With all the grace of an angry bull hyped up on cocaine, Sunset Shimmer burst through the door of Zecora’s hut followed by a displeased Spike and Twilight’s magically englobed bed which smashed through the witch doctor’s front entrance as Sunset screamed “Oh, YEAH!” before she unceremoniously lowered the bed amongst the rubble.
Though initially startled by this unexpected confusion, Zecora looked up from her cauldron to glare at this intrusion.
Spike shot a highly irritated look at his compatriot. “Do I need to remind you the babies are sleeping and if they wake up, this whole situation goes from bad to apocalyptic?” he said as a tossed a glance at the bed to ensure the babies were still asleep.
“It’s fine! It’s fine!” Sunset stressed. “We just need to move super-fast before the baby drugs wear off and everything will be peachy keen!”
“Okay, but maybe you could have just left the bed outside?!”
“WHAT?!” Sunset snarled. “It’s the Everfree! There are baby-eating hawks out there, Spike!”
“I just meant the be—”
“One mishap with nature and suddenly I’m a blubbering mess explaining to Equestria what happened to all the princesses while I let Starlight play Reanimator!”—
“Alright, just talk right over me.”
—“Is that what you want, Spike?! Undead baby princesses?! Because leaving babies outside in the super dangerous woods is how you get undead baby princesses!”
A gargle squawk sounded out and Spike tracked the noise to a beak sitting atop a smashed watermelon pile crammed into a large clay pot. “I’d honestly feel a lot worse for the hawk that made the attempt…”
Sighing as she looked over the fresh new mess which overtook the rubble from her new sunroof and chunks of animals turned to produce she had cleaned earlier, Zecora shot Sunset a glare. “Thank you for making a mess of my door, it really adds to the current decor.”
Sunset was clearly in a mood to have exactly none of this. She took a few wide strides and thrust a forehoof under Zecora’s chin as her face became far too uncomfortably close to that of the zebra’s. “Stow it, you after-school special created to appeal to the urban demographic!”
Spike cringed. “Dude, harsh.”
Sunset simply barreled on, her words seemingly flowing from her mouth before she could think them. “Listen! The other four Princesses are out of commission because of your cure!” Sunset expanded her wings, one of which bumped a jar of something ichory and eye-bally and sent it shattering to the ground. “See these wings?!” Sunset pointed at her horn. “See this swollen horn?! This means I’m the only Princess in charge of your buckin’ bucks! That’s right! I’m the sun Princess now! Everything the light touches is mine!” Sunset pursed her lips for a moment, then gently scooched Zecora into a sunbeam coming from directly overhead. “That’s right! I own you!”
“Uh, Sunset?” Spike tried to interject.
“I own this planet!
“Sunset!”
“You know what! BUCK this planet!” Sunset screamed as she turned towards the hole in the tree hut and fired off a massive beam of crimson energy which exploded in a fiery blast into the direction of the Everfree. The immediate area was quickly littered with falling dirt, rocks, and flaming tree as the forest shattering ‘kaboom’ subsided.
“SUUUUUUNSET!” Hollered Spike.
“WHAAAAAAAT?!” Sunset shrieked as she wheeled around.
“You’re being kind of a megalomaniac douchenozzle, here! Megalomania I can deal with, douchenozzle to my friends, on the other claw…” Spike said as he pivoted a claw palm upwards.
“I’m stressed and horny, okay?!” Sunset snapped.
“Right, but how does insulting Zecora and screaming help the situation exactly?” Spike asked as he spared another glance in the direction of the slumbering infants.
“I…” Sunset thought for a moment and mentally went back through the things she said. “Oh… Oh, God! Sorry! Did that come off as racist?! I’m not racist! I just, you know… am in charge of Equestria right now and my Mom and family are literally a bunch of babies instead of the usual figuratively!”
Although Sunset’s previous exchange had temporarily made Zecora wish she could hate somepony to death, she instead elected to take a deep breath. “While I’m inclined to accept your apology, I ask that you please not make a mess of the local ecology.”
Apparently oblivious to Zecora’s statement, Sunset instead turned to Spike in a near panic. “Spike, Spike! I think I said one or more things that could be considered racist! And I didn’t meeeeeeaaaaan to! I’d have called Zecora a name and said I owned her even if she was a rapping dog, bear, or like… fire elemental even!”
Spike swatted at Sunset’s cheek with an open claw. “Get a hold of yourself, filly!”
Sunset went quiet for a moment as she raised a forehoof to her cheek in stunned silence, then responded by wrapping her forelegs behind Spike’s neck and her lips around his.
“Mmmmph! Mmmmmph!” Spike raised his hand and pressed them against the alicorn princess’s face as her tongue began exploring the far reaches of his mouth. Try as he might, he found her alicorn strength a bit beyond his ability to merely push away, but he managed to move his head far enough to the right that his lips escaped the lock Sunset’s had placed on them. “Sunset, I’m flattered, but we’ve got work to do.”
“Sorry! Sorry!” Sunset exclaimed as she released her grip on Spike. “I just thought you were coming on to me!”
“I slapped you!” Spike pointed out.
“Roughly coming on to me!” Sunset qualified.
“You really took a slap as me coming onto you?”
“Have I mentioned I’m incredibly horny?” The mare whined.
Spike smirked. “Hi, Horny, I’m Spike.”
Sunset grimaced. “Ghah… Alright dad, can I go throw up in the corner, now?”
“I don’t know, can you?”
Sunset held up her forelegs in frustration for a moment before her expression softened. “You know what, keep going with the dad jokes. I’m feeling less attracted to you by the second.”
“Oh uh…” Spike looked around the witch doctor’s home. “You know what this hut needs is a good deck.”
Sunset frowned. “No, not working. The idea of you building stuff is setting off some primal need to make Kirin babies with you.” Sunset turned to Zecora. “Hey, Miss Ryma-Stripes, you got anything that works on unexpected pony hea—”
Zecora unceremoniously dumped a pot of ice water all over the horny sunspot.
Sunset shrieked momentarily before the breath got caught in her throat.
“If impure thoughts are testing your willpower, I find a good solution is a cold shower!”
“C-cold! Not FREEZING!” Sunset snarled.
Zecora gave Sunset a wicked smile. “Well, while you have behaved like a demon, I believe this makes us even.”
Sunset took a calming breath. “Alright, faaaahhhAhhhh—” Sunset reared back as her eyes closed.
Spike cringed. “Hit the—”
“— chew!” Sunset let out a not so calming sneeze that, in turn, let out a spray of fiery, glimmering glitter from her horn that blasted Zecora in the face.
Spike sighed. “— deck.”
Zecora wiped the magical substance from her face while Sunset rubbed her nose with the back of a foreleg.
“You haven’t made it yet,” Sunset said. She turned to Zecora. “Also, being berated is your kink?” She asked in surprise. “Guess I feel better about my douche-canoe entrance now.”
Zecora stared at Sunset in wide-eyed surprise. “Okay. Just. What? Is your alicorn power to see everypony’s mental smut?”
Sunset shook her entire body and mane, spraying water everywhere before she threw up a foreleg. “No! It’s empathy but everyone apparently wants in my pants today!”
“Okay, for starters, you’re not wearing pants,” Spike began.
“That kinda helps explain things!” Sunset replied.
Spike continued, “Also, I know you’ve looked in the mirror many times, are you honestly surprised?”
Sunset thought for a moment. “Right, right… With everything going on I momentarily forgot that I’m practically the walking definition of sex on fire.”
A small yawn sounded out from Twilight’s bed followed by a pink ray of light.
“Oh, that reminds me!” Sunset said. “The babies with the unstable god-powers, that’s still a thing.”
Spike walked over to Sunset and immediately glomped her. “Tick-tok! Ugh… still wet.”
“I know! I know!” Sunset said. She turned back towards Zecora. “Look, we need a cure for, and I can’t possibly stress this enough, BABY Flurry Heart. One that won’t, you know… unmake her.”
Zecora glanced over at Sunset as she thought to reassure the alicorn princess. “Though the cure’s effects are still unclear, I can guarantee the child will not disappear.”
Sunset frowned. “Can you give me more to go off than your guarantee? If anything happens to Flurry Heart I’m going to get Starlight to pull some time magic, and that probably won’t end well for anypony, but at least no one will have to live with infanticide!”
Zecora gave Sunset a heavy frown then stared upward and turned around. She walked towards a wall, pivoted, then trotted the other way with her face wrinkled as her brain had suffered a stall. Wordlessly working her lips around, she finally turned to Sunset to give her the breakdown. “The cure’s effects are whimsical for sure. Yet, the magic of those that drink it cannot be omit.”
“Huh, alright,” Sunset replied. “You know you can try not talking in rhyme, right?”
Her patience already starting to wear, Zecora shot Sunset a glare. “I’m afraid it’s something of an impulsive tick, like your unrelenting ability to be a bitch.”
Sunset couldn’t help but close her eyes as she let out a good-natured chuckle. “Oh, I like you. Well, I’m going to need you to get a tiny dose of that stuff, so hop on the baby bed and we can head out to the former site of the Crystal Empire.”
Zecora gave Sunset a disbelieving look. “Surely it is only the cure you require, I see no need to enter the crossfire?”
“I’m literally an unfocused hot mess right now and if you’re out, the most level-headed will be a pubescent dragon who’s currently nuzzling my mane with his face like I’m a lamp and doing so will get his wish granted. And if that wish is ‘getting laid by the lamp’, there’s a good chance he’s going to get it!”
“Sorry!” Spike said. “It’s not me, it’s Cadence’s magic cuddle ray, but saying that’s certainly not going to get me to stop.”
“Right, no one is asking you to,” Sunset said. She again turned back to Zecora. “Listen, I know you just met me and this is crazy, but the world is in danger, so please get on the bed with all the babies.”
Zecora’s lips contorted for a moment before she rushed to her shelves. She began to dart one way then the other as she began to gather potions, some white powder, and a pot to gather a generous helping of the mashed orange substance she was making. “If Equestria itself is at stake, then I suppose we cannot wait!” she announced as she gently crawled onto the bed as not to disturb any of the sleeping princesses. Though seemingly like sharks smelling blood in the water, this was followed by a series of small yawns as the assorted infants in the baby pile began to stretch their legs and open their eyes. Zecora swallowed. “Although this is a group of adorable tots, I must admit I’m having second thoughts!”
“Don’t worry!” Sunset said. “I wouldn’t have put you back there if I thought you didn’t deserve it.”
Zecora’s eyes narrowed. “Insufferable, stuck-up thot,” she mumbled loud enough for Sunset to hear.
Sunset’s ears shifted slightly and she frowned. “Wait, that didn’t-Oh. OOhh! Haha. Clever!”
With a magenta blast from Twilight’s horn and a ‘Zooort!’ Zecora’s clay pot of mush suddenly exploded into a generous collection of large, bright orange spiders that began to crawl all over Zecora and the babies to the former’s great distress and the latter’s great delight.
“Dude, that’s creepy…” Spike muttered as he held Sunset tight and watched baby Twilight stuff one of the carrot-constructed creatures into her mouth. The other babies also began to snack on their newly created spider friends.
“At least they’re eating!” Sunset quipped.
“Uhhhhhhgggggggghhhhhu,” Zecora moaned in fright. “I’m too scared to yelp, and wouldn’t mind a little help.”
“Yer doing fine!” Sunset announced with a slightly sadistic smile. She looked upward, a heroic expression on her face. “Okay! To the Crystal Empire!”
Spike detached himself from Sunset to fold his arms across his chest. “You’re not going to be able to fly us all the way to the Crystal Empire, especially not while carrying a bed with four babies firing off magical beams and a fully grown Zebra!”
“I can if I believe in myself!” Sunset claimed.
“Sunset!”
“No!”
“Sunset!”
“Not listening!” Sunset put both forehooves over her ears.
“We.”
“Oh, lalalalalalala~!”
“Need.”
“Lalalalalalala~!”
“To.”
“LALALALALALALALA~!”
“TAKE!”
“LALALALALALALALA~!”
“THE TRAIN!”
Sunset stopped singing and shot Spike a death glare. “There HAS to be a better—”
“Starlight might be able to teleport us there in a few jumps,” Spike interrupted. “But that means asking Starlight to put her special brand of solution finding to the situation.”
Sunset groaned. “Train it is!” Sunset extended her wings and once again started upwards. “Okay, Spike! Mount me!”
“You know I have wings now, right?” Spike said as he extended out his leathery wings to their full span. “I mean, I’m down for a good flying pony ride every now and again, but I can get myself to the tra—”
“Just hop on top of me already, dangit!” snarled Sunset.
“Okay, okay! Geez!” Spike said as he clambered on top of Sunset.
“AWAY!” Sunset declared as she shot upwards, floating the bed behind her as it smashed through more of Zecora’s hut.
Zecora sighed heavily as surveyed the further damage of her home. “Since I know that you are not blind, I must ask, do you mind?”
“AWAY!” Sunset exclaimed.
“Sunset,” Spike said. “The train station is that way!” he said as he gestured behind the group with a thumb claw.
Sunset growled then let out a defeated sigh. “… I really wish I was heading away…”