“—so what really happens is that your system is trying to warm itself up as it rapid cools,” the swivel eyed loon was explaining, “and the sudden temperature change is what induces the pain, not the ice cream itself. Therefore the term ice cream headache is inaccurate and you can in no way be held responsible. I envy that!”
“That’s…cool,” Mr. Cake said carefully, holding Pumpkin Cake closer as she giggled at the silly man. He suppressed a relieved sigh at a familiar bouncing sound.
“Ah-ha!” Pinkie announced, springing over. “Over here guys! Oh. Um. Hi, Mr. Cake! Sir. Fancy, ah, fancy seeing you here.”
“Yes, where we all live.” Mr. Cake adjusted his hat with a wry smile then blinked. “Pumpkin, no!”
His daughter was gleefully pressing the young stallion’s mole, watching his eyes change direction through every rapid eyelid shutter.
“I am so sorry!”
“For what?”
“I see you’ve met Peter!” Pinkie grinned desperately, putting herself between the baby’s hoof as the other three crowded around Peter as though framing him, expressions equally desperate.
“Kind of.” Carrot Cake let Pumpkin put a corner of his hat in her mouth to settle her down. “Just don’t stay out too late, Pinkie. A longer sunset tonight doesn’t mean you don’t need to rest up.”
“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye!”
“Have a good evening, ladies.”
The baker chuckled as his daughter tipped his hat to the group, finally heading inside. Pinkie knew which gobstopper the spare key was hidden under if she’d need it.
“We can but hope,” Rarity muttered through her clenched grin. She took Peter by the shoulders, trying to turn him back towards the plaza.
“I hope everything’s okay up there…” Fluttershy mumbled, looking up at the distant spires on the hill.
“Focus on the here and now, darling,” Rarity grunted.
She put her back into Peter’s shoulder blades, then wrapped her forelegs around his neck. Peter’s smile didn’t even quiver as her hindlegs kicked up dust. “Oh bollocks…”
“This crazy cardio fad, huh?” Dash grinned at Lyra and Bonbon’s uncertain stares before turning on Rarity with a hiss. “What’re you doing?!”
“If you! Think! You can! Do! Better…!”
Dash instantly regretted wasting an eye roll as she grabbed Peter’s left foreleg and heaved. It was like she’d reached for a plastic bag and found a bollard instead. “Aww don’t tell me…”
“Yes!” Rarity whined. The two of them were taking synchronised turns now, yanking Peter’s shoulders one way or the other. “He’s sticking to the cobbles! Can I just say, what a revolting power? At least the webbing looks pretty!”
“♪Oh, so pretty!♪” Dash erupted suddenly, throwing a companionable foreleg around Peter’s neck and almost hitting her in the nose. Rarity turned to see what she was about to kill her over and instantly joined in, presenting Cheerile and the Flower Trio with the image of two swaying Elements of Harmony reciting classic Bridleway hits and one concussed looking stallion, who was happily listening to his own internal station. “♪So pretty and witty and bri-iii-ight!♪”
“Maybe he’ll let go if we tickle ‘im.” Pinkie looked around frantically. The streets were clearing but the book clubs and coffee shops had a lot of random hoof-traffic this early in the evening. “Fluttershy, your wings!”
“Um…no,” the other Pegasus blushed furiously. “In spite of today I reeeally don’t know him well enough.”
“Alright, alright, gimme one of your feathers!”
“No!” Fluttershy squeaked, wrapping her wings around herself in scandalised horror.
“Could give him a wet willy…” Dash grunted as her gritted teeth and the flashing lights behind her squeezed shut eyes completely failed to budge the arachnoid an inch.
“Try it and I’ll pluck you like a griffon’s Blue Moon goose,” Peter slurred cheerfully while his head lolled towards Rarity, which she felt was atrociously unfair.
“Oh, heard that, didja?! Then hear this:” Dash snapped, wings blurring as she tried to heft his stupid leg into the air with her. “Let! Go! You! Dingus!”
“Alrighty!”
All that was missing was a pop. Rarity and Dash collapsed into each other like The Odd Couple in an earthquake as the micro-talons in Peter’s hooves retracted, pitching him forward with enough force to send him rolling. He bounced off a few fence posts and down a short hill like alleyway as the Elements gave chase.
Ponies unlocking their doors or putting out the trash blinked as he shot past. “Nice hat! That mane style is totally working for you! Keep writing those songs, you’ll get there someday! You have beautiful eyes!”
“Dead end!” Dash crowed as the rear wall of an Istallion restaurant on Trough Lane whipped into view around the corner.
The Peter-Pinball hit a groove and jumped the last few feet. He bounced off, the force snapping him into an almost normal position as he rocketed back down the alley, over the yelping Elements and between Dash’s hastily spread legs. His slipstream dragged Pinkie’s mane back to front, as if wearing herself as a coonskin cap.
Peter skidded frictionlessly into the streets, sitting so casually on his haunches that gawking pedestrians half wondered if he was sitting still and the world was moving around him.
“Your zest for life makes me worry I’m wasting mine!” he called cheerfully as he slid past Mr. Waddle.
“Those Manehattanites, you know,” Rarity panted jovially as the Elements raced past.
They skidded into each other to take in the new horror. Peter’s tail had stuck to a streetlamp and he was now spinning around it like Singing in the Rain going horribly wrong. Thunderlane and Blossomforth flinched as afterimages of his nose whipped past them like a buzz-saw.
“You’re a wonderful couple,” Peter’s voice warbled out of the blur. “Twilight and I find you to be a real inspiration.”
“Uh, thanks?” Blossom glanced at her beau, who shrugged helplessly. “Are you alright…?”
“This is the most fun I’ve ever had that wasn’t at sixty stories above street level!”
“Skydiving!” Dash called, indicating Pinkie’s head with a frantic hoof. “Y’know, it sounds romantic, but they never think of what the sudden altitude change’ll do to your brain! Ground pounders, right?!”
“I guess,” Blossomforth called back, taking refuge in prejudice. “Night, Dash!”
“Maybe we could try cutting his tail off…?” Fluttershy suggested once they were in the relative clear. “We could tell Twilight we had to, for medical reasons.”
“More likely he’d scythe our hooves clean off,” Rarity sighed. “Pinkie Pie, stop that at once!”
Pinkie had managed to catch Peter’s whirling forelegs and was whooping as they spun.
“What if we take the lamp?” Dash suggested.
Rarity squinted up at her. “What?”
“Like, just the whole thing. Just unscrew it and carry it as far and as fast as we can.”
“Do I look like a stevedore to you?!”
“Oh, you’re gettin’ crabby?!”
“I feel a smidge entitled, yes! Whose big idea was all this?”
“Like you didn’t jump right in, blackmailer!”
“It’s charming when I do it!”
“We all went along with it, really,” Fluttershy mumbled. Dash and Rarity blinked at her and then tried to look anywhere but at each other. The only sound was Pinkie’s rotating whoops.
“We should have left it alone,” Rarity sighed eventually. “Or at least gotten him to do it in bed.”
She wilted only slightly under Fluttershy’s bugging eyes.
“Wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t have to be so…I dunno!” Dash muttered, folding her forelegs in a last attempt at defiance.
“Cagey?” Fluttershy suggested.
“I guess. I dunno. His life’s crazy, and it’s just gonna keep spilling into ours. How’re we supposed to be friends with somepony who drops all this stuff in our laps and then doesn’t explain anything? It’s not fair!”
“I mean…” Fluttershy shuffled her hooves awkwardly. “Peter probably tells Twilight a lot of it. For, um…obvious reasons.”
“Oh, so he puts it all on her and slips up with us. That’s soooo much better!”
“So…” Fluttershy squinted, looking between her and Rarity, who was very carefully not saying anything. “Slipping up isn’t fair to us and makes what we did…fair?”
“Hey.” Dash’s eyes flashed but she held most of it in because of who she was talking to. “We didn’t plan on…whatever this is!”
“I dunno, kinda looped back around to being fun! For me, anyway.” They all spun towards Pinkie, her mane swept in different directions. Over her shoulder they could see a distinct lack of Spider-blur.
“Pinkie,” Rarity said carefully, “where did Peter go?”
“Huh?” Pinkie looked over her shoulder, her mane spiking with surprise and snapping back into its regular shape. “Oh fudge.”
“Can’t have gotten far,” Dash gulped as she rose, desperately checking the thatch roofs. “And he shouldn’t be too hard to spot.”
As if on cue the stagnant sunset snapped into purple night, Luna’s moon almost blinding the Elements like heaven’s own Klieg light. The shadows of the quaint little town spiked across the cobbles, throwing their night vision even further out of whack.
“This way!” Rarity decided, galloping towards the lane back to the plaza.
“Why?” Fluttershy asked.
“Because it’s where the most ponies are and therefore the worst possible one!”
***
The marketplace had long since packed up, only a few windows lit in the surrounding buildings. It would have been better, Dash thought, if they were being chased by a zombie horde or something. Being chased implied the possibility of escape and at the very least she could have punched her way out.
She pushed her eyesight hard as streetlights automatically flickered on, their magic finally catching up to the sudden nightfall, and felt a stab of honorary familial relief when she spotted a stocky shape pulling a stall cart. “Yo, Mac!”
“Mmm?” Big Macintosh looked up, blinking as she hovered over him. “Eeyup?”
“You see anypony?! Lately?”
“Uh…how d’ya mean?”
“Like yay high?” Dash dropped to the cobbles and raised her hoof to average stallion height. (You got good at estimating height in the pro flyer circuit.)
“Well…” Big Mac shrugged. To him most ponies were about that small and Ponyville, to say nothing of the majority of Equestria, was full of them.
“Acting weird! Talking weirder!” Dash shook her head, also remembering where they lived. “Gross little mole!”
“Oh, him.” Mac brightened. “Twilight’s fella.”
“What’d he say?! Which way’d he go?!”
“That way,” Mac said, indicating. “An’ he said it doesn’t matter how quiet a pony is ‘cause if he’s got a good heart then when he speaks it’s always worth…hearin’…”
He watched the candy coloured blurs weaving around one of the wells and snorted despondently.
***
“Nonononono!” Rarity whimpered. “Not this way! Not city hall! Not…”
She skidded to a halt. “Her.”
Windows fully lit because it’s the last building in town to officially close. Door open because she’s got some festival or other to go over, or making sure nopony’s using the Everfree to pull an insurance scam, and she just stepped out for a coffee because even if the aids hadn’t gone home already she’d feel guilty asking them to get it this late. Fully illuminated, nodding along pleasantly as he rambles, the last person in town who needs to know she’s harbouring a vigilante.
“You can’t believe a word he says!” Dash hollered, shooting across the plaza to grab Peter by the shoulders. “He’s delirious! Look at that face! You think anypony sane walks around with that mole?! And that dopey smile! C’mon! He’s like a Daring Do movie trailer that promises it’s based on the heart-warming classic that’s thrilled millions worldwide: nothing but pageantry and lies!”
“And good evening to you too, Rainbow Dash,” the mayor smiled. “That’s a shame, Mr. Trotter was making that Damage Control package sound very tempting.”
“Ah, Dashie’s just being modest,” Peter smiled, looping a companionable foreleg around the startled Wonderbolt’s shoulders. “Y’know how it is, can’t afford to lose any street cred and have folks think she’s a big softy who brings you your favourite sandwiches from Derby street.”
“I’m glad both have made such a good impression,” the mayor chuckled as the rest of the Elements arrived. “Seems like you girls have been busy today!”
Rarity blinked guiltily. “Um…”
“Mr. Trotter has nothing but good things to say about you and the town in general.”
“The feeling’s mutual!” Pinkie beamed, bouncing into a group hug with Dash and Peter.
“It must be, all four of you to look after one sick pony. I’m glad you’re feeling better, though.”
“All thanks to Fluttershy’s soup,” Peter smiled. “Sorry to blindside you like that, but I wasn’t sure I was gonna get another opportunity to let you know what a great town you’ve got here. You’re all good people. Hay, you’d have to be for the Elements of Harmony to live here! Which is also why that insurance package is totally legit, Twilight’s told me stories.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.” The mayor saluted them all with her coffee. “Ladies, Mr. Trotter.”
Rarity and Dash exchanged glances as the older mare trotted back inside, feeling, even though they were outside, like they’d just been sentenced to life as she pulled the door shut behind her.
“How long?” Dash sighed.
“Achoo.” Peter’s eyes gleamed like Spider-Pony’s lenses in the moonlight.
“So all that…?” Rarity asked distantly.
“Complete and total pucky!” Peter smirked, folding his forelegs. “Well. Most of it.”
“And we get to spend the rest of our lives wondering which,” Rarity sighed, smiling back. “I can think of worse punishments.”
“No you can’t,” Peter said cheerfully.
“Look, fine, we deserve it!” Dash said, holding up her hooves. “But cut Pinkie and Fluttershy some slack, we dragged ‘em along. No reason they should go down for what me and Rarity did.”
“Oh totally,” Fluttershy smiled. “That’s why Peter let us in on how he was going to get you back.”
“You two were in on it?” Rarity blinked, unable to imagine a universe where those two were A) players, B) who could out manoeuvre her.
“Peter whispered to Pinkie, Pinkie whispered to me,” Fluttershy explained, trying not to giggle. Too much. “All we had to do was come up with a way to get him out of the library.”
“I’m impressed!” Dash smirked, noogieing a giggling Pinkie.
“That fits,” Peter said carefully, his smile straight as a chopping block. “Honestly? If not for Pinkie’s cooking, I’d’ve been tempted to come up with a more…inventive surprise.”
“Darling, you have every right to be angry--” Rarity began.
“Didn’t say I was angry,” Peter assured, putting his hooves on her and Dash’s shoulders. “But you could’ve just asked.”
“And you could’ve given a straight answer instead of going ‘whoops!’ and dancing around whatever it was!” Dash’s face was trying to organise frustration, concern and, yeah, guilt. “Seriously man, we want to be your friends.”
“And I’m sorry if I made you feel like we aren’t, but I’d also like a little choice in what I do and don’t tell you, so…” Peter shrugged.
“As long as it’s because it’s something embarrassing, which we reserve the right to work out for our amusement, as friends do!” Rarity’s smile turned more sombre as she took his hoof. “And not because you think you have to keep something between us even when the mask’s not on.”
Peter raised an eyebrow. “Even if I spill into your lives?”
“Nah, if ya do it and then try to walk it back,” Dash clarified sharply. “We’re Elements of Harmony. We can handle one weirdo from Manehattan who likes Aquamage a little too much.”
“And you don’t have to be embarrassed around us,” Fluttershy chimed in. “I mean, none of us have dated former jewel thieves, but we’ve certainly all got stories!”
“And the important thing is that we can laugh about ‘em!” Pinkie beamed. “Together!”
“Sounds good,” Peter smiled. “Just…might take a while to get that comfortable, okay? Fera alone is like a dragon horde in therapy bills.”
“Timing is the most important thing in comedy!” Pinkie grinned, bouncing around them in a happy circle. “Speaking of, it’s been a long day and I’ve still got some finishing touches to put on your party!”
“I can help!” Fluttershy offered.
“Thanks girls,” Peter said sincerely. “I’ll be along to help in a bit.”
Dash and Rarity began to turn after Pinkie and Fluttershy…and realised they couldn’t because the proportionate strength of a spider was keeping them trotting in place.
“Right after the three of us have a nice, long chat about what we’re gonna tell Twilight tomorrow,” Peter grinned in a very symbiote way.
“I said why?!” Twilight yelled over the sounds of breaking glass and timber.
De’Lila whirled, coat billowing as her forelegs morphed into giant mantis scythes. “What?!”
“Why?!” Twilight repeated for the third time, voice distorted through her force field and the ripple of diverted impacts. “Why are you doing this?!”
“No, sorry!” The Skrull darted around a pair of struggling Pegasi as they rolled their way into a wall. “Loud! Brawls, am I right?”
“Right!” Twilight called back, blinked, then took advantage of the opening to thrust her shield forward.
De’Lila dived aside, the hem of her coat just missing being caught between the shimmering purple and a now cracked statue. Twilight groaned in frustration and dropped her defence, ducking as she tried to gallop after the root of all (this specific) evil through the tsunami of grappling guards, lasers and fireballs.
The problem with defensive magic that could last more than a few hits was you couldn’t use that much power and remain mobile at the same time, and Shining had straight up told her that standing still in the middle of a riot, even shielded, was a bad idea. For starters, the winning side would be there, waiting for you to run out of juice.
De’Lila ducked halfway up a staircase as a laser blast and a fireball collided again, because this was Twilight’s life now.
“Cut that out!” the Horseshoe Torch snapped.
“I will if you knock it off!” Lyja shot back, balanced on one of the few remaining desks.
The fight had spilled out of the guard tower and into an office floor. A Pegasus guard flipped a charging, pink eyed Earth Pony into a filing cabinet, sending council planning applications into the air.
“Uh, hooves up who’s got the best Skrull catching record!” Sparks shot out of Johnny’s outraged eyes as Lyja’s still glowing hoof simultaneously went up. “What?!”
“You what! Disposing of traitors is like half my job down here!”
“Your job is ruining my life!”
“Oh, because it’s all about you!”
“W-ha-ow!” De’Lila cackled. “You weren’t kidding, Ly!”
“Shut up!” the exes snapped, hurling columns of furious gold and violet at her…which never connected because they snuffed each other out. Again. Twilight flinched as the pressure hit the staircase, the steps between her and De’Lila shattering.
“Thanks!” she snapped as she dove forward, gambling on a simultaneous teleport to get her over the drop. She was pretty sure they were too busy yelling/shooting at each other now to hear her, channelling the frustration to boost her galloping after those insufferable coat tails.
“Why are you doing this?!” she yelled as antiques and portraits sped past.
“Power, mostly!” De’Lila ducked down a side passage, voice echoing off the walls. “But would you really miss Blueblood? Really?”
Twilight did some quick calculations and decided there was enough open space at the end of the corridor to risk a teleport. De’Lila skidded to a halt at the purple burst in front of her, almost hitting Twilight in the snout with her coat tails.
“I’ll do anything to protect anypony. Anyone. Any time.”
The Skrull squinted. “Even him?”
“Even the least of us deserve that.” Twilight’s horn flashed, swinging a cabinet across the passageway in a rattle of fine china to block the obvious bolt. “I don’t know what it’s like where you come from but--”
“No!” De’Lila snapped, eyes blazing furious pink light. “You don’t.”
“An’ what’s Blueblood got to do with it?”
Applejack emerged from a nearby staircase, cutting off her other escape route. “Seriously, he stand ya up or somethin’? Stick ya with the bill for lunch? Just tell me there wasn’t cake.”
“What?” The light blinked out in De’Lila’s confused eyes. “No! And I was trying to use him, if you must know!”
“So all this…because of one bad date?!” Twilight boggled.
“You want this monologue or not?!” De’Lila snapped. She took a breath, backing up against a window and adjusting her coat collar. “It was part of my mission, you see.”
“Gold diggin’?” Applejack frowned. “What, ya thought your people’d take ya back if ya wrapped a lil’ royalty round your hoof?”
“The One Below can have my people,” De’Lila smirked, far too cool not to be seething with psychotic hatred. “And the only race I hate as much is the Kree, for creating the need for Super Skrulls in the first place. Would you like to see what’s under this coat? Where they ‘rewired’ me for enhanced bioelectricity so I can do what I do? Do you want to see how much it takes to give a shapeshifter scars they can never quite hide?”
“Want some new ones?” Applejack pawed the floor, ready to spring if she took advantage of that conflicted look on Twi’s face.
“I’m…sorry for what you’ve been put through, but if you’ve rejected them why try and carry out the mission they made you for? Why come here at all?”
“Because the Empress and the Supreme Intelligence both want your magic.” De’Lila chuckled. “And me, well, it’s not holding them down with all those scalpels, but owning something they want is the next best thing. They say living well is the best revenge!”
Applejack squinted. “An’…Blueblood was supposed to put ya on the throne?”
“Eventually! At least get me up the chain enough that I could start giving Celestia suggestions and spend enough time nearby to make them stick.” The smile left De’Lila’s face but not the sadism and volatility. “And then, over dessert, I realised what was wrong with the conversation: it was still all about him! He didn’t even notice my eyes were glowing!”
“…oh sun and moon,” Twilight whispered. “He’s that much of a narcissist?!”
“Yes! Can’t very well have a little pony walking around immunised like that, can I? Imagine if he got any real training. As is he’s just ridiculously lucky, like some cosmic joke! It should’ve all been over at Pegasi of Paradise but then his aunt got involved.”
De’Lila heaved a sigh both Elements only ever heard from sociopaths. “And now of course I’m going to have to decide whether to erase your memories or just bump you off. Don’t suppose either of you would like to do the smart thing and become minions of your own free will? You wouldn’t have to pay taxes or anything!”
“I’m a librarian,” Twilight snarled.
“Me, I’m just insulted,” Applejack growled.
“Oh, then you’ll hate this!” De’Lila beamed and morphed into a roaring gargoyle-esque horror.
The Elements of Magic and Honesty whinnied and grasped each other in sisterhood terror, their cries becoming more confused as the Skrull whirled and dived through the glass of a nearby window. The alien’s silhouette flashed past the moon, gliding in a predatory circle over the courtyard.
“She’s goin’ after Blueblood!” Applejack realised.
“He’s with Celestia,” Twilight moaned, half turning towards the stairs before remembering she had a way of keeping up. “Uh, o-okay, you find them, I’ll try and cut her off or something.”
“Twi!” AJ called but the princess was already hurling herself into the open air, wincing at how close one jagged shard had come to slicing into her back.
***
Keep out of your head, Dash and Luna had advised.
Aerial combat was a lot like magical duelling: it paid to be inventive but also kept boiling down to the same couple of moves over and over. Both enemies were trying to knock each other out of the air but were built to stay up there.
Keep moving. Don’t just think, do. She’d be better off trusting her wings and the new instincts that came with them, pressing the advantage of her horn.
It helped that De’Lilah’s new wings reminded her of that pretentious coat.
De’Lilah snarled over her shoulder as Twilight loosed a random volley of bolts, lighting the roof slats purple and turning a few turrets into plants. The Skrull tried to take advantage of the maze of spires and walkways, but she was simply gliding, even having to occasionally use the architecture to boost herself.
Twilight felt a kind of competitive satisfaction as she realised her wings allowed her to keep pace, easily manoeuvre around the hazards and that she could just teleport past anything in her way without losing momentum. In fact, since it had worked before…
She waited until they’d swung around the bulk of the central tower, a straight view to the mountains in front of them, before teleporting a few feet ahead and rematerialising facing the opposite way she’d come: now dead on at De’Lilah.
The Skrull yelped, pulling up involuntarily. Twilight conjured a force bubble around her, ploughing into it and shooting them towards the royal gardens.
“Whoa! I mean…yeah! Ya like that?!”
De’Lilah was rapidly assuming different forms, trying to find a monster big enough to burst the bubble.
“Nice try,” Twilight smirked drunkenly, “but I live down the road from the Everfree forest! Neither you nor this bubble are going anywh--”
And then De’Lilah was some sort of snake thing. Twilight shrieked, instinctively teleporting away at the same instant the bubble burst, taking De’Lilah’s satisfaction with it.
Twilight scrabbled furiously at the air and then slats under her, a yell strangled in her throat as she bounced off a turret and found herself sandwiched between parapets. She groaned as she tried to get her bearings, watching as the Skrull-snake toppled out of the air, face first into the rim of a turret, then bounced down onto its tower’s staircase, end over end and always face first.
She looked down out of inevitability and saw that along with a nice tumble to the gravel of the central garden, her fall would have plunged her into the weapons and fist strewn dust cloud that was the castle guard.
“Oh good, you can fly now!” Two bickering lights were wafting around a nearby tower. Twilight watched as the Horseshoe Torch whipped around Lyja, using her powers to turn her hooves into thrusters and hover. “Because you just didn’t have enough ways to crowd me before!”
“You’re the one getting up in my space right now, you egomaniac!”
“As if you’re not gonna be even worse when you’re out of sight! Last time I saw you you tried to kill me with a robot dinosaur!”
“Capture you, I tried to capture you!”
“Y’know, this, this right here, this is why you blew your cover! Because you have to split every possible hair!”
“Fooled you long enough, terran! The real surprise was I didn’t blow it sooner by trying to strangle you! So you’d stop! Talking about! Your! ⎎⏃☍⏃☍⏁⏃! Hair!”
Twilight narrowed her eyes as the gold and purple contrails flitted through a broken window in another part of the building, irritably pulling herself up the slanted roof.
“Could’ve stayed in my nice warm library, but nooo.”
***
The balcony door above her was locked, and she banged her head on a small chandelier teleporting inside, grumbling as she galloped down more of those legendary Canterlot staircases. Eventually she started teleporting, judging how close she was getting by the sound of distant violence.
She tried to look reassuring at the few uncertain faces peering around half open doors and hasty furniture barricades. She realised any of the stallion butlers and clerks could be under De’Lilah’s influence, but how to do anything about it without spreading even more panic through the staff? Besides, it was nothing that couldn’t be solved by turning De’Lilah’s bones to glass!
They’d want to shut this down quick anyway, but if the guard fight breached the castle walls and spilled into the residential Palace Shades neighbourhood just down the hill…
She rounded a corner, horn glowing because the candelabras hadn’t been lit yet before bedlam erupted, and almost walked into a mutilation courtesy of the Princess of the Night.
“Wha—?!”
“Be thou whost thine shape claims thy be?!” the Royal Canterlot Voice demanded, angry and very sharp spell light dancing in Luna’s furious eyes.
“How do I know you’re you?!” Twilight shot back, letting a little glow into her own eyes to compensate for the sudden need to visit the little filly’s room. She was fairly certain the shadows above her hadn’t looked quite so claw like before…
“Thou dare...actually no, that’s smart.” Luna’s mane shrank back to its usual wavering instead of the mushroom cloud it had been about to become. “Even horn light can be faked but not the Royal Canterlot Voice. Not without practice and/or serious surgery. Your turn. What’s your favourite book?”
“…what sort of monster makes you pick only one?!”
“There we go,” Luna sighed in relief. “Any sign of our quarry?”
“I lost her,” Twilight admitted. “But she’ll be after Celestia and Blueblood! Applejack’s looking for them now.”
Fire and lasers flashed outside the windows, briefly turning the entire corridor bright as day.
“And at least those two are keeping each other out of everypony’s hair,” Luna muttered. “Though I’d take them over--”
“Blueblood!”
The two Alicorns flinched, less at Celestia’s voice and more at the name. The prince trotted around the corner, his black cloak smoking and tattered at the edges. He did not look happy.
Princess Celestia looked frantic and even less so as her mane and neck swung around the corner before the rest of her. “Blueblood, come back!”
“In a Canterlot minute Auntie, if you’ll pardon my accented nomenclature,” Blueblood huffed, pausing in front of Twilight and Luna. “Sparky! You’re in this up to your used shoestring of a neck. Tell the director I want a word. Fun’s fun and this isn’t it.”
Twilight blinked. “The director…?”
“Yes! Furthermore, I demand to see the contract that says the audience must participate this much. I don’t remember signing anything. It’s well past din din and the great hall looks like the Paramount Lane ruggers club after the E.U.P. found out about old Clean Sheet and what he had in the basement, besides all the embezzling. It won’t do! No, you know what? Forgive me, what with ladies and Sparky present, but it shan’t do!”
“Blueblood, I know things are out of control right now,” Celestia moaned, paternally shoving herself between her two charges, “but that’s why I need you to make your way to one of the safe rooms. I can’t keep looking out for you in the middle of all this!”
“You haven’t told him?!” Luna snapped. “There’s scorch marks all over my favourite swan statue and you haven’t told him?!”
“Because I’m trying to protect him!” Celestia snapped back, rounding on her sister and making Twilight back up so fast she rattled a portrait when she hit the wall.
Luna held their glare for a beat, then her expression softened. “If Lilly were here she’d tell you this isn’t the way to do it.”
Twilight’s eyes flicked nervously between the sisters as Celestia sighed like something vast and ancient collapsing. Luna put a gentle hoof to her wing.
“Blueblood, dear…this is real,” Celestia managed. “I’m sorry, but this is all real.”
“Huh,” Blueblood mused. “And I thought there were rules against commoners doing their own stunts these days!”
“Oh for—!” Twilight lunged past the startled sisters and grabbed the prince by his lapels. “She means the danger, you clod! The danger! The danger is real! All these ponies have been trying to kill you!”
Silence except for Twilight’s laboured breathing and the far off sounds of battle. The stunned family resemblance between Celestia, Luna and Blueblood’s eyes was more obvious now.
“…this isn’t a twist, is it?” Blueblood said slowly.
“NO!” Twilight roared, shaking him as every candle in the hall flickered with purple sparks. “This is not a play! Not a hoax! Not an imaginary story! That lunatic in the long coat wants you dead! You wanna know why?! Because while I’m busting my hump trying to unlearn every arrogant, ignorant thing I was stupid enough to think made me worthy of your aunt’s attention, you’ve been allowed to coast on it to the point a siren can’t get your attention! You’re the one creature in this building that doesn’t have to worry about becoming De’Lilah’s puppet, and I legitimately can’t tell if she’s scared of you or she just hates you that much! The worst part?! I empathise! And I feel bad about it! Because I’m trying to be better! And you’re still the same!”
“Kind of loosing the plot here, me old--” Blueblood gagged, trying to pry her hooves off.
“UUUUUGH!” Twilight yanked his bewildered and reddening face down to hers by his bowtie. “Lemme spell it out for ya Bluey, me old demeaning nickname generator! This is all real and it’s ALL YOUR FAULT!”
She threw her hooves up as Luna’s wrapped around her and dragged her back, chest heaving. “I’m cool, I’m cool. Ten year breakthrough in the making happening all at once, that’s all…”
Blueblood blinked looking up at Celestia. “Auntie…?”
“I was just…” Celestia swallowed, Twilight feeling the frustration draining out of her as she realised those great eyes were watering. “Luna’s right, I’ve been doing this all wrong. I just wanted to keep you safe and I was worried it would all… We can do this later, right now could you please just lock yourself somewhere safe?”
“What?!” Blueblood blustered, the violence of the motion ruffling his lapels and mane even more. (And still looking dashing, damn his eyes.) “No! If this is real then Sassy’s in the middle of it! I’ve got to get her out of here!”
“What,” Twilight and Luna said in perfect sync.
“What what?!” Blueblood snapped. “Keep up! Sassy! Safety! It’s easy enough!”
“Sassy’s with Spike…” Celestia began.
“And an actual handbag would be better protection!”
“Blueblood!” Celestia snapped, shocked at both the insult and that she’d just snapped at him.
“Is about to owe me big time!”
Everybody whirled to face the dragon stumbling towards them dragging a firehose.
“Well, me and Sassy,“ Spike amended, “because we just had the best idea to end all this. Princess, you and Princess Luna know this mountain like the back of your wings, right? Well, wouldja mind helping Applejack find out which pipes go where?”
31
“Brat!” Lyja snapped.
“Psycho!” the Horseshoe Torch retorted, struggling to keep their hooves locked.
They were hovering in a stalemate over the courtyard, grappling as they tried to literally overpower each other. Their powers crackled around their clenched hooves, making it look like they were having a tug of war with a sick sun.
“Pretty boy!”
“Barbie girl!”
“What?!”
“Oh please! What kind of strategic genius runs around with a ponytail and expects people to take them seriously?!”
“⍜⊑ ⋔⊬ ☌⍜⎅, read a book!” Lyja’s eyes were leaking too much plasma energy to roll. “First off, Princess Celestia! The Peninsular war!”
“Uh, I was there!” Johnny snarled. Out of malice, totally not because her lasers were starting to overtake his flames. “Time travel! She…rocked it! You…don’t! That’s the…point!”
“Second!” Lyja’s gritted teeth shifted a bit too easily into a sneer. “Thanks for calling me a strategic genius.”
“Yeah, the genius behind Department 2162!”
“…RAAAAGH!” The furious Skrull shoved them both a few feet across the roofs, almost blinding him with violet laser wrath. “Will you just stop being terrible for five of your dumb Earth minutes and let me do my job?!”
Wing like jets of flame burst from the Torch’s back, countering Lyja’s own thrust and stalling them over the spires of the great hall. “Whadda y’think?”
“I think it’s kinda weird you keep forgetting I can do this,” Lyja sneered, Kirby Krackle swirling around her eyes as she suddenly released her grip.
Her blast hit Johnny right in the 4 logo and sent him hurtling backwards. He slammed into a walkway, tumbling into a hanging banner as his epidermis dissolved and too winded to even cry out as it tore free of its moorings, swinging him through a broken window.
***
He came ‘round tangled in the remains of a sofa, surrounded by warring guards.
The mares were working together while the pink eyed stallions just sort of flung themselves around the place, the Unicorns so out of it that it didn’t seem to occur to them to use their magic. A constant chorus of ‘DESTROY!’ was doing nothing for his new headache.
“You’re with the Elements, right?” barked a nearby captain as she clung to the back of a bucking Earth Pony. “Any word on, I dunno, a plan?”
“Mph…” Johnny wheezed apologetically.
“Typical!” the captain sigh-yelled and continued to urge her deranged comrade on until his helmeted head crashed into a wall. Johnny’s blinking eyes narrowed as he watched a purple contrail shoot through the skylight.
“DESTROY!” shouted a Unicorn looming over Johnny, brandishing an axe. He yelped as the handle became so hot it smoked slightly.
“Gimme a minute,” Johnny muttered, rolling onto his back and thrusting his hind legs up in a reverse mule kick to force the attacker away.
He scrambled to all fours, blinking as a snake wearing a long coat tumbled out of a stairwell and face first into a rug.
“Elementsssss…” De’Lilah snarl-hissed as she melted back to her true form, forked tongue lashing angrily and her eyes blazing pink.
“’Least it’s not the Web-Head!” She whirled but lost vital seconds shielding her eyes from the glare of the Torch flaming back on. “I’m still here though.”
De’Lilah let out a startled cough-like sound as he blasted off, shoulder charging her so hard they hurtled down the corridor and into the foyer. Experience and training meant both of them rolled as they struck the floor, but the play had been Johnny’s and it was his fine, unignited self on top when they finally stopped, pinning her.
“And now it’s just you and me.”
“Hmmm, you’re not Dormammu,” De’Lilah smirked, eyes glowing, “but you’ll do!”
She focused, almost filling the entire room with pink light, then snarled incredulously as she realised a sort of epidermal domino mask covered Johnny’s eyes, which were sheathed in their own usual glow.
“Yeah, nice try, but you’re starring in thermal vision now. All those empathic implants are doing is making your face look way more orange.”
“You think that’s going to stop me?! I’ll strangle you with that collar and make a new coat out of your hide, Storm!”
“So is this just a really bad week for you, or did you always have a thing for blondes?” Johnny grinned. “No, no, you’ve been so busy with the crazy army, you just lie back, relax and give with the Blueblood thing,”
“I already told your inane friends!”
“Oh good, so there’s no reason for you to be conscious!”
Johnny pulled back a clenched hoof…and hesitated. Why was she smi—?
“DESTROY!” howled three Pegasus guards behind him.
A violet flash! Johnny and De’Lilah flinched as her would be saviours soared over them, one’s wing slapping Johnny in the face.
“Sorry guys,” Lyja panted, lowering her sparking hooves and making her way carefully down the staircase. “He’s spoken for. Get away from the prisoner, Johnny.”
“Or!” Johnny shot back, raising an ignited hoof. “I put you back in a flame cage and laugh at the two of you fighting over the top bunk.”
“Are you serious?!” Lyja levelled both her glowing hooves at him, only a few yards between them now. “Were you not in the same meeting where I told Princess For Real Celestia I want to get her out of your collective hair?”
“Oh right, sorry, I was too caught up remembering all those fun times where you violated basically my entire life.”
“Like I’d have anything to do with a himbo like you if I wasn’t ordered to,” Lyja snarled. “You know something, ‘Cakey-pie’? You’re almost as bad as Blueblood!”
“Uh, The Worst says what?!” Johnny spat.
“I said almost!” Lyja’s ponytail lashed with her increasing volume like a scale. “See, at least he’s oblivious. You’re so ready to blame me for everything when you knew what you were getting into. At least I was behind enemy lines! What’s your excuse? Groupies aren’t supposed to keep up with you?!”
“Do you hear yourself?!” Johnny yelled, grinning hysterically. “Are you really trying to be deep right now?!”
“Like it’s so hard to be deeper than you!”
“Oh what, not everything I say is a lie so I’m shallow?!”
“The only thing you talk about is you, so yeah!”
“You were trying to kill me the entire time!”
“And nopony could blame me!”
“You’re both adorable,” De’Lilah cooed. “Hey, wanna see a Skrull make a fist out of their stomach?”
“Yes!” Johnny snapped then spun to actually stare at her. “Wait, wh—UGH!”
A green fist shot out of De’Lilah’s abdomen like a volcanic eruption, snapping his head back and sending him crashing into Lyja. Through the daze, outrage and, okay, yeah, admiration, he felt strong hooves grasping at him. His vision cleared in time to make out the recovered guards, now holding him and Lyja as De’Lilah stood, dusting down her coat.
“Now…” the renegade mused. “What to do with you? The Fantastic Family’s absolutely on my list but would using their beloved little brother to finally ice Blueblood really be the best revenge? I mean, it’s Blueblood. There’s always winding my new toy up and pointing him at a mall, a park, perhaps even an orphanage…”
“Del,” Lyja groaned, shaking her head to clear it. “Stand down!”
“Not in the army anymore, remember?” De’Lilah beamed. “Wanna defect? I am about to win and everything!”
“In what universe?!” Lyja spluttered hysterically. “Three princesses on your tail! All this and you couldn’t even get one overstuffed pony aristocrat! Surrender and the Empire will--”
“Take me apart to make sure the next empath doesn’t go off model,” De’Lilah snapped, rounding on her. “Last chance, Ly. You’d fulfil your mission under my command so much better than you ever could following the Empire’s backwards traditions. I’d even let you keep the Torch as a pet if I’m in a good mood.”
“Del, this is nothing but escalation.” Lyja almost sounded like she was pleading. “My warrant is any means necessary! The Empire would like you alive, it doesn’t need you to be. You think the other systems will let you have this planet? They know you’re here!”
“Then they know to keep off my porch.”
De’Lilah’s furious eyes lit the room with a poisonous searing pink. Johnny squinted, uncertain but…yeah, another flash. Something was going on with the fire extinguishers and drinks fountains. Each glowed, or maybe the glow moved from source to source.
“Okay, I’m confused,” he announced on the basis that stalling was just a good idea in general. “Is this about Prince Pain in the Butt or world domination? Just wanna know what I got lobotomised for.”
“Oh sweetie,” De’Lilah cooed, condescendingly stroking his chin. “It’s always about world domina—what’s that sound?”
Johnny cocked an ear. It sounded like the world’s biggest seltzer bottle collection in a road accident.
“DESTROY! DESTROY! DESTROOOOAH NELLY!”
All across the castle grounds and the next room over even, that scooshing sound followed by interrupted zombie chants. The two Skrulls and the hero watched incredulously as the fountains erupted in multiple jets, extinguishers ripping themselves from the walls and firing everywhere. De’Lilah howled as she took a jet of water to the face. Johnny could feel the cold from here.
He pivoted on a hind leg, spinning his captor around and lose, sending the guard face first into another jet. The guard yelped, eyes suddenly clear. Johnny flamed on and only had a second to wonder if that was a good idea with so much water shooting around, when a crowd of armoured mares burst from either side of the foyer, brandishing extinguishers and hoses.
“Del!” Lyja barked, stamping on her captors’ hoof and kicking him into the wall. Johnny squinted through the jets, just making out her coat tails whipping around a corner.
***
De’Lilah almost made it to the wall of the royal gardens before a blast of freezing cold blindsided her into a wheelbarrow.
“Nothin’ like that fresh mountain water, huh?” Applejack smirked as she kept the garden’s industrial grade hose trained on the blinking Skrull. Cries of “DESTROY!” were winking on and off all around them.
“Wh—?!” De’Lilah spluttered.
“Two problems with a simple solution.” Three horned and winged shadows fell over her, the Skrull craning over her shoulder to stare at Twilight as Celestia and Luna looked on. “The real difficulty was finding you to stop all this, the second was how to get through to your victims without hurting them! We found out a short, sharp shock like a sudden temperature change snapped them out of it. Spike and Sassy got to talking when the fight forced them to take cover in one of the boiler rooms, which get most of their supply from the waterfall…and supply the castle fire hoses.”
“It was also Ms. Saddles’ idea to teleport it into the extinguishers,” Luna added. “Just so you can tell your Empress who she has to thank for your worthless carcass.”
“Wait, wait, wait!” They all looked up as the Torch swooped over, hovering over Celestia’s shoulder as he trained a fireball on De’Lilah. “I mean, awesome plan and all, Reed’d love it, but it sounds like we’re actually letting the twisted sisters go?”
“Johnnycake,” Celestia warned.
“Princess, please! You don’t know Lyja like I do! I’m half sure the Empress stuck her down here to make sure she had one less knife to watch her back for! You put Lyja and Ms. Personality in the same pod, we’re gonna be doing this all over again next summer with a bigger budget! And probably casualties!”
“I’ll show you casualties!” De’Lilah screamed.
The wheelbarrow burst as her flesh rippled and stretched, an enormous reptilian tail knocking Applejack aside, the princesses diving for cover as three lizard-like heads shot forward. Johnny grunted, involuntarily flaming off as one of them snapped tight around his midsection, hauling him into the air on still growing batwings…
The world went a cold violet.
***
Johnny flinched at the feel of what he realised was Celestia’s wing and the simultaneous realisation he must have hit the ground. He nodded at her concerned maternal face to show he was alright…then saw what was left of De’Lilah as she shrank back to something like normal and felt even worse.
“Just one casualty,” Lyja said grimly, the light fading from her hooves.
She looked more tired than annoyed as Twilight and Applejack surrounded her.
“Princess? Permission to return the fugitive to the custody of the Empire.”
Tense silence.
“Was that necessary?” Celestia asked coldly.
“You saw my warrant, ma’am.”
A cold flash in those gentle magenta eyes that shouldn’t have been there and made the younger ponies feel even shorter than usual. “I asked you a question.”
“She wouldn’t have stopped until she brought down your castle, if not your entire world!” Lyja protested, glaring at Johnny. “I tried to talk her down. The Torch will confirm that.”
“You confirmed a lot tonight!” Johnny snarled, stomping towards her. “Like the fact every time I think I’ve seen as low as you can go, you will always surprise me!”
He flinched at the feeling of a hoof on his shoulder and blinked in astonishment that it was Applejack. Grim faced, but not at him.
“Best pick up your friend an’ get outta here. An’ if you’re smart, don’t come back.”
Lyja glanced at Celestia, who nodded curtly. She started towards the body and blinked as a purple glow that wasn’t hers covered De’Lilah’s blackened coat, wrapping it around her like a shroud. She turned to stare at Twilight as she levitated the body up for her to carry. Twilight looked back, eyes unreadable but holding back tears.
“I heard…when we were getting into position, you…” She swallowed. “Were you friends?” she asked quietly.
“Once,” Lyja said simply. She placed herself beneath the body, taking the weight and turned. “My craft is…close by. We’ll…I’ll be going now.”
Nopony said anything.
Lyja turned and carried the shroud off into the shadows of the garden. A golden glow swung the massive gates open, making her hesitate only slightly but she didn’t look back and kept trotting.
***
Her sombre expression lasted until she reached the cover of the woods and then she couldn’t hold back the snickering anymore. “Oh man!”
“Shut up!” came a muffled giggle from inside the scorched coat, now shifting back to full green. “Shut up, shut up, shut uuup, they’re gonna he-hee-hee-hear uuuus!”
“Sorry, sorry!” Lyja hunched over, shoulders quaking. “I just can’t believe that worked.”
“Were you fweinds?” De’Lilah’s voice snorted from the knot over her head as her hooves pawed at it.
“Hey, who else’d bail you out?” Lyja smirked, dropping to her haunches so the whole bundle toppled, chuckling, to the grass. “Seriously, Del. Celestia’s nephew?”
“What?! He was like the one thing in the way,” De’Lilah grinned. They howled with laughter, Lyja collapsing next to her. Eventually she put her hooves behind her head, looking up at the moon and sighing. “Coulda been something, couldn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Lyja agreed quietly. “Y’know his girlfriend works with Rarity Belle? How small is this world?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“The Element of Generosity.”
“Ly, it’s hard enough keeping up with the one’s in costumes.”
“The cake one.”
“…⊬⟟☍⟒⌇.”
“Eeyup.”
“So what happens now?”
“Got a life model decoy in the trunk. Imprint yourself on it back to front, add some scorch marks and it’ll look messed up enough no one back home’ll ask any questions.”
“Not what I meant.” De’Lilah’s smirk didn’t need fangs.
“Oh…” Lyja’s smirk glowed in the moonlight. “I’m sure we’ll find some trouble to get into…
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Peter asked.
“That’s what I’m supposed to be asking you.” Twilight managed a smile, though that hoof on her shoulder helped.
“Honey, there’s barely a scratch on me and I’m spending the weekend down here anyway. What you saw, it’s okay if you feel…however you feel.”
“Being back home helps,” Twilight assured, sharing the smile between him and the equally concerned looking Spike. “Look, I know how this sounds but our duty…it feels like we’ll see worse. And Applejack and Spike were there too, so it’s not like we don’t have anypony to talk to.”
“It was so weird though!” Spike said for the tenth time since stepping off the train. “We all watched that Skrull whatever she was carry the…the…her out and then Princess Celestia sighed and started organising clean up. And one of the first things she did was send somepony down into the city for, like, the biggest takeout order in the history of Equestria!”
“Huh,” Peter smirked wryly. “Y’know, Cap does that too after an extinction level event.”
“A dragon or the egg situation,” Twilight smirked back playfully. “Would you kiss me or something? Everypony’s looking over here, they’re gonna think we’re a couple of manic depressives.”
“Think,” Spike muttered, taking a sip of punch as Peter complied. The cup glowed purple and sloshed some of itself into his face.
“Everypony having a good time?” May Reilly asked, trotting over from where she’d been talking with Rocky Roads. The editor waved a paw at Peter, seeming friendly enough even though they hadn’t spoken yet.
Peter waved back uneasily, not sure how to start a conversation. Or ask Pinkie Pie if she’d looked up Ferocious Flattop, conspicuous by his absence.
“Much better than last night,” Twilight beamed, hugging the older mare. “Although, I was noooot expecting work to follow me home today…”
They watched as Prince Blueblood, carrying a plate full of everything from a buffet for someone he didn’t know, loped pleasantly after a smouldering Johnnycake Storm, a litany of Canterlot analogies and aristocratic name dropping following in his wake.
Johnny saw their amused expressions and trudged over to take revenge, fop in tow. He brightened when he noticed May. “Oh, hey Mrs. Trotter.”
“Johnnycake, how many times are you going to pretend to forget? It’s May!” They embraced. May blinked as they broke, and she spotted Blueblood’s untouched plate. “Oh goodness, that’s rather a lot isn’t it? Surely you’re not going to eat all of that at once!”
“Mmm? This?” Blueblood performed some sort of chortle sniff. “Hardly! Common carnival fair, y’know! But my aunts go on and on about keeping up appearances. Sparky’s joined a commune or something, so the old Johnnyclotted cream of wheat thought we’d take a looksie. Hola, Sparky! Sort of outdoorsy for you, isn’t it?”
“We’re friends now,” Johnny said with kidney stone passing delight. “Princess Celestia thinks I’ll be a good influence on him.”
May and Twilight frowned as Peter burst out laughing, doubling over.
“Which means you’re his friend too, roomie,” Johnny smiled with a steely gleam in his eye.
Peter made no noise as his pupils shrank because the terror stopped him from breathing.
“Oh, so this is what you were talking about, me old china shop quartet!” Blueblood grinned, putting his plate on Twilight’s head and throwing a bulky foreleg around Peter before he could scramble over the table and move to the Bone Dry Desert, throwing the other around Johnny. “We’re going to have a whale of a time, the three of us! The three amoebas!”
“Amigos?” Peter croaked, trying not to gag on the smell of ten different colognes made by ravishing thousands of rain forest acres.
“Don’t speak the lingo, old sporting loophole, just buy up the land!” Blueblood let out his signature chortle. The boys felt like they were being punched in the face by the best Istallion silk.
“He’s a fully trained diplomat, y’know,” Johnny mumbled out the free side of his mouth, one eye shut to keep Blueblood’s lapel rose from putting it out.
“Ooh, speaking of whales, there’s a thought! Ever been in international waters? Mmm, second thought, probably shouldn’t learn each other’s names in that case…”
“That’s my boyfriend you’re manhandling,” Twilight warned, levitating the plate off her head.
“Boyf—?” Blueblood blinked at her. “Sparky? A boyfriend? Sparky?! Oh, well then! A happy ending…unless it’s satire? Ah well, I’ll laugh anyway!” His chest resumed pummelling it’s helpless captives. “OOOOOOOOH-HO-HO-HOOOOOO!”
Peter glanced askance at Johnny during a lull. “Does he still think he’s in a…?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
***
The chortling wafted over Ponyville’s roofs and up into the foliage of the Golden Oaks. Pinkie Pie excused herself from a conversation with Gem Stone and Flash Sentry to bounce over and make it a duet. Above them, a white ear twitched.
“That laugh…” Rarity growled.
“I know, I know, but I like it,” Sassy chuckled, leaning on the windowsill. “It’s the same no matter what he’s doing--”
“To somepony,” Rarity bitterly cut in.
“Fair, yes, and so I choose to focus on when he’s laughing at something good.” Sassy smiled, holding up her new necklace. “That’s the same pony who made this for me.”
“Very nice, I’ll concede that,” Rarity huffed, peering through her cage to take in the intricate patterns and wishing she had her magnifier. “Oooh, that shimmering! Like a dance! You can just tell it’s Aggregate’s!”
“I can’t,” Rainbow Dash muttered behind her.
“Want to swing round, darling?”
“Not right now!”
“About that,” Sassy said gingerly, “what is this exactly?”
She waved a hoof to indicate the birdcage formed out of the spare timber Twilight and Spike used for patching up the treehouse. It dangled from the top room’s branches by some sort of gossamer material as the two Elements sat back to back and swayed slightly.
“Our just desserts,” Rarity smiled ruefully through the bars.
“Yeah,” Dash smirked over both their shoulders, “Twilight figures we’ll treat her property better if we’ve gotta spend a day as part of it. She’s overacted to way less, honestly.”
“I’ll take your word for it. What’s that stuff keeping it up?” Sassy squinted at the signature product of Manehattan’s most infamous vigilante.
“Nightmare Night decorations,” Dash said quickly.
“Twilight gets these macabre phases,” Rarity agreed, rapidly nodding along.
“Mmm, maybe I should pick her brain for line ideas while I’m down here,” Sassy mused, going back to playing with her new necklace. “Anyway, just thought I’d come up and say hi! Only really here because Blueblood’s tailing Johnnycake, didn’t mean to crash Peter’s party. Glad he’s alright! What happened to him?”
“Don’t, you’ll make Rainbow laugh and drop us,” Rarity sighed. “But it’s good to see you too Sassy, even with…him.”
“I maaaaay have also have come up to see if we’re okay,” Sassy admitted, holding her necklace in one hoof.
“Hey, Rarity’s hangin’ out with Johnnyflake and we’re still blowin’ up stuff with friendship rainbows,” Dash pointed out.
“Johnnyflake!” Sassy cackled. “Can I steal that?”
“Go ahead!”
“You’ve both made your point!” Rarity smiled fiercely. “Who am I to stand in the way of true whatever it is that fathead does? My partner’s happy, I’m happy.”
“An’ less likely to horse around with the truth from what I hear,” Applejack said, trotting into the room with a tray of food and drinks.
“Twilight toldja why we’re up here, huh?” Dash smirked, idly kicking her hind legs as they dangled out her side of the bars.
“Oh yeah,” Applejack smirked with Sassy. “Sounds like a hoot. I also talked her into decidin’ you’d been up here long enough to have some vitals, so play nice.”
“Awesome!”
“Why thank you, darling,” Rarity beamed, taking the tray in her telekinesis. “Ooh, is this cider sparkling?”
“No, an’ don’t push your luck.” Applejack glanced at the doorway as she heard a third set of hooves making their way up. “Oh, hey, MJ!”
“Hey, AJ!” Merry Jewel smiled. “Came up for two reasons: Sassy Saddles in the flesh! Who passes that up?”
“Ponies without your excellent taste, darling,” Sassy smirked, shaking hooves.
“And to see if Peter was telling the truth. Sorry to see he was! Not that much, though.”
“Oh goodness!” Rarity clung onto the tray with her hooves as Dash’s wings flapped hard enough to spin the cage around, instantly folding to allow her to adopt the perfect casual ‘Incarcerated-But-Making-It-Look-Good’ pose.
“Oh hey, MJ, thought that was you,” the Pegasus said nonchalantly, examining the hoof she wasn’t holding under her chin.
“The one and only, Rainbow Dash,” MJ chuckled, indulgently taking Sassy’s place on the sill. “So, what’d you two even do to wind up in there?”
“It’s a long but funny story, fraught with peril and best not told in front of civilians,” Dash said with mock solemnity that instantly became coquettish cheerfulness. “Maybe we could talk about it on my day off, can swing by your club and tell ya on the way to the venue of your choice…?”
“Just the one?” MJ smiled back.
“Schedule it around our dancing lessons, will we?” Rarity muttered.
Dash elbowed her. Which shook the cage loose and dropped them on Blueblood.
33
“That’s what we call a Ponyville experience,” Applejack sardonically explained to Johnny a few hours later, after Rarity’s bloodlust had been tempered and Blueblood had escaped back to Canterlot.
They’d wound up on clean up duty because he could vaporise anything that couldn’t be re-used or repaired. Also, they hadn’t been avoiding each other during the party, but...
“What, we were trading?” Johnny risked raising an eyebrow as he helped push the other bin cart. “Because unless it switches off at least one law of physics, something like last night really doesn’t count as an FF Canterlot experience.”
Applejack’s eyebrow raising skills were designed for specific inferences not just facetiousness, and therefore better. “Those come with free food?”
“I wish.” That made her chuckle, so Johnny counted it as a draw. “Everybody’s heading back to the city. Any more shots you wanna take?”
“Nah, reckon we’re square. For now, anyway. We can at least hang out.”
“Better than whatever I have with Dash right now,” Johnny conceded.
“Way better, an’ for the record I’m on my girl’s side no matter what.” Applejack shouldered some final trash bags into the cart for pick up in the evening and dusted her hooves. “But that doesn’t mean I ain’t on your’s. Wouldn’t be the first time I only knew somepony through Rarity.”
“Yeah?”
“We grew up together.” She indicated the town.
“…huh.”
“Yeah, sometimes I can’t believe it either.” She winked and tipped her hat. “She’s good at seein’ sides in people they don’t.”
“She figures we should be friends because I don’t have any that aren’t other heroes,” Johnny explained as they turned and headed back across the plaza. “It’s nice of her but I’m not sure she’s in a position to talk.”
“I’ll take the weird compliment of behalf of the group,” Applejack chuckled. “Reckon you’ll be around Ponyville a lil’ more then? ‘Specially since the princess sicced Blueblood on ya.”
“Pretty sure that’s Luna’s way of getting revenge for messing up her favourite statue,” Johnny smiled ruefully. “But yeah. Might see what’s putting the pep in Pete’s step.”
“Who,” Applejack corrected.
“Point. But yeah, see ya around whenever, I guess.”
“We’re definitely gonna swing by Plucky’s sometime. I’ll buy ya an ice water.”
“Much obliged.”
Johnny conjured a flame Stetson for tipping. He dissolved it, sensing she wasn’t looking away because it hurt her feelings or anything. “Something on your mind?”
“Not that it’s any of my business, but we’re sorta friends now an’, well, I made the mistake of thinkin’ you were just a goof…an’ for the record, as your friend, you can’ expect me to knock ya back on track when I think y’are bein’ a goof.”
“Noted, but?”
“Well, ya got pretty intense around those Skrulls. Don’t gotta talk about it, but in my book friendship means givin’ a shoulder to lean on an’ a free ear.” They paused on the library threshold. “’Course ya got Pete an’ all.”
“He’s heard about Lyja, yeah. Almost as much as I’ve had to hear about Black Sphinx,” Johnny smirked.
“Wait, that happened?! Dang.”
“Tell me about it!” Johnny chuckled but it didn’t last. Lyja blanketed stuff like that. “Lyja’s…a lot of the things I said she was. Worst part is I keep finding more. Once upon a time, she was a lot of different women I was into. I don’t apologise for being me, but she made me question things about myself. How much of our twisted thing was her and how much of it was me, y’know?”
“Sounds like a lot for one pony,” Applejack said gently putting her hoof on his shoulder. “Ya ever wanna talk an’ Rarity ain’t around…”
“Might take you up on it.” Johnny nodded, then huffed and puffed out his chest. “Well, that’s enough about my dating life! Your turn!”
“Get outta my town,” Applejack smirked, shoving him through the front door.
***
Peter’s friends had taken the train back home about an hour ago, and probably wouldn’t have gone with the living room portal even if Twilight felt like telling them about it. Weird she and Peter shared it as much as they did, frankly. But the Torch needed to clock some flight time on his home turf after so long in the capital and the shortest distance between two lines is a nerd powered hole in the space/time continuum.
He said his goodbyes to Rarity and Fluttershy, managed to get the happy couple to stop gazing moonstruck at each other long enough to turn it on, and trotted out of Twilight’s living room into 616B’s.
He brushed his teeth before flaming on and circling Midtown and the Upper East Side a few times. The Crown would be sending the FF a report for a change, but he still checked in at the Baxter Barn. Had a fun little adventure correcting the Pop Up Pony’s efforts to teach Gloam Golems how to think for themselves. Pedestrians are not made of armour plating and have feelings too was the big thing.
***
“You okay?” Sue asked as the Thing helped a Golem screw it’s foreleg back on.
“Hmm?” Johnny looked up from the welding job Reed had asked him to do on the support beams of the Equestria State building. “Yeah, why?”
“You’ve been quiet since you got back from Canterlot.”
“I was laying down top shelf burns the whole time!” Johnny smirked. “What, you want me to play back my banter now?”
Sue waved a dismissive hoof. “Great Pony no. But that’s what I mean. You can, and have, come up with those in your sleep.”
“Don’t think cruise control is the kinda tool you wanna use when you’re fifty floors up and trying to make sure the rest don’t come down.” The Torch winked. “But I could do that in my sleep too. Hay, maybe I should try out Damage Control. Show Spidey how it’s done.”
“That might not be a bad idea!” Sue enthused, gliding closer on her platform. “Also you know cruise control is not an autopilot, right?”
“It is if Reed builds it right.”
“Weird sentiment from an airship/race kart enthusiast.” Sue shielded her eyes from the sun as it glanced off the skyscrapers. “And a pretty see through stall tactic.”
“Only kind you’ve got,” Johnny countered, drifting further into the building to start work on the next weld. “By default.”
Sue reappeared in front of him. “Seriously?”
“Most of banter’s improv, sis, doesn’t always work out.”
“Johnny.”
“I am the definition of cool,” Johnny smiled, put some extra heat glow into it. “Just thinking about some stuff.”
He snickered as Sue raised a pointed eyebrow. The upside to their banter was living together pretty much their entire lives meant they didn’t always need words.
“Celestia help us all,” Sue said for the sake of the thing, drifting past him. “We’re here if you want to talk.”
“Gotta try my material on somepony,” Johnny called over his shoulder cheerfully as sparks began to fly. “Pete’s just so easy.”
Once he was sure she was out of sight and actually out of the building he let concentration turn his face into a slight frown. He wasn’t on autopilot but wasn’t exactly thinking either. Maybe it was just having too many things to think about. A few months, and it had been so fast. Rarity and Crystal, who he hadn’t spoken to for almost two days now.
And Lyja.
“Meal ticket,” Johnny said under his breath. “What does that mean…?”
To be Continued