“Breaking News! The Crystal Empire is back! Six mares defeat an ancient evil once more!”
Well, that’s an interesting thing to read once you receive the newspaper for this week. Apparently there’s just some ancient empire, which is a protectorate of Equestria, that’s been sealed away for a thousand years. Oh, and it was ruled by Satan. Wasn’t I supposed to go to Ponyville with Chrysalis so Twilight can dissect us, or whatever? Good thing I’ve not got to pack anything, or buy train tickets. For some reason, every Princess has their own train system, a couple chariots, and were willing to let me and Chrysalis use either depending on which we would prefer. Right now however…
“Skitter, no,” I said, stomping my hoof on the ground. This cannot be happening. When Chrysalis assigned me these guards, I never expected them to turn on me like this. How could they think that this was acceptable? It’s not! What the fuck, Chryssy?
“But… why not? Surely this would be a good combination of flavors,” my guard said.
“Skitter, you’re telling me to put pineapple on pizza,” I said before taking said pineapple and sticking it back on the counter, as far from the drone as possible. “Putting pineapple on pizza is like you telling Queen Chrysalis fat. I would go straight to hell for baking pineapple pizza, and you’d be zapped into a pile of ashes for calling the Queen fat.”
“No I wouldn’t, Queen Chrysalis is actually very gentle in her handling of us… but she would get pretty mad if I called her ugly. Why would pineapple be bad anyways? Surely the sauce on the pizza would go well with the taste of pineapple,” Skitter grabbed a pineapple, his hoof quickly turned into a knife(that’s pretty cool, not gonna lie), and quickly diced it up into small pieces. “I want to try it, and I’m sure ponies would enjoy the taste of fruit on their pizza.”
“Cooked fruit is a mistake, Skitter. Apple pie, banana chips, putting pineapple on a pizza before baking it, all of that is a mistake. Like you’re pretty much ruining the nice, fresh taste that says… an apple is supposed to have, while still making sure it tastes like an apple. An apple should only be enjoyed fresh, not inside of a pie. Same with pineapple. I love me some pineapple, but I am not baking that shit into the crust of my pizza-“ Skitter sprinkled some pineapple onto the pizza and stuck it in the oven before I could finish my rant.
(Somewhere in the distance, an orange mare’s ear twitched. Her eyes twitched soon afterwards)
“You’re fired,” I said. Skitter began to look genuinely scared about that. Oh right, Changelings stick to their duties and love said duties. I jokingly fired Scatter a week ago, and she looked ready to go hang herself. Luckily, Scatter is simply sleeping and not hanging from a noose, as I only ‘need’ one guard inside of my own home. As for where Chrysalis is currently, she’s helping her Hive get settled into the cavern system I suggested she and her Hive could move into.
In turn, Skitter and Scatter moved in, and managed to make a little fort under my bed, and seem to actually enjoy how cramped it is under there. Changelings are just built differently apparently, since they crawl under and out from under the bed, and snap up like they slept on the comfiest mattress on the planet. Meanwhile, I am paralyzed for five seconds if I stub my hoof against the table while getting up from my seat. Oh right, Skitter.
“You’re not actually fired. I’m mostly just joking around with you and Scatter. We’re technically roommates now, and this is what me and my roommate used to do… up until he got arrested for murder, which he was very guilty for, so you know.” I wrapped an arm around my guard, who freezes up at the touch. “You and Scatter need to lighten up, I’m a comedian, not an ambassador; I tell jokes. Chrysalis just thinks you two need to babysit me, or I’ll accidentally melt into a puddle.
“Now, make sure that timer is set to the right time and tell me how you like your pineapple pizza. I’m actually kinda curious what you’ll think of that, and if I’ve finally acquired a taste for pineapple on pizza,” I instructed. So, I spent the last week or so, just teaching my Changelings how to cook pizza. I told them about my idea of starting a pizza business after they’ve taste tested for me, and they wanted to help.
I offered to pay them, but they declined… I don’t want to do slavery, so I asked what they would want if they had money. It turns out that they’re perfectly happy with being able to just absorb ambient love while selling pizza, so that’s pretty cool. These guys are awesome by the way, learning the most efficient sauce to sauce coverage ratio in a week, and overall, were faster than me at making pizza. I swear, Changelings are amazing. They can transform, change their limbs into whatever tools they need, and can systematically learn how to do something as efficiently as possible.
Also, occasionally Scatter would ask for cuddles to fuel her magic up; she was huge on cuddles. Skitter, not being as heavily reliant on magic, says he only needs ambient love from the ponies who pass by outside. I guess that’s why I like Skitter so much, since he’s like me in a way. We both can use magic, but have a preference of not relying on it. By the way, I learnt that hooves on Changeling neck makes Changeling puddy. What? I have two Changelings, I might as well experiment with them.
Skitter was willing to participate a seventh time after he received a neck rub.
Was being cuddly just a thing with Changelings? They can gather a lot of love through it, according to Chrysalis, so that might explain their love for cuddles on an instinctual level. Meanwhile, some Changelings could just want to be held more than others, and then their instincts help fuel their desire for being cuddle bugs. I’m not complaining, but it’s just an interesting thing…
Fuck, I’m actually gonna be kinda useful when I visit Ponyville. I know that Changelings instinctively like to cuddle, and that’s an extra thing I know that ponies don’t know.
Oh the timer went off and… Skitter was immediately at the over, quickly getting the pizza out, and then set it on the table. “Remember-“
“Yes, wait exactly two minutes, five seconds, and 500 milliseconds before I eat the pizza. That way, I won’t burn myself on it.”
“Of course you’d figured out an exact time you should wait before eating a freshly cooked pizza.”
“Of course, we need to when you open up the pizza stand you mentioned… when do you plan on doing that?” The Changeling asked.
“Probably after we visit Ponyville. We still need to acquire a portable oven before we can even begin to plan anything like the name, or what types of pizza we’ll be selling,” I shrugged. “And luckily, running a cart is way cheaper than owning a restaurant. We gotta find out a budget, what price we should sell pizzas for, and even then we don’t have a budget.”
“Can I do it?” Scatter asked from under the bed.
“Depends, how good are you at math?”
“Ask me a math problem that you’d find hard, sir.”
Without any hesitation, Scatter answered, “What is seventy times five, divided by two.”
“175.” Damn, spot on, buggy.
“Okay… I guess I can let you work out the finances of running a business…” I could hear Scatter clap as she squealed from under the bed. Even if it was a tiny bit muffled because she had food in her mouth. I paused for a second, before taking another shot at these bugs. “Alrighty, are you sure you two don’t want to get paid in bits once the stand is, y’know, a thing?”
“We’re just happy to be helping you. We don’t really need bits for food, since we can easily live off of love. We only eat food if love isn’t enough, or if we just really want to eat a sandwich, sir,” Skitter said.
“What about using bits on things you can do in your free time? I’m sure you’d like puzzles, or whatever.”
“Well, we Changelings do like crossword puzzles, word searches, and word jumbles. I personally really enjoy word searches, while the Queen really likes crossword puzzles,” Skitter said.
“I’ll pay you bits, and then you can go buy books filled with those puzzles,” I said.
“Okay sir. But about Chrysalis and her crossword puzzles-“
“You think me and Chryssy can be a couple, don’t you?”
“Well, you’re the only pony that we know of that can call Chrysalis ‘Chryssy’ without immediately getting their neck broken. You two would be a cute couple, and it would be nice for the Hive as a whole to see Chrysalis genuinely happy and in love again…” Skitter shrugged before cutting out of his pizza. Immediately, Scatter came crawling out, swiped a piece, and swallowed it whole. Her eyes went wide, magicked up a paper plate, and stole another couple slices before retreating to under the bed. “It could also just be nice to give her on Hearth's Warming Day.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. So how’s the pizza?”
Skitter smiled like an idiot. “It’s good sir.”
I took a bite and felt repulsed… the slight sliminess that the pineapple had did not mix well with marinara sauce. I went over to the ice box, grabbed a random drink out of it, and emptied it in two seconds. “Okay, the pizza itself is good, Skitter, great job. I just fucking hate pineapple on pizza.”
“I know sir, it’s why I got you to eat some. The look on your face was hilarious,” Skitter said. Scatter, who was still under the bed, had watched the whole thing and there was a twinkle of amusement in those big, blue eyes that seemed nice and lifeless on the surface. Changeling eyes are very expressive once you spend enough time around the bugs. Skitter then transformed into me, and did the face I assume I made after I tasted the demon pizza.
“Okay… rude,” I said before both me and Skitter started laughing. Skatter was giggling under the bed, before she came crawling out, and stole the rest of the pizza while Skitter and I were wiping the tears out of our eyes. Skitter steeled himself and blinked a couple of times. “And ponies are scared of you Changelings.”
“Well, we did have a tendency to foalnap ponies. Ponies tend to not enjoy being foalnapped and getting the love sucked out of them.”
“Okay, yeah, that would be a genuine reason not to like you guys. Maybe I’m just a weirdo, but you never know. I just find you and Scatter to be pretty cool, and Chrysalis is also pretty cool.”
“And pretty,” Scatter said from under her bed fortress. Hmm, nah, I’ll leave that for somebody else to look into.
Later that day, I put my beanie on, and made my way to the door. Neither Skitter or Scatter were in sight, which didn’t bug me that much, since they were probably keeping an eye on me. If they weren’t, then that’s also cool, since I’m not the biggest fan of having guards at all times; I just want to enjoy being an idiot without anybody to watch me be an idiot. Anywho, I was heading down to the Canterlot Royal Library to hopefully learn the intricacies of Equestrian law, since I’m an ambassador now and I need to know laws. Since that would be really helpful when trying to negotiate terms for Changelings. I may hate being an ambassador, but I might as well do a good job at being one, right?
It would be doing a disservice to Changelings, since I consider three of them to be my friends, if I were to half ass my job.
The moon was at its apex in the sky, but that wasn’t very telling of the time, since apparently it always sits there after Luna raises it. Anyways, I stated my business to a couple of guards, got allowed in after I showed them a signed document from Princess Celestia herself, and one of them actually led me down to the library. I may say a lot of mean things about the guards, but they are actually very willing(and happy) to help. Now, stopping the second coming of the antichrist? They probably can’t do that. Lead a dumbass to a library so he can read a book he won’t understand? They can do that extremely well. Apparently some stallion that can barely walk can knock them out really easily, but we’ll just pretend like these guys won’t get their asses handed to them in a fight.
The first thing I noticed when I walked into the library was just how fucking fancy the thing wasn’t. Yes, it was nicer than any public library I’ve been into, but it just looked like a really nice school library, but even bigger. The shelves were cleaned, there was no dust anywhere, books of any genre were organized nicely. It was… a library, truly an excellent observation I know. I set my saddle bag on a table, which surprised me. There were tons of tables in here, but I don’t think just anybody would be allowed to be within these walls without permission. I’m an alien, an ambassador, and I still needed a Princess’s approval just to walk in here without being denied!
Anywho, I walked over to the law section, grabbed a couple of books which were about the basics of laws and geopolitics on Equus, and moved back to my seat. The books were… actually interesting which is a shocker since they looked like textbooks. The law book explained the basic laws on Equestria, some more advanced ones, and even a couple of obscure ones in great detail. Apparently, if you boop a princess on the nose, you have to marry them or they stop being a princess. Good thing nobody’s ever done that before. And that will totally not be abused if anybody finds out about this law. It also explained each law in a real life situation, which for once, was actually accurate. None of those dumb math questions that went:
If Billy buys seventy apples, eats two, and gets six more, how many apples does he have?
Like Billy, if you can’t solve that shit on your own without my help, then you need to go back to school. It’s fucking seventy-four apples, you dunce. Why the fuck do you even have seventy apples? What single person could need that many apples? You stupid little-
Okay, I might hate math, mostly ‘real life math problems’ a lot. Thank god for Scatter, am I right? Maybe if I ever find a way back home, then I’ll steal Scatter to help me with college level trigonometry. Because that’s what every comedian needs, trigonometry to tell jokes. I chuckled to myself at how dumb that was as I began to scan through the other book. The first book was relatively thin given the contents of the book, but this one was slightly thicker. Thankfully all I needed was the basics of how Equestria was doing with other nations… and low and behold, the country run by two goddesses was on good terms with just about every country in the world. From centars, zebras, horses, cows, fucking griffins, Equestria was on good terms with them. Nothing about humans, and apparently the last nation, the Sasquatches, went extinct after trying to wipe out a whole village in Equestria.
Note to self; do not tell the USA of this place, we will lose even if we’ve got nukes.
Another cool thing to note, is that apparently Equestrian females just outnumber males, for whatever fucking reason. Whatever that implies, I don’t want to know. I assume that means that mares are likely to date other mares, and many mares might share a singular stallion. Harems, can’t wait to get one, and promptly put a bullet in my head. I just… I don't feel like doing that. Even if it’s normal, if I ever fall in love with a horse, I’m going to stick to that one horse, since what’s the point of a relationship if you can’t give it one hundred percent? Can’t give that if you’re splitting it between two people.
“Ah, so that is why you aren’t asleep,” I jumped, and didn’t go ‘EEP!’ when I heard somebody behind me, and that somebody peeked over my shoulder to see what I’m reading.
“Sir are you- nevermind,” Skitter and Scatter, where ever the fuck they were, promptly went back to whereever the fuck they were hiding.
“Luna! How the fuck… oh wait, dream walker, that makes sense now.” I took a deep breath while Luna took a chair within her magic, and settled it next to me.
“So, why are you reading about Equestria’s male to female ratio and what it implies?” Luna asked.
“I’m not gonna lie, I got distracted while reading up on Equestrian law. This is something I shoulda done awhile ago, but all I had access to was a book on pony body language.” I grabbed a book with the title ‘Daring Do’ and promptly hid it underneath one of the law books on the table. “I got some serious work done; I’ll forget what the fuck I just read in a week,” I said before chuckling. “Or I’ll remember it all a decade from now, when I might not even be in this universe anymore. It really just depends on how much medicine I take on any given day.”
“Well, on the bright side, I know you are getting work done.” Luna then took the Daring Do book out from under the law book, and opened it up. “You’ve read through half of this book already? You’re at the climax according to this,” she pulled a ruler out from the book. “That… is rather impressive, given that I didn’t think you could read very fast,” she said. She stuck the ruler back in the book where I left off and turned to the start of the book.
“I woulda read the whole thing, but I got bored of it. It’s just kinda… eh? Like it’s a fun read, but I like some more meat to what I’m reading. If it's an adventure book, I want a villain who seems more dangerous than Dr. Doofenshmirtz. I want a villain that’ll stick, like Darth Vader! So I kinda just stopped reading it, because I’ll more than likely be disappointed in the ending.”
Luna raised an eyebrow. “Well, that is a first. A pony who didn’t immediately fall in love with the Daring Do series… but who is Darth Vader?” I chuckled.
(Off in the distance, a rainbow-maned mare’s eye twitched. She felt an unyielding need to punch a pony)
“Just the greatest villain in all of storytelling,” I whipped out a Star Wars book, which I still had for some reason. “And probably a bit gruesome, he does break a guy’s neck within like… the first five minutes of him being introduced.”
“That is a bit violent,” Princess Luna took the book and began to read it. About an hour or so later, she was done reading it, and she looked up at me. “Why does this story set itself up for a sequel?” She slammed the book down and began to peer into my soul. She looked ready to skin me alive for an answer.
“Because there’s two sequels for this book… I uh, don’t really have access to the other two books at the moment. It’s a miracle that I had that book in my butt pocket to begin with.” Both of our stomachs began to growl.
“Don’t worry about getting food, sir,” Skitter and Scatter walked in with a pineapple pizza…
“God dammit Skitter, you had one job, and you fuck-” Skitter then magicked in a plain, cheese pizza. “Nevermind, you’re getting a raise!” Why the fuck are my guards so cool?