//------------------------------// // Yakity-Sax // Story: A Dream // by totallynotabrony //------------------------------// There are only a few things worse than Pinkie Pie when she doesn’t know she’s being annoying. Cordoba turning into Tim Allen was one of them. At least the blow had been softened by my brand new soft drink empire that fit nicely with my already established hard drink one. I found it hard to believe that a society that seemed to run on sugar like Equestria didn’t already have a major supplier of cola, but I was hardly going to waste such an opportunity. The trick was going to be keeping competitors down.   I had a tequila and Coke and thought about it.  It had the bonus of distracting me from my problems. “What ever happened to Josephine Jokester?” I said aloud. “I thought you didn’t think she was funny,” replied Twilight where she was studying on the other side of the room. “She isn’t, but I could use a distraction right about now.” “I don’t know where she is.” I finished my drink, sighed deeply, and got up, heading for The Fifth. When I couldn’t sit around drinking anymore, I went out drinking.  I think I may have a problem. Guinness didn’t judge, though, and that’s why I tolerated him.  I sat down at the bar and sighed deeply. He guessed my order based on that. “What’s up?” he said. “Well, you know Cordoba killed Tim Allen.” “Right.” “And you know the rules: you kill him, you become him.” “I still can’t figure out why, but yes, I know the rules.” I shook my head.  “What was he even doing here?  I mean, I’m glad he’s not here anymore, but this is a serious problem.  That’s on top of all my other problems.” Guinness polished a glass.  He seemed reluctant, but said, “Like what?” “I guess we could start off with, I have to sell Coca-Cola now.  That means individually finding and stamping out every new upstart with a soda fountain. “Moving on, I think Rarity’s in some sort of secret organization but won’t tell me.  She’s been really sensitive about horors of the deep sea lately. I think it’s probably related to that time she was the ocean, but I can’t prove it.” “Wait, she was the ocean?  The ocean?” said Guinness. I shook my head.  “Sorry, that only leads me to yet another problem.  I can’t keep my alternate timelines straight. That never actually happened, as far as you know.” I kept talking, to distract him.  “Das Booty is suddenly doing really well.  That music video we shot has everyone talking.” “I was meaning to ask you about that.” “But now we’ll be legit famous and I wasn’t planning to sell out on merchandising for a while longer.”  I sighed. “The toilet paper is just barely ready.” “I still think it’s weird that you want to use fame and celebrity to sell toilet paper.” “I have a marketing slogan too good to pass up.” “What is it?” Instead, I pressed on listing my problems.  “There’s also the matter of the Seven School Superintendents.  I mean, I guess there’s only three left now that I’ve killed three and hired the other to be a cafeteria lady.” I took a deep drink.  “Why do these assholes keep trying?  I’ve neutralized more than half of them.  I’ve humiliated their leader a couple of times.” “Well, you know what Blade always used to say,” Guinness said. I nodded.  “Some people are always trying to iceskate upskirt.” Guinness paused for a long moment, but then said, “I think I like that better.” He put down the glass he had been polishing and picked up another.  “Is that it?” “Yeah, I guess.  Everything I can think of now.” “Well, I do have some good news.  Remember when you asked me to find a date for Steven, the river serpent you asked to resettle Seaquestria after we blew up?  Well, I found her.” “What?” Guinness frowned.  “You know, you told me to go to some one-horse town and get the monster that lived in a pond?” “How drunk was I when I was asking?” Guinness sighed.  “Nevermind.” He turned to pick up another glass, but suddenly paused, eyes widening in alarm.  I turned around, spotting a red-glowing pentagram appearing on the floor. Fizzy rose up out of the black magic portal.  He glared at me. “You left me with a babysitter!” “Oh, I wondered why I hadn’t seen him around for a while,” said Guinness. “It’s been weeks!” shouted Fizzy.  “Do you know how hard it is to set up a blood ritual to teleport when you’re two feet tall and not strong enough to hold a knife?” “What’s your point?” I said.  “Also, did you kill Catchy Phrase, who I left you with?” “Yes!” “Good.  Now I don’t have to pay the babysitting bill and she’ll never get in my way of making name puns again.”  I took another drink. The door opened and Cordoba came in.  Fizzy burst out laughing.  “Oh right, that happened to you. What an idiot. You know the rules.” She punted him across the room.  “I wish everyone would stop saying that!” Fizzy may have been a demon, but he was still a foal.  He was lucky Guinness had outfitted the room to be as comfortable as it could be aboard a submarine and Fizzy landed in an armchair. Twilight walked in.  She spotted the still-glowing evil portal.  “Uh, what’s going on here?” I had a sudden spark of inspiration.  “We just set up a permanent link back to the Ponyville Library.  That’ll make it way easier to go back and forth.” “I did it!” shouted Fizzy. “You know, I might just head there now,” I said.  If nothing else, I should probably clean up Fizzy’s mess before it started to smell. I finished my drink and hopped through the portal. I’d gotten decent enough at sanitizing scenes that I had considered opening my own business, though I would be the majority customer.  I was almost done when Cordoba stuck her head through the portal. “We just got intel that another of the Superintendents is on their way.” I sighed.  “All right, thanks for the heads up.” The door opened and a stallion wearing glasses walked in.  “I take it you are Mr. Valiant.” “That’s right.” “I am Superprime.” “What’s a super prime?” He smiled thinly.  “I’ll put on a clinic, just for you.  I teach math, you see. I can calculate anything.  The number of hairs on a pony’s coat, how many grains of sand on a beach, the average amount of days between holidays.” “Which holidays?” “The usual ones.  Hearts and Hooves Day, the Summer Sun Celebration, Running of the Leaves, Nightmare Night, and of course, Matrixmas.” Oh right, Matrixmas. I put my mop down and pulled out my Desert Eagle.  “Nah.” I was just about to pull the trigger when he lifted a hoof.  “Is that a twelve-point-seven millimeter caliber?” “Uh, no, it’s-” “You see, Mr. Valiant,” he interrupted.  “My special ability, one I know you have no counter for, is the metric system.” My eyes widened.  “You sick bastard!” He advanced, grinning.  “I’m going to hit you with so many tonnes of force and you won’t even know how much that is.”  He raised a hoof. Cordoba suddenly entered the room through the portal.  Superprime came up short, eyes wide. She smirked.  “That’s right, I thought you might know the rules.  You wouldn’t dare hit me.” “I-I’ve still got metric on my side!” “Puta.  You think I don’t know metric?” I was suddenly very thankful that my daughter was a Mexican robot. I mean, while also currently being Tim Allen, but still. Cordoba lunged forward and got ahold of Superprime.  She strangled him to death. I guess there were some advantages to being in the body of a man with hands in Equestria, but that didn’t make up for that man being Tim Allen. Fortunately, there were no rules against being killed by Tim Allen. And on the plus side, strangling meant I didn’t have to clean up any more blood. Still, though, we really needed to get Cordoba’s problem solved, and fast. Back through the portal, I found Twilight examining it.  “Can you redirect this somewhere else?” “Like where?” “Hollywood.” Twilght looked a little unsure, but she consulted a few books and did a few spells on the portal.  “I think that should get you close. But what’s in Hollywood?” “You’ll see.”  I turned. “Come on, Cordoba.” We went through the portal again, this time coming out in some back lot of a movie set.  Perfect. Searching around, it fortunately didn’t take very long to find who we were looking for. “Al!” I shouted. Up ahead of us, a bearded man turned around.  “My name is Richard Karn. I’m an actor. Al Borland is just one character I played.” “Well, I can’t name a single other character you played.” I pointed. “Also, you’re wearing flannel.  Plus, you responded when I called. But that isn’t important right now.” I pointed to Cordoba. He opened his mouth, but paused.  “Wait, this isn’t the old Tim Allen.  Did you...” He shook his head and looked at me. “Well, what do you want me to do?  You brought this on yourself. You know the rules.” “Please,” said Cordoba.  “I can’t be stuck like this forever.  Isn’t there anything you can do?” He shook his head.  “I don’t think so, Tim.”