The large deck Cordoba had built was kind of a weird thing on the sub. Yeah, I did appreciate having it, but it was kind of juxtaposed against the steel. Not to mention, I was concerned the wood would rot after being so long at sea. So, it needed to be sealed, and I figured we might as well paint it the same color as the sub just to keep everything uniform.
“You really, really are getting too much enjoyment out of your big, black deck,” said Twilight.
“Admit it. Everyone loves cookouts.”
“Fine. But I think the Saddle Arabians are not thrilled with it. They have certain dietary restrictions, you know.”
“I didn’t. Also, I don’t care.”
She consulted some notes. “While we’re here, we should at least try some cultural appreciation. It’s not every day we’re in such a different society.”
“Way ahead of you on the cultural appropriation.” I put a turban on my head.
“That’s not what I said.”
“I know.”
Despite her exasperation, she apparently went ahead and put a lesson plan together and I found it waiting for me when I woke up from my hangover the next morning.
“The quest of Al-Jebar,” I read aloud, flipping through the pages. Some sort of math disguised as a treasure hunt. Sounded boring.
I sat back in my command chair and put my hooves up, skimming through the lesson. However, just then, I noticed something on the live monitor I’d set up to watch the area around where the sub was docked.
Tin Mare and Libby had been taking turns being the camera platform. I couldn’t remember which of them was up at the moment. I checked the camera. Steady. Tin Mare, then.
More to the point, what I saw through the camera was the load of steel I had ordered to fix the submarine’s hull.
I stopped to grab a beret and some tiny sunglasses, also throwing on a striped blue and white shirt. Disguised, I walked down the gangplank to meet Merry May.
She already appeared to have misgivings as she stood there looking at the submarine while hitched to a reinforced wagon full of steel.
“Ah, mademoiselle, I take it you are ze delivery pony,” I said.
She looked at me. “I didn’t know what I was delivering for. What is this thing?”
“Why, only ze latest in tube-shaped offshore housing. It is ze latest thing.”
“I can only think of maybe one pony who could have designed this.”
“Very good. We are trying to keep ze name a secret, yes?” I grinned and nudged her side. “Very mysterious, no?”
She frowned. “Your breath smells like alcohol.”
“Ah, oui, I had too much wine. I am French, you know.” Seeing that she was asking too many questions, I hurried to get the steel unloaded. I almost called Tin Mare down to lift it, but Merry would know instantly who I really was. Instead, I blew the recess whistle.
A boiling herd of children came streaming down the gangplank, happily yelling and screaming. I braced myself against Merry as the tide flowed over us, shaking the wagon and lifting the steel as if paper borne by the wind.
I blew the whistle again. “Laughing time is over!”
“Aw!” a hundred collective voices complained. They flowed back towards the sub, taking the steel with them like a crowd of ants with food too big to carry alone.
“Your voice got weird there for a second,” said Merry.
“Oui, ja, I am also half Austrian.” I headed back for the sub, waving. “Thank you, I paid in advance, goodbye!”
Back on the sub, I had to deal with the fallout of disappointed kids. I quickly tossed out the treasure hunt as an idea.
Of course, then I had to go through the trouble of making sure everyone had a field trip buddy. Not to mention, the sub still wasn’t getting fixed if I was leaving.
I gave Cordoba the job of staying behind to weld things back together. I delegated actual teaching on the field trip to Twilight. She’d made the lesson plan, so it served her right. I had Applejack handle the logistics of packing lunch for everyone. The other girls I just designated as general chaperones.
Not sure if I would need another disguise while I was out and about, I went hunting for one to pack. Digging through various things in a luggage room, I came across Tixie’s all purpose magical trunk. It wasn’t magical itself, she just used it a lot for tricks. Being a unicorn, she could make it look like just about anything was happening.
I’ll say it again: I respected Trixie, and if ponies were willing to pay her to entertain them, fine, but I still couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of magic shows in a world where magic was real.
Anyway, opening the trunk to see what was inside, I discovered Rusty Nail, the guy who owned the hardware store in Ponyville. “What the hell?”
“Light!” he gasped. “I’ve been locked in there so long! Where am I? Did Trixie finally bring me back?”
Oh shit. She must have done a disappearing act on him as an audience volunteer in one of her shows - in Ponyville - and somehow forgotten about him. I thought back to when that must have been. Yeah, we’d been doing a lot of shit then, it was a busy time, I guess forgetting him was understandable.
But now I had to figure out how to get him back to Ponyville. I gestured. “Come with me.”
He was a little stiff from being packed in the trunk, but followed me. I walked back to where everyone was lining up to go on the field trip. “Okay, has everyone been through a portal before?”
Twilight started to ask a question, but I talked over her. “Okay, I’m not seeing too many hooves go up. That’s fine, I’ll teach you.”
We all headed for the bar where the portal was. I glanced at the location controls we had installed. The magic selector knob was currently pointing to “trash.” I didn’t know where it went. Instead, I turned it for “Ponyville.”
“All right, everyone follow me.” I hopped through.
We emerged in the Ponyville Library. Twilight was one of the first to come through and took me aside. “How are we going to work in the legend of Al-Jebar while we’re not anywhere near Saddle Arabia?”
“Sounds like your problem, titch.” I grinned. “Did you like what I did there? It’s a portmanteau of ‘teacher’ and ‘bitch.’ Don’t feel too special about that, though. I invented it for someone else.”
“Why are you such a disagreeable person lately?” she said, glaring at me.
I stopped. “Huh, I don’t really remember making a conscious decision to. I guess it’s not on purpose, then.” I walked away, pulling Rusty Nail with me.
I got him back to the hardware store. He didn’t really thank me, but at least we now had a functioning hardware store again. That could be important.
Since I was now alone, I headed over to The Half Pint for a drink. Since Guinness was on the submarine, he had left it in the care of his business partner, a griffon named Squibles.
When I walked in, the place was freezing. “What the hell is going on here?”
Squibles was shivering. “T-trying out a new w-way to keep beer colder.”
I shrugged. Couldn’t complain about that. “Okay.” I sat down and gestured for a glass.
The door opened and Scootaloo came in. I saw the cold hit her so hard she nearly took a step back, but she poofed her feathers and came in anyway. She sat down on a barstool next to me. “Hey Valiant, I saw that this stunt troupe is in town and I really wanted to go see them because they’re the coolest thing ever and I was hoping that we could work out some kind of deal for credit instead of going on this math field trip.”
Squibles came over, still shivering, and tried to pour my beer. He sloshed a lot of it out of the glass. “S-sorry about the sp-spills.”
“Do you have any pretzels?”
He nodded and went to get them.
I turned back to talk to Scootaloo, but Squibles was back quickly, setting the bowl down next to me and spilling most of it.
I again turned to speak to Scoots, but she interrupted. “Can I have a glass of milk?”
I looked at Squibles. “Hey, spill me some milk over here.”
He went to get it and I turned back to Scoots. “How do you plan to justify going to a show instead of studying?”
“Well, it’s stunt flying. They should have some force vectors or something I could do.”
A while learning math under Twilight - any Twilight - had been good for her. “Okay. I might be interested in going myself.”
We finished our drinks and left before we started to shiver too. Scoots knew where to find this group, called The Washouts, and I followed her there.
Their setup immediately reminded me of the X-Games. Lots of green and black. Lots of edgy graphics. “What is this, the State of Massachusetts?”
“What?” said Scootaloo.
“Nevermind.”
I saw three ponies in matching black and green jumpsuits and full face helmets. They looked like they were getting ready to warm up, and so Scoots and I stood by to watch. I’m sure they saw us, but carried on with the practice anyway.
First up was a giant catapult. They launched this guy into a trampoline and he bounced back.
“Uh, but pegasi can fly and direct themselves to the target?” I said.
One of them flew through some swinging saws.
“Uh, but there’s no obvious means of propelling the saw blades, so they’re probably just coasting and this isn’t actually that dangerous?”
Next up was some high-speed flying through electrified hoops. “Uh, but pegasi are lightning proof?” I said.
“We are?” said Scootaloo. “Where’d you get that idea?”
I realized that I hadn’t, I just assumed. And Scootaloo couldn’t fly, so she wouldn’t know. At least I knew I was fairly lightning proof, so I figured that also applied.
My heckling had apparently gotten their attention, though, and a short guy with a red coat came over, removing his helmet. Completely without preamble, he screamed, “If you say one more word, you’ll be in a full body wing and hoof cast drinking through a straw!”
“You stole that from Spitfire. I’ve heard her say that before,” I pointed out.
Another pegasus, this one tall, blue, female, and for some reason Australian, landed nearby and walked over. “So what? Just because she couldn’t handle us doing barrel rolls through nine hundred million volts of electricity in a raging thunderstorm.”
“Uh, only nine hundred million volts of electricity in a raging thunderstorm?”
The two of them traded glances. The short one demanded, “Who is this guy?”
“Plymouth Valiant,” said a voice. The third member of The Washouts walked over and removed her helmet, revealing a golden mane and teal coat. I realized I’d seen her before, but it took a moment to come up with the name.
“Well, nice to get some recognition around here,” I said. “You’re Lightning Dust, right?”
“Nice to get some recognition around here.” She smirked.
“So you seem to be doing well for yourself after-” I paused, trying to remember which timeline we were on and what had happened to her recently.
“You don’t have to sugarcoat it,” she said. “I left the Wonderbolts.” She gestured to the other two. “So did they. That’s why we call ourselves The Washouts.”
“I mean, okay, if you’re into the whole self-shaming thing,” I said.
Just then, I heard a lot of hooves and the entire school showed up.
“Wow, this smash party?” said Yona, looking around at all the equipment.
“They’ve got a Crushinator!” said Apple Bloom, pointing.
“Well, we were just practicing, but maybe we should do a full-on show,” said Lightning, grinning at the crowd.
“But aren’t you supposed to practice first?” Scootaloo said.
“Practice is for losers.”
I looked at Lighting. “Jinx.”
“You can’t do that,” she sputtered. “I wasn’t ready!”
“Maybe you should have...practiced.”
She poked me in the chest. “You want to go? Right here and now? I’ve got a multistage liquid-fueled rocket with your name on it.”
“Well shit, if that’s all. Why don’t we make this interesting? Why not pick something that you’re good at?”
Behind me, I heard the crowd of schoolchildren begin to cheer.
I smirked. “Just what do you think you could beat me in?”
She hesitated, but then said, “Stunts.”
“Oh sure, against the earth pony.” I turned my head. “Rainbow, are you still the fastest pegasus in Equestria?”
“Well, I’ve been out of the game for a while with my hairdressing gig, but I do prac-uh, train regularly.” She walked forward, tossing her carefully styled mane back.
Scootaloo hadn’t said a word during this exchange, but as Rainbow lined up against Lighting, I could see her vibrating with excitement.
“All right,” said Lightning. We’ll do one lap around the course in front of us. Both speed and style count.”
Rainbow grinned and took a stance. “Somepony start us off.”
I pulled out my Desert Eagle.
Bang.
Lightning’s head exploded. It actually wasn’t me. I whipped off my autodarkening sunglasses and looked around.
I saw Libby high overhead. Sighing, I tapped my earpiece. “Libby, why did you just kill Lightning Dust?”
“Well, I saw a potential source of conflict due to the unsafe building codes of all this stunt equipment. I knew it wouldn’t take much to set off a chain reaction of collapse, and some of the pyrotechnics were also unstable. With the observing schoolchildren not in bleachers but scattered arbitrarily around near the about-to-begin race, I calculated that significant risk would come to them and took action by sacrificing a nonessential life who was also kind of an asshole.”
“Well, that’s thinking exterior to the cube,” I muttered. “But when did you get to be an expert on legal codes?”
“You were the one that built me to government standards.”
“Okay, but what are you doing here?” I said.
“I could ask you the same question. We all live on a big black deck submarine.”
“That’s not what I asked. Last I checked, you were getting skyhooked off the hull.”
“Tin Mare told me to go play by myself and not get into trouble.”
“This is probably not what she meant.”
“Oops.”
I shook my head. Vacuum tubes for brains.
I started to turn away, but got another call on my earpiece. “Hey dad, I was considering a couple of other renovations while I’m at it.”
“Like what, Cordoba?”
“Well, first off, I was thinking about some landscaping, maybe a mulch bed.”
“It would wash off when we submerged.”
“What about some new hardwood floors?”
“Tempting, but what if we get depth charged? We wouldn’t want the pieces to float and give away our position.”
“We’ll use a wood that doesn’t float.”
“You know how I feel about teak.”
“What about some track lighting?”
“We have plenty of lights already.”
“Okay, but have you considered...a bigger, blacker deck?”
“...No, I had not.”