//------------------------------// // Chapter 55 // Story: To Serve Bronies // by Fuzzy Necromancer //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle offered to help Dash, but Rarity and Applejack had it covered, and Nurse RedHeart was already crossing the line between the two groups she tried not to think of as armies. She’d been so terrified, so nervous, so freaked out, that she almost forgot about the fully seasoned human that was about to fall down into their waiting mouths. “Is she okay?” the human asked. “She’ll be fine in a few days,” Redheart shouted. “Good,” he said, closing its eyes. The human took another step forward. Twilight Sparkle’s frontal lobes took a vacation. She wiggled past other unicorns, pushing them back with force spells, so she could get the bulk of the meal. She stopped. She tried to rein herself in. She tried to be respectful and considerate. She was not going to be ruled by her instincts. She wasn’t a feral dog, or a hydra, or a wyvern. She was a unicorn. She was a scholar. She was effin starving. The human took the final step off the cloud She dived at the spot on the ground, along with a dozen other unicorns, where the meat should have landed. There was nothing. Twilight Sparkle looked up. A tiny orange Pegasus bit into the loop of the human’s belt, underdeveloped wings fluttering like mad. Two more human arms reached through the cloud, followed by a dragon-like limb, and the food vanished. Twilight heard the sounds of struggle. The tall human stood up again, charging towards the edge of the cloud. The smaller human with three arms grabbed a hold of him and lifted him into the air. It didn’t have a metal cone to enhance its voice, but it didn’t need one. It shouted like a dragon with its cloaca caught in an ice floe. “You stupid bitch!” # Scootaloo climbed back onto the cloud, and the shouting match between the two humans was well underway. She wanted to step forward, in case one of them did something dangerous. She wanted to tell the weird, sweating, crying creatures that smelled only slightly of wee that everything was going to be okay and that Rainbow Dash had their backs. Scootaloo didn’t, because the two un-pony-like figures reminded her so much of Mother and Father’s epic shouting matches. “You stupid little bitch,” Reiko screamed. “How could you be so selfish?” “You’re calling me selfish?” Jamal bellowed. “What do I have to lose? I’m going to make people and ponies happy. I’m going to save Ponyville!” Reiko swung in for a slap, but he caught her arm. She swung with the other claw and he caught that. She cold-clocked him with her reptilian limb, then lifted him up by the seat of his pants. “You gosh-darned fucking idiot. You think you’re being clever? You think you’re being noble? What about that little girl? The one who made the compass? The one who loves Twilight Sparkle? Do you think she’ll be okay with this?” “She’ll manage.” Jamal coughed the words out. “She grew up without her mother and plenty of kids in her zip code don’t have a father.” Reiko clutched him tighter, and pressed her face against his. “How dare you. How can you say that? Do you have any idea how lucky she is?” Jamal laughed, bitterly. “You call that lucky? A broke-ass minimum-wage father and no mom, living in a bad part of town?” “Yes,” Reiko hissed, with a tone that made Scootaloo really glad she’d gone to the toilet very recently. “Do you know how many little girls would consider themselves lucky to have one parent, just one, who loved them, and cared about them, and showed it every day? A daddy who bothers to learn all the names of the characters in her favorite cartoon show? I’ve looked into your soul, dipshit.” The unicorns and earth ponies below were silent. “You learn how to braid her hair. You do the very best you can for her, instead of doing a shit job and just saying ‘I did my best’. You don’t care if she puts her elbows on the table. You don’t mind if she doesn’t get all A’s in school. You don’t go through her search history at random times. You don’t act differently when Child Protective Services show up or put on a show for your father-in-law.” Without noticing it, the human Reiko was dragging her reptilian claws across her own face. Blood streamed down to mingle with the tears. “Some day she’s gunna grow up, and you know what? You’re going to be there when she graduates high school, you stupid, ugly, pathetic little bitch. You’re going to help her with all the scary complicated forms, trying to qualify for whatever student loans and scholarships you can find.” The human Reiko hissed at Jamal, spit flying onto his face, eyes wide like an animal in the final stages of rabies. “You stand there and complain about your shitty, burger-flipping job, like it means the human world would be better off without you. How. Dare. You!” Reiko swung him around, looking every single unicorn in the eye, one at a time. They started backing up. Even the Earth Ponies and Pegasi backed away. “I love every one of you. I’d take a bullet for you. But you can’t have him.” “What are you doing?” Jamal said, real panic showing in his eyes for the first time. “Shut up, you sweet little dumbass,” Reiko said. “This is a man with a vital job to do. This is a man with a future ahead of him, and his wonderful little girl. Despite what he says, he makes people happy every day, and he doesn’t count the cost.” Reiko smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile or a gentle smile. It was the kind of smile you might see from a blast shrew right before it exploded in your face. It was a smile that Scootaloo had never seen on a pony’s face, not even mother’s face, on her worst nights. When Reiko started laughing, Scootaloo almost pissed herself.