in his basement with all these grow lights and stuff. I never actually saw the hamsters, but he would process the plants in this certain way and do something where he was inhaling some kinda smoke, and after doing that he would go on and on about the hamsters and how much he loved them and how they would all beam down from their ships and visit him at night. And he would talk about the giant hamster in the sky that they all served and how that hamster was going to come and try to take over the world one day. And that guy smelled too. He smelled kinda funny.”
Slyfutter frowned a bit and glanced to one side. Her voice got even quieter, which Flies thought was impossible. “Wouldn’t the smell be because he was taking dru-“
“Anyway,” Flies continued, “The point is that you don’t smell nearly as much as I thought you would from living with so many animals. It’s a compliment. You’re not that fat and you don’t smell too bad. So I kinda like you I guess.”
Slyfutter sank lower and lower into her seat as Flies continued. “What else do I kinda like about you? Your braces don’t look terribly dorky, so that’s a bonus. I generally can’t stand hanging around other ponies with braces, because they look like complete dweebs, and I can’t stand dweebs. You know, cause they look dweeby. In fact, just the other day I punched this one guy in the face because he was so ugly. You know, braces, thick glasses, the whole works. And I thought that the world would be a better place if I just punched him in the ugly face. Nopony else seemed to think that was such a good idea, though, and some of the other ponies started trying to attack me, saying something about ‘bullying’ or something crazy like that, which is just ridiculous, so I told them. I said ‘You all are a bunch of morons and I’ll beat you into a pulp for being so stupid. And you all smell.’ I don’t think it went over very well, though, because a bunch of them attacked me. I punched this one blue pegasus mare really good, though; he had to be sent to the clinic…”
Slyfutter’s eyes were about level with the top of the table by this point. Suddenly, the class bell rang, and she bolted out of her seat into the air, hovering in the air for a second as she grabbed her meal tray. “Nice talking to you bye,” She hurriedly blurted and flew off.
Flies stood up from her seat and stretched. “She was nice,” she muttered to herself. “I’ll probably let her live when I take over all of Equestria.” She levitated her tray up, broke it in half over her head, and crammed it into a trash bin. “I don’t know why those trash cans aren’t big enough to fit the entire tray in. Some dumb stallion who doesn’t know a thing about engineering must have designed them.” She levitated her saddlebags onto her back and joined the throng of students lined up to leave the room.
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.
Flies blinked, and a puzzled frown worked its way onto her face. “Wait, that’s it?”
“Yep!” The other filly said, and began playing with her doll again.
“That’s the stupidest ending ever.”
The other filly sighed and set her doll down again. “Okay, fine. What do you want? How about ‘They kissed, then they got married, then they lived happily ever after.’ That better?”
“Did they die horrible deaths? Did they divorce each other later? I mean, there are all kinds of things that could go wrong from that point forward.” Flies was struggling to understand how a story could end in such a lame manner.
“What? No, of course not! What’s wrong with you, anyway? Why can’t you just let a happy story end happily?”
Flies scowled and stared at the doll the other filly had given her to play with. She never understood what was so special about playing with dolls. She’d rather be outside jumping in quicksand, because at least then she’d die with plenty of Vitamin D in her system rather than dying of morbid obesity from staying inside all the time. “Well, I was kinda waiting for the story to get interesting, and then it just ended,” She admitted.
The other filly, who had been looking at her doll closely, let her hooves flop into her lap and gave Flies a puzzled frown. “You want to know why other ponies don’t like playing with you?”
“Because they’re lame?” Flies guessed.
“Because you’re weird. I mean, you say the strangest things. Why didn’t you like the story? Every filly likes a good love story.”
Flies blinked. “I didn’t like it. I don’t like love stories.”
“Why not? Doesn’t your heart go pitter-patter with the thought of some amazing stallion who will whisk you away to an amazing castle of your own? Who will love and care for you forever and ever?”
Flies wrinkled her nose at the prospect. “Isn’t that kind of an idealistic view of the world? I mean, sure it’d be nice and all that, but with this economy, the chances of you as newlyweds owning your own castle would be fairly low. And if you’re just marrying a stallion because he has a ton of money, he’d probably end up being a complete and utter jerk, and you’d end up divorcing him later anyway.”
The other filly balked at her. “What? How can you even say that? That’s an utterly pessimistic view of the world.”
“No, it’s not really all that pessimistic,” Flies argued, “It’s honest. Why dream about some grand stallion? If you can’t take care of yourself anyway, what are you gonna do if he’s drafted into some war and dies horribly? I mean, a backup plan is always nice. For all you know, he could lose his job and you have to end up taking care of him.”
“So what?” The other filly asked. “Are you one of those ‘fillynist’ ponies who thinks that mares are mistreated, and they need to get jobs in order to prove their worth or something like that?”
Flies snorted out through her nose. “No indeed. All I’m saying is that if all you can think about is colts, and your plans fall apart if some colt doesn’t live up to your overly optimistic view of him, and you’re too enamored to think for yourself without him in your life, then you have a pretty sad existence.”
The other pony shook her head slowly. “I’m pretty sure that’s a fillynist mindset.”
Flies scowled and glared at the floor. “No, it’s not. The way I see it, it’s realistic.”
“So basically, you didn’t like the story.”
“No, not really.”
The filly threw her hooves up into the air and huffed. “Everypony else loves the story, but killjoy Flies here doesn’t. Fillies are supposed to like these sorts of things. You know, flirt with the cute colts and stuff, get a coltfriend by the time you’re in high school, that sort of thing.” Flies looked unimpressed, so the other filly continued. “You know, how colts like fart jokes, movies with explosions, that sort of thing. Fillies just like stories like that.”
“What if there’s a colt who isn’t like that, though?” Flies asked. “What if he hates fart jokes and spends time doing things that would otherwise be considered girly?”
The other filly sighed and went back to her doll. “Maybe he’s as weird as you, then,” She muttered under her breath.
“Or maybe,” Flies said, “He lost his sister and he’s subconsciously trying to figure out what life would have been like if she hadn’t died.”
The other filly balked and stared hard at Flies. “You know what? I was hoping that we could just play Pretty Princess here, but it seems like you aren’t interested. And at this point, I’d rather play with somepony else.”
“Fine by me. I’ll be outside doing something actually fun,” Flies said and left.
* * *
Flies stood at the train station outside the gates of Canterlot. It was wonderfully easy invading countries in times of peace, especially if you were a one-mare army. She calmly trotted across the bridge and towards the city’s main gate. All she had to do was act natural, and the guards would think nothing of her. They would have no way of knowing that her saddlebags held a weapon of mass destruction, and the drug that was destined to be ingested by Princess Celestia. They would just casually let her into the main gate, not knowing that in a few hours, she would be the one giving them orders. Nothing could stop her now. All she had to do is join the throng of tourists entering the city. Nopony would even so much as give her a second glance. She was ordinary-looking enough to fit in anywhere. Inwardly, she smiled to herself as the gate came nearer and nearer.
“Halt!” Cried a voice. Flies kept walking. There was absolutely no way the voice was talking to her. Her plan was flawless, and she was acting completely natural. Anypony who saw her was certain to think she was any other pony who-
“Flies, stop!” The voice called again.
“Huh?” She turned, and came face to face with a guard.
The guard squinted at her from underneath his helmet. “What’s wrong, Flies? You aren’t announcing your intentions to lay waste to the city today. Are you sick or something?”
“Oh,” Flies said, realizing the only hole in her plan was that she always threatened to destroy the city every time she entered Canterlot, and today she was actually going to make good on her claim but made no such declaration. “Sorry, I was too carried away thinking about the gigantic gun I’m holding and all the drugs I’m going to put in Celestia’s cake this morning.”
The guard grinned. “Now there’s the Flies I know. Come on in.” He beckoned with his spear and Flies casually strolled into the city.
Flies pondered the implications of what just happened as she made her way through the city towards the castle. Perhaps the whole “acting normal” thing was an invalid approach to taking over Canterlot today. She realized that all along, when she was claiming to want to take over Equestria, other ponies hadn’t actually believed her. Along with this came the realization that other ponies probably expected her to talk about taking over the world, and doing so was “normal” behavior for her. She had been proverbially crying wolf the entire time, and now was the time for action.
“Hi, Flies,” Somepony called.
“That’s Queen Supreme Overlord Flies to you, mortal,” She replied out of habit.
The other pony giggled. “Glad to hear you’re doing well. Have a great day!”
Perfect. This was going to go swimmingly. She then remembered that she couldn’t swim. Ok, maybe not swimmingly. Maybe more walkingly. In any case, she was close to the servant’s entrance to the castle, so she jumped behind a bush. When she came back out, she was dressed in a French maid outfit, the perfect disguise for infiltrating the castle. Provided, of course, that Princess Celestia’s servants even wore French maid outfits. To say that Flies had done her research would have been an overstatement. Now, however, was the time to put on her best attitude, for none of the castle’s servants knew her. Now was the time to stop threatening to take over the world. Now was the time to sneak in and put some diphenhydramine citrate in some royal baked goods.
Flies casually strolled in the servant’s door and entered the castle.
Half an hour later, she made her way towards the royal hall, inside which she hoped to find Princess Celestia asleep on her throne. As she neared a bend in the corridor, she could make out the voices of two gaurds.
“…Some of them are really annoying, and I wish they would die. But I wish some of my family members would die. Like my uncle Joe. I hate him. He’s a horrible…”
“Shh, somepony’s coming.”
There was a quick scuffle of movement, and all was silent as Flies rounded the corner and came into full view. She had quickly ditched her French maid costume, and now was wearing a completely insane get-up with tons of earrings, a patchwork sort of dress, and a huge flowery hat. Yet another lesson to not attract attention: Dress in such a crazy manner that other ponies are trying so hard to not stare that they end up ignoring you. She could tell that it was working on the two guards who had been talking earlier; as they stood at attention on either side of the large doors, they darted quick looks at her from the corners of their eyes.
Flies slithered her way up to them and spoke. “I am hereh to zee Prinzess Zelestiyah.” Lesson number three for not attracting attention: Speak in an accent so horrible that nopony can understand you. That way you can talk your way out of anything, because your argument doesn’t even have to make sense if nopony can understand it.
The guards stared at her blankly for a moment, then one of them lit up as he remembered something. “Oh, you’re here to see Princess Celestia. You must be Dark Effect, right?”
“Yez.” Sure, why not? She’d been called worse names before.
“Wait here a moment.” The guard disappeared through the large double doors. The other one stared at Flies a little too obviously for her taste.
“Vat do yoo vant?” She demanded. “In my countreigh, ve shoot ponies hoo beheighve like yoo. Stand at achtension, fool, or I vill have yoo shot!”
The guard quickly darted his eyes away and faced forward. Lesson number four for not attracting attention: Threaten to kill everypony in sight.
The doors opened again and the other guard came out. “You can go in now, Miss Dark Effect.”
“Zat iz Madam Durk Eifecht to yoo, yoo littel bahl of zlime!” Flies said in thanks as she walked into the royal hall. Once there, she immediately dropped the accent. Screaming at other ponies uses far too much energy. She preferred casually speaking death threats than yelling them. Lesson five: change accents constantly.
Princess Celestia was totally awake, which was annoying, but Flies had backup plans. The princess glanced up at Flies as Flies walked in. “Oh, you must be who I sent for to look at the lamp, correct?”
Flies blinked. If Celestia made her do something as boring as changing a lamp’s lightbulb, she would take it and break it over her big ugly face. Also, wow this hall was big. There were all these really pretty stained glass windows everywhere that she was going to totally have fun shattering later. But first things first. Just act rational. Or completely irrational. Either way worked just fine. “Yes.” Flies said. She had no idea what was going on, but when you say “Yes” in a confident tone of voice, it totally makes you sound like you know what you’re talking about. To prove that she was a completely sane and normal individual, Flies accidentally tripped and fell flat on her face.
Celestia smiled, apparently mistaking this for a bow. “You may rise. The artifact is here.” She unlocked a vault behind her throne and levitated a curious-looking teapot thing, setting it down in front of the throne. Flies recognized it as an old oil lamp thing, but that was about as far as her knowledge of ancient artifacts went. Of course, the object was made of solid gold, which Flies remembered was heavy. This made her want to smash it against Celestia’s skull, but she restrained herself for the time being.
“Hmm,” Flies said, scrambling to her feet and regarding the object. “It’s far away.” She was great at stating the obvious in ways that made her sound intelligent. It was, indeed, very far away. She was about halfway down the hall, but the throne, Celestia, and the lamp were still several hundred hooves away. To remedy this situation, Flies teleported. In a flash, she reappeared close to the throne, with her forelegs where her hindlegs should have been. She hated it when she did that. She probably should have paid attention during teleportation class. Ah, well. Pretending that nothing was wrong, she leaned forwards and stared intently at the lamp. “It appears to not be lit. That’s probably important.” She was so good at making up scientific-sounding jargon. “Is it made of solid gold? It looks like it is.”
“Indeed it is,” Celestia affirmed.
“Well, it’s best to be absolutely sure in such a case. We’ll never be able to diagnose what it is otherwise.” Flies levitated the lamp, testing the weight, then smashed it as hard as she could into the alicorn’s forehead.
Celestia did nothing. Her smile didn’t waver, she hardly blinked, she didn’t turn Flies into a frog, and most annoyingly of all, she didn’t fall over unconscious.
Pretending this was just part of the routine of the inspection, Flies turned the lamp over and noted the sizable dent in the portion that had smashed into Celestia’s forehead. “Hmm, yes, it would appear to be solid gold.” She set the lamp down and regarded it once more. “What do these strange runes on the side mean?” If she could read, they would probably say “Rub me” or something crazy like that. “I’m thinking it may date back to the Imgoingtoknockyououtsopleasecloseyoureyes era.” She whipped the gun out of her saddlebags and fired a gigantic laser beam towards the princess. The knockback from the gun blasted her clean across the entire hall. She scrambled back to her hooves, expecting to see a gigantic crater, only to see Celestia, throne, dais, everything unharmed. With a roar of frustration, Flies teleported back to the other end of the hall, which swapped the position of her nose and horn, whipped a spray can of sleeping gas out of her pack, and started beating Celestia over the head with a baseball bat while filling her face full of sleeping gas. “WHY. WON’T. YOU. JUST. PASS. OUT?” She yelled in rage.
After several minutes of yelling, screaming, and beating Celestia over the head, Flies flopped to the ground, panting. “You… You…” She gasped as she sucked air into her lungs.
With a calm smile, Celestia levitated the spray can and baseball bat away from her. “My dear little pony Fancy Butterflies,” She began, “While I…”
That was as far as she got before Flies’ phone rang. Celestia jumped and stiffened at the noise, then flopped over to her side. Flies answered the phone. “Hi, Mom… No, I’m kinda busy right now… Yeah, just knocked out Princess Celestia… No, I’m serious this time… Thanks, Mom. Please send money. Bye.” She tapped the “End Call” button and glanced back at Celestia. “Huh. That’s odd.”
Celestia groaned and began stirring. Flies stuck her face into Celestia’s, and as soon as the alicorn opened her eyes, Flies yelled “BOO!” Celestia yelped, stiffened, then fell over and went limp again.
“Huh,” Flies said again, “Apparently she’s like one of those fainting goats.” She stood there for a moment, regarding the unconscious princess, then shrugged. “Okay then. Everything is going according to plan.” She pulled a body bag out and began stuffing Celestia into it. She cast a listening spell on the guards to see if they had heard and done anything about the commotion. Apparently not. They were having a great conversation this time.
“…Representing that one percent are like I would like to see them run over by a car,” Said one.
“Yeah,” The other guard agreed.
“But there are again family members that you want to see get run over by a car.”
“Yeah.”
“You do. It’s like I would love to see their blood pooling on the road. I would like to then roll around in that blood in celebration. Just the thought gets me…”
By this time, Flies had finished stuffing Celestia into the body bag, dragged it to the door, and pushed it open. The guards immediately stopped talking again, and stood at attention as she dragged the huge black bag behind her. One of them glanced quizzically at the bag, and Flies offered a response to his unspoken question. “Zis iz zee heveighest lamp evah. En mye deigh, ve vould have zis lamp shot vor beink zo heveigh!” Lesson six: Keep a running tally of who you used what accent on. That way it becomes fun when multiple ponies enter a room at once and you have to try to use multiple accents at once.
“Need a hand with that, Madam Dark Effect?” One guard asked.
“Ov courze, yoo lazy zlob! Vat are yoo doink ztandink dere laihk a uzeless zlimeball for? Uzeless zlimeballs get shot en maigh countreigh!”
The guards quickly picked up the body bag with Celestia in it. “Where are we going with this lamp?” One asked.
“Down zee ztreet vith eet, yoo stoopid idiotz!” Flies yelled in his face and led them down the hall.
* * *
Flies stood outside the dark entryway. Everything about this house was abnormal, from the haphazardly-crooked roof to the off-level front porch. Rusted nails stuck out from the wood planks that covered the side of the house, and several of said planks had fallen off. Flies couldn’t blame the guards for dropping off Celestia and leaving as quickly as they had. Everything about the building was crooked, off-center, or just plain wrong. Powerful magic was the only thing that could possibly keep this strange house from falling over, and the earth pony who lived inside sure didn’t cast it. Flies lifted a hoof and rapped on the trapezoidal door with it. Three taps, then two taps, then one tap. She waited for the house’s reclusive inhabitant to answer.
There was a rustling behind the door, and it swung open a crack. One yellow eye poked around the side of the door and regarded Flies. “What do you want?” Asked an old, hoarse voice.
Flies stepped to the side and unzipped the body bag enough to reveal a bound and gagged Celestia. “I want you to switch our brains.”
