Dat's Our Ragamuffin!

by PresentPerfect


Five

Dat's Our Ragamuffin!
by Present Perfect

Five

"Thanks again for coming over, Sunset," Twilight said, wiping her brow. "Not only do these experiments go faster with someone to help, I'm just... Well, I'm glad to have someone else here, helping or not."

She gave her friend a lopsided smile that was returned in kind. Sunset took another sip of her soda. All around them, the results of their in-progress experiments bubbled, sparked and foamed, their setup well complete.

Fidgeting, Twilight looked down at her fingers. Her cheeks flushed. Suddenly, her lab coat was really insulating.

"Sunset? Can I ask you a question... about Equestria?"

Sunset gave her a searching look, but otherwise remained innocent. "Sure, Twilight."

"I know, um, that a lot of things are different there." Twilight swallowed. "Where you're from."

"Yeahhhh..." Sunset raised an eyebrow.

"It's, um, just, uh..." Twilight sucked in a breath through her teeth, closed her eyes and let it out. "Are there lesbians in Equestria?"

When Sunset responded with a sharp bark of laughter, Twilight's guts froze. It didn't last long, but that initial tremor of fear was all too familiar.

"What kind of a question is that? Of course there are lesbians in Equestria. You're talking to one!"

What had moments ago been ice turned quickly into lava. Twilight had to avert her eyes from Sunset, lest she burst into flame.

"O-oh. That's... that's good to know."

She felt a soft hand gently take hers. When she looked up, she saw Sunset regarding her with a warm smirk.

"Twilight, is there maybe something else you'd like to ask me?"

Twilight's heart hammered in her chest. She could all but measure her own blood pressure internally. Her fingers were clammy, and her skin tingled with neverending lightning.

This was it. This was the moment she'd been waiting for. The moment when she could tell Sunset those four little words. And if she were reading the situation correctly -- and there was an eighty-seven-point-six percent chance she was -- Sunset was in a mood to reciprocate them.

I'm a lesbian, too.

"Sunset..." Twilight leaned in toward her.

Then an orange hand at the end of a white-clad arm shot between them and plucked a test tube from the nearby rack.

"What?" Twilight shrieked. Sunset reeled back, her eyes wide.

A strange boy had just shown up out of nowhere, right here in the middle of the laboratory that was technically not supposed to be on school grounds. He lifted the test tube to his lips and tested it with his teeth.

"Wait!" cried Twilight, stretching her arms out in futility. "Stop, that's--"

Unfortunately, he must have bitten down too hard, because the tube shattered, sending glass shards and the colorless liquid inside plummetting down his throat.

"Dat's real (RS)-Propan-2-yl methylphosphonofluoridate, dat is!" he said, though the glass sticking in his gums garbled his speech somewhat. He began to drool.

"...Extremely dangerous," said Twilight listlessly. Her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh my god, you're gonna die horribly and it's all my fault!"

Wheezing, the boy clutched at his chest. He collapsed to one knee, vomiting a chunk of apple, a circuit board, a piece of brown rock and something shapeless and invisible onto the floor. They could tell where it was by the stomach acid it displaced.

"Oi'm Rag--" was as far as he got before he spasmed and collapsed on the ground. Both girls covered their noses as his bowels voided.

They looked at each other. Twilight's eyes were clouded by tears.

"Oh my god," she said, her voice tiny and frail, "he's dead! I just killed someone!"

She sprang forward and latched onto Sunset's shoulders, her voice growing louder and shriller with each word as she shook her friend violently. "What are we gonna do, Sunset? What are we gonna do?"

"Twilight, stop, calm down!" Sunset extricated herself from Twilight's grip. She regarded her with a calm, almost cold expression.

"I've got experience with this kind of thing. I'll go get trash bags and duct tape. You need to find a chainsaw and some quicklime. Meet me back here and we'll get rid of him before anyone notices." She tapped her chin for a second. "Do you have any strong acids handy? We'll need to clean up as well."

"Sunset!"

Twilight's horror showed through in her voice. For a moment, Sunset seemed to reconsider. She gazed at Twilight with what Twilight could only identify as pity. Maybe she was sorry Twilight had gotten caught up in... whatever this was.

Twilight steeled herself. She gave Sunset what she hoped was a firm, confident nod. If they were going to be thrust into a world of questionable actions and immoral outcomes, then she would stand side-by-side with Sunset, mustering as much dignity and intestinal fortitude as she could. She would do it for Sunset. She would do it for herself. She would do it for all the lesbians in--

"--amuffin!"

Twilight and Sunset screamed and clung to each other.

The boy, none the worse for wear, stood beside them, smiling gormlessly. Beneath him lay a crumpled thing that looked like his own skin and uniform. Despite this, he was currently wearing both.

He spun on his heel, slipped a little bit in the vomit, and tottered out of the lab.

Shivering, the two girls hugged each other for a few minutes more. They blinked, looked at one another, looked away, and released each other, rubbing their arms.

"Twilight, I don't mean to be accusatory, but why were you working with nerve gas?"

Twilight snorted. "Don't judge me, I have a permit! But while we're busy not being accusatory, what was that about having experience disposing of bodies?"

Sunset looked away and coughed. "We're still going to need to clean this up. Let's just agree not to talk about this."

Twilight looked down at the thing that Ragamuffin had been wearing.

"Yeah. Let's."