//------------------------------// // 1 Mic-Dropping // Story: Inner Strewth // by SevenEyes //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle could hear it with her right ear, and she could hear it with her left one too. Twilight Sparkle could smell it with her right nose, and she could smell it even more when she left to move to the other room. Twilight had the power to move to any room anywhere, in an instant, via the magic of teleportation. However in this crisis on infinite noses, she was so alarmed that she forgot. She also seemed to forget that she was a princess, and WALKED!! Like on her four hooves, just like the common unicorn. Oh, she had been a common unicorn once; but the great act of uncommoning had made her a commoner no longer. Thus she walked on her four legs towards what she had determined was the source of her sensory distress. "Spike's an asshole, making himself alcohol!" Sung an unsuspecting young reptile. "Who?" Spike just glared at the owl. And in that moment the feathery one realised that it no longer belonged here. So he left. He would go hang out with Cadence and other minor characters in the Crystal Empire. Twilight waved and sang to the departed Owlowishious. "Now I only waaaaant you goooooone." With that normality over with, Twilight acknowledged her number one assistant's strangeness. "Why are you trying to get drunk? Did Rarity reject you again?" Twilight tried to keep from laughing at that very very very possible scene playing out in her head. The dragon looked hurt. Like he had eaten an unripe gemstone, and broken his little toothy-woothy. But his reply came none the less. "Be real Sparkle. How could anypony say 'no' to all this pure draconicness?"  Twilight matched his wit and then some. "By being a lesbian horse like me." She stated flatly, then made panicked pony noises and exclaimed, "You have to forget what I said, okay? How could a baby like you, ever even begin to understand that his big sister is gay!?" Spike folded his baby arms. "I'm not a baby, I just have baby arms." Then paused to think. "Like a T-Rex!" He stated triumphantly.  "Well in that case, can my little T-Rex forget my sexuality related revelation until tomorrow?" She asked with what she hoped was her most winning smile. Spike gave much consideration to the idea of jumping out the window, so that he could follow his feathered friend in crystalline retreat. Anything was better than looking at Twilight's royally messed up teeth. What, was she originally from that Commonwealth city of Cloudsdale or something? Oh good Luna, the teeth had started to move!! "I knew I could count on Rarity's favourite dragon, to forget something big like this." She said, kissing his cheek. "I'm so proud of my tiny forgetful one." She smiled even wider.  Spike was sweating now. Afraid of seeing more of those choppers near him. "Well, Rarity won't go hit on herself." He tried to chuckle, but his nerves made it sound like he was choking on the booze. "Not unless she finds the mirror pool, and uses it. Then dozens of Raritys could come into existence, each with the only intention to do anything you ask of them," Twilight said scratching at her nonexistent beard. Then looked back at Spike. "Er, why are you drooling?"  "The drooling means I'm happy," he drooled. Twilight shook her head. "Nope. That doesn't make any sense. You would always be drooling whenever you see me, if that was true." Spike recoiled in horror. "Gross, gross, gross, gross!"  Twilight just shrugged, not picking up on what was tormenting her dragon brother. Then walked towards the door that led to one of a multitude of the castle's hallways. This was a big improvement on the zero hallways, that her old tree house (the one made of wood) had had. Her new tree house was so great that it had to be shrunk down so as to not blot out Celestia’s sun. It was also made of one hundred percent non-recyclable plastics, and it spoke! But no-creature could figure out where to insert the triple-A batteries so the voice was very low and very slow these days. Therefore the mastermind behind it only used the voice when absolutely necessary. Twilight operated her Re-bigulator which doubled as an Awesomeporter to the town centre when set to that particular setting. Nopony batted an eye at the Princess' sudden appearance, or when she subsequently grew back to 'normal' little pony size. The growth stopped when she was just taller than the average mare her age. The word 'NERD' however was called out at her, from all angles. Just like it always did whenever she went into town. But strangely there was one voice calling it out louder than the rest. Who could it be? Twilight closed her eyes and guessed based on the evidence at hoof. Which only amounted to a high pitched, giggly, and girly voice. One she knew belonged to an element of harmony bearer. One that was accompanied by the sounds of a pony bouncing up and down. This was next to nothing to go on, so she just defaulted to the factory setting of guessing it was Fluttershy. Thus the shock of Pinkie Pie's smiling face in front of her when she opened her eyes, turned a hair in the beard she still didn't have a light grey colour. "Hello, fellow grey beard." Pinkie said, overjoyed with something as she tapped just below her pink chin. "You're a NERD today! Not to be confused with you being a NERD last week. Or next week, when that one violent earth pony chick is going to Cheerilee’s birthday party. Gosh I would hate to be the pony organising that party," she said with great relief in her voice. She continued being the dominant force in the conversation by asking, "Now where's my treat?" Twilight looked at her perplexed. "Treat?" She nerdily echoed the loud mare. "Yeah, you're supposed to give me a treat, silly. Oh, no. Wait, that was for my indoors voice, not my other one!" Twilight tried to mutter something like, "Pinkie has an indoor voice?" But the Pie mare heard her with her Pinkie hearing. "Of course. But you may know her better by the name of, Fluttershy!"  "Fluttershy? Here?" Whispered Twilight in alarm. "Nope she’s at her cottage. Lalalalala." She replied and sang, bouncing off, to You-know-who knows where.  Twilight knew that she knew, where the cottage of the easily frightened pegasus was. It was near the very frightening forest. The forest that was home to a very harmonious tree, that had even created her own current tree house. Maybe that wasn't a meer coincidence, maybe there was supposed to be a connective force between the two ponies. The alicorn thought of nothing else on her way to the burger stand, then she thought on it more, while on her way to the edge of town. With two burgers levitating in front of her, she made her way to a part of Ponyville where everycritter enjoyed a little kindness.  Most of the wide variety of animals looked nice and relaxed, including a recently massaged Harry the bear. Oh how Twilight would just love to get a violent, full body massage from Fluttershy. But unlike the bear, she did not have an adorkable smile. This made her frown adorkably. Twilight was greeted by many beautiful sounds as she got even nearer to the cosy cottage. The birds chirped in a happy and harmonious tune. The fish splashed like happy Magikarp in the small river that went under the little bridge. The mammals sat quietly, plotting the demise of the other two animal groups. And the plants blew gently to and fro in the light breeze, making their own soft sound if you listened closely. So listen closely Twilight did. Which was when she heard a pony’s voice. The voice was, like earlier, an immediate mystery to the purple horse. All she had to go on this time, was that the voice was scratchy, and owned by a bearer of the element of loyalty. She could pick up no actual words yet, so she did the only thing a Princess of Friendship could. She listened harder to the unknown talker who was in Fluttershy’s home. “Awesome, twenty percent cooler, awesome, in ten seconds flat, awesome, awesome.” The murmurs came from someone inside. But who was it? “My name is Rainbow Dash.” Surely those words could be spoken by anypony, right? “My other sister is a walking chicken joke.” Someone with at least two sisters? Was it Big Macintosh? “I could beat Applejack in a hoof wrestling match.” Twilight let out a small whisper to herself at this, “Oh it’s Rainbow Dash; gosh I’m so so silly. And the one that she’s talking to in Fluttershy’s cottage must be..." Twilight tapped her chin in silent thought. “Fluttershy?” There was a squee of delight at Rainbows continued antics. The squee was unmistakable in its belonging to her shy friend. So it was Shy who Twi concluded was at home with the Dashinator. The two were close, but Twilight knew that neither would shun her intrusion. So she started to think a happy thought, so as to activate her god-tier ‘pure’ magic. She was however interrupted by a hideous male alicorn OC who flew by. He yelled, “My tragic backstory, is that I stub my hoof on an oak tree, at the end of every single month!!” A sing-song voice came from inside the cottage, “I hope you stub your hoof on an incredibly well sharpened sword.” Ah, what would Equestria be without Fluttershy vanquishing the most horrid thing in existence (alicorn OCs) from the world? And with that out of the way for now Twilight thought of the first time she rode a broom stick. This happy thought was just enough to activate her magic to knock on the door. But Sparkle didn't want to knock, she wanted to teleport herself into the house and surprise-congratulate Shy on her latest victory against the forces of clichéd writing. Twilight was interrupted in her search for a happier memory, by the rough voice of Rainbow, who was evidently trying to be smooth, "Now if only you could confess your hidden feelings of love to her, like you just expressed yourself to that guy." There was a squeak of shyness from inside in response. Twilight heard it and wanted to hear more. No. She needed to hear more. Just needed a name. While she wasn't one for gossip she also wasn't one for pressing her ear flat against the door to listen in to private pegasi conversations. But that didn’t stop her.  While desperately trying to eavesdrop harder. She heard something that made her heart capsize and sink to the pit newly formed in her stomach. It was just a small whisper. But it changed her. “Rarity wouldn't like me back though, not like that. Not like the way that I feel for her." It was Rarity. Fluttershy was lesbian for Rarity the unicorn. The dress maker, extraordinaire, mare.  It even made logical sense. They had known each other for a longer time. They both loved fashion and creating. They could both sing in such a way that made even such a wreck like Twilight feel good about the world. What's more the elemental names 'kindness' and 'generosity' that they both used to battle evil together, have similar meanings. So what if the Princess of love shipped them heavily. So what if Rainbow was encouraging Shy to confess her feelings for Rarity. Twilight realised that in her head, she had thought the name 'Rarity' with extreme distaste. That would not do. That was not friendship. She corrected herself by mind-speaking her friend's name like she imagined Fluttershy would. 'RawRawRarityRaaaaw!' Twilight tried not to throw up from the thought alone. So after considerable effort she did not end up vomiting onto the shrunken plastic castle in front of her. Oh. She must have somehow made it back to her home from Fluttershy's without noticing any of the usual cheer that Ponyville ponies would have doubtlessly dished out. She shuddered as the De-bigulator worked its magic. It didn't feel like magic though. Even before the magic of friendship was unveiled to her, she had loved the study, and practice of non-friendship based magic, immensely. But today seemed intent upon destroying her heart completely. Thankfully her books remained. They were her first love. But also her other unrequited love, because there was no book that felt the same about her as she did for it. Or maybe, just maybe, there was one that came close. “Spike, I’m gonna write to the human world, do you want me to pass on any message for you?” “Hey Twilight, say, if you do pass on would I get your castle?” ”No, if I pass on you get an orphanage, young sir.” “Sweet I’ve always wanted to have kids of my own! So prepare to die, my wish is coming true this day.” Spike tried to engulf the princess in his fire breath. But Twilight had made a whole list of defences against such a flaming death since he had ‘accidentally’ burnt that one book on constellations, just before a certain owl entered their lives. The simplest method of defeating fire, was to stop it at the source. Thus she activated her magic once more by remembering the happy memory of... Ah yes, herself looking into Spike’s adorable face for the first time, just after she had hatched him. The magic grew inside of her, allowing her to mould it into a teleportation spell that, with surgical precision, removed Spike's lungs. The lungs lay on the floor between them. So Twilight walked over to them. Pushed them towards the dragon that was now unable to breathe, and so lay powerless on the floor. "What it?" She moved the respiratory organs further towards him giving him hope. “Can’t have it!” She was having the time of her life, making the most obscure reference. Spike turned his little face to her in pain. Pleading with his eyes, to save him from the fate she was seemingly imposing upon him. With a flash of light, and the memory of eleven seconds ago when she avoided death in the most intelligent of ways. Spike found that new lungs were rapidly growing inside his chest. He would not die this day. What a win! He ran up to hug Twilight, accidentally kicking aside the old lungs of his on his way, and launched himself at her. He got something warm and red on her coat, which was probably from the kitchen, and most certainly not from his blood vessels.  “So,” Spike said, “what was that about the human world?” “Oh yeah, I’d actually nearly forgotten. Thanks Spike, I knew that I kept you around for some reason.” And with that she pranced off to the library to get a special book. She just hoped to Celestia, that the other books wouldn’t be jealous.  With the book, quill, and ink retrieved Twilight sat down and thought of a plan.  ‘H E L P’ She wrote, using up a whole page for each letter of the word. Then finished the message off on the fifth new page of the book. ‘With my platonic love, that is intrinsic to our general friendship, Princess Twilight Sparkle.’ While waiting for the former terrific member of Canterlot high, Sunset Shimmer, to respond she got up and retrieved a piece of parchment out of the closet. It was of a rare black colour. Dark like the contents of a mind capable of the teleportation of the lungs to the outside of a ten year old friend. Twilight liked to look at the paper from time to time. It reminded her of a time when the very same parchment had been pristine and blank. When she still had had a blank flank, and was trying to get her cutie mark in being a lesbian. A cutie mark would help her with coming out to her family. So she had sneaked out in her ninja costume to go round her female classmates houses, ones that she had already arranged kissing times with. That had however come to an end, when Stout Shield, captain of the royal guard at the time, caught her. He had made a strange point of telling her that, there was definitely no reason that he was out. Then his eyes shifted about. He had continued to tell her while marching her home that he most certainly did not want to kiss Princess Celestia. She had gone on to get her cutie mark in magic. It had been that day that she had resolved to tell her parents that she liked mares, but had put it off that day, and every day since.  Now she was in the current day putting it off yet again, when she felt growing tremors from the ground. Not one to miss an opportunity, she ordered Spike to pour her a glass of water. She was watching the surface ripple, and imagining she was in that one Dino movie. This was interrupted by the sounds of Spike running off, and moments later the activation sounds of the De-bigulator, then a voice.  “I’ve taken a dragon hostage, and I demand to speak to the owner of this castle!” Well Twilight only knew one pony besides herself, that could stop a dragon. So the voice must belong to... “Hey Fluttershy. Where did you find a dragon in these parts?” Twilight walked to greet the yellow one, then rounded a corner to find an angry Rainbow Dash and a struggling Spike in her grip. The lavender alicorn realised her mistake immediately, she had never taught spike any self defence against pegasi. She also mistook Shy for Dash but really who could blame her, as all pegasi look and sound the same to Twilight. Rainbow responded, “Don't try and change the subject, and don’t say Fluttershy’s name, you false friend!” Twilight was alarmed by this. Had what she had done really constituted ‘changing the subject’? Why couldn’t she say that name? And what was a ‘friend’ Ms. Sparkle was super sure that she had never heard that word before. Rainbow wasn’t giving her the time to think properly, as she continued saying stuff, like words, ya know, “So giving me the silent treatment huh? Well three can play at that game.” The blue pegasus made not a noise, as she covered Spike’s mouth with a wing. ---------- Meanwhile at Celestia’s royal chamber of solitude. There was a delayed reaction to the magical book she had created years ago. While there were few who knew about the dimension crossed pairs of connected books. Only 'Celly from the Telly' knew about the triplet to the presumed twin of books. This book allowed her to read everything that was written in either the human world’s book to its Equestrian copy, or vice-versa. Noting that Twilight needed ‘H E L P’ with something, and recalling that she had not checked up with the young alicorn for over a year. The oldest pony on the planet decided to send the young one; mail! ---------- Rainbow’s wing had a small hole burnt into it, but don't worry, it was getting larger as the panicking mare ran about. Green flames growing and growing, raising the temperature of the hallway slightly. All the while, Spike who was not yet free of her hold, was carried round and round the hallway. Twilight was primarily concerned with the letter which spike had fired out, it was obviously for her. She reasoned that if she did nothing, it might get trampled. So she tried to get a grip on it with her hooves, realised hooves are terrible for absolutely everything, and grabbed it with her teeth. Oh now that's interesting, the letter was from her favourite princess, Celestia. At least that was her hopeful guess, it was rather difficult to concentrate with all the screaming. So Twilight didn't even attempt to concentrate but instead to focus, focus on a super happy memory, one of her first memories in fact. This was also the moment that started everything. It was the one of herself going to the toilet. Wait, no, wrong memory! Hmmm. That’s it, seeing Celestia for the very first time, at the summer sun celebration. With the memory all set, she spell casted away. First bubbles of silence fixed onto Rainbow and Spike’s heads. Then a temporary force field of imminent vacuum around the flaming wing to put it out. Lastly she transfigured the ordinary scroll into a Howler and patiently waited for it to start screaming at her. There was some considerable amount of magical energy left over from the happy memory's energy. Realising this Twilight simply donated that to her favourite charity, ‘The I’m Not Tirek Trying To Escape Using Your Magic Fund’. Or TINTTTEUYMF as the hot chicks call it. Speaking of hot, was something burning? Oh right the howler should start yelling right about… “SO TWILIGHT SPARKLE MY MOST FAITHFUL GRADUATE,” screeched the howler, ” THIS IS CELESTIA HERE ASKING FOR NO PARTICULAR REASON REALLY IF YOU NEED ANY H E L P?” The folded paper then ended its transmission in the formal way, by ripping itself to tiny bits. Rainbow Dash didn't let Twilight even begin to respond, she was after all completely unaccustomed to being ignored for such a length of time. Thus Dash used her few recollections of gorilla sign language to communicate the following: ‘This Rainbow is gonna start killing, if she didn’t get her answers!’ Twilight understood none of this, but she did read the subtitles that appeared at the bottom of the screen. So the message was received, and the lavender alicorn asked, "Um, what answers did you want specifically? Surely you don’t need a simple princess like myself, to help you find the truth, right?" Rainbow responded the only way she knew how, by screaming in such a violent way that a small noise leaked out of the bubble of silence still around her head. This was of course adorable so Twilight squeed in delight. Which in turn caused Dash to get all up in Twilight’s face. Dash was not in a delight causing mood! So it came to pass, that Rainbow while still holding the dragon named Spike. Stood right next to the Princess of Friendship, and was about to lay down the law. “I have platonic love for my gay sister Fluttershy and you should too, you anti-friend-equation-ist you!” Is what Dash tried to communicate to Twilight, but you know, the bubble of silence strikes again. Seeing this but hearing nothing, the alicorn decided to finally kill the bubbles. Which crumbled and died, ironically making a few noisy protests, insults and questions like: 'Why give me life only to kill me? I won't go quietly. You suck!'  Twilight smiled the smile of a bubble murderer.  Meanwhile Rainbow tried to calm herself after witnessing the bubbly deaths. "I guess you are actually the one with the most experience in killing, huh."  Twilight continued her smile and gave a nod.  "So teach me." "What like how to use unicorn magic?" "Yeah."  "What, like have you ascend, thereby becoming an alicorn too?" "Yeah." "What, like you being a princess of gay pride?" Twilight said, while pointing at Rainbows most colourful hair.  "Actually it's Fluttershy who is gay." Rainbow responded lazily pointing in the general direction of the cottage. "Why are you saying this in front of Spike, if you are mad at me for finding out?" "Oh, I'm just mad that you left food in the open near the cottage. That food is not for critters and if any of them had taken a bite. Instant death. I just used the whole you are a bad friend thing, to add length to my rant. I rather like being mad." Rainbow quickly explained.  "So is that all you just wanted to stop by tell me to be more careful around animals, and yell while doing so?" Rainbow Dash smiled, and finally put Spike back down to the floor. Then she zoomed off back in the direction of Fluttershy's cottage (after activating the Re-bigulator of course).  This made twilight grumpy. "Well I guess, I'll have to close the door then." She tried to do just that with her hooves. Remembered for the second time that day, that they were absolutely useless and closed up with her mouth instead. Then she used her mouth to talk! "I'm just glad my little brother didn't hear any of that." Wiping the sweat from her brow she turned around to find her little brother, and he was hearing all of that! "Er, Twilight what was that about?"  "Spike were you eavesdropping?" Twilight asked cautiously, trying to keep the shock from her voice, while more sweat appeared on her brow.  "Um, I was here the whole time, remember?" He looked worried about something, most likely the possibility of getting told off. "So you were eavesdropping then, in that case how much did you hear?" She needed to know. The truth would hurt sure, but she needed to know.  "Literally all of it, seriously what is up with you today?" He must be getting inpatient with the lecture before it even begun.  "Well it clearly went over your head, being that it was a conversation on mature subjects." She gently condescended.  "I’m ten and a half, also it's modern times so how would it go over my head exactly?" Why was he bringing age into this? Was he homophobic as well as ageist? This might be more tricky than expected.  "Well, you should know that It’s wrong to think less of ponies for their sexual orientation." A lesson worth of sending to Princess Celestia herself.  "DO YOU THINK I'M DENSE!?" Well look at the baby, all tuckered out from a hard day of learning not to judge others. "I'm so proud of you for finally seeing the light, and not judging others based on things like this." So they walked off together into the library, which was just past the kitchen area. When suddenly there was a relatively large explosion behind them.  Twilight grinned. "Well, that would be the alcohol you made!" Spike froze and looked at her terrible teeth. "Errr…" "Looks like the end of my day will be spent helping you clean up the mess in the kitchen after all. Race ya!" So they ran towards the melting remains of a kitchen made of plastic. Hoping that the toxic fumes being produced wouldn't kill them both.