//------------------------------// // Marks for Effort // Story: A Dream // by totallynotabrony //------------------------------// I slogged my way through the mud along the bottom of the ocean, the lights mounted to my power armor doing very little against the floating silt and other things that drifted past my visor. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see Sugar Belle’s noggin-less body gesturing in a different direction. Not having a head connected apparently meant she didn’t have to breathe.  Ergo, she could help me look for her head underwater. It was fortunate that she could sense it, and led me in the direction where it had apparently come to rest. We found it a few minutes later.  Her head was a little worse for wear, but I picked it up and she smiled at me.  I turned and put her head back on her body. Grabbing her by the foreleg, I kicked in the suit’s thrusters and we ascended back towards where the submarine had surfaced.  She used one foreleg to make sure the head stayed put. It was time for a school picnic, which is hard to do underwater.  The sub had come up to use the steel topside deck as a place to have it. But I wasn’t going to be there because I had to do a couple things in Manehattan. Rarity had been wanting to shoot a music video for a while.  While she recognized that being a band nobody had ever heard of was a niche, music was an intangible and therefore not as inherently coveted as limited edition clothes.  So if we were ever going to make it truly big, we had to make at least two songs. So we wouldn’t be a one-hit wonder. So I was off to Manehattan to shoot it.  Well, only parts of it. Rarity, Guinness, and I wouldn’t actually be in the video.  It was one of the artsy kind, with something unrelated. I was the director, and so I decided to kill a couple birds with one stone. I called up Coco Pommel, who let me use the performance stage in the park across from her place.  I made a couple of other calls, too. Tin Mare flew me in, coming in for a landing in the park.  Coco was there to meet us. “This is unexpected,” she said as I stepped down. “That’s what I was going for,” I said.  “We’re shooting a music video for Das Booty, the latest and upcoming punk band.” “I’m afraid I don’t know much about that,” she said. “Yeah, it’s going to be...graphic.” I said. Coco made a face, and said, “Well, I’ll be across the street.”  On her way out of the park, she said hello to Tin Mare, who’d helped renovate the theater a while back. Fizzy and Sugar Belle got down from Tin Mare.  I needed a couple of assistants and had brought them along, figuring they would do as well as anyone. “Did you say ‘graphic?’” Fizzy asked, grinning. “Yes,” I said.  “But you aren’t going to get to see it.  You’re doing security. Don’t let anyone get too close so they can see what we’re doing.” “I’m not your attack dog,” he said. “You are, and you’ll like it.” “I hate you, grandpa.” “I know.” Sugar Belle frowned, having only heard one side of the exchange, but asked, “Do you need me to do anything?” “Be slightly more polite security.”  I glanced at her face and wished I hadn’t.  While she couldn’t die from drowning or whatever being a dullahan, she was a little worse for wear.  Getting Owlowiscious’s malfunctioning spell straight to the face had given her two black eyes and being underwater for so long had really done a number on her usually curly mane. Getting ready for the shoot, I put on a pair of fancy, chic sunglasses.  They weren’t my autodarkening ones, but I had to project a certain image.  I also put on a beret. Just then, Merry May arrived.  She shook off Fizzy, who was trying to bite her ankle, and said, “I’m here for the audition.  Is this it?” A while back, I’d tricked her into cockslapping the head of the Equestrian Education Association, Chancellor Neighsay, by using a fake dance audition.  I didn’t know why Merry wanted to be a dancer, but apparently I was the only one calling her for auditions, so she kept showing up. “Ah yes,” I said in a fake accent.  “Just ze pony I vanted to see. Here.”  I thrust a costume at her. It was a leotard and five sweatbands.  I didn’t give her instructions on how to wear any of it. “What will I be doing?” she asked nervously. “Vell, ve are going to film this, ja?” I gestured to the camera.  “I vill pay you.” “O...okay.”  She started to put the costume on while I went up on the stage and strung some heavy chains under which I drew a pentagram and sacrificed a comic book, just like I had the last time, based on instructions from Chancellor Neighsay’s business card. And it still worked.  He appeared at the summoning, only to immediately become wrapped up in the chains. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded.  “Who are you?” I lifted my sunglasses just long enough so he could see me and understand that I was the one doing this before slipping back into my foreign film director disguise.  “Ah, very good, already in ze character.” He spotted Merry behind me, though she was still too far away to hear us talk.  “Are you going to do...that to me again?” “That was the plan.” He sneered.  “I’m the head of the Equestrian Education Association.  I know how to learn.  And you can’t phase me with giant phalluses any more.” “Oh really?  What did you do to get out from being between a cock and a hard place?” “I taught myself to be gay!” Merry came up just then.  “I’m ready.” “Zhere has been a change of ze plan,” I said.  “You do it backwards.” Get you a girl who can do both.  It worked for me. “Um, okay.”  Merry turned around. “And remember,” I said.  “He is very good actor. He say no, he mean yes, ja?” So we filmed a couple minutes of that, and the screams were earsplitting, when Neighsay could breathe, anyway. We finished up, I paid Merry, and dis-summoned Neighsay.  It wasn’t the worst music video that had ever been filmed, but probably the worst Equestria had ever seen.  I was counting on its shock factor to make Das Booty famous. While I packed up, I saw a mare talking to Sugar Belle and drifted over that way.  I wondered where I’d seen her before. I realized it was Inky Rose, a onetime competitor at a fashion show hosted by Rarity. She was chatting with Sugar Belle, which was more emotion and social interaction than I had ever seen from Inky before. “I know we were just here making an edgy music video,” said Sugar Belle to me, “so it’s a fitting coincidence that a fitting fashion designer came along.” “I could use your look,” said Inky to Sugar Belle. That got my eyebrows up.  Sugar Belle was a pie maker from a dusty western town.  “How so?” “The eye shadow, the mane, the choker,” she said. Well, it was actually bruising from getting hit in the face, her mane was slick and limp from ocean water, and we knew what the choker was for. But I shrugged and said, “Why not?  We need a goth on the team.” “Wait, what team?” Inky said. I grinned.  “Your worst fears just came true.  You got drafted to become a jock.” She collapsed on the ground screaming in horror, eyeliner streaming over her cheeks. I didn’t tell her it was a school-teaching team, but that probably would have only upset her more. It was just then a gay pig and a gay buffalo came down the street.  Not only was it a neckbreaking change of subject, but also they were scientists. It’s not all about making fun of goth kids with me, I sometimes comment on interesting relationships.  Interspecies homosexual science? Let’s talk about that. “What’s up with you?” I called.  “Trying to discover the Hogs-Bison particle on the Large Hardon Collider?” Just because they were interesting doesn’t also mean I’m not an asshole. Anyway, that made them go away without even getting a decent line and I decided that maybe I’d had enough of Manehattan. I told the story to Josephine Jokester when I got back to the sub. “Zonks,” JoJo said.  “That’s kind of really offensive.” “Too bad.  I waited a long time to make that joke.  I wasn’t going to miss the opportunity.” “Speaking of missed opportunities,” I went on, “I’m only just now realizing that I totally missed an attempt to troll Sunburst with a line about a ghost in a machine.” “What are you talking about?” JoJo said. “Nevermind.” I hadn’t seen Sunburst all day and had been brooding that I never got a chance to rectify my oversight. That was why I was drunk at the time, and just then we suddenly ran into some great beast of the deep. I’m assuming, of course.  There aren’t windows on a submarine and even if there were, it’s hard to see more than a few dozen yards underwater. Another part of my assessment was due to the fact that there were some really weird noises coming out of the sonar. “Oh, this is bad, this is very bad,” Rarity fretted. “What’s bad?” I asked, swaying slightly as I stood there. “It’s a-”  Rarity paused, and then said, “Nevermind.” I blinked.  “Come on, you can’t just lead with that and then stop.” “You’re drunk, you heard nothing.” “Bullshit.  You know something.” “Just…” she waved a hoof.  “Get a couple of torpedoes or something.  Just do that and don’t think about it.” I pressed the intercom button.  “Twilight to the bridge, Twilight to the bridge, please.” “I’m already here,” Twilight said.  “I think you must be drunk if you didn’t notice.” “Well, what do you make of this crazy shit?” I said. “Which?” she asked.  “Your terrible joke, your cryptic comment, what’s going on outside, Rarity’s cryptic comment, or the torpedoes?” The sub suddenly shuddered, as something outside moved nearby, rubbing on the hull. “Well, the torpedoes are important but I’m too drunk to do auto targeting.  It’s a lot of complicated math. But I guess everything else you just mentioned is important too.” Twilight shook her head.  “I still have no idea what’s going on here, but - trigonometry?  I can do this.” “You’re my favorite nerd, Twiggles.  Go kill whatever that is. Maybe it’s some sort of ugly ancient beast from the secret ancient crypts of Al-jebar or some shit.” “Trigonometry, not Algebra.” “Whatever.” Anyway, we lit up whatever that was with a torpedo salvo.  Never found out, but I saw tentacles and stuff drift by after the explosions.  Also, I ordered a barrel roll to celebrate, slamming the dive planes over into a twist. Stuff crashed to the deck all over the place as I calmly walked the circular walls of the hull as it rotated.  I probably should have warned everyone. I was drunk, see. After that, things went back to business as usual except I accidentally stumbled onto Sugar Belle and Inky Rose cuddling shortly after the sub went through the roll.. “Jesus, get a room,” I said. “We’re in a room!” Sugar Belle said.  “My room! Get out!” Her voice was a little muffled because her head was somewhere between Inky’s legs as they were wrapped in bedsheets. Inky’s face was red, which I’m sure she was embarrassed about showing any color but black, which probably led to a feedback loop of embarrassment and an even redder face. “Christ,” I muttered under my breath and closed the door.  “Good thing they weren’t having sex or that would have been really embarrassing.”