//------------------------------//
// Bubble Bubble Toil And Trouble, Part 2 
// Story: Mare Do Well: Rebirth 
// by MagnetBolt 
//------------------------------//

Sometimes Black Valintino thought he was the only sane pony in the city. It wasn’t like he hadn’t tried to explain things to others. He’d made speeches about the incredible potential Seasaddle held, he’d told ponies about his vision for the future, and he’d even had private meetings with some of the other ponies that had risen to power. The last of those was the most disappointing. They were pointlessly, blindly greedy. Most of them could only see to the end of the next financial quarter and could only evaluate things in terms of bits.
It made Black’s heart hurt, because they could do so much more if they’d just all work together.
He sighed and stepped away from the window. It was a beautiful view, but it was also depressing in some ways and he couldn’t keep his guest waiting. Even if he was paying her, it was silly to pay her to wait.
The pony, which was a term he was generously using, sat on the edge of his desk and sipped on her fourth soda in the last fifteen minutes.
“You know that stuff isn’t good for you,” Black said, sitting down. It put his guest’s head above his, but he didn’t care about silly little displays of dominance. She could kill him in an instant if she really wanted. But she wouldn’t get paid for doing that.
“I get low blood sugar,” the glass pony said. Vitria smiled and polished off the last of her soda. “Besides, it’s not like it can rot my teeth.”
“I suppose not,” Black agreed. “The news about PrinTecca is all over the papers this morning. The CEO said they’re hoping to rebuild and be back to normal in just a few weeks.” He sat back and gave Vitria a flat look.
“I still destroyed the prototypes you wanted destroyed. Your market position is secure, and I’d better still get paid.”
“You will be,” Black assured her.
“I would have done more damage, but I was interrupted,” she said. “I got to meet one of your local celebrities.”
“Oh?” Black asked.
“Mare Do Well. She got there even before the police. I admit it’s my fault -- I was playing with her too much and I got distracted.” Vitria shrugged. “She’s tougher than she looks. I think I felt some kind of armor under that spandex.”
“You know, I owe her my life,” Black said. “Or at least, halfway. She saved me from a different Mare Do Well with better fashion sense. I’ve been hoping I could leave her alone, as a favor. After all, getting rid of the criminal element is important. That’s the whole reason I donate so much to our wonderful local police.”
Vitria reached for a fifth bottle of soda, striking the neck on the edge of the desk and popping off the cap. Black winced, trying not to look at the mark she’d left. “Big enough donations that they show up late when PrinTecca’s alarms go off?” She took a big drag of the drink.
Black hesitated for a moment, watching with interest as the darker cola flowed into her liquid insides, spreading out and vanishing like cream mixing into coffee.
“A few ponies in the department understand that it’s important to cooperate with local business interests,” Black said. “They keep me informed of events, and I pass along my thanks from time to time.”
“We’re not being recorded. You can just say you bribe them.”
“I don’t like to think of it like that,” Black said. “It’s the cost of doing business and reducing the number of rogue elements.”
“Rogue elements like Mare Do Well?” Vitria asked.
Black sighed and stood up, pacing behind his desk. “It’s a tough thing, isn’t it? She could have been a real asset, but I can’t have her interfering in my business. Not when things are going to come to a head soon. I need this nipped in the bud.”
“Fifty thousand,” Vitria said.
Black raised an eyebrow. “That’s less than your usual fee. She doesn’t seem like particularly easy prey.”
Vitria nodded and leaned over on the desk seductively, or at least as seductive as a glass sculpture with something sloshing around inside it could be. “Quite the opposite. She seems like she’ll be fun to play with. The discount is because I’m going to enjoy this.”





“Did you call the Seasaddle PD?” Mare Do Well asked, looking through the broken skylight. She could see flashing red lights inside from the tripped alarm, but nothing else was visible from the outside.
“I was able to get a message through,” Bon-Bon said. “I thought they’d be more resistant to it but they’ve given you the go-ahead and they’ve got ponies on the way as backup.”
“I guess Detective Arabica was serious about wanting to work with us instead of against us,” Mare Do Well said.
“If it means I don’t have to submit an expense report for bail funds, I’m all for it,” Bon-Bon said.
“I’m going in. I’ll keep you updated,” Mare Do Well said. She slipped through the broken skylight and dropped down to the floor. The building was some kind of machine shop, with steam hammers and power tools surrounding Mare Do Well. A few half-finished steel pieces like mass-produced plate mail lay in boxes here and there.
She looked around, trying to see anything through the gloom, and the machines around her roared to life. Hammers slammed down on base plates, arc furnaces roared to life, saws buzzed just out of sight. Mare Do Well froze in place. The sodium lights overhead buzzed and hummed, starting to warm up.
“We got interrupted last time,” said a familiar, light voice. “I really hate it when I feel like I leave a job unfinished, you know?”
“Vitria,” Mare Do Well growled.
“I’d say ‘in the flesh’ but both of us know that’s not strictly true,” Vitria said. She stepped into sight behind a production line moving red-hot ingots from one machine to the next.
“I thought I might run into you,” Mare Do Well said. “What are you here for? Who do you work for?”
“I don’t kiss and tell. My client pays a premium so he doesn’t have to get his hooves dirty, I’m not going to drag him into it. But I can tell you about my job. I’m here just to take care of you, Mare Do Well.”
“I came prepared this time,” Mare Do Well said, backing up to get some distance between them.
“Good. Show me what you’ve got!” Vitria’s sides exploded, and two tendrils grabbed onto the conveyor belt in front of her, tearing it apart and flipping it towards Mare Do Well, glowing ingots going everywhere.
Mare Do Well ducked behind a milling machine, letting the heavy equipment take the beating in her place. The bolts holding it to the floor squealed and snapped, and Mare Do Well watched as Vitria lifted it up, the half-empty glass mare trotting forward and looking smug.
“You can’t hide,” Vitria said.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Mare Do Well said. She reached under her cape and pulled out a brightly-colored toy. Vitria hefted the heavy machine high, and Mare Do Well fired, a stream of water hitting one of the glass mare’s liquid tentacles and splashing through it. The monster looked up in surprise as she lost her grip on the milling machine. It came down right on top of her, shattering her body.
“I brought along something special just for you,” Mare Do Well said. “I saw how much you liked the sprinkler system last time we fought.” She swapped the plastic tank of the water gun out with another, pumping it a few times to pressurize it. “Lucky for you it’s been a dry couple of days, or you wouldn’t be able to operate here at all, would you?”
“Oh, you are clever,” Vitria said, shoving the broken machine aside. Glass shards started coming back together, broken legs reforming as she put herself back together like a puzzle.
Mare Do Well sprayed her down again, keeping her from reassembling.
“Hey, I need ideas on how to put her down for the count,” Mare Do Well said. “I’m pretty sure this squirt gun is just making her angry.”
“Maybe extreme temperature?” Lyra suggested. “Even if she’s made of goo she has to boil or freeze at some point.”
Mare Do Well nodded to herself, trying to herd Vitria towards the glowing furnaces that were churning out the metal ingots. Shattered and oozing more like a shapeless puddle than anything pony-shaped, Vitria didn’t seem to notice until she backed up all the way to the burning hot machines.
A burst of flame sputtered out of the furnace, and Vitria’s fizzing surface rippled, steam starting to rise from her body.
“I think it might be working,” Mare Do Well said.
Vitria lunged to the side, trying to get away from the heat, surging like a fountain and trying to skip over the concrete floor. Mare Do Well fired her water gun, and the empty tank sputtered air.
“Not now!” Mare Do Well hissed. She grabbed her last plastic tank, trying to screw it into place. Vitria tore the cover off a drain set in the floor and disappeared down into it.
“What happened?” Bon-Bon asked.
“She’s gone. Went down the drain.” Mare Do Well frowned. “Any idea where it goes?”
“That’s a machine shop, so for safety reasons, it can’t go right into the sewer. Some kind of underground holding tank?”
The concrete floor started to buckle.
“I was wrong,” Mare Do Well said. “She decided to stick around after all!”
The floor shattered, a tendril whipping through the air and cracking against Mare Do Well’s fetlock, ripping into her costume and knocking the water gun out of her hoof. It skittered across the floor, and she dove for it. Another liquid limb snatched it up, squeezing the plastic until it cracked before tossing it across the room.
“There’s one other weakness she might have,” Bon-Bon said. “It says that she doesn’t have a lot of endurance. She burns through her energy quickly and has to find something to eat.”
Mare Do Well lowered her stance, trying to keep on her hooves as the entire floor rumbled. “Does she eat ponies?”
“No, mostly sugar,” Bon-Bon.
“So at least she isn’t a cannibal,” Lyra said.
“Lucky me!” Mare Do Well shouted. She bolted, instinct telling her to move. The concrete exploded where she’d been standing, Vitria pulling herself out of the drainage system and looking much more composed, still shattered but mostly in a pony shape, her mane blown out and tendrils waving in the air around her.
“Get back here!” Vitria yelled.
“You’ll have to catch me first!” Mare Do Well shouted, running for the front door and bursting through it. Part of her was hoping for rain when she got outside but it was still a beautiful night. Four police ponies, weapons drawn, were jogging towards the door.
“Stay back!” Mare Do Well warned. “She’s right behind me! Get to cover!”
They didn’t understand until Vitria ripped the door off its hinges and stormed out, throwing the steel panel like a discus. Mare Do Well shoved one of the cops out of the way, the broken door slicing through the air where she’d been standing.
“I’ve got to get her away from the police! She’ll just tear through them!”
“Don’t bring her back here,” Bon-Bon warned.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” Mare Do Well muttered. “Let’s see if she wants me badly enough to run a little marathon.”
Mare Do Well ran for it, hopping over train tracks and trying to keep ahead of Vitria without getting too far ahead. Just enough to be a tempting target. The glass pony gave chase, running onto the train tracks.
There was a loud whistle. Mare Do Well and Vitria both looked to the side in surprise. Neither of them had seen the train coming. It smashed into Vitria and kept going.
“I wasn’t expecting that,” Mare Do Well admitted. She paused and looked. There was no sign of Vitria. “Maybe she splattered for good?”
A glass dagger ripped through Mare Do Well’s hat, slicing a wide cut through the brim.
“Nope! Not splattered!” Mare Do Well jumped back as Vitria pulled herself out from under the speeding train.
“This is so annoying,” the liquid mare said. A dozen thin tendrils pulled themselves into the open, weaving into four limbs. Her glass frame was more like porcupine spines than an exoskeleton. “My face got shattered again! I swear sometimes I think I put it back together wrong. I don’t even have anypony I can ask, because most ponies who see me don’t live to meet me twice!”
Mare Do Well ran for it, glass raining down around her like she was being pursued by an archer. There was a tangle of light industry, small factories bunched up together in rented spaces in a maze designed more for delivery carts and cargo than ponies.
She looked left and right at the small factories around her, trying to find some kind of inspiration. Then a sign to the left caught her attention, and Mare Do Well ran for it
“I’ve got an idea,” she said, over the radio. “If this doesn’t work, it’ll be really stupid. If it does work, it’ll be really clever.”.
“You have no idea where you’re even going,” Vitria said. “Why not stop running and fight fairly? I might make it quick. Maybe.”
Mare Do Well kicked the door, breaking the lock and running inside, hitting the lights. When Vitria followed her in, the glass monster laughed.
“Are you trying to be ironic? This is a soda factory!” She grabbed a case of empty bottles and threw them at Mare Do Well, chasing her deeper inside. “I was just getting thirsty, too!”
“Then come and get a tall drink of defeat,” Mare Do Well said.
“That line was awful,” Lyra muttered.
“Shut up, this is going to work,” Mare Do Well hissed.
Vitria slowly walked towards her. She looked exhausted. Her tendrils were dripping more, and she was leaving a trail on the floor like a slug, like she was just barely keeping herself up, especially with her glass shell in such bad shape.
She paused and looked to the side, and even though she didn’t have a face at the moment, Mare Do Well could practically see the growing grin. A pallet of bags was sitting there, some of them leaking from tiny rips.
“Oh that’s just what I need,” Vitria said. She tore the bags open, ripping through the plastic and letting the white powder inside fall out. “Ah! It’s so sweet!”
Mare Do Well took a step back, just watching.
“Don’t tell anypony, but I just love sugar,” Vitria said. “It’s a bad habit. I really do need to get more vitamins. Maybe after I finish you I’ll leave the ponies here a note about making a soda that’s got all the nutrition a pony needs.”
“They might be interested in that,” Mare Do Well said. “They’re very health-conscious here.”
Vitria scoffed and took a step forward. She stumbled as a wave of tiredness suddenly hit her.
“Something’s… wrong...” she whispered.
“This is the Berry Clear factory,” Mare Do Well said. “I saw the sign when we were walking in. They only make diet soda. All those bags weren’t full of sugar. They were full of artificial sweeteners.”
“What?” Vitria asked. “But--”
She reached for Mare Do Well, slumping.
“This isn’t fair,” she moaned, her shape blurring as she sank down. “I can’t… I can’t…”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m sure it’ll be great for your figure.”
Vitria groaned one last time before going still.
Mare Do Well tapped her ear. “Hey, Bon-Bon? Tell the cops it’s safe to enter.”
“I’ll have them bring a mop and bucket.”





“Is that really going to hold her?” Mare Do Well asked, watching the pressure tank get carried away. “I’ve seen her tear through steel.”
Detective Arabica shrugged. “I doubt it, but it’s only temporary. Somepony above my pay grade saw how many countries she’s wanted in and contacted Canterlot. Did I mention how much I hate it when orders come down from above?”
“I’ve heard a few things,” Mare Do Well said.”
“Well, this time I don’t hate it so much. The plan is to get that thing out of my city. It’s probably going to be years before they decide where she’s going permanently. Zebrica has a decent claim since the Princess won’t extradite anyone to Saddle Arabia while they’ve still got the death penalty.”
“So, what, they’re taking her to Canterlot?” Mare Do Well asked.
“Better,” Detective Arabica grinned. “They’re going to put her in a neutral country for safekeeping. That mare is on her way up to Yakyakistan!”
Mare Do Well nodded. “She might freeze solid, you know.”
“It probably wouldn’t hurt her permanently,” Arabica said. “Besides, a mare like that is better on the rocks.”