“Come on, it’s not rocket surgery,” I pointed out.
“But it is bomb surgery!” complained Twilight. “I’m not touching that!”
“Her name is Foxy.”
Foxy waved. She couldn’t turn around because, well, she had a five hundred pound bomb in a place where it really didn’t fit.
“How did this even happen?” Twilight demanded.
“It’s complicated. And I’m not saying that to brush you off, I’m saying that it genuinely requires some intense explanation that I’m not willing to go into right now, because at the moment one wrong penis could kill us all.”
“The way she is right now, it’s not like anyone would-”
“You might be surprised,” I interrupted. “And anyway, it wasn’t the only thing that came out of my trip to Las Pegasus.”
“The Flim Flam Brothers are running a bogus friendship school?”
“Right. Any any minute now, old Twilight’s going to find out and flip her shit.”
I paused. Nothing happened.
“Well, she’s in a frozen wasteland, so that can hardly be a good place to get news. Moving on, there’s someone I want you to meet.”
We left the room, Twilight giving a concerned parting glance over her shoulder at Foxy. Over in the galley, I introduced her to Chuck, the diamond dog baker that I had brought aboard. He was currently putting out a fresh batch of donuts.
“Okay, this I can live with,” said Twilight.
I winked and pointed a hoof. “Thanks, Chuck. I’ll always come to you when I need to get people to forget about problems.”
“I haven’t forgotten!”
“Yeah, well, I’m not going to try again,” I said.
I left her there and headed down to the R&D labs. The merchandise for Das Booty was just about done. I picked up a plushie of me to inspect it. I understood that ponies don’t have fingers, but the big hole in the back didn’t seem like a very good way to make a puppet.
At least the toilet paper was on track, and I was probably set to release it in a couple of weeks. I couldn’t wait to debut the new ad campaign.
As I was about to leave the room, a scroll popped in, right in front of my face. Based on the dragon fire, I figured it was from Twilight and opened it.
It has come to my attention that the Flim Flam Brothers are running a scam friendship school. This cannot be allowed.
-Twilight Sparkle
This wasn’t quite the reaction that I had intended. I still needed to do something to convince her to actually come back.
I didn’t know where she was, and didn’t figure I could mail her in a timely manner, so instead I went to my quarters and booted up the God Voice From Space, aiming it at the general area of Silent Hill.
Got your letter, Twilight. You stop them, you’re the one that cares. In fact, I’m excited that we finally have another school to compete with in sports and stuff.
In a few minutes, another letter arrived. Valiant, you hate sports.
I’m doing it for the kids.
Another letter. You hate kids. So why are you okay with this other school? What’s your scheme, Valiant?
Is it so hard for you to believe that I’m actually doing a good job at running a friendship school? I’ve even nearly defeated the EEA.
What?! You’re not supposed to be fighting Equestria’s top school administrators!
In retrospect, maybe that wasn’t the best thing I could have said.
It was your idea for a school the EEA didn’t like. They’re all racist, and I’ve been running a mixed-species school against their wishes. Like you told me to. I even had to take to the low seas in a submarine to escape from them. They burned down the first school.
Twilight didn’t reply for several minutes. Finally, a last note popped in. Valiant, I’m not happy with the way things turned out, but I admire you for perservering. Thank you.
Shit.
I sat back and sighed, grabbing a nearby bottle of tequila and taking a swig. I was going to have to come up with some other plan to get Twilight back.
There was a knock on the door and Rarity came in. “Valiant, we’re going to have to cancel the next show.”
I tried to remember when the next time Das Booty was scheduled to play but drew a blank. “What show?”
“The next one. I’m going to be busy.”
“When?”
“During the next show,” she huffed. “Darling, aren’t you listening?”
“Okay, fine, during the next show. What will you be doing instead?”
But Rarity had already shut the door.
I frowned. Rarity, generous, was usually forthcoming with information. Her evasiveness was a little strange. In fact, it had seemed a little strange for a while now.
But who could I ask about Rarity’s secrets?
Rainbow Dash would have been a really weird answer in any other circumstance, but since she’d become a hairdresser in this universe, I figured she was the best answer as to someone Rarity would have spent a lot of time with. Also, Rarity seemed like the type to gossip to hairdressers.
But when I asked her, Rainbow shrugged. “I don’t know. I did notice that she gets really evasive when I ask what she’s been up to lately.”
“Want to pry into her personal life?”
Rainbow shrugged. “Sure, okay.”
But before we could, an alarm suddenly sounded. Hull breach, forward sector.
I tapped my earpiece. “Emergency surface!”
“Um, do I just…” said Inky Rose’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing in the command center?”
“Like you care.”
Goth duty officers were the worst. “Just hit the big red button labeled ‘emergency surface.’”
A second alarm went off. Uninvited visitors, forward sector.
“Prepare to repel boarders!”
I pulled my Desert Eagle. Yes, yes, some things down here don’t react well to bullets, but I would try to avoid them. It was a big handgun, but not so big that it would punch a hole in the pressure hull, which we apparently already had.
I could feel the submarine changing angle, so we could at least surface. I headed forward to find out what was going on and who had invaded.
I could hear water somewhere up ahead, but then I felt the sub start to gently roll side to side, so apparently we’d made it to the surface. I hurried forward. An inch-high tidal wave rolled down the passageway. Apparently the flooding wasn’t too bad. I had to find the hole and figure out how patch it. Also, there was the matter of who had created it, and killing them.
Somewhere down below, I heard the pumps start up. Good, that would hold off the flooding. But almost as soon as they started, they stopped again. Also, the lights flickered.
I hit my earpiece again. “Somebody bring a portable pump forward. We might need it for backup if the installed pumps are damaged.”
“Where are the-” Inky started to say, but then comms cut off.
I tapped at the earpiece a couple of times. “Hello?”
No response, not even static.
Then, the lights died.
I pulled out a flashlight and continued forward, but after a few steps that flickered out, too. “What the hell?”
I stood there in the dark for a second before figuring out a solution. I’d learned how to throw fireballs, so I conjured one up but didn’t throw it. I figured it also doubled as a backup weapon if my gun, another piece of technology, failed.
I turned a corner, discovering the hole where the water had been coming it. It was in the ceiling, which opened to the outer hull. Now that we were surfaced, it was open to the sky and a shaft of sunlight lit up the passage. In the darkness beyond, I saw a shadow occasionally illuminated by sparks.
“All right, I don’t know who the hell you are, but we don’t take kindly to trespassers around here.”
“Oh really?” said a female voice. In the flickering light, I saw her turn towards me.
“So, state your business and/or GTFO before I make you.”
“Don’t you know who I am?” She took a few steps forward. I still couldn’t make out her features, but she seemed to be purple.
“No.”
She came closer again, stepping into the sunlight to reveal herself to be a unicorn, wearing a catlike smile. Also, there seemed to be wires trailing out of her mane.
“Nope, still nothing.”
“You weren’t expecting me?”
“No, hence the state your business and/or GTFO. Before I make you.”
“I’m the final and ultimate superintendent.”
“Ah, okay, that explains it. Neighsay claimed it was him. I think we both know he’s a little bitch who puts the agenda over the truth. Anyway, let’s get this over with.” I raised my gun.
The lights suddenly came back on, brighter than before. I couldn’t help but squint, but I saw exactly what I was dealing with. The wires I had noticed earlier were everywhere, penetrating cabling and wrapped up into sockets. What the hell?
“I am Captain Antennille,” she said. The ventilation suddenly turned on again, giving her mane a dramatic flair. “The seventh, and most powerful of the Seven School Superintendents. I am the professor of electrical engineering.”
“You think you’re a better engineer than me? Then tell me, what’s a volt multiplied by an amp?”
“A watt.”
“‘A what?’ Ha! You don’t even know what a volt and an amp are!”
She glared at me. “I know what-”
I cut her off. “Look, I don’t get elitist very often, but if you’re going to challenge me like this then you’re going to lose.”
She glared at me, and then opened her mouth wider than should have been possible. Modem noises came out.
“Argh!” I dropped to my knees, covering my ears.
I heard a faint whistling noise and starting kicking my legs, scrambling backwards across the floor. It wasn’t so very long ago that I’d heard a similar sound and knew what was coming.
The bomb that dropped through the hole in the hull sure didn’t help the damage, but it also blew Antennille to pieces and the horrible noise stopped. Well, it also may have been because I was still close enough that the explosion practically deafened me. It also knocked me ass over cranium back against the wall.
Shaking my head to get my bearings, I slowly got up and stumbled back towards the wreckage. The metal floor of the passageway was bent and blackened, but fortunately it didn’t look like the damage had spread to other decks.
I looked up through the hull to see Libby go by. She blinked her lights in what I recognized as Morse code.
Hey, you were out of contact and it seemed like there was some sort of electrical interference so Tin Mare sent me to get up close because she thinks I’m too stupid to be hacked. Well, she didn’t exactly say that, but I know that’s what she believes and it’s kind of hurting my self esteem right now.
To be fair, Libby was made with vacuum tubes, so there might have been something to that.
I turned and walked back towards the control center. I still couldn’t hear anything when I got there, but there was a handy portable chalkboard lying around for when Sugar Belle couldn’t find her head and I exchanged messages with everyone to figure out what was going on.
With Antennille dead, the pumps and been restarted and everything was getting put back together. We were going to have to fix the hull - no one wants a convertible submarine - and that might require a port call. I checked the map to see where we were near and settled on Saddle Arabia.
Well, aside from the damage, we seemed to be doing pretty well. I’d just taken out the final superintendent. Now I just had to find Neighsay.
I considered summoning him with his magic portal deal, but dismissed it, at least for now. I’d have to set up something really special first.
Which reminded me, I still needed something special to get Twilight to come back and take the school back from me.
I slipped on my autodarkening sunglasses and went topside to think about it. Deaf as I was, I didn’t notice the radar warnings start going off.