I dreamed of her again last night. Every time I do, I can always hear her voice, but I can never tell what she looks like. The dream is always clear everywhere else, but anytime I try to look at anypony, they’re blurred out, like a window covered in heavy rain, fluid and constantly changing.
We’re up in the mountains, high above the rest of the world. So high up that the stars are clear above our heads in broad daylight and you can see the clouds down below. She’s holding me and talking to Dad about something. He leans in to play with me, tickling and nuzzling me like a good father would, but then he jerks back really quick. Something weird happens and Dad starts holding his head. She’s screaming and holds me tighter, backing away from him. I don’t know what’s going on and I start crying.
Darkness explodes from Dad’s head and fills the room like smoke from a fire. She starts casting light all around and searching for him, but he’s nowhere to be found. Dad’s face shows up in front of us, forming out of the blackness from nothing. He’s crying and says something to her. She shouts after him, but he takes off to the sky, the darkness flowing behind him and leaving their bedroom. She runs to the balcony and reaches out after him, but the darkness continues into the stratosphere, eventually fading from view. She falls to her knees and holds me tightly, whispering his name over and over again while rocking me slowly to sleep. When next I wake up, I’m with Dad again, and she’s gone.
I sat up from bed and tried to rub the sand out of my eyes. The dream was so vivid this time, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. I have a lot of dreams about Dad and Shining, but this one was different. I still can’t decide if it was a dream or a nightmare. It was scary, but… almost like I wasn’t the one who was most afraid in it.
Oh well. Just another morning. At least this time, I’m not bleeding.
“Nightlight honey, would you mind getting me a drink?”
Lazy old hag.
“Bramos, go be a dear and grab Celestia a beer from the fridge, won’t you?”
Lazy old man.
The matte white pony got up from shuffling papers around for Dad and headed into the kitchen. It’d been a week since the two strangers started living in my house and I still didn’t know how I felt about it. They treat Bramos like a slave… or a robot, or whatever he is. Meanwhile, she just spends her day watching TV and loafing around all the time, and Dad… is surprisingly getting a lot of work done. But pushing all his other responsibilities, such as taking care of me, on to Bramos, so it’s almost like he’s my dad now and the other two are just my useless housemates.
I finished the breakfast of toast, eggs, and fried hay patties that Bramos made and grabbed all my stuff for school.
“Oh, you useless dolt, you got me the wrong one! I like the sweet ones, take it back and get me another.” Celestia took the beer in her magic and threw it in Bramos’ face, only for it to bounce off and then he hot-potato’d it until he caught it in his hooves. The white pony sulked back to the kitchen and I let out a breath.
“You know, you could be nicer to him.”
Celestia turned her head slowly and stared at me with complete apathy while she picked her nose. What a slob. “What? He’s not even all there. It’s just a doll. Might as well be a robot for all I care. Don’t you have friends to go meet or something?”
She’d effectively stolen Dad’s bathrobe and practically lived in it while she spent her days down here watching TV. That is of course, when she’s not out running over other ponies. She hit a farmer’s daughter and the shy pony who runs the gardening club in just the last few days. And those are just the kids I’ve seen at school. Who knows how many other ponies she’s run over?
I scowled at her but didn’t have anything better to say. She flicked her hoof at me and I just rolled my eyes. Bramos came to bring me my lunch that I’d forgotten and then I headed out the door.
“You guys suck.”
I met Pinkie under the bridge by the river, and today I found her with a brand new Kirifuda Click. So new, it still had some of the packaging plastic on it, but I figured I’d ask anyways.
“Is that new?” She glanced up at me from her game for a second, then went right back to it. Pinkie isn’t typically one to play games on her own, so that was interesting.
“Yeah. I finally got paid yesterday.”
The fog was thin this morning and it wasn’t super late just yet. Another rare and strange thing in Underhoof.
“I’m surprised you had enough. You skip out so often, I didn’t think your dad would be willing to give you the money.” I sat down to watch and Pinkie rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. He has to pay me for my work. It’s against the law if he doesn’t. And it’s not like I ever do much anyways since my sisters are all so much better at it, anyways. Nopony cares if I’m there or not.” I rolled my own eyes at that.
“That is complete bullshit, but it’s none of my business what you do with your family. What are you playing?” Pinkie huffed and paused her game.
“It’s called Burning Blaze 3, it just came out a few days ago, it’s the third installment of a game I used to play all the time. You play as a devotee of Inferna, the goddess of fire, and your job is to purge the demons from the planet. They’re these horrible creatures that go around murdering, raping, and pillaging innocent ponies, so you set their buildings on fire with the goddess’s power.
For every demon you burn, the goddess awards you points to upgrade your skills and abilities so you can do your job easier. You burn your way through Hell until you finally meet the Demon King and fight him for the world. When the world is cleansed, you are given the goddess’s blessing and invited to go to heaven to serve at Inferna’s side.”
I pulled my mouth to the side and squinted at the game. Her character didn’t quite look like a pony, but the things she was burning certainly did.
“Huh. That’s kinda dark, isn’t it?” Pinkie shrugged and went back to it.
“Not any darker than any of the other games.” I decided to go check through her bag for the case, and when I found it, the rating said ‘M’ for mature on it. Her parents are devout ponies, so there’s no way they bought this for her.
“How’d you get it?” She raised an eyebrow and smirked at me.
“Oh, I have my ways.” I frowned.
“What did you do?” Pinkie paused her game and set it down, then pushed me to the ground.
“Oh, you know♥” She laid on top of me and started nibbling on my ear again. She smelled particularly sweet today and I just didn’t have the energy to fight back. I sighed.
Just another morning.
“Okay class, today we have a new student joining us. Please, go ahead and introduce yourself,” Mrs. Rich said. For once, she wasn’t going off about how her baby girl was the most amazing thing in the world, so Rarity and I suspected she was up to something. A transfer student was about the last thing I thought would happen though. Ponies come and ponies go in Underhoof, so I wonder how long this one will last?
“I wonder why she’s here?” I whispered to Rarity.
“No doubt her parents moved here for some reason or other. Nopony would ever willingly come to a Podunk town out in the boonies like this,” she whispered back. Solid logic to be sure. Mrs. Rich hushed the class, and the new kid stepped up. She was really short, so it was hard to see her from my seat in the fourth row from the front, but she sure was bright.
“The name’s Rainbow Dash, and I am gonna rock this sleepy little town’s world! You can all address me as ‘Future Wonderbolt’ or ‘Best Young Flier of 2009.’”
Well she certainly thinks highly of herself. Mrs. Rich made a kind of awkward face, like she was trying desperately not to smile and eventually caved and turned away.
“Pfft. W-why don’t you go take a seat, Miss Dash? T-there’s one open behind Twilight. Please, raise your hoof for her.” I raised my hoof, but much like the rest of the class, I was struggling to contain my laughter. The new kid scowled at everypony and I let out a noise as she passed.
“What’d you say to me!?” she yelled in my ear. Oh my goddess, her temper is as tall as she is!
“Oh, nothing. Don’t mind me~” I whistled.
New kid had some kind of extreme frown on her face, but eventually backed off and took her seat. Now that I could actually see her, she was about as tall as a fourth grader and bright cyan with a rainbow in her mane and tail. Literally. She had magenta eyes and very clearly, an attitude. No cutiemark, so that makes her like half of the class. She should fit in just fine with the rest of us outcasts. Especially after a stunt like that.
Who comes in on the first day of school and tells everypony that you won a contest four years ago? What a loser.
“Hey, Twilight!” Pinkie, Rarity and I had just left the school and weren’t but ten feet from the entrance when the new kid shouted my name. I sighed and turned around to face her… well, look down at her really. She was at least a few hooves shorter than everypony in class.
“Can I help you?” I can see where her parents got ‘Rainbow Dash,’ but maybe they should’ve waited a few years to see her personality. ‘Short Fuse’ would’ve been much more apt.
Tiny sauntered up to me like she was the queen of the world and only stopped when she was just inches from my snout. Well, if she wasn’t looking up anyways.
“You and me! Let’s go! Right here!” She reared up on her hind legs, finally making her slightly taller than me, and brought her hooves up to her face like she was about to box somepony.
Oh, geez, I can’t even stand like that very well. Screw this.
“Yeah, I don’t think so. See you tomorrow, I guess.” I turned away and so did the other girls.
“Wow, I didn’t think you stood out that much. I knew your very presence had the capacity to piss ponies off, but usually one must do something for that to happen. Good job Twilight.” I rolled my eyes.
“Thanks Rarity, I try pretty hard to be completely unassuming and irritating to anypony who looks at me. It’s the curse of being purple I guess. Where’s your mom by the way? Doesn’t she usually pick you up here?” Rarity sighed and shook her head.
“Well, typically, that is the case, but she said she had a client all day today, so I have to walk. She went to the trouble of having dinner ready this time instead of just ordering takeout because she forgot to make anything, so I suppose it’s a plus.”
I looked off into space thinking about that. I have no idea what Rarity’s mom does.
“Huh. Well, that’s a thing. You still going to see your dad next weekend?”
She nodded. “Yes, it should be nice to see him and Sweetie again. At the very least, it gets me away from this awful place for a few days, so that’s something. Oh, speaking of, how are you doing with your new roommates?”
I was about to complain about them when Pipsqueak flew over us and landed in front of me, back in her boxing pose.
“Hey! Who the fuck do you think you are!? Don’t ignore me!” I looked at her for a moment, then pushed her aside with my magic and kept walking.
“They’re the worst. Well, at least the Motor Mare is. She’s just a big old slob, and I think she’s having a weird effect on Dad too because he’s been ignoring me lately. In his place though, Bramos has been doing all the cooking and cleaning around the house. He’s really good at it, and he’s definitely a better cook than Dad, but I still don’t know what his deal is. She called him a doll today, and- oh, do you know what she did? She threw a full beer can in his face! He stopped what he was doing for Dad just to get up and get her a beer. This is, of course, at seven thirty in the morning and she’s already drinking by the way, but he got up and got her one, and she just… threw it at him! How much of a bitch do you have to be to-” the blue pegasus flew around us again, and this time, she did put her snout right up against mine.
“Listen here, bitch. Ignore me again and just see what happens. I can make it so you never walk again. That’s why they kicked me out of my last school.” I frowned and raised a half-lidded eyebrow.
“Really now? Most ponies would get jail time for that, regardless of age. Not that I believe it coming from some five-year-old pegasus, anyways. Can you go away now?” She reared back like I just struck her.
“Wha- I am not five! I turned twelve last November!” I rolled my eyes and sighed.
“Fantastic. Look, I don’t know what your deal is, but I’m just trying to go home. I don’t care about you, I don’t care about whatever you want from me, and I am just fine with that. Please go away.” At first, it didn’t look like she even processed that, but once the gears in that little head started to turn, her face made a slow morph back from shock to anger.
“Fuck you!” She took a step back and got up in her stance again, but then, I heard it. All my senses went into overdrive, and I started looking every which way for it. It was nearby, I could hear the music.
“She’s coming.”
Pinkie, finally brought back to reality from her game, paused it, put it and her headphones in her backpack, then started searching everywhere frantically with me. I couldn’t see her anywhere, but it was getting louder.
“Oh my goddess, oh my goddess, where is she!? Is another one of those things going to attack us again!?”
Rarity, very confused and suddenly now afraid with us, also started searching for something, but I doubt she knew what.
“Attack us? Whatever do you mean?” Then the realization dawned on her. “Oh no. S-she isn’t referring to-”
“She is,” I said quietly. Newbie was beginning to feel the panic, and when I saw her ears flick up and to the left, I followed them with my eyes.
“How is she even doing that!?”
There she was, coming from across the river, through the fog, flying from what must’ve been a jump, and driving through the wet, tall grass. She was cleaving through the greenery like a hot knife in butter and she was coming straight for us.
“Escape from the sinking, do you SEE what I mean?
Freedom beats the kingdom, and I saw YOU in my dreams!”
Oh goddess, that song again! She’s still blaring that same song on her radio so loud that everypony can hear it! I’d already abandoned hope of avoiding the swing, she was too close and coming too fast. She already had the guitar in her hoof and raised to her side. The bike charged forward even faster and the front wheel lifted off the ground. The mist and fog were trailing behind her, all the grass parting for her massive back tire, getting caught, and flying away. If it weren’t for the intense fear of being hit by that thing again, the sight might’ve been pretty.
“Little fillies shouldn’t be fighting!” The front wheel came down, the bike turned sideways, and she slid as the tires still rolled, kicking up dirt and grass till she made it to the sidewalk. Then came the bass.
TWANG!
Pipsqueak didn’t even see it coming. She had no time to react, just like the rest of us, only staring in awe of the massive unicorn on the flying bike with the guitar. The body of the bass landed squarely on poor Tiny’s forehead and her whole being reverberated like a baseball, following her head and leaving a rainbow-colored trail as she sailed into the wetland just past the baseball field to the left of the school.
“Whew! I thought I was gonna be too late. Nopony got hurt, right?” I think I felt my mouth fall open again.
“Nopony got hurt? Nopony got hurt!? You just beat the shit out of the new kid!” Celestia stroked her chin thoughtfully and then clapped.
“Ah, so my package did arrive on time. Nice.” I couldn’t help but just stare at her in dumbfounded silence as she looked on at the little rainbow trail that was slowly evaporating.
“You know, isn’t there like, shallow standing water over in that field?”
Oh my goddess!
“Gah! She’s gonna drown!”
Without much time to think, I started to run over that way, followed by my two classmates, to make sure Celestia didn’t kill the new kid. We made it over to where she landed face down in the mud. It was still bubbling as we approached, only to stop when we got there.
We all screamed. Between Rarity and I, we managed to pull her out with our magic. She’s not very big, but neither of us are very strong unicorns, and sixty pounds is sixty pounds. Pinkie, thankfully, helped us trudge back through the muddy grass with our dead weight on her back and, after we finally reached solid ground, we dropped the body and fell to our knees breathing hard.
“W-why… would you… do that… to somepony…?” I sputtered out as I caught my breath. I didn’t even see her move, but she was already inspecting the little pegasus.
“Hmm. That was the right chord, but she hasn’t woken up yet. That’s not good...” Suddenly, my anger bubbled up like a pot of boiling water.
“No shit, Sherlock! That’s three times this week! Why do you keep doing this!? Oh goddess, I don’t even know what to do with her! She’s completely out cold! Damn it, Pipsqueak, why did you have to come bother me?”
Celestia picked her up and held her out, much like a dead fish, with just one of her hooves… somehow, and shook her gently in the air, upside down.
“Yuck. They’ll put me on a list if I try to revive another one. I almost got arrested for the last one. Hey, kids, can either of you take it home and make sure it lives?” Rarity and Pinkie looked to Celestia, then to the out-cold pegasus, and finally to me.
“W-well, my mother isn’t going to be home today, so I don’t think that I can, um… do that, without her permission.” Celestia frowned.
“Worthless.” And then used her magic to send Rarity away.
“Gah! Where did she go!? Did you send her home at least!?”
Next, she turned to Pinkie, who took a hesitant step back, eyes glancing at the spot where Rarity once was.
“And you? Can you take care of it?” She held out the body and wiggled the muddy pegasus in front of Pinkie’s face.
Pinkie, very quickly, shook her head. “N-no, m-my parents w-”
Poof, she was gone in a burst of golden magic.
“Good goddess, children can do nothing for themselves these days. Not only are they dumber now, they’re more incompetent too.” Celestia shook her head and sighed, then eyed the dead fish. “Come along, Twilight. It looks like we have to fix it.” I put my hooves on my face and shook my head.
“Oh, Goddess, why have you cursed me so?”
“Ugh, what happened to my head…?” I didn’t bother getting up to check on her, I was in the middle of a fight with Pinkie and she was probably fine, anyways.
“Hey, look, she finally came to.”
“Gah! You! You!” She shouted and pointed at Celestia while wrapped up in her forelegs on my bed. There was an attempt to get away, but I knew all too well how difficult that was, and neither of them were wet.
“Geez. Couldn’t you have woken up half an hour ago?” I complained.
Celestia tightened her grip around the struggling filly in my ‘too-big-for-her’ bathrobe and cradled her like a doll. “Oh, but it’s more fun this way♥”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t care what you say, I will not share a bed with you. I will sleep on the couch if I have to.”
The giant unicorn pouted and squeezed the blue filly a little harder. “Aww, you’re such a spoilsport.” I turned my attention back to the game and finally, Tiny escaped her grip.
“Oh goddess, I can breathe again.” She hovered in the air for a few minutes catching her breath, then scanned the room. Celestia was in Dad’s bathrobe with her gigantic mane draping the bed and part of the carpet, I was playing my game online with Pinkie, and nothing else about my room was out of the ordinary… at least I don’t think there was.
She slowly sank back to the ground in a confused pose, with one hoof under her elbow and one under her chin, while she tried to figure out what happened, and probably where she was, too.
Celestia floated her bass from the corner to her hooves and started to play a little song. It was always strange to see her use the instrument for its intended purpose, but even more so to hear it. It sounded like a working electric, but didn’t need power or an amp.
“That’s it! You were there, and you were there, and you hit me! With that!” Pipsqueak pointed at her, then me, then her again, rising into the air with every point. I nodded and Celestia continued to hum and play her lullaby.
“Congrats, genius. Do you want a cookie? Ooh!” Pinkie came in with a swing and, right then and there, I countered just in time. I pumped one of my hooves in triumph. “Hell yeah, that’s a homerun!”
“Be nice, Twilight. Not everypony catches up with the program as quickly as you do. She’s still a filly, and as I said earlier, children-”
“Are stupid, yes, I remember, I was there.” The humming resumed, the lullaby continued, and Tiny sank back to the ground again.
“Okay, can somepony explain to me what in the hell just happened?” she asked.
“Oh, Twilight’s character has a counter move, if the opponent, or opponents, hit her within a specific timeframe, she returns their attack at double power and doesn’t take any damage.”
I saw Pinkie coming in with one of her power move feints and countered appropriately to show newbie how it worked.
She brought her hooves to her temples and rubbed slowly. “I know how a counter works. I have played that game before. WHERE. AM. I?” She asked, much more forcefully this time.
“Oh, you’re at my house,” Celestia said.
I turned my head and scowled at her. “No, this is my house, you just hang around here because you’re too fat to remove. She’s like a freaking cancer, I swear.”
She put a hoof to her chest, taken aback.
“Ah! I am not fat. I lost like, twenty pounds, about fourteen years ago and I haven’t gained weight since then,” Celestia said defiantly.
I rolled my eyes. “Weirdly specific, but whatever. I really doubt you spent a whole decade not eating the way you do here. Getting drunk at every time of the day, lazing around the house. I wouldn’t be surprised if you gained twenty pounds in just the week you’ve been here.”
Celestia turned and huffed. “You are just a big meanie. My weight is of nopony’s concern but mine.”
I rolled my eyes. “Well, my bed frame seems to disagree with you. You know it’s not supposed to bend like that.” Celestia scowled at the bed frame and then got up from the mattress and swung her bass over her back.
“I don’t have to take this. I’m going to go watch TV.” She stomped her way to the door and slammed it once she was out.
“Careful! You might just collapse the stairs in like that, you big, white hippo!” Celestia groaned from further in the house and I smiled to myself in satisfaction. Finally, something I can use against her.
With her finally gone, Tiny decided to walk over and sit by me on the floor in front of the Click and the TV.
“So, um… can you give me a straight answer? Please?” I looked at her mane, then her face, then back to my game.
“Depends. Did you get your mane from the pride parade? Ponies like you don’t typically like ‘straight’ and all.” She rolled her eyes and groaned.
“Oh my goddess, for the thirty-eight thousandth time today, I AM NOT GAY! It’s natural, my dad is the same way! I didn’t do it on purpose! Can you be serious for one fucking minute please!?”
I reared my head back and gestured to the game. “I’ve been serious this whole time. Pinkie is better at this than I am. Do you know how hard it is to keep a life lead on her? I let up for a second, and she kills me- oh, damn it! Just like that, apparently.” I stopped paying attention and Pinkie got me in a spike, shooting my character clear off the stage. Just for some extra salt on the wound, she still hadn’t taken any damage on this life yet, so that was that.
Pipsqueak raged and then ripped the controller out of my hooves. She spawned in, did some stuff, and Pinkie died. I had to blink because, as soon as Pinkie spawned in again, she did it one more time and the game was over.
“There! It’s over! Who was that!?” she asked, pointing at the door.
I blinked and clicked the button on my headset. “Yeah, no, that wasn’t me. Look, I’m gonna have to talk to you later. I, uh… Yeah. Yeah. Alright, bye.” I took the headset off and finally focused my attention on the little pegasus. “So… can you teach me how to do that?”
She looked like she wanted to tear her mane out. “Yes! Fine! Whatever it takes, just tell me what is going on!”
I made an approving frown and passed her my controller and took my brother’s out of a drawer just under the TV.
“Okay, cool. So, that was Celestia. No idea where she came from, what she is, or how she does half the things she does, but she has a flying motorcycle and deals ponies killing blows with her bass that don’t actually kill anypony. We should be dead based on the force she puts into that thing, but, so far, there aren’t any ‘victims’ of her hit and runs, just yet. You’re just one of many ponies she has bashed in the head with that guitar, and nopony knows why she does it. I’m pretty sure she’s manipulating my dad and that’s why he lets her stay here, but otherwise? No idea.
“She somehow found out your dad’s phone number and called him to let him know that you’re staying here for the night because you got into an accident at school ‘or something.’ Her words, not mine. I guess he bought that, so here we are. Your uniform is in the dryer and should be done any minute now, and Bramos should be working on dinner, so that’ll be ready soon. I mean this literally when I say he looks like a mannequin, so don’t freak out when you see him. He’s very sensitive.”
She shook her head and blinked.
“What?”
“Yeah, me too. So, about the game…”
She shook her head again and put her hooves over her ears. “No, no, no. None of this makes any sense!”
I rolled my eyes.
“Welcome to my life, kiddo.”
“You girls seem to be getting along. Oh, I’m sorry, I never properly introduced myself. I’m Nightlight Sparkle.” Dad held out a hoof over the table.
I was about halfway done with the carbonara Bramos made. Dad was making small talk between sharing noodles with Celestia.
“I, uh… I’m Rainbow Dash. N-nice to meet you?” She shook his hoof hesitantly while Celestia fed him some more food. Twice already, she’d sucked a noodle out of his mouth and dove in tongue first. I was never sure whether that was more disgusting or impressive. On the disgusting side, she’s doing naughty things to Dad in front of me at the table... Again. However, on the impressive side, the noodle never broke which must take some kind of insane control over how she was doing it. Dash was having trouble adjusting, but nopony could ever truly adjust to Celestia.
“I hear you’re pretty good. Twilight says that thing you do with your hooves is amazing♥” I rolled my eyes and picked up another fork full of spaghetti.
“I, uh… What?” Dash looked to me for help, but I shook my head.
“Nope, that’s just how she talks.” Celestia was sitting in Dad’s chair, and she was the one cradling Dad in her massive hooves like some kinda foal while they did… whatever it was they were doing. Finally coming to terms with the insanity that is my life, Dash just started eating and ignoring.
“Wow, this is really good. So, are you like, a chef, or something?” she asked Bramos.
I swallowed and put a hoof on her shoulder. “Yeah, he doesn’t talk. He accepts commands and will do things you ask of him to the best of his ability, but fatty says he’s not all there.” The matte white pony wiggled in his chair and circled the tips of his forehooves around each other. He’s cold to the touch, but somehow, I think he was blushing.
“Again with the insults. I don’t make fun of you. Do you hate me Twilight?” Ugh, she’s making that face again.
“I don’t even know how to describe how I feel about you. So, for now, I’ll just keep calling you fatty until I figure it out.” Her face sank and she looked like she was about to cry. She popped from her place in the chair to in front of the staircase, letting Dad fall on his back.
“Oww.”
“You’re so mean to me! I’m going up to my room!” She ran up the stairs, accompanied by the heavy thump of hooves too big for the steps, before slamming a door behind her.
“Hey man, don’t you think that was a little far?”
I turned and gave my house guest a death stare. “Don’t you take her side! She does that with him in front of me. Every! Single! Night! He always says, ‘Oh, Celestia, not in front of Twilight♥’ and then gets into a tongue twister with her, while she stares at me! Do you know how hard that is to ignore!? And him! He’s just pathetic. He never fights back! He always does what she says, and even when he pretends to care, he lets her do whatever anyways because he’s coiled around her huge hooves like a snake!” I pouted and stared Dad down as he rose from his back to sitting properly.
Oddly enough, he finally shaved, which is nice, but everything else that’s changed, I don’t like. The old stallion scratched at the back of his head.
“What can I say? She’s a mare who’s hard to deny. I will say that she was never this aggressive all those years ago, though. I suppose even she gets lonely sometimes…”
I groaned and rolled my eyes. Stop making sense.
“That doesn’t mean you have to bend over for her every second of the day…”
Dad shrugged and picked up a fork full of spaghetti. “Sometimes love requires sacrifices. You do something for somepony that you wouldn’t normally do, even though it doesn’t benefit you. To commit an act out of love is to show faith that you believe, they too, would come back and show that same love to you, someday. When it comes down to it, that’s what life is about… But, with as smart as you are, I’m sure you’ll understand that, one day.” He swallowed the last of the food on his plate, then took his dishes to the sink.
“I’ve still got some work to finish up before I can send this off to my editor. Don’t be so hard on Celestia, okay? Everypony has their problems, but not everypony is willing to tell you about them. Anyways, goodnight girls.” Dad went back upstairs. I pushed my plate away and laid my head on the table.
“Why am I getting lectured? She’s the one who came in and disrupted my life.”
Dash patted my back. “Yeah… I think I can see why you complain. That’s rough buddy.”
“So, you press up, or the jump button, after you hit the heavy, to cancel out of the recovery animation, to start another combo. You can get something like fifty, sixty percent damage on somepony before you have to drop, and as long as you catch them before the tech window, you can use the air special to kill right then and there,” she explained.
“Oh, so that’s how you did it! I saw that and even Pinkie was confused. We never knew that was even possible.” She was really good at this game. We only ever played with my brother back when he was home, since Pinkie’s sisters were never interested in video games, but Dash had played online and in tournaments before, so she knew a lot about it.
“Yeah, you make the transition from casual to competitive by learning about the deeper mechanics of a game like this, then you begin to see just how things can be done or abused. You learn a lot from online communities. Almost every game with a competitive element has something like that, as long as there’s a skill threshold to it.”
We started doing mock fights after dinner, and she explained just about everything there was to know about this game to me. It was a lot to process, but after a while, I figured it out.
“So… where did you learn all this? I find that most fillies don’t play video games, they just spend all their time on their phones these days.” I was one of the exceptions. Even after Shining left, Pinkie and I continued to play games like this whenever she would come over. Of course, she has her own Click now, so she doesn’t have to be here for us to play together, but I still play games even when I’m alone. Rarity, of course, always says we’re the weird ones for not acting more like normal fillies, but maybe it’s her and not us? Dash scratched at her head.
“My dad is kinda awkward, so this was how he always spent time with me. The better I got, the more he taught me, and eventually it got to the point where I could beat the older ponies in games like this.”
Huh. With as confrontational as she is, it’s a wonder that her dad acts like that.
“So, what does your mom do?” At that, she got up in my face again.
“I don’t know, what does your mom do!?” I backed off and threw up my hooves.
“Woah! Geez, I was just asking a question, chill out.” I leaned in and whispered, “Don’t forget, she brings the Harley in the house. She could show up anywhere, any second, with that thing in her hooves.”
Dash froze up and sank back down. We returned to playing in silence, with Dash constantly checking over her shoulder and her ears going wild, looking for the slightest hint of an engine sound anywhere. It wasn’t until I finally started taking some of her lives that she started talking again.
“He was reassigned here a week ago. One of the tests he was supposed to be over… ended in disaster and… and we needed to leave the Cloudsdale base, but couldn’t for the longest time. He was glad that it was someplace far away from there and he didn’t have so much on his plate anymore. He was always interested in space and wanted to fly among the stars, so when the Queen started asking around for engineers, he was the first to sign up. It was good, for a while, like that. His new position brought in a lot of money, but because he was so busy now, we started spending time without him working on me. I showed promise in the same field, so they started entering me in races and training me. I was good at it, but… but then I couldn’t race anymore.
“Dad and I… we didn’t know how to talk to each other. I would… get mad, and let out all that pent-up anger on unsuspecting ponies like you, and get suspended. Then he would finally get off work and… we would just sit in silence. It was when I went too far in a fight one time, and really did break somepony’s legs, that I was permanently expelled from Cloudsdale Elementary. I had nowhere to be, and none of the private schools would take me, so I just stayed home. He took a few days off, for once in his life, and he brought home the last generation console and a new version of a game he played when he was my age.
“Have you ever gotten out of the shower before, and tried to look in the mirror, but it was all covered in fog? Well, that game, for us, was like wiping all that fog away. I could finally see the pony in the mirror, and we started talking for the first time in almost three years.
“He said that it was his fault. I always blamed him for it, but he would never talk to me about it, so I never got any relief from my anger. It was a flaw in the design that nopony ever realized was there… except him. He saw it way late in the process, but the craft was already half built and he never brought it up. Even when he found out who the test pilot was going to be, he never said anything. He thought that maybe it wasn’t really there, since nopony ever acknowledged it, and he was just being critical of his own design. When the engine started to malfunction, he knew the truth, though.
“He was stuck and never recovered from the guilt. It was all his fault, he had the chance to stop it, but he didn’t. A case of negligence that nopony would ever know about because, even after everypony else discovered the flaw in the design, it was too late. The next ship was already in production, and all the engineers had to get back to work. No time to stop and reflect, the queen wanted the job done as soon as possible. A working vessel had to be completed in the next five years, period.
“It was a little bit of a miracle that we even moved out here. He never believed that they would let him off the project, even though he tried desperately to get out of it for almost four years straight. Lo and behold, he gets a letter out of the blue saying that he was to be relocated to the Underhoof air base immediately, far and away from Cloudsdale and the Queen. It had the royal seal and everything.
“I’m… sorry I went off on you earlier. Being back in school after all this time brought up some old feelings and I just… I don’t know. I thought I could come in and show off, but being laughed at was the last thing I expected. Ponies respect you when you prove yourself, so I thought that maybe fighting somepony would get me that. You looked like an easy target, so I kinda went after you because of it.”
I was about to respond, but she beat me to it.
“Well, the important thing is that you’ve learned from your mistakes. Not everypony has the heart to admit their own flaws. You would not believe the fights I got into back when I was younger. Whew. There are places that don’t exist anymore because I got mad. Of course, nothing was worse than when my sister and I got in a fight over a boy. Take notes kids, don’t fight over stallions. That will destroy lives. Nopony wins in that situation.”
I don’t know how or when she did it, but somehow she snuck in and sat down next to Dash without either of us noticing. I didn’t react because I’m just used to it now, but Dash reacted appropriately.
“Holy shit!” she exclaimed as she backed away and into me, shaking in fear of the giant, wet, white unicorn. I was quick to push her off and groaned at Celestia.
“Oh, hey, nice of you to drop by. Can you leave now? We’re trying to play a game here.”
Celestia rolled her eyes and popped a set of Click Joy-pros out of nothing in her magic. Since we hadn’t actually been playing, she joined the game, without pause, and turned it to a team battle.
“How about this? If you two can beat me, I will leave. It’s eight, now, so I’ll give you two hours and unlimited matches. If you can’t, then you have to snuggle with me tonight♥” I snorted and laughed.
“Snrk, ha! That’s a one-sided deal if I’ve ever heard one. You’re on!”
Rainbow looked from me to her and back.
“Uh… Twi, are you sure about that?”
I reared back. “Are you kidding me? There’s no way this old mare is gonna even last a match with somepony like you playing.” The little blue pegasus was apprehensive, and I couldn’t understand why. This was a chance to get this crazy old lady out of my mane for a night, and I wasn’t about to let it slip.
“I, uh... I mean, alright, man.” Celestia put her character on random, I picked my best, and Rainbow picked hers. There was absolutely no way we were gonna lose.
It was probably when she picked random that I should’ve known something was up… Or maybe when she smiled like she did… Or when she pulled out a document to have me sign. That should’ve been the biggest flag, but I’m a fucking moron and was too excited at the idea of beating her to take a hint. How could I have known she was better than Dash? How could I have known she was better than both of us combined? How could I have known that, over forty matches, and two hours later, we would’ve collectively taken three lives off her?
I couldn’t have. I was played, I was upset, I was angry, and I slept the best I’d ever slept in my life, and I hated that even more than anything else. And I will get the same sleep, for the next week, because I signed a contract that I didn’t bother to read. She warned me. She knew something was fishy, but I still took the bait. I am the dumb bass.
Dash’s dad showed up to pick her up the next day and thanked us for taking care of her after her ‘accident or something’ the other day. The magical contract I signed also prevented me from explaining what the accident was, or who caused it. So, if nothing else can be said about her, she is very thorough. Just another thing to add to the list of ‘who in the world are you’ questions for Celestia that grows every day.
Surprisingly enough, her dad looks almost nothing like her, but it’s very clear that she gets her mane and tail from him. She has different eyes, a different snout, a different coat, and even a more delicate body type than him. It’s almost a wonder that they’re related at all. Of course, more than two distinct mane colors is pretty rare in and of itself in ponies, so for them to both have six is about as dead a giveaway as it gets.
She ended up getting demoted to Pinkie’s class shortly after taking the first-time exam, which really wasn’t all that much of a surprise since she hadn’t been in school for over a year, but a little saddening to see her go. A lot of ponies here are pretty quiet, we mostly keep to ourselves, but she was just about the opposite of that. A little extra color in the world of this boring old town. Things went back to normal after the first few days, but as always, nothing stays that way long with Celestia looming around.
My alarm started to go off, but I was still tired and didn’t want to get up just yet. I wrapped myself around my pillow a little tighter and buried my head in it. Soft, warm, and so comfortable under my blankets. I never wanted to leave it. Of course, then I noticed the pillow’s breathing, and that was when the glass was broken. Disgusted with myself, I fought my way out of the pillow’s grip and turned off my alarm to take my shower.
When I came back to get dressed, I saw the strangest thing in my bed. She’d already left and taken up drinking in front of the TV, as she does every morning, but, in her place was a singular, massive, white feather. I picked it up to study it and it was almost like a fan. It was drenched in all sorts of magic I couldn’t decipher just by feeling, and when I did try to analyze the spells on it, I couldn’t even begin to understand how any of the magic worked. It was almost ancient and all of it foreign to me.
“Where in the world did this come from?”
“Oh, Twilight! Breakfast is ready!” Celestia called from the ground floor. I groaned at the thought of her cooking again. Last time, she literally left a plastic fork in the food that she had used to taste it.
Who taught you how to do this? Or better yet, who didn’t teach you? Ugh.
To my surprise, though, she’d actually made some decent pancakes this time and I didn’t want to gag at the sight of them. I asked her about the feather, but she denied it existed, and when I went to grab it again, it wasn’t there. She’s always wearing some clothes or other to cover her back, so maybe she’s just been hiding wings all this time? But again, when I managed to flip the back of dad’s robe up using Pinkie’s skirt technique, all I got for my efforts was a face full of tail and a gigantic mare butt crushing me. No wings underneath, just giant, white pony back.
“Well, somepony certainly seems frisky today. Normally one asks before they go touching cutiemarks♥”
You damn pervert.
The rest of my day went as usual, though Pinkie was a lot less aggressive this morning since she was still trying to master some combo I passed her via Dash. Doesn’t mean she didn’t still catch me off guard once, she just only made one attempt.
Class itself was boring. Rarity had nothing new to add, Trixie was insufferable as ever, the gardening girl was silent, and Mrs. Rich spent more of class talking about her daughter than the subject at hoof. With the way we’re taught, you would think that the other class was the advanced one.
In a strange sense of déjà vu, the three of us were walking out of the school, and not but a few minutes later, I heard Dash yelling at somepony. I held my hoof up to my ear and checked the sky and nearby fog for movement, but there was nothing, yet.
“Hey! Why don’t you pick on somepony your own size!” she yelled.
“What is this, a rerun?” We turned around to see Trixie talking to the gardening girl, who was pinned against a wall, with Dash stomping her way over to them.
“Interesting choice of words for a half pint. Now why don’t you go away? The adults are talking.” Even the way she talks can just get under your skin, but, I have to agree with her here. Between the three of them, Trixie was in the middle as far as height goes. The gardening girl, while quiet and shy, was, literally, almost taller than Mrs. Rich.
“Yeah, well, whatever! That doesn’t give you license to pressure her into doing something she doesn’t want to!” Trixie smirked and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, is that so? Did you really not want to help me out this weekend, Fluttershy?” The tall pegasus focused her eyes on the sidewalk and played with her mane. She was significantly bigger than Trixie, standing on their hind legs like that, but she wasn’t much more than skin and bones, as far as I could tell.
“W-well, I don’t… I um…” She pulled a few hairs out of her pale pink mane, then dropped her hooves and sighed. “No…” Trixie raised her snout and smiled.
“See? Nothing wrong here, so you can just move along.”
Now Dash was up on her hind legs and she pushed Trixie away from the tall girl.
Since when can all these ponies stand up like that? It always hurts when I try to do it.
“She clearly doesn’t want to do whatever it is you’re pressuring her into doing. Why don’t you move along?”
“Isn’t tall chick in our class?” I whispered to Rarity.
“As far as I know. Trixie usually makes her do all of her class chores whenever she’s called on to stay after school. I’ve never seen her with anypony else, though.”
“So, is she just… being confrontational to be confrontational, or is she standing up for the ironically not-so-little guy, here?”
“Beats me. My mother is here, so I have to go, but keep an eye on them. I don’t like this.”
Rarity exited stage right, and Trixie, finally registering the defiance, just about blew up on Dash.
“Excuse me, nopony asked for your little, idiot, feather-brained insolence to butt in on my affairs! You think that, just because you won some contest when you were little, that makes you hot shit? You’re nothing. You’re not even worth the time and air I’m wasting on you right now! I know all about you, you little juvenile delinquent! My father is part of city council in this town, I can make everything about you and your family public in an instant. I can have you ostracized in a second! All I have to do is, accidentally, drop your criminal record on the floor, one day, and everypony will know that you spent a year in juvie and that your father was the reason-”
Dash punched Trixie in the nose, mid-sentence. I could’ve predicted this would happen, but… I still wanted to see it. I, personally, don’t care for Trixie very much, but she has the highest magic aptitude in school right now, so I’m just smarter than her. I noticed a tooth go flying as Trixie fell to the ground and wasn’t sure if I was feeling proud of Dash, or happy that I got to see it happen. Probably both.
“How about you keep your fucking mouth shut, you dumb bitch. I can’t stand little princesses like you, and I hate bullies even more. So, congrats, you’re the best of both worlds. If you know that I was sent to juvie, then you should know why I got sent there to begin with. It’s because I broke the legs of some other bitch, just like you. Come on, uh… yellow kid, let’s go home.” Dash took yellow kid by the hoof and lead her away from Trixie and started walking toward us.
“So, did you learn that combo?” she asked Pinkie.
Pinkie blinked. “Uh. Are we just gonna ignore that you just punched the mayor’s daughter in the face? Also, no, I haven’t got the hang of it yet. It’s kinda hard.”
I shrugged. “You just need live practice with it. I think it’s easier to pull when you’re dealing with a pony. You usually get me with your baits, so I think you can make up for the execution barrier by tricking somepony into falling into the next step.”
I was about to ask this other filly a question, but then I remembered that I don’t know her name. “I’m sorry, what was your name again?” I noticed that she had blue-green eyes, now, and that she was absurdly tall for a 7th grader. She looks like she might even be taller than the high-school-age kids.
“O-oh. I um… I’m-”
“Rainbow Dash! I’ll kill you!”
Trixie had gotten up. Her mouth was bleeding where the tooth had fallen out along with her lip being split from the punch. Her horn was glowing. There was a ring of magic around Rainbow’s neck, and I just got the strangest inclination that things were about to go very wrong, very fast.
“Oh fu-” She didn’t even get the chance to finish that. Her body was yanked back to Trixie by the neck, and then the unicorn punched her square in the face. Once, twice, thrice, four times.
“You think your little feather-brain could ever compare to a unicorn of my stature!? Nopony is even going to care when they never find your body! Die, Die, Die, DIE!”
Dash was already out cold and now Trixie was slamming her head into the wall. I tried my hardest to cancel her magic out, but I just didn’t have the power.
“Stop it, you’re gonna kill her!” She turned on me and used her magic to throw me into the school’s brick wall.
“That’s the fucking plan, jackass!”
I remember hearing a scream when my head hit the wall. I think it was the yellow girl’s voice, but Dash was in bad shape, and I think the side of her head was bleeding. My head hurt and the blow must’ve knocked my brain loose, or something, because my vision was distorted and I was struggling with my balance. Everything was throbbing, and it felt like it was all traveling toward my horn.
“Ah…! Aah…! It’s… it’s coming!”
Everypony else had paused what they were doing to watch me, and out from my head, the darkness exploded. A cloud of black fog accompanied by a burning, throbbing, stabbing pain coming from my horn poured onto the ground. A big, misshapen hoof pushed off my face and kicked me away. I rolled back and was caught by Pinkie, thankfully, but I don’t think what I saw was an improvement. A big, black, shadowy beast was standing over Trixie, drooling black ink on the ground.
This one was bigger than the last one and had a lot more features, the most notable one being its eyes. Bright pink-red lights that gleamed with hunger at the blue filly. The big, black, horse-like creature opened a mouth full of dark, dripping daggers and moved after Trixie. Instead of doing the smart thing, running away, the blue unicorn fell to her knees and pissed herself.
Goddess damn it. Struggling through the pain, I managed to pick up a loose brick with my magic and launch it at the monster’s face. Its mouth closed, without consuming Trixie, and then turned to face me.
“Well, that was a mistake,” I said, immediately afterward.
“Oh, ya think?” Pinkie responded in kind. The monster roared and charged at us, prompting Pinkie to grab me and run with everything she had. The stomping beast came at us even faster than the last one, thanks to having all of its legs, this time around. My balance was still off and my head wasn’t quite right, just yet, so I tightened my grip around her neck and prayed to hear it again. The monster snapped at my tail and Pinkie yelped at the noise. We’d run halfway down the school driveway, and just as it looked like it was going to catch us, I heard it.
CRAZY SUNSHINE! Shine on the future of our sad group!
Everypony turned to look to the school's right, again. Just like the other day, the giant Harley came flying out of the fog, this time even higher in the sky, the white mare smiling on the handlebars and the plastic stallion wielding the bass.
“What did I tell you!? Don’t you know that I hate repeating myself!? Little fillies shouldn’t be fighting!”
The engine revved higher and the back tire spun faster. The bike was flying in an arc that looked like it would land on us, but, just as the wheel came down, we were out and the monster was in. The bike brought the shadow’s head to the ground with a loud bang and the big tire whirled, digging into the monster’s face, melting part of it away into black smoke before it finally caught grip and shot the white ponies off and away. Celestia slid the bike around and took her bass from Bramos. She surveyed the area and frowned once she spotted the yellow kid tending to a bloody Dash.
“Well, geez, it looks like I was late this time.”
Finally snapping out of the trance, Trixie screamed and ran away. Celestia took her eyes off the Shadow Beast for a second, allowing it to get back up and buck her the moment she looked back. She dropped the bass as she flew out into the wetlands by the baseball field. Bramos went in after it, but this one was significantly faster than the last one. Every punch he got in was met with a near missed chomp from the beast.
My head was finally sorted out and back together just in time to see a few seconds into the future. Bramos had taken a swing at the monster, but it’d caught on to his pattern of attack. The endless knives inside the beast’s mouth showed themselves, and Bramos’ foreleg was out in the open. I got up and ran after the green electric guitar on the ground, managing to grab it just in time to watch the monster rip the white pony’s leg off. It cracked like plastic between the shadowy teeth, and the beast bucked Bramos away.
Some feeling bubbled up inside me that made me tighten my grip around the neck of the guitar and charge after monster.
“Leave him alone!” I took the heavy bass in both hooves and stopped just short of the monster’s half melted face, just in time for it to watch the guitar slam into its remaining eye.
Twang!
The chord was dissonant at first, but started to change pitch over the second it lasted. Of course, I don’t believe I was thinking at all in that moment, otherwise, I might’ve realized that Celestia was a lot bigger than me. The bass was really heavy, and I’d barely managed to pick it up in the first place. I shouldn’t have been surprised when I didn’t do a whole lot of damage after I hit the thing. I was though.
“Twilight, get away!” I heard Celestia scream. Had I the time, I might’ve even thought about how it sounded, but at the moment, I was beginning to understand why Trixie peed herself. The teeth were dripping black liquid and, up close, the monster’s face was a thing of nightmares. I was struck by fear and my body wouldn’t move. The monster furiously kicked the guitar out of my hooves, then head-butted me into the air.
In my spiraling flight away, it felt like time had slowed. I could see everything and feel nothing. My body was numb, but my eyes worked at hyper speed. Celestia had picked herself out of the mud and was racing toward me. The monster, now rid of me, had turned on the yellow kid and Dash. The bandages the yellow kid used on Dash’s head were dark red and just shy of dripping blood. Pinkie was racing toward me, maybe even calling out my name, based on the way her mouth was moving. The concrete was coming closer, faster and faster.
Neither Celestia, nor Pinkie, would reach me in time like this. Just before I hit the ground, I saw a bright flash of gold out of the corner of my eyes. Somepony had grabbed me and took the brunt of my fall. Feeling returned, and with my whole body throbbing in pain, I managed to see the faceless face of my savior before I passed out.
Oh goddess, she’s okay. I… I don’t know what I would do if I lost her too. The matte white pony caught her and slid across the concrete. It looked like everything was going to hell in a hoofbasket faster than anypony could imagine. Why does this keep happening? It was just minutes ago that it seemed normal today.
The monster roared at the blue and yellow fillies. The Motor Mare picked her bass back up. She charged after the shadowy thing, now completely covered in mud, and her whole biker outfit dripping wet.
I finally managed to make it to Twilight, and she didn’t look good. There was already a big bruise spreading across her cheek, and she was sweating and breathing really hard. The plastic pony was holding her, but he looked in just as bad shape as her, with the monster having bitten off one of his forelegs. I didn’t know what to do, and it didn’t look like the fight was going well for the Motor Mare, either.
Like a raging bull, the black beast stomped and bit at her while she defended and parried with her guitar. Chord after chord rang out with each clash, but, just like when the white pony was fighting it, it eventually recognized her pattern, and it was pretty obvious what would happen next.
The Motor Mare missed a swing that the beast predicted. She was completely open. The beast reared its head back and opened its massive jaws, the dark dripping daggers that lined the inside leaked black ink onto the concrete.
Oh goddess, it’s gonna kill her!
In that moment, a blinding violet light started to shine right beside me. Everything stopped in an instant and, the weirdest thing happened. The white pony opened a mouth it didn’t have before and swallowed Twilight whole. I think my mouth would’ve dropped open, but I didn’t even have the time to react. From its back sprouted purple wings and its whole body turned to Twilight’s colors, then its foreleg flowed out from the broken plastic in the same fluid change of color. On its face, where there was nothing before, shined lights in the shape of open eyes, and then a mark appeared. A pink, six-pointed star with five more six-pointed stars in white rose to the surface of the purple body, like ice in water.
A horn grew out of the pony’s head, and with a flap of its massive, violet wings, it took to the air. A blinding, violet laser shot at the monster, making it spiral away from Celestia and screech out in pain. The Motor Mare’s face turned into that wild smile of hers and she pumped a hoof and shouted,
“Hell yeah, that’s a home run! Let’s go, Twibra!”
She started to run toward me and the purple alicorn flew high into the air. I realized, all too late, what was about to happen. The giant white mare launched herself off my face and the violet pony caught her and spun her around faster, and faster. In that strange second of them spinning in the air, under the evening sunset, I couldn’t help but think, Wow.
The purple alicorn let go of the giant white mare and she shot after the black monster just as it was starting to get back up. Brandishing her green bass, the Motor Mare twisted her body around and brought the bass up for the killing blow.
“Back to hell, from whence you came!”
TWANG!
Almost like the beginning of a song that you always love to hear, a chord rang out in a beautiful harmonic tone like nothing I’d ever heard. The monster screeched one final pathetic song and faded away in black smoke. The white unicorn wiped some of the thin mud off her brow and slid the bass around her back.
“Whew. Talk about sketchy. I must be rusty, these things didn’t used to be so hard to kill.” The purple alicorn sank down to the ground elegantly and folded its wings back just before it landed next to the Motor Mare. It raised a hoof, and he and she high hoofed each other in triumph.
“It won’t be long now, my love…” she said, staring up at the sky. She scanned the area again and finally took notice of the yellow kid crying over the blue one. The bandages had been saturated an even darker red, and it didn’t look like the blue kid was breathing anymore.
“Oh. Well, we can’t have that, now can we?” She and the violet alicorn lit their horns up, and slowly but surely, the red started to disappear from the bandages. Once the rise and fall of the little blue pegasus’ chest restarted, the magic stopped. The violet alicorn seemed to lose his balance, and even the Motor Mare looked exhausted. Suddenly, the violet alicorn blinked from violet, to white, and back as he put his hind knees together. The big white unicorn raised an eyebrow and then nodded.
“Oh, already? Well, I think they have automatic locks on the school doors after hours, so you’re just going to have to find a bush or something.”
The alicorn spotted a tree just over by the sidewalk and ran behind it. Accompanied by a sickly sound, the color drained from the plastic pony. The white mare moved over there and picked up a slimy Twilight from the ground like she was some kinda dead fish.
“Yuck. She smells awful.” The Motor Mare whistled, and then her bike came driving over on its own. She loaded Twilight in one of her saddle bags and drove over to pick up the blue and yellow kids. She put them in front of her, then grabbed me and threw me behind her back. The plastic pony jumped up and stood above the back tire, holding onto the seat, like some kind of ship captain.
“I hate doing that. It always leaves me drained. Now I have to go drop off foals, like some kind of bus driver. Oh well, I suppose a day with a hangover is better than trying to find a new note again. Let’s go home kids.”
I’m not even sure I remember much of the ride home. I was too busy trying to figure out what in the world just happened. Every time this mare shows up, something is either going horribly wrong, or something goes horribly wrong. What is she after? Why is she here? Who is she waiting for? I never found an answer. Twilight smelled really bad and it took everything I had not to gag and keep thinking. By the time she dropped me off, my mood had started to fall. The gray doors of the estate waited for me, and I wanted nothing to do with it. Even if monsters waited out in the world for me, anything was better than being here.