//------------------------------//
// Parental Glideance 
// Story: A Dream 
// by totallynotabrony 
//------------------------------//

	The serial killer was still on the loose, Sunset Shimmer and Maud Pie had so far been framed for it, and I was getting a private concert from Bruce Springsteen.
Things were...well, they could have been better.
Then, I spotted Wachowski down the street.
Okay, now things couldn’t be worse.
Twilight heard me swearing under my breath and looked down the street.  “Who’s that?”
“Santa’s secretary.”
“Wachowski, was it?”  She frowned.  “As much complaining as you did, I was under the impression that it was a stallion.”
“Hate is an emotion that transcends gender.  I never actually said Wachowski was a dude, but I can see why you might think that.”  I sighed.  “I suppose I should go figure out why she’s here.”
Wachowski was not usually a pony, but she sure was now.  It was just how things went when one came to this dimension.  Either way, she was just about as happy to see me as I expected.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Screw you, Valiant.  You just had to get the big man involved.”
“Why are you here?” I repeated, barely managing to retain a civil tone.  I'm still doing my best to be a nice guy.
“Because Santa told me to go and personally inspect your naughty/nice list to verify all the entries.”  Her glasses did nothing to hide the stormy expression on her face.
“Oh, if that’s all.”  I handed it over.  “Better get to work.”
I turned away, though I desperately wanted to see what her next expression was.  She might have pulled some Matrix shit on me, though.  Much as that wouldn’t have mattered because I’m me, I had places to go.
I got Tin Mare to give me a ride down to the Rarity.  I had a theory that I wanted to try out.
“Sup?” I said, arriving on the shore.
“My life is ruined.”
“Still?  Sorry to hear that.  Hey, I’ve got a question for you.  What’s going on in Griffonstone right now?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know if you know.”
She paused.  “It’s Griffonstone.  They’re doing griffon things.”
“You can see them?”
“I can see the shore.”
“Cool.  Let me set up a weatherproof terminal and you can be my ocean surveillance coordinator.”
“What makes you think I would do that?”
“What else have you got to do?”
“Nothing, because I’m the ocean!”
“Glad to see we’re on the same page.” 
I took Tin Mare back to Ponyville, but on the way, she did a sudden dip.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Scootaloo went flying by, propelled by a giant rubber band.  I did not think it prudent to hit her.”
“Fair enough.  Where was she going?”
“Cloudsdale.”  Tin Mare paused.  “It appears she has encountered Rainbow Dash’s parents.  This excites her.  She has begun to squee excitedly.”
“Well, you know what to do.”
Tin Mare’s engines got louder to drown out the noise.  “It also appears that she is becoming even more of a rabid fangirl.”
I sighed.  “Fine, take us up there.”  I could never resist an opportunity to show others just what I thought of Rainbow, even if it meant saying those things in front of her parents.  Maybe especially.
Ugh, but I was still trying to be a nice guy.  Even more so with Wachowski in town.  I would have to make my points, but try to keep as much acid as possible out of it.
We arrived in Cloudsdale.  Tin Mare rolled out the red carpet for me.  Because said carpet was enchanted to not fall through the clouds.  Neat little trick Sunset had helped me put together.
I’d never met Rainbow’s parents before.  She took after her father, apparently.  I could maybe make a joke here about how his name was Bow Hothoof and his daughter was a hothead, plus how the mother’s name was Windy Whistles and Rainbow didn’t have much else inside her head or coming out of her mouth.
Rainbow’s parents both seemed to be wearing clothes.  Strange.  Nobody in Equestria wore clothes, except for Rarity’s parents, Fluttershy’s parents...I frowned.  Rarity’s mom wore so many clothes that she was the only pony I’d ever seen who wore pants.  Even Pinkie’s highly traditional parents wore collars, even if that wasn’t full-on clothes.  What was the deal with everybody’s parents wearing clothes?
I shook my head.  I wasn’t here to talk about this, I was here to get Scootaloo away from Rainbow’s parents.  I found them in the kitchen, eating pasta and potato on sourdough.  Huh, they served that at the pub.  This must be where Guinness had gotten the recipe.
“Come on, kid,” I said to Scootaloo.  “Time to go.”
“We were just talking about how awesome Rainbow Dash is!” she protested.
“Why, when you could be talking about me?”
“Well hello there averaged-sized stallion,” said Bow.
“What brings you to our kitchen uninvited?” added Windy.
“Don’t mind me, I’m just the guy who regularly points out the flaws in your daughter’s logic and behavior, plus builds awesome things that make her look pointless and slow.”
“Oh right,” said Scootaloo.  Her face brightened.  “Hey, can I do my biography on you instead?”
“Cheerilee would love that,” I said.
Scootaloo was still too young to understand sarcasm and got up to go.
“Wait a moment,” said Bow.  “You said you wanted to tour Rainbow’s bedroom and trophy room.”
“And I’m going to take you for a ride in a seventeen ton death machine,” I said.
“Hella,” added Tin Mare from outside.
“Cool!” said Scootaloo.  She left with me.
Back in Ponyville, we met Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.  They were at the library when we arrived.
In fact, most of the library was occupied by ponies, all trying to shove their way towards the front.  I spoke over the crowd.  “What’s going on here?”
“Bruce Springsteen is signing autographs,” said Twilight.
Scootaloo began to squee again.  I shoved my hoof in her mouth.  “Don’t you dare.  I won’t have those shattered.”  I gestured to the snowglobes sitting on the nearby shelf.
I let go of her.  She asked, “What would happen?”
“It would be the end of the world as you know it.  Anyway, how do you know Bruce Springsteen?”
“I don’t.  I just heard autographs, and got really excited.  That’s half of why I like Rainbow.”
“Well shit, if that’s all it takes.”  I signed her an autograph of my own.  She almost began to squee again.
I pushed my way through the crowd to the table where Bruce Springsteen sat.  He looked placid, stamping a hoof on an ink blotter and then on pieces of paper presented by pleased ponies.
“I’m really surprised that you’re here,” I said.
“You’re Valiant, right?” he asked.  “Your girl Sunset said Ponyville was the perfect place for a concert.  She was...very insistent”
She must have misunderstood.  But we couldn’t have asked her because the serial killer had framed her and she was currently being held in Canterlot.  I would have already broken her out, except she seemed to have a plan.  Plus, I figured Sunset could break herself out if she really wanted to.
Twilight came over to Bruce.  “You’re a human from Valiant’s world, right?  How did you get here?”
“Honey, I’m a celebrity.  I can get away with anything I want, but instead of running people over with my car I prefer to break transdimensional barriers.”
Well, regardless of my personal thoughts about him, I guess I couldn’t fault him for that.
“When’s the concert scheduled?” I asked Twilight.
“Why are you asking me?”
I gave her a look.  “Come on, who else would I ask when I needed to know the schedule of something?”
She sighed.  “I’ll take that as a compliment.  It’s this evening at eight.”
“Good, I’ll be somewhere else.”  There was only so much Bruce Springsteen I could take, and a single exchange with him, speaking, not even singing, was about enough.
I went over to the pub.  Attempting to be a nice guy, I asked Rainbow for a beer as politely as I could.  “Where’s the respect?  Do I need to covertly install heavenly choir generators to play as I walk in the door?”
She stared at me, not impressed.  “Big deal, my dad did that to my bedroom.”
I resisted the urge to call in an airstrike on her parents’ house.  Nice guy.
Instead, I shook my hoof under her nose.  “That sass will get you a fist upside your head.”
“You don’t even have a fist.”
“Sounds like you’re insisting on a fisting.”
“What’s this about a fisting?” Sir Win asked, showing up just then.
“It was a euphemism for punching someone in the face,” I said.
He nodded.  “I suspected, coming from you.”
Guinness showed up on the other side of the bar.  “Your firewhiskey,” he said, passing Sir Win a bottle in brown paper.  The demon paid him and left.
“‘I suspected, coming from you,’” I repeated.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t commit a lot of sex acts, nor do you make reference to such,” said Guinness.  “He called you virginal.”
“Oh, if that was all.”  I took a sip of my beer.
“Wait, you just brush off insults like that?” said Rainbow.
“I brush off insults from Sir Win,” I said.  “I like him.  Unlike you, you egotistical, selfish, shallow, bitch.”
“I’m standing right here!” Guinness protested.
“I know.”  I took another sip.
“I don’t have to put up with this,” Rainbow huffed.  “I’m going to Wonderbolts practice.”
She took off.
“The Wonderbolts, the revolutionary militia that is using the name of the historical Wonderbolts as a front to overthrow the government?” I said.
Guinness sighed, but didn’t reply.
“The Wonderbolts, the most famous aerial performance group in Equestria!” exclaimed someone.  I turned my head.  It was Rainbow’s parents.
Guinness straightened up.  “What are you two doing here?”
“We just came to see our daughter because of a very strange event that happened earlier today, but now we hear that she’s a Wonderbolt!” said Bow.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Windy.
“She didn’t tell you?” said Guinness.
There was an awkward silence.
“Yay!” said Skyla, from her baby seat on the bar.
“Who is this?” said Bow, going over and touching hooves with the baby.  “An alicorn foal!  Well, you don’t see that every day.”
“That’s Skyla,” said Guiness.
“Who has a baby alicorn?” asked Windy.
There was an awkward silence.  Guinness facehoofed.
I left.  No way was I interested in being party to that much awkward and catch-up explanation.
In a way, I kind of felt sorry for Rainbow.  She wasn’t telling her parents things because she didn’t want them to overreact.  But I didn't feel too sorry, because Rainbow was a bitch and deserved everything bad that happened to her.
Unfortunately, me leaving the pub early meant that I was right on time for the Bruce Springsteen concert.  Or, at least, the pre-concert last-minute fee negotiation.
I walked in on Twilight frantically trying to bargain with him.  “What about gold?  We have plenty of that.”
Bruce shook his head.  “That’s too hard to spend in my world.  Come up with some other way to pay me.”
“Why don’t we just not pay him?” I suggested.  “Nobody here has ever heard of him, so they won’t care too much if the concert is canceled.”
“No, I’m here to perform,” he said.  “But if you don’t pay me, I’ll make sure that in the future you’ll never see any other celebrities here.  Bad reviews get around.”
“So why don’t we just not pay him?” I suggested.  “That sounds perfect.”
“Valiant, be nice,” Twilight cautioned.
“This is me we’re talking about,” I reminded her.  “I am.”
Twilight turned back to Bruce.  “What about oil company stock?”
He considered it.  “All right, you’ve got a deal.”
“Hold on,” I said.  “Just what part of Valiantco® were you planning to give him?”
“As majority stockholder, I can advise the board of directors to release more publicly offered shares,” she said.
“As a member of the board of directors, I vote no,” I said.
“I vote yes,” said Twilight.  “And as majority stockholder, I hold the power to break ties, so the motion carries.”
She turned back to Bruce.  “Congratulations, Mr. Springsteen, you now own ten percent of Valiantco®.”
He smiled.  “Pleasure doing business with you.”
I seethed quietly, but said nothing.  Nice guy.
It wasn’t like my mood could get any worse, so I decided to stay for the concert.  Maybe I would get lucky and catch Bruce lip-syncing or something.
I went to sit in the crowd.  A few minutes passed, and the crowd, what crowd that came, found their seats.
The curtain came up.  Bruce Springsteen hung there, a rope wrapped around his broken neck and his body covered in bloody ritualistic runes.
I applauded.
Well, no, I didn’t.  That would have looked suspicious as hell.
A spotlight suddenly lit up and danced across the crowd, coming to rest on Twilight.  She squinted in the light and shielded her eyes.  Everyone else turned to stare at her.
“What?” she said, unable to see the stage because of the blinding light.  “I just got here from backstage after handling Bruce.”  
Son of a bitch.  The serial killer was trying to frame Twilight.
A murmur went through the crowd.  I began to push my way towards Twilight.
She finally managed to get a look at the stage and gasped.  “What happened?”
“The evidence looks like you killed Bruce Springsteen,” I said.
“What!  How could you say that!?” she demanded.
“Well, you show up late, talking about ‘handling’ Bruce.  Plus, this spotlight, literally pointing you out.”
“I didn’t do it!” she protested.
“The evidence sure looks like you did.  Are you going to arrest yourself?” I asked.
“No, because I know I didn’t do it!”
“Oh?  Does that mean a higher authority has to do it?  Because I’d be glad to arrest you, Twilight.  And I could do it, too.”  I smiled.
“I didn’t do it!” she repeated.
I kept staring, to make her squirm.  But then I shook my head.  “Yeah, I know you didn’t do it, Twilight.  You don’t have that kind of ambition.”
Her face instantly changed to confused and insulted.  “What do you mean?”
“You never do anything on your own.  If it weren’t for outside stimulus, like Princess Celestia giving you a mission or some monster attacking, you would just sit in the library all day until you died from old age, never having made a difference in the world.  You aren’t proactive.  You don’t care about doing things, things like making the world a better place for others.  I’ve been saying for years that you’re a terrible friend.”
I’d worked her into a rage now, but before she could say anything, I finished, “So that’s why you can’t be the murderer.  No ambition.  You only do things when you have to.”
“Oh snap!” somebody in the crowd said.
I left Twilight there, looking stunned but angry about recent developments.  Hey, she should be happy.  I’d singlehandedly stopped another lynching session by defusing the situation with the crowd.
Now, all I had to do was use this incident plus the others to demonstrate that neither Maud nor Sunset were the serial killer.  Well, yeah, and catch the actual killer, too.
But in the meantime, it was time to jam.
I leapt up on stage and pushed aside Bruce Springsteen’s mutilated body, which swung on its rope.  It was time for the local openers to take the stage.  The actual star was dead, but hey, we could still rock a little.
I put my guitar strap over my shoulders and spoke into the microphone.  “Hey everyone, it’s Valiant and the...and my band.  With me tonight is Trixie on the drums, Guinness on the bass, and...uh, our backup guitarist.”
I took my mouth away from the microphone, pushing away Bruce's body again, and stared at Maud, who wore sunglasses so she wouldn’t be recognized.  “We really need to get you a stage name.”  She nodded.
I turned back to the microphone.  “Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.”