//------------------------------//
// Chapter 13 
// Story: Princess Twilight Sparkle's School for Fantastic Foals: Winter Break 
// by kudzuhaiku 
//------------------------------//

	Young Sumac was having the time of his life. Tarnish had talked about Skyreach—just a little—had given him marriage advice about being bit on the bum, and was now teaching him the art of rugged masculinity. Well, sort of. Pebble, Megara, and Boomer were all part of this lesson as well. Vinyl was still moving about the kitchen, only now, she was making jars of strawberry syrup with strawberries grown in the greenhouse. 

To say that Pebble had a competitive streak a mile wide was an understatement. While she might spend much of her time looking bored and out of sorts, once you engaged her in something, she underwent a fierce transformation, like now, during the lessons for rugged masculinity. 

Various bottles of Princess~Colas sat upon the table, some open, some not, some empty, some full. Pebble was holding a Twilight~Cola in her fetlock, which left the scent of lavender and cucumber strong in the air. Sumac knew firsthoof that Twilight was enamoured with her own soda flavour, not to mention that the flavour of lavender and cucumber together might be her most favouritist thing ever. 

With no warning whatsoever, Pebble belched, shattering the silence of the kitchen with volcanic force. Sumac was impressed, it was a pretty good burp considering that it came from a girl, but he knew that he could do better. After all, Pebble was only a filly and he was a colt. Being gross and disgusting was like breathing for him, as it was for all little colts. 

“Pebble, I don’t think you were trying very hard,” Tarnish said to his daughter, and his words got him a narrow-eyed stare of pure contempt. “Don’t look at me like that! I’ve heard you when you try and so I know the difference. Now stop being a disappointment.” 

Ears now flat against her head, Pebble, who was fresh out of the tub, began taking careful little sips of her Twilight~Cola, almost as if she was taking it down bubble by bubble, hoarding the effervescent fizziness for her future explosive vulgarity. Sumac knew Pebble, he knew her current look from having her nose tweaked. Seeing her like this made him feel a tiny bit of fear—yes, Pebble was scary. 

Megara had some trouble drinking from bottles due to her underbite and she sort of had to pour her drink into her mouth. It was funny to watch, and Megara being as good natured as she was, didn’t mind when others laughed when she tipped back her head to drink. So far, Megara hadn’t belched, but Sumac was hopeful. In the kitchen, the busy kitchen, the lioness lurked with gas. 

Sitting on the edge of the table, Boomer sat eating a metal bottlecap, munching with draconic glee. Sumac thought she was kind of cute when she was like this, as ‘cute’ wasn’t exclusive to ponies, but one had to look a little harder to find cuteness in things that weren't fuzzy equines. No mistaking it though, Boomer was cute. She was also a major source of confusion in Sumac’s life, as he couldn’t quite define the nature of the relationship between them. 

It gave him a glimmer of understanding into Twilight’s relationship with Spike. 

Offering no warning, Sumac broadsided the others at the table with what he knew would be an epic belch. It started small, almost weak, but grew in resonance and volume. Pebble clung to her bottle, her eyes now wide. Megara’s lower jaw fell open and her ears perked. Boomer stopped eating, mid-munch, her face now an expression of reptilian awe.

“Sheesh, that’s disgusting!” Tarnish’s head began to bob up and down in approval, and he added, “Look at him go… it just doesn’t stop! Keep going, Sumac!”

Eager, Sumac leaned into it and let everything go. Yes, he let it go, he let it go, and he held nothing back. There was no guilt, no shame, and most importantly, no Lemon with her disconcerting, distracting eyerolls. Boomer’s eyes were wide now and when she inhaled in awe, she made a faint wheezing sound. Vinyl stopped chopping up strawberries, pulled off her dark glasses, and stared at her apprentice, as if she was grading him. 

“I feel gross and inadequate,” Pebble deadpanned, and she slumped down in her chair. 

Sumac was feeling light-headed now, but he showed no signs of stopping. He had on his best ‘horse-face’ with silly, crossed eyes and his lips stretched out in odd ways. His nostrils were burning something awful, which made his green eyes water, but he pushed past the pain while he ascended into the crescendo. The little colt had secret hopes and dreams that Princess Celestia would notice him during one of these moments, she would notice him, praise him, lift him on high, and turn him into an alicorn in recognition for his unparalleled, unequaled excellence… no, no, she would raise him as a BRAPicorn. Yes, he would be the first. 

His eyes were watering when he heard the backdoor opening, and then he heard a familiar, familial voice say, “What in the aetherfire blazes is that?” 

Twinkleshine stepped into the kitchen from the mudroom, still covered in snow, just as Sumac’s crescendo reached a fever pitch. She stared, her eyes first wide, then narrowed. Almost out of air, almost out of gas, Sumac pushed hard for a big finish, no longer caring about life or death at the hooves of Twinkleshine. He was in the zone. 

Pebble’s straight, fresh-washed mane blew back in the vulgar breeze and she murmured, “I need another bath.” 

And then, it ended, as all things must end, leaving Sumac gasping and empty. 

“I am sorely disappointed,” Twinkleshine said while she shook her head in disapproval. 

“This is what you get when you leave me in charge of looking after the little ones.” Tarnish kept his head held high, but his ears were pinned back in submission. “Look, I’m a stallion, and I offer no excuses. This is what I do in my own kitchen.” 

“What are you teaching my colt?” Twinkleshine demanded with all of the brassy boldness she could muster. 

“But I—” 

“Oh, hush!” Twinkleshine demanded while she raised one hoof and gave Tarnish a dismissive wave, causing him to go silent while Vinyl began to wheeze with laughter. 

Sumac watched as the pearlescent mare strode forwards, confident, and lifted up a bottle of Celestia~Cola from the table. With a bit of magic, she popped the cap off. “Take note, Sumac, Celestia~Cola is the gassiest of the colas, with almost twice as much carbonation as the others.” Saying nothing else, she tipped back her head and began to glug down the bottle with terrifying, reckless gulps, allowing it to pour down her throat. It foamed a great deal, and she sucked that down too. 

Boomer swallowed the remains of her bottle cap, hissed, and then lept from the table over to the counter, where she then ran up Vinyl’s neck to perch on the albino unicorn’s horn. Megara was still trying to recover from what Sumac had done, and seemed flummoxed by what Twinkleshine was doing. 

“Daddy, I’m scared,” Pebble whispered. 

“So am I, baby, so am I,” he replied. 

Vinyl ducked down below the counter for a moment, and when her head popped up once more, she was wearing a big metal mixing bowl like a helmet. There was no sign of Boomer, who was presumably under the bowl, clinging to Vinyl’s horn. A heavy steel pot lid was lifted and held up in front of the cautious mare’s face like a shield.

Twinkleshine was swishing a little cola between her teeth and her cheeks were bulged. She bounced around on her hooves, causing some snowflakes to fall to the floor, and her pastel pink mane bobbed. Sumac was consumed with anticipation and terror, which he hoped would last. Tarnish, perhaps sensing his final moments, grabbed up Pebble to hold her, and the little filly clung to her father’s neck while her nostrils flared in terror. 

Sumac let out a startled cry when Megara pulled him out of his chair and into her embrace. She was strong, scary strong, and she held up his limp body with ease. Once she had him close, she wrapped her leathery, creaky wings around him, and Sumac found himself in what could only be described as a hairy, scary cocoon of safety. 

A peculiar sensation gripped Sumac when Twinkleshine opened up a second bottle of Celestia~Cola, which hissed when the cap was pried off. What was she doing? What would she do? Who would survive and what might be left of them? The anticipation had gone too far, and Sumac needed an end, however terrible it might be. He needed resolution, a conclusion, even if it left a smoking, glowing crater on this side of the planet that was visible from space. Twinkleshine downed the bottle in what seemed like one gulp. The first bottle had formed a well, and the second had primed the proverbial pump. 

And then, without warning, it happened. 

It wasn’t so much a sound as it was a force, and the sensation of that force was just as powerful inside of his head as it was outside. Sumac could feel all of his teeth vibrating, and the weird whirring sensation of his teeth made his eyeballs water while they too, vibrated. He had gone deaf, or maybe he hadn’t, the force was all he knew. He had become one with the force, it seemed, and all of the localised universe around him now resonated at the frequency of whatever it was that was coming out of Twinkleshine’s mouth. 

His vision went out of focus and now there were six Twinkleshines—each was a prismatic colour of the rainbow—and all of them were emitting the eldritch sound that was the death cry of the universe. The volume sextupled, reaching an unbearable pitch, and Sumac knew that he was bearing witness to the end of all things. This was how it ended, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but… a… Bʀᴀᴘ.

Perhaps it was a peculiarity of pitch modulation, but the world became a kaleidoscope, a jumbled, distorted kaleidoscope, and the various Twinkleshines all continued with their eldritch abyssal death chants. Sumac became aware of a ringing sound, and it took the colt several long, confused seconds to determine that every metal object in the kitchen was singing out like a tuning fork. 

Twinkleshine’s abyssal death magics were so terrible that inanimate objects had joined her chorus of the damned, and together, they sung a song to end the universe. The heavy wooden kitchen table was skittering over the stone floor, and the various things atop the table all threatened to fall over while they bounced. 

“There are no gods,” Pebble deadpanned in a meek voice that could scarce be heard over the roaring fury, “only monsters.” 

The seconds stretched into micro-eternities and time lost all meaning. There was only the fury of the force, an indescribable new form of physics that transcended sound. This was something that would no doubt echo through the freezing, empty vacuum of space, bringing with it terror, anguish, and the cold knowledge of The End. 

And then, it was over with the same suddenness as it had began. Sumac couldn’t tell if he was alive or dead, or if he had perhaps transcended to some new plane of existence. The world had become a scary, unknown place, this was a new world, a strange one, one ruled by Twinkleshine, Goddess of Abyssal Grogarian Death Chants.

From whence had such world-ending fury cometh? 

Twinkleshine licked her lips, grinned, and shot Tarnish a teasing look. Giggling, reveling in her own glory, she sat down in the chair where Sumac had sat before Megara had pulled him into the safety of her embrace. She plucked Sumac from Megara’s grip and eased him into her own, looking down into his eyes with a loving, maternal smile. 

“There were contests in Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns,” she said to Sumac in a soothing, comforting voice that drove away the terror. “Princess Celestia taught me how to do that after my raw skill caught her eye. She can belch the entire dragon alphabet, you know.” 

Stunned, Sumac did not reply, but lay there, looking up at Twinkleshine’s face. 

“I’m going to teach you my secrets,” Twinkleshine promised, “and one day, when you are ready, you are going to stand in the apple orchards, and you will sing, and Big Mac will know that I didn’t raise a sissy.” With her foreleg, she brushed Sumac’s mane from his face and smoothed it out while also stroking his ears. She laughed, a mischievous sound, and glanced over at Tarnish. 

“If this is what you do in your own kitchen, you really need to step up your game, Mister Teapot…”