At least Fish Fry’s life wasn’t that horrible.
Sure, aliens had invaded his planet the very day he opened up his first restaurant. Granted, he’d been captured and forced to work as a slave for several years. Yeah, the beatings were pretty bad, and he had lost an ear in a blaster-fire “accident” several years back. Sometimes he wondered if his family was still alive while trying to remember their faces…
But, really, it wasn’t that horrible. The Nillin loved equine cooking, and he was one of the best chefs out there. The moment any of them realized he had been a chef he’d been taken out of the physical labor assignment and been ordered to cook. So he cooked.
At least he was enslaved doing something he enjoyed. And as a chef, beatings were often less frequent, and a few times he didn’t even have a direct boss! He just… cooked! The things he’d created over the years would impress even those haughty culinary ‘masters’ who had laughed at him back on Equis…
Or that’s what he told himself, anyway. He really had no idea how good he was since he was never compared to other chefs. Nillin would come in, eat, usually give their compliments, and leave. Occasionally other races would come in, eat, and unless they were a pony they would probably try to throw a fit. Maybe the authorities would get involved; maybe he would get a broken nose…
Depended on the planet he was on, really.
Currently, he was on board the… well Nillin didn’t really give their ships names. It was Size-9 Holder-1238. The other captives called it the Four for some reason Fish hadn’t picked up on yet.
The vast majority of the Four’s cargo was slaves kept in the lower decks, pressed together like they were little more than boxes. Despite the cramped conditions, it wasn’t exactly uncomfortable or cruel down there. The Nillin wanted healthy, active slaves, after all. They just didn’t care if they were happy or not.
Fish Fry was, luckily, not down in the lower decks. He was on a sort of ‘middle class’ area that had actual rooms for those like him, a food court, and a lounge. He was currently sitting in the lounge, looking out the window at the stars passing by. When he was young, he had thought the lines of stars would appear as solid streaks of white, but as it turned out they split into the rainbow as the ship passed by. It was beautiful, reminded him of the colors of home.
He realized he had finished his caffeine-infused fruity beverage. It was as good of a sign as any that he should leave the lounge and return to his room. It wasn’t like there was anything else for him to do while the Four was in transit besides wait, might as well wait in as many places as possible.
He levitated his empty container to one of the recycling panels on the wall and left the lounge. The door slid open in three pieces, revealing a smooth hallway of greenish metal. No guards, but there wouldn’t be, there was no access to the rest of the ship here. He took a step and-
“Wow, you’re really orange!”
Fish looked down and to his side, more than a little surprised to see an earth pony filly standing next to him. She was so young she didn’t have her cutie mark yet. Both her coat and mane were pristine white, while her eyes were a soft purple shade.
“My mother ate too many carrots,” Fish responded; glad to be able to use the line again. It was true that his coat, mane, and eyes were the same bright orange hue. There wasn’t really any reason for it, but it was curious. “I’m Fish Fry. What’s your name, little one?”
“Unity!” she said, beaming.
“And what do you do?” Young slaves were treated with more respect than adults, since their developing minds needed places to grow properly, but they were still put to work as soon as they were able.
“I’m a seeing-eye pony!” Unity grinned. “I have this little harness that I use to help blind Nillin from running into stuff! It’s fun!”
I think I’d lose my mind doing that… Fish thought, starting to walk down the hallway to his room.
“So, what do you do?”
“I’m a chef,” Fish said. “They like pony food, for some unfathomable reason.”
“That’s amazing! Can I try some of your stuff?”
“If your newest master wants to come eat when I open the new shop, I don’t see why not.”
“I shall do my best to convince whoever they will be that you have the best food!” Unity saluted.
“That would be wonderful.” If he could get a regular customer he could actually talk to, that might be nice…
“So, have you heard the rumors?”
“I have not talked to any of the others on board, I doubt I’d hear any rumors.”
“Ah, can’t stand the Hepeff?”
Fish considered this question. “The Hepeff… have a very interesting culture.”
“If interesting meant SHOUTING EVERYTHING AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS then yeah, they certainly have that.”
Fish rubbed his ear. “Ow…”
“Anyway, I can put up with them, so I got some juicy tidbits. Apparently Twilight is still active!”
Fish stopped in his tracks. “W-what?”
“Yeah! Twilight, you know, our immortal, only th-“
“The Nillin captured her.”
“They capture her every few years,” Unity said with a roll of her eyes.
“Unity, listen to me,” Fish said, grabbing Unity’s face closely. “You need to never talk about Twilight to anybody, ever. If you say it to the wrong people, they won’t like it, and they will hurt you, or take you to other people that will hurt you and make you betray all your friends. Do you understand?”
“Oh, I understand. But you aren’t one of those bad people!” Unity grinned innocently. “I trust you.”
Fish sighed. “I won’t hurt you. But if you trust other people this quickly… Just be careful. I’m sure you think that Twilight is going to come and save us from this mess, but chances are we’ll have to live without her even if she is free. Okay?”
“Okay!” Unity said, her smile not faltering.
Fish nodded, unsure if she got it or not. “Let’s just go to our rooms. And try to find other things to talk with the Hepeff about, okay?”
“They’ll talk about anything. I don’t even have to mention Twilight and they’ll go on and on…”
“Unity!”
“Oh, right, sorry! My lips are sealed!”
There was a loud clank behind the two of them. “Too laaaaaate…”
Fish turned around, his legs trembling. What he saw was not his worst fear, but it was pretty high up there. A purple unicorn dressed in green armor, smacking her phase pistol into the wall methodically. She had a cruel smile on her face and her eyes were fixed on Fish like a predator ready to pounce on an injured animal.
She was a traitor.
“Looks like I have to call you two into my office for interrogation!” the unicorn said with a chuckle, twirling her gun in her magic. “Wasn’t expecting to catch something this juicy walking through the lower decks, but looks like this is my lucky day!” She holstered her gun and held up a hoof, gesturing for them to follow her. “Please try to run. I do enjoy myself a good chase scene.”
“Oh, are we playing tag?” Unity asked. “I ca-“
Fish put a hoof in Unity’s mouth. “We’ll f-follow.”
“Great!” the unicorn started walking away, leading the two of them to her office. It wasn’t long before they reached an elevator. She plugged in her security code and they began rising to the upper decks.
I am going to die. She is going to take me to her office, question me, find out I know nothing, and then blow my brains out for being useless. Then she’s going to blow Unity’s brains out. Then she’ll blow the brains out of all the Hepeff slaves on the ship… and who knows where they got their rumor. Could have made it up, for all I know…
The purple unicorn led them down a short hallway of identical green material to the previous level they were on. She opened a door and herded Fish and Unity into a small, dark room with a single table. On the wall was an award with the purple unicorn’s face on it.
Agent of the month, Sprinkle.
Oh no, Fish thought. She’s high ranking…
“Please, sit down,” Sprinkle said, gesturing to a table.
Fish did as asked without thinking, taking the closest seat. It took him some time to realize Unity and Sprinke were sitting on the side of the table opposite him. He furrowed his brow in confusion. “Wha-?”
“My name is Twilight Sparkle,” ‘Sprinkle’ said, grin widening. “And we need your help to take down the Nillin government.”
Fish’s mind didn’t process the comment, so the only sound in the room for several seconds was Unity’s giggling.
“…Mwh…” Fish managed.
Twilight cleared her throat. “I am the immortal of ponykind acting undercover in the Nillin military in hopes that my plan to bring down their Queen will come to fruition, and it just so happens that you are our next step in that plan.”
“Wh… what? You’re joking.”
“Well, she is messing with you,” Unity admitted. “But everything she says is one hundred percent bona-fide super-duper-true!”
“But… you’re captured!”
“They have never successfully captured me,” Twilight said with a chuckle. “I’ve infiltrated their ranks twice now, both times under the guise of ‘Sprinkle’. They are quite stupid. First one went so well I liberated Equis.”
“EQUIS IS LIBERATED!?”
“Ooh, someone’s turning into a Hepeff!” Unity teased.
Twilight grinned. “Yes. Equis is liberated and working with the other free factions of the galaxy to end the reign of the fuzzfaces.”
“The Nillin?” Fish asked.
“Yes. The fuzzfaces.”
Fish blinked. “Fuzz… face?”
“Fuzzfaces.”
Unity nodded. “If you’re going to be working with us you better get used to calling them fuzzfaces. Because that’s what they are. Fuzzfaces.”
“I… how!? They conquered everything a-“
“You have been listening to their propaganda stream, haven’t you?” Unity shook her head. “I’m sorry Twilight, he’s an idiot.”
“Idiots aren’t bad,” Twilight countered. “Just different.”
“But he is an idiot.”
“Oh yes, definitely.”
Fish’s jaw dropped. This was how the immortal pony acted?
“To answer your question,” Twilight continued. “I liberated Equis by being very, very clever and fighting them from the inside. The reason we haven’t been re-conquered is because the galaxy is a big place, and as it turns out the fuzzfaces have made a looooot of enemies in their attempted conquest of the galaxy. We’ve formed a coalition, set plans in motion, and we’re going to win.”
“…But… unicorn!”
Twilight facehooved. “I’m an immortal being who’s special talent was magic. I can temporarily remove my wings! Not that hard.”
Fish sat back, trying to collect his thoughts. “W… Why would you possibly need me?”
“Simple,” Twilight said. “You’re being given a restaurant on the fuzzface homeworld. It has a direct connection to the sewers that run under the palace. We just need you to let us use that connection to get in undetected. All you need to do is work as a chef, do your normal thing, and when we come by let us in the back room.”
“That’s it!” Unity said with a grin. “You don’t even have to put yourself in danger or anything!”
“Talking to you is a danger…” Fish commented.
Twilight snorted. “As far as the fuzzfaces are concerned, I’m interrogating a couple of suspicious ponies. And we are disguised. We’ll be disguised when we arrive too. You couldn’t be expected to recognize us.”
“Especially considering you didn’t,” Unity added. “Nobody recognizes Twilight. It’s always Sprinkle!”
“Just a Sprinkle of deception…” Twilight chuckled. “So, Fish Fry, whaddoya say? Will you help us get into the palace by opening a little door?”
“I… uh…”
“All of ponykind depends on us getting into that palace!” Twilight said, blinking her eyes rapidly. “Could you take this small, tiny, insignificant risk for us, Fish?”
“…Uh…”
“You’ll be heralded as a hero!”
“…F-fine…” Fish stammered. You don’t say no to Twilight Sparkle…
“Good!” Twilight clapped her hooves. “Now I’m going to let you go, but it has to look like I beat you up.”
“Oh please no…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll just give you some superficial scrapes and a slight pain in your leg that’ll make you limp.” She flashed her horn and suddenly Fish felt tired, out of breath, and one of his legs was ridiculously sore.
“…Ow…”
“Do me! Do me!” Unity said, jumping up and down.
Twilight rolled her eyes, giving Unity the same treatment.
“Oh woe is me, I have been beateth!” She fell onto her back and stuck her tongue out. “Dead.”
Twilight chuckled. “Now, let’s get you two back to your rooms. Fish, we should be by within a week.”
“A week?”
“Shhhh we don’t want them suspecting anything.” She opened the door to the rest of the ship, ending the conversation right then and there.
Twilight did as she promised – took Fish back to his room. He was left alone with his thoughts.
What did I do to deserve this?
He wasn’t sure if he thought this was a gift… or a curse.
~~~
Size-9 Holder-1238 entered orbit around the fuzzface homeworld. Its arrival was marked by a flash of light nobody on the surface of the world could see. The ship entered a trajectory far from the orbits of any other ships, ensuring it appeared as though it were alone in the dark sky.
The planet itself was pretty standard. Mostly blue with bits of green and white here and there with occasional evidence of supercities. If you showed the image to anyone without a specific idea of what the fuzzface homeworld looked like, they would have no way to tell it from any other standard life-bearing planets. It was just another blue marble in an expanse of black.
There was no special fanfare as Fish left the ship. He was led by a fuzzface (he couldn’t believe he was already calling them that) directly to a transporter location and taken down to the surface of the world in question. He didn’t even get to step out on the streets of the world – he was on the ship, and then he was in his soon-to-be-restaurant.
The fuzzface who led him there couldn’t be more disinterested in the whole ordeal. He, like his entire race, was a blue-green ball of fuzz with three eyes, three legs, and one arm with a six-fingered grasper sprouting out the top of his head. He had a mouth, but it was hidden behind the fur. Fish had never seen a mouth clearly because of this – they somehow managed to eat with their fur covering their mouths the entire time.
This did not mean the fur did not blow around when they spoke. During his first few years on the job Fish had struggled not to laugh at the motion. Since fuzzfaces were about twice as tall as ponies, this hair blowing still got in Fish’s face sometimes.
“You will cook here. You know how it works.”
Fish nodded, looking around. There were a total of sixteen tables, all set up and ready for patrons the moment any walked in. There was a countertop in the back that led right to an open kitchen where all the customers would be able to see him cook. He was worried at first that he would have to order ingredients until he noticed a cylindrical device nestled next to the stove – a teleporter specifically designed to produce whatever ingredient may be needed.
Curiously, everything in the kitchen was pony-sized.
“Will I be making a menu or will it be provided?”
“Cook whatever is asked for, so long as it is equine cuisine.” The fuzzface pointed with his hand at a clock. “You have one local hour to prepare yourself. Then you are to open. Your hours are provided on the clock. Don’t mess up like the last guy.”
“Was he rude?”
“Rude is not an offense, here,” the fuzzface huffed, as if the fact were distasteful. “She gave a dignitary food poisoning.”
“Ah. Do I have the authority to bar races I am not familiar with?”
“You are covered by insurance. Those who are not Nillin or equine eat at their own risk.” The fuzzface retracted his arm into the fur atop his head. “I leave you. Work well, and we shall never see each other again. A good arrangement for the both of us.” He stepped out, trundling across a street.
I never even got his name and he’s probably my boss…
Fish took a moment to look out the windows at the street of the fuzzface homeworld. He knew only full fuzzface citizens were allowed out there – a dignity he was not fortunate enough to have – but he did see a few non-fuzzfaces walking around. Most of them wore the green uniform of agents, indicating they served the fuzzface military or government. He spotted a purple pony and thought it was Twilight for a moment, but then he realized it was a stallion.
The buildings and streets looked… annoyingly standard. Sure, they were composed of synthetic green metal, and the roads held hovering cars, but there wasn’t anything too fantastical out there. It was just a city with a lot of buildings and fuzzfaces in it.
I’ve been in too many cities on different planets…
Fish set to work preparing the restaurant. It had already been cleaned and everything was already sorted away, so there wasn’t too much to do. He ordered some of the most common spices and seasonings he would need, each one delivered right to him within seconds. He set them up on a spice rack in a nearby pantry, glad to have pony-sized cooking equipment once again. He performed some simple tests on the stove, microwave, irradiator, and oven to see if they worked, all proving to be efficient, if old. He checked the manufacture date on the stove, surprised to find that it was not only older than the invasion of Equis, but older than he was.
This was to be expected. The fuzzfaces liked their slaves to have the tools to do the job well; not the best possible tools. If older ones would do the job fine, then do it.
An hour passed. He turned the sign on the door to open. The first customer walked in, hobbling on her three legs.
“I want a hayburger.”
“Coming right up,” Fish said. He cooked it up, gave it to her. She ate and left. That was that. This went on for several hours without any remarkable incident.
Definitely no Twilight Sparkle.
Maybe they’ve forgotten about me… or the plan changed…
~~~
One Week Later…
Fish Fry woke up to see Twilight Sparkle and Unity standing over him with wide eyes.
“AUGH!”
“Good! You’re awake!” Twilight said with a smile that was far too innocent.
“Now we can start!” Unity rubbed her hooves together.
“Wh… How… Why…”
Twilight tapped her horn. “Teleportation. I can teach you, sometime.”
“Why do you need my help if you can just teleport!”
“Because they’ll detect me if I teleport inside the palace, duh.”
“Bh… Wh…” Fish Fry regained control of himself somewhat. He was sitting in his bed, affixed to the back room of the restaurant, right next to the immense fridge he had access to. “Right. I just need to… open a door.”
“Well, that’s all you need to do,” Unity said, waving a hoof in the air.
“…What?”
“They might know we’re here,” Twilight said, glaring out the windows at the night outside. “There’s a chance they blow this place to the Stars within the next half hour. So, you can open the door and stay here hoping they didn’t notice, or you can open the door and come with us.”
“The second option is probably safer,” Unity admitted.
“Come with you!? SAFER!?”
“I am an immortal alicorn who has mastered the craft of magic and pushed it beyond the boundaries of mortal minds,” Twilight recited. “So yes, coming with me is safer.”
“I… I…”
“Think about it while you get us access to the sewers, kay?”
Fish fumbled, stepping up to the walk-in fridge. He pressed is hoof to it, activating the security scanner on it. It accepted his DNA as the chef and allowed him in. He had already stored a few impressive desserts in here for special occasions, such as ‘fluffing parties’, and was thankful for the extra protection since more than a few fuzzfaces had taken to messing with him and his ingredients while he was cooking. Nothing violent, but enough to get hair in the food at times.
There was a drain in the bottom of the fridge large enough for a pony to fit through.
Twilight easily pried the drain off its hinges, revealing a direct pipe to the sewers. “Right, so, here’s your decision. You can follow us and be part of the greatest day in the history of the galaxy, ooooor you can stay here and maybe get blown up. What’ll it be?”
“Choose the first option,” Unity whispered.
“You’ll protect me?” Fish asked.
“You will never leave my magic circle,” Twilight assured him. “You will not perish unless I do, and I don’t think I need to tell you why that’s not going to happen.”
“Y-yeah…” Fish took a breath, set his jaw, and jumped into the hole.
He landed with a splat on something disgusting. He shivered.
“…I was going to cast a barrier spell on you first to keep you clean!” Twilight called down. “But I appreciate your gung-ho attitude!”
Fish moaned.
~~~
After what seemed like hours, Twilight held up a hoof. “We’re here.”
“Here?”
Twilight pointed up to a drain grate above them. “This leads to a lower bathroom in the palace. Remember the plan, Unity?”
“Yep!” Unity jumped on Twilight’s neck. With a flash of Twilight’s horn, her mane grew to completely shroud Unity from sight.
“…What about me?” Fish asked.
“You get to be the pretend prisoner.”
“…What?”
“I have the armor and the credentials of a higher agent, you do not, so you get to be the prisoner.” She lit her horn and focused on the grate, popping it up with ease.
“Wait, if you had cre-“
“You are just full of questions, you know that? I’d need to explain myself at the front gate. I don’t have to now that I’m already inside.”
Fish gulped. “Can’t I just… stay here?”
“This bathroom won’t be empty forever,” Twilight said, jumping through the grate. “And even if none of the fuzzfaces notice you, you do not want to be under the bathroom. Think about it.”
Fish shivered at the memory of his first encounter with the sewers. He jumped, latching a hoof on the edge of the floor… and then he fell to the sewers again. Luckily the protection spell hadn’t worn off yet, but it was still embarrassing.
With a grunt, Twilight levitated him out of the hole and fixed the grate back in place. She pulled out her gun and pointed it to his head. “Now, don’t freak out, but the gun is loaded.”
“W-why draw attention to that?”
“To make you look like a proper nervous prisoner?”
“I don’t need any help with that!”
“You can never be too safe!” Unity chirped.
“Unity, shush,” Twilight said. “You don’t exist right now.”
“Ooh, right.”
“Anyway, we need to pretend like we’re heading to the dungeons for now,” Twilight said, smirking. “Nobody will question us. At the last possible moment, we divert course to the internal engines.”
“…Internal engines?”
“The Queen has this fancy-schmancy escape mechanism,” Twilight said, smile turning into a frown as she thought about it. “It has got to be the most annoying thing about this whole operation. If we don’t disable it she just runs away.” She furrowed her brow. “I’ll have to order the teleport jam to go up at the exact perfect moment…”
“This plan has a large number of ways it can go wrong, doesn’t it?”
“Hundreds, but that’s how all plans work,” Twilight said dismissively. “Now walk, prisoner.”
They left the bathroom, naturally ignoring the three-pronged things the fuzzfaces considered toilets. They entered a hall of green metal that looked a lot like the hall on board the Four, except with actual guards walking through it. They turned to glance at Fish and Twilight, but they noticed the gun and Twilight’s armor and went back to their jobs without asking any questions.
Not a single fuzzface talked to them as they walked through the hallway.
Not a single fuzzface talked to them in the elevator, not even when they reached the deepest floor in the palace.
Not a single fuzzface talked to them as they approached the dungeons, their way helpfully marked by a series of ‘you are here’ signs with an arrow always pointing toward ‘dungeons.’
In fact, the only discussion they had was one Twilight initiated herself.
“Hey, Un, fancy meeting you here!”
The fuzzface woman looked up from her data pad. “Huh?”
“It’s me! Sprinkle! Remember, we served on the ‘Ego-blaster’ together? Come on, with all the asteroids? You were with Niw at the time?”
“Uh…”
“Well, glad to see you’re still moving up in the world! I’ve got a prisoner to deliver to the dungeons, talk to you later!”
“Bye… Sprinkle…”
A few seconds later, Twilight chuckled. “I erase that fuzzface’s memory of me every third time I meet her. It’s glorious.”
Twilight Sparkle is crazy. That’s… that’s great.
For a while, the arrow that said ‘engineering’ pointed the same direction as ‘dungeons.’ But, eventually, they came to a fork in the road. Left – dungeons. Right – engineering.
“Get ready to run,” Twilight whispered.
Less than a second later she took off at a gallop, dragging Fish with her telekinesis faster than his legs could keep up. She blasted through the doors to engineering with her horn, melting a hole right through the green metal.
“Hey guys, miss me?” she asked, setting off an explosion with her horn. The explosion didn’t actually do any damage to anything – it just made all the fuzzfaces in the room pass out, dropping to the floor with ease.
“Twilight is da boss!” Unity cheered.
“You still don’t exist,” Twilight chided, dragging Fish to a primary console. “Now, watch and learn.”
“You’re going to hack it?” Fish asked.
“Yep, but hacking is nothing like the movies. It works like this.” She lit her horn…
…and punched a magic infused hoof through the nearest screen, causing error messages to pop up throughout the entire engineering control room.
“And send out the signal…” Twilight said, focusing on her horn. “And now nobody’s teleporting anywhere. The Queen is stuck! And she still doesn’t know we’re here!”
It was at this point the alarm bells started ringing.
Slowly, Twilight craned her neck to glare at the fuzzface standing in the doorway entrance, hand on the ‘emergency alarm’ button.
The fuzzface must have sensed the murder in Twilight’s expression since he passed out onto the floor.
“…Well, this is a problem,” Twilight muttered.
“YOU THINK!?” Fish shouted.
“The Queen will know we’re coming, so sneak attack isn’t going to work anymore… She’ll have the strongest psychics defending her…” Her frown was quickly replaced with a crazy, crazy grin that filled Fish’s heart with dread.
“…Don’t tell me…”
“We’re going to the dungeons.”
“Twi-“
She dragged him back into the hall, running for the dungeons. This time, however, the fuzzfaces were ready for her. Hands shot out of their heads, each wielding a phase pistol similar to Twilight’s own. They fired in rapid succession, each gun producing a sickly green burst.
Fish knew what happened when those hit ponies. Entire limbs, vaporized to dust, the remaining wound cauterized by the attack…
Twilight threw her phase pistol away. At first this alarmed Fish, but then he realized – she didn’t need it. She raised a lavender shield of magical energy that caught every green bolt with ease, dissipating the energy. In retaliation, she sent forward balls of swirling magic that moved in erratic patterns, impossible to predict, hard to dodge. Every magic attack that landed on the fuzzfaces knocked them to the ground, either moaning or completely unconscious. It was pathetic, really, how the elite guard of the palace fell like dominoes to what looked like a simple unicorn.
The entrance to the dungeons themselves was guarded by a fuzzface without a weapon. Fish knew what this meant – he was one of the psychics. Like unicorns, he had access to the vis field and could play with spells.
The psychic fuzzface pushed with his third eye, grabbing hold of Fish’s mind. He could feel his life experiences laid out before the creature like a book, all his fears, his cares, his concerns…
And then suddenly his book was closed and he couldn’t breathe. There was a pulsating pink bubble around his head now, he realized, though his lack of oxygen was of more concern at the moment.
“Haha!” Twilight laughed. “You won’t be reading any minds today, good sir!” She shot a laser at the psychic. He raised a shield, but Twilight increased the intensity of her attack and he buckled like tin foil.
“Did you forget to give Fish air?” Unity hissed.
“You don’t exi- oh whoops!” She popped the bubble off Fish’s head. “Sorry there Fish!”
Fish gasped for air, looking at Twilight with newfound fear.
“What? I would have remembered.” She deflected an attack from behind absent-mindedly. “Probably.” She took out the last few guards and jumped into the dungeons.
It was so dark in the dungeons Fish couldn’t see. Or maybe he had his eyes closed in fear. He really wasn't sure at this point.
Lighting her horn, her voice took on a booming tone. “PRISONERS OF THE FUZZFACE QUEEN! I, Twilight Sparkle, AM HERE TO RESCUE YOU!”
“Twilight Sparkle…” a deep, dark voice called. “You’re late.”
“I said I’d come get you eventually, Quasar,” Twilight said, lighting her horn to illuminate the dungeons. As it turned out, the dungeons were little more than a bunch of high-tech cages stacked on top of each other haphazardly, each one filled with a creature of a different race. Fish could recognize a tall and elegant changeling, a pink and squirrely Hepeff, a tall human with an impressive gray beard, and, of course, the dragon they were talking to.
Quasar. The legendary dragon immortal, king of reptiles, pioneer of space travel. The Quasar. He was even more impressive and terrifying up close, for his very eyes whirled with magic akin to galaxies and his scales sparkled with the soft light of the cosmos.
He was also a few hundred times larger than Fish, but that really didn’t seem to matter at this point.
“You better have some sort of plan, Sparkle…” Quasar commented as Twilight entered a code on the front of the cage. Even though her clearance hadn’t been suspended yet, she’d need more than one access code to free him. So she just rammed her horn into the keypad and forced it open with magic.
This would have raised the alarm, but it was already going so she didn’t really lose anything by doing this.
“Care to release the rest of them?” Twilight asked the reptilian monster.
Quasar flexed his wings, brushing many other cages over just by the typhoons of air he moved. “Gladly…”
“So, here’s the plan,” Twilight said, smirking. “I’m going to try talking. If that doesn’t work, we are smashing our way to the Queen.”
“Why talking first?”
“Neither side wants an immortal to die accidentally, and now there are several dozen in the line of fire.”
“Dangerous.”
“Do you know me to do things the safe way?”
“Once you were a hermit determined to never let life bother you.”
Twilight winked at him. “And aren’t we both glad I grew out of that silly little phase?”
“Hmmph.”
“Anyway, I think I need to change into something more… comfortable.” She tore her green agent’s uniform off and closed her eyes. With a flash of light from her horn, she floated into the air. Her body stretched until she was thin, graceful, and twice the height of any sane pony. With a shimmering burst of sparks, two immense feathered wings popped out of her back, shining like the stars themselves. Her mane and tail extended considerably, becoming ribbons of nebula mixed with swirling ethereal galaxies. Four silver shoes appeared on her hooves, and a sparkling crown thing materialized on her head just above her absurdly sharp horn.
She grinned, looking at Fish. “Like what you see?”
Fish’s jaw was hanging open. He couldn’t shut it.
“Now get ready, here comes the fun part.” She turned to the dungeon entrance, looking up just as a team of fuzzface psychics came in.
“Hello!” Twilight boomed, waving a hoof. “We would like to negotiate!”
The lead fuzzface saw Quasar and several other freed immortals glaring at them. “Uh… negotiate what?”
“How we’re going to do this. I see two options. Either you take us to go see the Queen, or we fight our way through you to see the queen, a course of action that might result in the death of a few immortals. And we don’t want that now do we?”
“…No…” the fuzzface growled.
“Good! So, Take us to Queen En why don’t you? We have a lot to talk about!”
“…I shall consult the Quee-“ the fuzzface blinked as a psychic message entered his mind. “She says come right up.”
“Great!”
“Wait, that worked?” Fish asked, gawking.
“Oh we’re not out of the woods yet,” Twilight chuckled. “I’ve still got to win. Hold on to your pants!”
“I’m not wearing pants.”
“…I spent too much time on Earth…” Twilight said with a facehoof.
~~~
Queen En wasn’t all that unusual for a fuzzface, which surprised Fish. She was only slightly larger than the others of her kind, had a more pronounced central eye, and her fur was a slight purple hue. That was it.
Meanwhile there were immortals like Twilight and Quasar who sparkled with the very stars of existence and looked like gods to the races they represented.
Fish found this funny and he wasn’t sure why.
Currently Queen En sat on her throne, surrounded by a few dozen powerful fuzzface psychics. The room was simple, green, and the throne was undecorated. When they had arrived she had been looking at holographic status updates, but she dismissed that the moment she noticed them. All the immortals that had been sitting in her dungeon, a smorgasbord representing a wide variety of races she had enslaved.
“What is your ploy, Twilight Sparkle?” Queen En asked with a voice that was far too normal for an alien dictator. “Surely you do not mean to kill me?”
“That depends…”
“Twilight, you are many things.” En leaned in. “But you will not commit genocide. You have been going out of your way to incapacitate, not kill, those you come across for years now.”
“Oh, I definitely won’t, but if Quasar here gets any ideas I don’t think I can stop him.”
“The only thing keeping me from gutting you and dooming your entire race is Twilight’s insistence that she has a plan,” Quasar said.
“You should know what happens when a race’s immortal falls, dragon,” En spat. “My people will lust for blood and drop all pretense of creating an empire. They know they only have a generation or two left before they die out, they will devote the rest of their existence to exterminating the life that took mine. And furthermore, it would be a foolish thing to do. If I die, the orbital cannons melt this entire palace, killing all of you with it.”
“Some of us could survive,” Twilight pointed out.
“Some, but the majority of immortals would fall.” En snapped her fingers. “And like that, galactic genocide. A plague the stars would not recover from.”
Fish was suddenly overcome with how much the next few minutes mattered for the fate of the galaxy. If an immortal died, their race would suffer a lack of connection and slowly wither away. If several died…
“So, please, tell me what your plan is,” En demanded. “Is it to threaten me and hope I cooperate?”
“That’s an option?” Twilight asked. “I’d love to take that one, but I figured it was off the table.”
En nodded. “It is ‘off the table’. I will not accept a world where my people are not dominant – and neither will they. I have raised them too well. Built them to be the conquerors they are.”
“All right, if that’s on the table, here’s what’s going to happen.” Twilight strode forward, a confident smirk on her face. “I have no intention of killing you En, you are right. In fact, you are going to win. You are going to use your amazing psychic powers to best all the immortals in this room, including me! And we’ll all be put back in our cages by you, the illustrious leader of the Fuzzface Empire.”
En twitched at the nickname, but didn’t comment on it.
“Or, well, that’s what people are going to say happened. As far as most people are concerned, the conflict didn’t end today.” Twilight chuckled. “But it did.”
“I will not end the war.”
“But you will. Because, elsewhere, the resistance is destroying a massive military outpost, the loss of which will crush you.”
“I do not care for losses such as that.”
“Oh, but you will, you will be so broken you will be forced to consider negotiations.”
“Saying lies will not make them true.”
“This is going nowhere, Twilight,” Quasar growled.
Twilight ignored him. “En, you are going to do all those things. Because I am going to wipe your mind clean with my magic and turn you into my puppet. I will use you to go to the negotiating table. I will use you to slowly end the war. I will use this Fuzzface Empire to change a galaxy torn apart by your war to a paradise for all creatures living in Harmony, in Unity!” She stamped her hoof on the ground. “And then, I will reveal that it was me all along, and all the good that will have been added to your name will mean nothing.”
“You think you can wipe my mind?” En asked. “I am the most powerful psychic in the galaxy. The Nillin outclass even the most magical of races when it comes to pure mental fortitude. Even if you have a spell specifically designed to counter me, I will take your mind with me.”
“Which is why I brought a secret weapon along.” Twilight levitated the tiny, adorable Unity out of her ethereal mane. “This is Unity.”
“HI!” Unity said, waving excitedly in En’s direction. “I’m a genetically engineered cyborg pony with a super-duper quantum-matrix AI loaded into my neurons blended with magic, psychic power, and a whole slew of other things designed to completely and utterly counteract your abilities!”
“W-WHAT!?”
Everyone turned to Fish.
“B-wha!?”
“You didn’t really think Twilight would have a child assist her on such an important mission, did you?” Unity asked.
“You are just a few weeks old,” Twilight pointed out.
“But I’m smarter than everybody in this room combined!” She turned to En and grinned. “By the way, how does it feel to not have any powers? Fun, right?”
En looked like her central eye was ready to burst a blood vessel. “I… How… I would have known about her! I would have sensed her!”
“You have some traitors, you know,” Twilight pointed out. “A lot of her was spliced from them. Even if she wasn’t actively blocking you, you’d just sense another one of your own psychics.” She walked until she was right in En’s face. “Now, you have a choice. You can force me to wipe your mind… or you can cooperate and end the war on your own terms. I’ll give you enough respect for that, at least.”
“Twilight, just wipe her mind already, we don’t need to get caught up in your ethical politics.”
“Shush,” Twilight said, holding up a wing. “En gets to decide.”
En made her decision rather quickly. She pulled a gun out of her head, intending to blow Twilight’s brains out and possibly take most of the palace with it.
Quasar moved with brutal efficiency, biting off En’s hand before she could even aim the barrel at Twilight’s head.
Twilight wasted no time. With no psychic powers to defend herself, it was pathetically easy for En’s mind to be erased to absolutely nothing. There was a flash of white… and En’s eyes lost all sense of intelligence behind them. She leaned back in her throne, breathing, but not thinking.
Quasar took this moment to eat all her psychic guards in one gulp.
“Quasar!” Twilight shouted – more annoyed that angry.
“You get to enact your plan, I get to ensure no secrets get out.”
“Bu-“
“What’s done is done.”
Twilight sighed. “Fine. Agh, I was hoping for a ‘zero deaths’ mission but I guess not because of dragon pride or… bah.” She shook her head. “Anyway, yeah, guess what guys, we won! We still need to puppet En around for a bit and pretend like we’re all still locked up, but I’m sure all of you know it’d be better to control the fuzzface army long-term than cut them off now and watch the galaxy light on fire.”
Luckily she was talking to a room of immortals who understood the need for long term planning.
“And don’t worry, we basically have the entire royal palace to ourselves now. We have every luxury we could ever want – and an amazing chef!” She pointed at Fish. “How would you like a royal kitchen to yourself?”
Suddenly, all Fish’s fears and worries drained away. “A… a royal kitchen?”
“Yep! Head chef of the secret shadow government we’re starting today, why not? Without you, we wouldn’t be here today!”
“…Seriously?” Quasar said, unbelieving.
“Yep!” Unity said, clapping. “Got us in through the sewers and everything!”
Fish ran to Twilight and bowed at her hooves. “I would be honored to have such a high position in the new galaxy.”
“Glad to hear it!” Twilight beamed. She strolled up to the throne, gently pushing En out of it and setting her on the floor. Spreading her wings, Twilight sat upon the throne and grinned. “Long live the Queen.”
“You’re going to do better,” Unity said. “You’re going to be… the Empress!”
Twilight shrugged. “Long live the Empress, I guess.” She looked out at the crowd of various alien immortals and grinned. “Friends, do not think I have to be the only one to decide what goes here. I may have rescued all of you and I may be the mare with the magic, but this is not my galaxy. This is our galaxy. This day will go down in history as the first day when no single race tried to take dominion over the others.”
With a brilliant, hopeful smile on her face, she laughed. “This… is the first day of Unity.”