//------------------------------// // Father Knows Beast // Story: A Dream // by totallynotabrony //------------------------------// I got Twilight (old Twilight who had just returned unexpectedly) fitted with a gas mask and once she was breathing clean air free of the smoke of burning shit and eldritch stuff, she glared at me.  Through the mask, she couldn’t talk clearly, though, which was I had intended. I raised my autodarkening sunglasses to look at her.  “So, I see you’ve finally come crawling back. How’s it feel to admit that I can actually run a school?” More glaring.  Incoherent shouting. “No, it’s okay, I didn’t think I could do it either, but here I am.”  I smirked. “Winning. How does it feel to know that I’m a better teacher than you?” Still glaring, still mumbleshouting, now also hoof gesticulating. “Well, I mean it wasn’t easy.  I had to kill a lot of people.  But it’s okay, they were just administrators.  Bureaucrats. The Equestrian Education Association.” Twilight’s eyes widened.  She took a big gasp, pulled off the gas mask, and said in one breath “You did what!?  Valiant, I left you in charge of a school with very clear instructions on what to do and you ended up murdering the entire school administration infrastructure!?” “Okay, first of all, it’s not murder if it’s self defense.  Which it was. Honestly. It may not surprise you, but they didn’t like me.  They didn’t like me to the point that they tried to fight me, one at a time. Some of them were actually decent fighters, but they came at me, and you know what happens to people who come at me.” Twilight took another gulp of air through the mask and started to speak again, but I interrupted her.  “And it actually wasn’t the whole EEA. There’s still one left, Chancellor Neighsay. But I get the feeling he’s not long for this world.  You know how I feel about chancellors.” Twilight took another big breath.  “But-” “But I think the thing you should actually be more concerned about is the Tree of Harmony is masquerading as you.  Was. I mean was.” This time, before Twilight could speak and ask what I meant by that, it was Sunburst, who had somehow survived burning shitty eldritch tentacle vines, that interrupted.  “Valiant, you owe me! Tell me what I want to know! Tell me what you did with Starlight Glimmer!” Trying to play them off each other, this time I let Twilight speak.  Unfortunately, she said, “Wait, what did you do with Starlight Glimmer?” I glanced back and forth between the two of them.  “This is a long story. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather me tell it somewhere that isn’t so shitty?” “Promise me right here and now that you’ll tell me,” said Sunburst.  “And not some esoteric promise. I want a concrete, ironclad promise that you will tell me about Starlight expeditiously and without further delay.” He pointed to Tin Mare.  “I want you to tell us as soon as we’re aboard and out of here.  I know Tin Mare doesn’t break down. I know that she’s got cabin filtration.  I know that you like her invincible reputation so much that you wouldn’t try to pass off a further delay by claiming she had a problem.” Goddamn, never underestimate a nerd who’s had time to lawyer the shit out of something. “What he said,” said Twilight.  “I’m really interested to see where this goes, and I know that for all your trolling and misdirection, you really don’t have the ability to lie directly to my face, though possibly because it’s no fun for you.  If anything, you’d take pleasure in a grand reveal and revel in my rage.” Holy shit, I’d be terrified if these two ever hooked up.  I immediately started making plans to keep them apart, but had to temper that with the more pressing concern of trying to wiggle out of this. In the meantime, I reluctantly heaved a deep sigh and said, “Fine.” “Um, so are we going to get out of here?” said Spike, who’d apparently come through the portal after Twilight and was apparently unbothered by a little smoke. I gestured everyone aboard Tin Mare. We all got aboard.  I tried to linger outside, but Sunburst and Twilight stared me down and I eventually conceded.  The three of us took seats, Tin Mare closed the tailgate, and as the light faded my sunglasses went clear again.  We took off. In the clearer air, I popped my helmet off and ran a hoof through my mane.  Sunburst and Twilight were staring at me intently. New Twilight sat nearby, hesitantly interested. “So, about Starlight,” I said.  “Like I warned you, this is going to take some explanation and some backstory.” Oh shit, I had to come up with something on the spot.  I decided to go with the truth. “Twilight accidentally summoned her a while back, so we kept her ghost and were going to do some experiments on it.” “We know,” said Sunburst.  “You’ve been over this before.” “I’m just setting the scene here, laying out a baseline to work from.  Now that we’re where everybody knows, we can take the story places where everybody doesn’t.” I turned.  “That brings us to new girl here.” “What?” said Twilight, the new one, as I stared at her.  The other two had also started staring at her. “You remember how you left Equestria for Silent Hill right about the same time she appeared?” I said to old Twilight. “What about it?” she said.  “I thought it was a little weird that you summoned another me from another universe, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it before I left.” “You know, I never actually said that,” I pointed out.  I smirked. “Tin Mare, play back a recording of that conversation.”  Tin Mare’s internal video screen turned on. Me, Twilight, and new Twilight were all in the Ponyville library.  New Twilight looked nervous and not entirely comfortable in her skin. She wore glasses. She didn’t need them, but I had insisted she wear them so I could tell the two of them apart. I don’t think she liked the attached nose and mustache. Twilight, the original, looked at her for a moment, and then said, “Valiant, can we have a word?” The two of us walked into the back room. In a low voice, Twilight said, “Explain to me who she is again.” “You know how there’s those whole alternate universes thing?” “So you pulled in a duplicate of me,” Twilight replied. “Stop tape,” I said.  I turned to old Twilight and smirked harder.  “I never actually said that she was your other universe counterpart.  I just said ‘You know how there’s those whole alternate universes thing?’ and you assumed.” “You-you-” Twilight stuttered.  Sunburst looked thunderstruck. “But in this case it’s good that you assumed, because that’s what actually happened.” Old Twilight and Sunburst let out simultaneous groans.  Meanwhile, the video reminded me that new Twilight needed those glasses back so I could tell the two of them apart.  I handed them over and she reluctantly put them on. “Valiant, stop stalling!” old Twilight commanded.  “This had nothing to do with anything!” “It did, actually.  You see, with new Twilight here, I had been planning to do some magical warfare development group - DEVGRU - stuff with Starlight’s ghost.  But then you dropped a school principalship on me and that got put on hold.” “What does the school taking up your time have to do with what you eventually did with Starlight?” old Twilight asked. “Well, I was really busy.  In setting up the school, we met with the EEA.  They took an immediate dislike to me. They burned down the school that I built to your specs.  I declared war. They sent their Seven School Superintendents, all of whom I defeated. Merry May was gainfully employed, Chancellor Neighsay was turned gay, Steven the river serpent may have ended up in a relationship, and we moved the school onto a submarine.” “What was that about Merry May?” Twilight asked. “Not relevant to the story about Starlight.”  I kept going. “What I’m saying is, as busy as I was, there was no way I could have developed Starlight’s ghost into Libby after Twilight left for Silent Hill.” “Wait, but you developed Libby before Twilight left for Silent Hill,” Sunburst pointed out.   “That’s what I just said.  Libby can’t be Starlight Glimmer.” “But then who is she?” “Is it relevant to what Valiant did with Starlight?” Twilight said, glancing at him irritably. “Kind of,” I said.  “Because if I tell you who Libby is, Sunburst might finally believe me.” Twilight sighed.  “Okay, fine. Who is Libby, really?” “Trident.” The two of them stared at me. “Wait,” said Twilight, “You mean…” “A UGM-133A D5 Trident II, yes.  The UGM-133A D5 Trident II, in fact.”  I sighed. “But you know, sometimes I really wish I’d just left her as is.  Her old hardware really didn’t play nice with the new software. She used to be such a sweet old missile, and now Libby is, well...” “That’s what you meant when you said she had vacuum tubes for brains!” Sunburst exclaimed. “‘70s hardware, yes.” “Apologies for interruption,” said Tin Mare.  “There is a dragon in the Ponyville town square.” She tipped a wing down and I glanced out the window.  Yep, sure was. No dragon that I recognized, but I was still trying as hard as I could to stall, so I said, “Get me a threat assessment.” “He looks kind of portly and non-threatening,” said old Twilight. “Totally,” added Spike.  “I happen to be something of an expert on dragon fitness.” We all let him have the benefit of the doubt. In my earpiece, Libby said, “Threat detected.” “Is it the dragon in the town square?” I asked. “How’d you know?” “Because I can see it.  Waveoff the threat for now.” “Uh, that might be a little hard.” A long moment passed. “...you already released weapons, didn’t you?” I looked back out the window.  Boom. Whoever the dragon was, he wasn’t anymore.  A couple pieces of hide even ended up splattered across the window with bloodstains. “Vacuum tubes for brains,” I muttered.  I turned to Twilight and Sunburst. “You see?  Nuclear detonations aren’t hard. We’ve had them for seventy years.  It’s advanced AI that’s hit or miss. Sometimes, you just can’t optimize enough to run on low specs.  This isn’t Doom.” Seizing another topic, I went on.  “Speaking of doom, has anyone noticed that there’s been a distinct lack of it recently?  I think you’ll find that my efforts have been entirely successful. I ran a school and stopped anything from happening.” Boy, would I look bad if something were to happen.  But hell, that would sure distract from the point I was trying to make. “Valiant you beat around the bush so much that it doesn’t surprise me you and Sunset have never copulated,” said Twilight. I did a double take.  “That is about the last pun I would have ever expected you to make, Twilight.  What brought this on?” “A pun?  What are you talking-”  Twilight’s face suddenly went red.  “No, I meant that you waste so much time that if Sunset had ever wanted to interact with you carnally, which even I can tell that she probably does, that it wouldn’t…” “We haven’t?  How would you know?” I said.   Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sunset grab the hook of Tin Mare’s cargo handling winch and it towed her over, sliding down the row of seats to my side.  She let go of the hook and put a hoof around my shoulders. Smooth. I saw a faint microexpression in her cheeks that told me what was coming next, and I quickly went along with it.  We put on identical troll faces. I saw the wheels turning in Twilight’s head, trying desperately to figure out if I was lying, telling the truth, telling the truth but making her think I was lying, or running for public office.  Unfortunately, she ultimately came to the conclusion that I was actually stalling for time and put on a glare. However, just then Tin Mare came in for a landing in the middle of the gore.  Libby had at least managed to limit collateral damage, which was a small miracle.  Tin Mare opened the tailgate and I was the first to rush off. I knew Twilight and Sunburst would be right behind me, though. “Seriously, though,” said Sunset, on a whispered frequency to my earpiece.  “Do you love me or not?” “I love that you’re willing to cockblock yourself to help me troll Twilight.” “Hey, what’s this over here?” Applejack called to the group.  She’d found part of the dragon’s forearm, claws still attached.  He’d apparently been holding something. We all went over to look.  It was a wallet. Inside was his ID card. “He looks a little like Spike,” Smolder commented. Applejack flipped a flap up.  There was a baby picture of Spike.  A heavy hand had scribbled son on one corner. “Oh my zonks,” said Pinkie. I glanced at her.  “Was that a JoJo reference?” “How did he even get a picture of Spike?” Twilight exclaimed.  “There’s no way - Princess Celestia told me they’d adopted Spike’s egg because it was an orphan-!” Well, it looked like the distraction had been successfully sown.  I’d thank this - I glanced at the ID - Mr. Sludge, if he hadn’t just been murdered by my killbot.  I started to slip away into the crowd. “This doesn’t make any sense,” said Sunburst.  “Why would a dragon have an ID? Dragons barely have a government.  I think this is fake, and - Valiant! Where are you going!?” I sighed and turned around, raising my autodarkening sunglasses.  They’d darkened from the burning pieces of dragon lying around. Ironic, that, dragons being flammable. He and Twilight stalked up to me, Twilight circling around.  I belatedly realized they were flanking me, one taking each side so it would be pretty obvious if I was trying to sneak away. Sunburst pointed a hoof at me.  “What did you do with Starlight Glimmer?” “First I have to tell you about-” He shook his head.  “No. For the first time in my life, I’m not here to learn academics and context.  Tell me. Now.” “I used her ghost to power a pair of autodarkening sunglasses.”