“So, how do we compensate for no magic?” asked Wind Rider. The girls and the Wonderbolts stood with me at the edge of the Changeling lands, where magic abruptly stopped working.
“I’m glad you asked,” I said. “Mostly through advancing technology in networks and transfer. Individual systems need to be connected. Right now, there’s a mostly invisible network that connects everything and everyone. It started small, of course, but it’s grown into an incredibly complex web of connections. Even if people don’t know they’re using it, the many inputs and outputs affect their lives in ways that are impossible to understate.”
“Why are you describing modern plumbing?” asked Twilight.
“I was getting to that. God, give me a second.”
No problem, boomed my own voice from the sky.
Twilight gave me a seriously? look. I grinned and kept up my explanation. “Okay, so plumbing has lots of inputs and outputs. Now imagine that it passes electricity and can be used to send signals. It’s a network where information can be passed from anywhere to anywhere. This web of sensors and receivers is already in place for my own use. That’s how I’m smart and well-informed. The Equestrian Government has gained access to a significant fraction of it, and therefore are fairly smart and fairly well-informed.”
Tin Mare finished landing nearby. She opened the back door, revealing a rear cargo area that was absolutely crammed full of laser guided bombs. They were arranged in neat pallets for airdrop off the tailgate. There was just enough room to squeeze the girls and the Wonderbolts in.
Cordoba lounged on top the bombs. She’d probably loaded them. Trixie, Sunset, Coloratura, and Merry had come along.
I wasn’t sure why Merry was there, and based on the expression on her new face, she probably felt the same way. She shied away from the rest of the passengers. She looked like she felt vulnerable due to bombs. She also looked like she felt lewd due to penis.
Rarity was the first to realize the situation. She immediately pulled out her dressmaking kit. “Let me get you something to wear, dear.”
Merry seemed grateful. I’m guessing she wasn’t thrilled about her newfound gigantic schlong.
“Who is that and what’s with, uh, their...?” Lighting Dust paused and simply gestured.
“That’s Merry May,” I said. “She was a pegasus who became an airplane who became a hermaphroditic alicorn, except the previous owner of the body lost a presidential election and subsequently an hero’d so the head is missing the top half of its skull so she’s effectively just a tall pegasus with her brain visible under glass.”
Lightning Dust stared at me for several seconds before shaking her head. “Um, okay. What’s she doing here?”
“Her best, I assume.”
I turned to look elsewhere. Now that Tin Mare’s cockpit was clear of brain and stuff, more passengers could ride there. Sunburst and Thorax were.
“Well if it isn’t the ambiguously gay duo,” I said.
“Hey, I’m totally biguous!” said Pinkie.
“And how,” I replied, “But I was talking to them.”
“What do you mean?” Sunburst asked.
“I mean, Thorax here can be anyone, so it’s kind of hard to tell what sort of relationship you have.”
“We have a relationship?” said Thorax. “I mean, I guess I wouldn’t know, since I’m new to the whole having friends thing.”
“This isn’t about friendship,” I said. “So are you here because we’re going to the old Changeling castle?”
Thorax nodded. “Chrysalis' throne was carved from an ancient dark stone that soaks up outside magic.”
“Well, we’ll just fly over there and fast-rope in,” I said. Tin Mare lifted off and headed towards the castle.
“That’s not going to work,” said Thorax. “The castle is made so that all the magic soaked up over the years can be used for powerful anti-air blasts.”
It was just about that time that Tin Mare drove for the ground to avoid one such attack.
While we were in zero-g, I took the opportunity to do a backflip. I mean, why not, right? Tubular.
“Tin Mare, what’s the assessment?” I asked.
“The magic attacks are unlikely to cause my airframe serious damage, but will definitely grow in power the closer I get, and probably could just push me out of the air.”
I sighed. “Okay, let us out. We’re going to have to do this manually. Stand by for when we get that air defense taken out.”
The whole group piled out. Cordoba stayed aboard to perform loadmaster duties. Tin Mare took off again, dodging another magic attack from the castle’s tallest spire.
On the ground, standing in front of everyone, I surveyed the crew.
The Wonderbolts - Wind Rider, Lightning Dust, Whiplash, Night Glider and new recruits Sky Stinger and Vapor Trail - looked morose at not being able to fly. I knew they were only going along with this to remove Quibble and assume position as the new leaders of Equestria, but for the moment our purposes aligned.
The girls, despite still being overall wishy-washy, had seen a lot of shit with me. They would whine and complain, but I could probably depend on their help.
Sunburst and Thorax were an unknown quantity, though Thorax’s knowledge of the castle would definitely be helpful.
And Sunset and Trixie...well, they were ready to follow me to Hell and back, and refrigerate the place while we were there.
“All right,” I said. “If you all go with me on this mission and do what I say, I’ll put you on the nice list.”
“No, I’m leaving,” said Merry. “I’m not doing this anymore.”
“Wait,” I said.
She turned. “No, you don’t have anything to hold over me anymore. I’m not going to let you guilt-trip me with the old ‘you’re the only one who can’ argument.”
“Actually, I was going to tell you that when you find yourself broke and homeless, come back and we’ll find you something to do with your life.”
“I’m never going to see you again,” she snapped.
“I said when, not if.”
I turned around to the others. “Okay, gang, let’s blow this popsicle stand.”
We headed out. Overhead, Tin Mare circled the castle at a distance, occasionally getting shot at. On the ground, we pretty much just marched.
Twilight walked up next to me. “What did you mean by putting us all on the nice list?”
“So, I told you I work for Santa Claus. It’s my job to judge who goes on the nice list and who goes on the naughty list.”
“Why do that?”
“Because then Santa knows what to bring you for Christmas. All the good girls and boys get presents. The bad ones get coal.”
“I mean, coal is not a special gift, but having coal is better than not having coal, I suppose,” said Twilight.
“That’s right, you do own a significant fraction of Valiantco™,” I remembered. While I was hoping to expand to more energy markets than just the oil industry, any fossil fuels would help. Twilight knew that, too. She was probably the only one who actually read the shareholder report. I didn’t.
“So...that’s it?” said Twilight. “If you’re nice, you get presents, and if you’re naughty you get coal? And it’s your job to decide who falls into each category?”
“Mostly,” I said. “When he comes to town, there might be other stuff.”
Suddenly, Whiplash vanished in a hole in the ground.
“Huh, that’s new,” said Thorax. “Apparently, the constantly shifting structures have been repurposed as traps.”
“Um, what do you mean by that?” Twilight asked nervously, scanning the ground.
“It’s a changeling hive,” Thorax explained. “It shifts and changes like we do, and we’re the only ones who can navigate it. Follow me.”
He led us through the barren land up to the castle.
“This would be a really good time to have tanks,” I said. “Assuming the holes weren’t too big, you could just drive over them. Plus, we could use the cannons to shoot at the tower from here. It reminds me of that time, the last time we fought changelings, when I blew up Chrysalis with a Panzerfaust.”
“If we’re supposed to stop that magical air defense, wouldn’t that be good to use?” said Twilight.
“Nah. By modern standards, it’s not a great weapon. It’s only got an effective range of two hundred feet. That wouldn’t even get us across this moat.”
“Huh, that’s new too,” said Thorax. We all stopped at the shore.
There was a ripple in the water.
“Who wants to go in and test what that is?” I asked.
“It looks like love fish,” said Fluttershy.
“Appropriate for Changeling Lands, I suppose,” I said.
“Not really,” said Fluttershy. “They don’t have anything to do with love. They’re called love fish because love stands for ‘lots of voracious eaters.’”
“Piranhas, basically?”
“Worse. Much worse.”
Speaking of worse, SOS showed up just then.
“Lord Valiant, we have come to serve you!” said the leader, prostrating herself in front of me.
“Well, that was convenient,” I said. “We have a fish problem. They’re in the moat.”
“Charge!” They all ran into the moat.
“That-that was incredibly unwise of them,” said Fluttershy. The others refrained from comment, too busy looking away.
“I...think they realized that,” I said. “On the plus side, if we hurry we can walk across the bodies before they get completely eaten.”
We hurried.
On the other side of the moat, the castle walls rose up. There wasn’t much place to go.
“What about a tower of ponies?” said Applejack.
“I can just spider up it,” said Trixie.
“Magic doesn’t work here,” Twilight said.
“It’s not magic, it’s a mutation.” Trixie transformed. I gave her a boost and up she went. It helped that the pockmarks on the castle walls made excellent holds.
Thirty seconds later, the drawbridge came down. Lot of good that did us, though. The inside of the castle was nothing but a maze of holes and tunnels.
“You can navigate this, right?” said Twilight.
Thorax nodded. “Follow me.”
We walked in, passing the mailbox. It looked completely out of place and appeared to be newly installed. It was filled with political flyers sent by Columbia’s campaign. One of them read, Like the free mailbox? Vote for Columbia!
In retrospect, maybe I made her too good at politics, still soliciting votes via junkmail from beyond the grave.
Entering the castle behind Thorax, we were greeted with little that resembled a standard building. Holes were everywhere, constantly moving and shifting.
A nearby wall promptly slammed shut, trapping Twilight, Coloratura, and I separate from the group.
Twilight hit the wall with her hooves. “Hello! Can you hear me!”
“Little bit,” came Applejack’s voice, faintly.
I touched my earpiece. “Can you hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” replied Sunset. Trixie, Cordoba, and Tin Mare also rogered up.
“Put me on speaker.”
I heard a blip and the sound quality changed. “Can everyone hear me?”
There was a chorus of yes’s.
“Remember what I was saying earlier about the technology and webs of networks? Well, we’re going to have to set up an impromptu web right here if we want to do this right.”
“What are we using it for?” It sounded like Wind Rider asking.
“Let’s put it this way: it’s a local web.”
“For local spiders?” asked Fluttershy.
“That’s a good way of putting it, considering WE’RE GOING TO CATCH AN ASSHOLE COCKROACH in it.” I shouted for Quibble’s benefit. Undoubtedly he was listening.
“Anyway,” I went on, “You guys, with Thorax’s help, go take down the air defense. That’s one piece of the network. Once that’s done, Tin Mare can do her job, that’s another part. I’m going to go to the throne room and eliminate Quibble.”
“We’re on it,” said Sunset. “Good luck.”
“You too.”
I turned back to Twilight. “Looks like it’s you and me. Just like old times, eh?”
“Don’t remind me,” she said. “So what are you planning? Your usual crusade to kill?”
“Nah,” I replied. “I think you’ll be surprised.”
“I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Probably not.” I grinned.
“I’m not really sure what I want out of this,” said Coloratura. She’d been quiet for most of the mission to this point. “On the one hoof, I’m angry that Quibble Pants has been behind most of what happened to me.” She touched her eyepatch. “On the other, this is so far from my usual act that it stopped being funny a long time ago.”
“Stick with me,” I said. “It’ll get worse.”
She grimaced but didn’t reply. The three of us set off walking. Even though the castle was constantly changing and didn’t make a whole lot of sense, I naturally assumed that the throne room would be somewhere near the center. While we didn’t have a solid locational fix, Tin Mare could give me relative position updates by homing on my communicator and helped us steer in roughly the right direction.
It still took a lot of walking. With passageways constantly shifting, there wasn’t an easy way to get anywhere.
I picked up the pace, knowing we were on a schedule. “Come on, Twilight, play some Junior Senior and move your goddamned feet.”
She grumbled, but kept up. Coloratura nervously hummed some traveling music.
We did eventually find the throne room, though. I knew we were there when Quibble dramatically turned around to face us from where he sat.
“Well, this is a letdown,” I said. “No welcome at all. You could have at least had confetti or something, but look at this, not a single, solitary confetto.”
“I’m surprised you know that word,” muttered Twilight.
“Let me mansplain you a thing. I know how to use a dictionary.”
“I’m pretty sure ‘mansplain’ isn’t in the dictionary,” she said.
“I guess maybe it was a dicktionary.”
Quibble started to say something, but I knew where him opening his mouth would lead and I wasn’t in the mood to witness that much figurative autofellatio.
“Hadouken,” I said casually and threw a fireball in his direction. Quibble spun the throne back around and it absorbed the attack.
“How did you do that?” said Twilight. “You’re just an earth pony now.”
“Even earth ponies have magic, Twilight.”
“Not that kind of magic!”
“Do you think Pinkie could throw a fireball if she wanted to?”
Twilight opened her mouth and closed it again.
Quibble turned back. “There you go again! Fireballs, really? Totally unrealistic!”
“And that makes you what?” I said. “I’m serious, I want to hear what you have to say. I’m sure I’ll get a laugh out of it.”
“I’ve risen above any other in this world!” he said. “I’ve seen what really goes on. I am enlightened!”
“That’s nice.”
That seemed to stun him, as if he couldn’t believe that I didn’t care. “I know you plan for everything, Valiant. I’ll bet you even planned your own death so you could come back with an even greater image of strength. Modeling yourself after your so-called God was just icing on the cake.”
Totally hadn’t planned to be killed, by the way. That hurt a lot.
“But I’ve seen through you!” said Quibble. “You’ve tried to have me silenced, but I will not bow to you, because I am better!”
“Better at sucking.”
“How dare you mock me! At the least, I deserve a better class of insult!” Quibble had come out from behind the throne again, pure anger on his face. “I am the only opponent who has ever been truly aware! I know all that you do and more!”
“I don’t give a shit.” I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, do you give a shit?”
“Negative.”
“Let’s see what the God-o-Tron thinks,” I said.
Quibble Pants is a little bitch.
I grinned.
“Oh, laugh it up,” said Quibble. “If you could actually defeat me, you would have done it already.”
“We have a problem,” said Sunset over the secure network to my earpiece.
“Hang on,” I said to Quibble, holding up a hoof. “I need to take this. Coloratura, keep an eye on him.”
Coloratura frowned. “Wait, did you just-”
“What’s up?” I said to Sunset.
“I take it you three are in the throne room,” she said. “I think Twilight’s presence near the throne has added to the magic drain, and therefore the power of the air defense. It’s now shooting at us too and we can’t get near.”
“How close can Tin Mare get? Will that take some pressure off?”
“You saw what that thing could do!” protested Cordoba. “She’ll fly apart!”
“Fly me apart, then.”
I paused, but made the decision. “Do it. I was just about to tell Quibble what was really going on, so I’ll hurry up and get the throne knocked out.”
I turned back to Quibble.
“So are you going to feed me some story in a pathetic attempt to try and make me question myself?” he said.
“No try about it,” I said. “All right, so let’s do first things first. I want to extend your suffering as much as possible.”
I pulled out a grenade and tossed it into the seat of the throne. Quibble ducked for cover. “If you think you can kill me so casually-”
“Weren’t you listening?” I said. “I’m trying to prolong the time it takes to kill you. Shit man, actually try paying attention to other people once in awhile.”
“I don’t have to take that from-” The grenade cut him off. It wasn’t a loud explosion. This one was cryogenic, to get the stone nice and frozen and brittle.
Where do I get cryo grenades? Let’s just say lots of things come out of Santa’s toyshop.
Quibble started to talk again, and I lobbed another grenade. This one was concussive and specialized for demolition.
“That’s not going to-” Quibble started to say, but was cut off again. This explosion was deafening, and took a chunk out of the throne.
“If you think-”
I cut him off a third time with another cryo grenade.
“This only proves that-”
Another blast grenade.
“Are you quite finished with this silly-”
Cryo.
“You’re only embarrassing yoursel-”
Blast.
The last concussive grenade finally reduced the throne to shambles.
Near-simultaneously, the five hundred pound bombs began to arrive. I could hear Tin Mare sprinkling them all around the perimeter of the castle, the explosions shaking the building. I imagine Cordoba was getting a workout, pushing them off the tailgate for Tin Mare to guide with her laser.
The castle, despite its ability to change, wasn’t immune to damage. The ceiling above us split open in a huge crack. I saw Tin Mare go by, scorch marks on her fuselage.
Cordoba bailed out. After the beating she’d taken defeating Twi-minator, her wings still didn’t really work, but she dropped through the fissure in the throne room roof and landed on the stone floor, cracking it.
The others from the roof began to make their way in. With magic back, the pegasi were flying, the unicorns were teleporting, Pinkie was setting off fireworks, and Thorax did a magical girl transformation.
“Glad you all came,” I said. “I wanted an audience for this little show.”
“You think this is a game?” said Quibble.
“Nah.”
He came up short. “How can you still be so casual and dismissive?”
“How can you still think you’re hot shit?” I said. “Because I’m pretty sure it’s been pointed out to you before that you aren’t.”
“Have you not seen what I have accomplished?” he said. “I’m better than any adversary you’ve ever faced, even when you made yourself the hero, defeating the supposed greatest threats Equestria had ever seen, like Queen Chrysalis, Discord, Tirek, or Starlight Glimmer.”
I ticked those names off on my hoof. “Dead...dead...dead...dead. Heck, that last one wasn’t even my work. Neither was your buddy Twi-minator.”
I traded a hoof bump with Cordoba.
“You keep deluding yourself!” Quibble shouted.
I shook my head. “This is honestly getting boring and pathetic. I’m going to finish this now.”
“I am the greatest-!”
I cut him off. “You ain’t shit. You a little bitch. I know that because I made you that way.”
He scoffed. “I was the only one smart enough to figure you out. You might have made the universe, but you didn’t make me.”
“Oh really? Who do you think arranged for you and Twi-minator to meet? Think about all the fortunate coincidences that worked in your favor, like getting the Amulet of Culiacan. Where do you think your ideas actually came from? Probably from dreams and morning realizations, right? Who do you think whispered them into your ear while you were sleeping? Your bedroom is sad and creepy, by the way.”
Quibble’s eye twitched.
“So anyway,” I said. “To recap, you’re a little bitch, just like I made you, and now that you’ve served your purpose I don’t need you anymore.”
I pulled my Desert Eagle and handed it to him. “Kill yourself.”
He stared at it. He stared at me. Realization hit him suddenly and he jerked the gun up, pointing it at my chest. Click.
“Yeah, I made you do that too,” I said. “So it would give me an excuse for self-defense.”
Cordoba gave me a hopeful look. I nodded.
Quibble’s eyes went wide and he bolted for the exit. Cordoba pulled her cutlass and streaked after him. He hadn’t made it ten steps before being tackled and skewered.
I turned and walked back to Twilight. She stared at me, openmouthed. I saw her eyes flick to where Cordoba continued to repeatedly stab Quibble.
“You just had a pony that you spent months mentally manipulating to be a puppet villain murdered by a robot that you raised as a daughter.”
“Yes, and?”
“Are you sure you aren’t on the naughty list?”
“I’m on the naughty list,” I confirmed.