So, we’re just gonna pretend like I didn’t just get Celestia’s ex to commit suicide. He was apparently an asshole, like a really big asshole, so Sombra had it coming. On one hand, he’s dead and will actually stay dead, or he’s not and won’t come back for the next couple thousand years. On the bright side, because this place isn’t guarded at all, nobody heard Sombra screaming for mercy. On the other, he could come back, and get him and Celly hooked up again.
Also, how the fuck was he even still in the empire? At a minimum he should’ve been weakened, which he was, but nobody thought to lock him up? Like bro, this guy enslaved your entire city state, and you’re telling me you wouldn’t just break his neck the moment he’s weak and can’t defend himself? Like he was knocked the fuck out before I entered those chambers. Not a soul decided it would be smart to stick a couple hundred guards at his door.
So, I was walking back into the Crystal Castle by night, since Cadence would have still been too drunk to notice me, and it was kinda peaceful. For instance, most of the guards paid me no attention and none of the stupid politicians were talking, so I couldn’t hear them through their poorly soundproofed doors. It would have been perfect if there wasn’t something banging and slight growls coming down the hallway, so that kinda killed the mood.
I rounded a corner and there Luna was, glaring at a vending machine, and snorting as she tried to tip over the vending machine. Now, I would like to keep watching, but I couldn’t just sit by and watch somebody suffer. There’s a very simple way to work around a vending machine sucking, and I knew the key! Luna inserted another bit into the machine with a smug grin, only to snarl at the machine.
It still hasn’t dispensed the Moon Princess’s desired snack of choice.
At this rate, Nightmare Moon will be back, and dead set on blowing up this specific vending machine. It’ll be blown up to smithereens, up and down the streets of the Crystal Empire by the time Nightmare Moon’s done with the machine. “Hey Luna, are you having fun?” One of the guards seemingly shrunk back as the lunar princess turned and glared at me.
“No! This infernal machine won’t release the Frito Nays!” Luna whisper-shouted. You know, like in movies where people whisper, but do it really loudly before they get their asses cut in half by a serial killer? No? Well, just imagine the Canterlot Royal Voice on a very small font size, and then you’ll get the idea of how Luna sounded. “Well? Are you just going to sit there, or are you going to help me?” Luna pouted.
Chrysalis then showed up, inserted a bit into the machine, ordered what looked like some more Frito Nays, which promptly fell to the bottom of the machine, which the Queen collected, and teleported away. Luna’s eye twitched a couple of times at the sight. Me, being the genius I am, sat in front of the machine and tapped my hoof on my chin. Why the fuck is there a Google logo on this thing?
Well, leave it to a tech giant to discover dimensional travel and use it exclusively for self benefit.
“Yo Lulu, what’s the address of the castle? Like the number?”
“It’s 6710, why do you ask? How is that going to-'' I then proceeded to enter the digits into the keypad and the door slid open. I then grabbed the two bags of Frito Nays, which looked suspiciously like Fritos, handed them over to Luna, and then grabbed a random chocolate bar from the machine, and then closed it. “H-how did you? What in Tartarus are your hooves made of?” Luna gasped as she did the same thing and grabbed an extra bag of chips.
“I dunno, I’m surprised that that worked!” A guard, the same one from earlier blinked.
“Sir,” the guard tapped me on the shoulder. “I, on behalf of the Crystal Guard, must thank you, as this vending machine had stolen many bits from us, and you have vanquished it with ease!”
(Back on Earth, a Google employee punched at the air while screaming ‘Fruit Punch!’)
“My guy, don’t sweat it, just don’t arrest me for breaking into a vending machine!”
“Sir, you’re getting an award-“ okay I’m just gonna get the fuck out of here. Oh cool, Chrysalis just dropped in from the ceiling, and dragged me to her room for the night. On the bright side, no praise for doing the dumbest vending machine trick in the world, and Chryssy time? This is gonna be a fun night. “So Chrysalis, how is Cadence doing?”
“Well, she drank some tea, and is currently bouncing off the walls and ceiling of her room. Somebody,” she eyed me. “Must have accidentally spiked up the levels of caffeine in the average cup of tea by a hundred times the usual amount,” she giggled. “So why did you tamper with Cadence’s tea?”
“I was trying to make it alcoholic, since I saw how mad Cadence was after I had beaten the hell out of Shining, and I don’t feel like dealing with an angry alicorn.”
“Well, I told her that you messed with her tea, and she wants to kiss you. In her words ‘this is the best tea I've had in my life’. So your attempt at drugging the Princess of Food has at least succeeded in a way you wouldn’t have expected,” Chrysalis rested her chin on my head. “You know, I saw a nice restaurant somewhere while I was exploring the Crystal Empire for the first time in ages! Since the political meetings have been postponed for three days after today, I was wondering if we can head out.”
“Ah Chryssy, you’re asking me out?” Well, so much for the plan with Luna. Oh well, I know I'll like Chryssy since we’re already good friends.
“Of course, it is customary for the female pony to ask their desired male ponies out on a date. Am I doing something wrong?” Chryssy tilted her head and god dammit, it never gets old!
“Well, with humans, it’s the other way around. So say you’re a cute girl, which you are,” that got Chryssy to blush! Score! “And somebody, me, wants to ask you out on a date, then they ask you. If you want to date me you’re ‘supposed to wait for the guy to ask you. It’s a load of shit sometimes, since some guys are just very introverted and don’t know if they should ask their crush out on a date.
“Oh well, I’m down.”
“And you didn’t try to jump out a window when you found out that a pretty lady asked you out. That's an improvement!”
“So, if this works out, can I be the one that asks you out next time? I wanna know what it’s like to stress over ‘yo, wanna get food together’ since I never got to.”
“Of course, unless I… beat you to the punch!”
“Dammit woman, you know my weakness! Terrible puns!” With that, I started rubbing my mane against the queen’s neck, who was doing her best to squirm away from me, and only failed. You see, Chrysalis kinda trapped me in all four of her long legs, so she scooted back with two, and held onto me with the other two. It was like a really strong, comfy bear trap, which I usually don’t mind being in. And tonight, Chryssy, you will suffer for such comfort!
So the next day, things were going without a hitch. I bought Chrysalis some roses for when we go out on that date later, and I was asked if I saw somebody break into a vending machine and steal four bags of Frito Nays. Obviously I told them that I don’t know what they’re talking about, like the respectable, law abiding citizen I am, and then broke into the same vending machine(with the same method from last night) for a bag of chips when the ponies that questioned me left.
What? It’s ten bits for a single, small bag of chips! That’s a literal scam since you could probably buy the ingredients and make a whole twelve bags for the same money. Anyhow, I decided now would be another good opportunity to explore the Crystal Empire, since all I have to do today is wait for that little date. Okay so, what’s a cool thing to do- why is there just a cult building? Like it’s for Princess Cadence, just sitting out with a big sign on it and nobody cares. Whatever, I’ll just walk in another direction and hope I never see this building ever again.
Eventually I was teleported randomly into a room. I didn’t completely mind since I just started sitting on my ass, contemplating important things, like if ponies were just midget horses. And very important things such as what truly makes a sandwich a sandwich? At some point I started wondering if soap is a byproduct of natural occurrences, or a gift from god. I need to make magical ADHD medicine.
Oh right, teleportation. I was now in a room where Princess Celestia was sitting, and it looked like I was teleported into her guest room. Sunbutt was sitting at a desk, facing me, with a critical eye. “So Fruit, I see that you have been busy recently,” oh god, did she know that I made Sombra evict himself from life? Probably not, it’s not like magical orbs existed that let you spy on people, or that Celestia had access to said orbs. Maybe she saw me break into a vending machine earlier and wanted to know the secret touch.
“Whatever it is that you think I did, I didn’t do it. Your ex killed himself, I didn’t lay a hoof on him.”
“Oh, I know you didn’t kill Sombra, he was defeated by Twilight and her friends nearly a month ago,” she chuckled. “I believe that you might be going insane. I have simply called you here for a favor,” Celestia then magicked up a notebook. “This is mostly out of my personal curiosity, since after Chrysalis might or might not have looted your body while you were unconscious, I have discovered something quite peculiar.”
Wait what?
With that the notebook opened up to a list of magical equations I recognized. Mostly because I wrote one of them and have studied a couple of them while having an episode of ‘I can’t sleep and I am bored’. The alcohol potency spell and a spell I used to increase the capacity of my butt pocket stood out. “I have noticed that you seem very unwilling to show off your magical prowess, since you’ve never use magic around anypony, and I would like to get measurements on where you stand.
“Because being able to simplify a complex spell such as flavor potency and then modifying it for your own purposes is quite the feat for a stallion who seems to be completely incompetent at magic.” Rude.
“So you want me to take a magic level test?” I asked.
“Indeed, this is only to satiate my own curiosity, so if you decline, I won’t mind.”
“How long does it take? I got a date later and I would like to show up for that.”
“All you have to do is,” Celestia conjured up some weird little device. “Zap this a few times on the tip,” I did as instructed and a little meter went up at every magical ‘zap’ I gave it. “Okay, that is enough,” the machine made a couple of noises, it was really old and worn out, and then a cloud of smoke erupted from it. Shortly after, a piece of paper printed out at the bottom, and Celestia began to examine what was written on it.
“You have a seven point five on the magical power scale test,” Celestia clapped her hooves. “That means you’re well above average in magical capabilites. I know several unicorns who would outright overpower you, my student comes to mind. For reference, this scale is for unicorns, a perfect ten would mean that you can rival alicorns. Twilight comes to a very strong nine point eight, whereas the average would be around five to six. Where you can probably lift a few heavy objects at once, but you must focus on doing so.
“In other words, you can probably hold several objects and manipulate them with relative ease; this is without having to focus very hard. In terms of magical comprehension, I can automatically give you a score of six and a half due to just these two spells alone,” Celestia gestured towards the ‘more space spell’ and the alcohol spell I came up with. “So I must ask you a question: Why do you not use your magic more often?”
“I dunno, never really thought about it. On one hand, it’s really useful, but I would rather not want to use it that often. I’m an idiot that likes to crack bad jokes, not some powerful war mage. I prefer not having anybody expect shit out of me, since that would put pressure on me. I had enough of that shit when I was growing up. Or this could all just be a terrible way of saying that I forget to use magic whenever it would be useful.”
The machine farted and shitted out another piece of paper. Wow, that thing is… that’s another fucking Google logo. Well, no wonder it’s on the verge of breaking, it was manufactured over half a century ago. Celestia’s eyes widened and she slowly looked up at me. “Why does it say that you’ve been exposed to dark magic recently?”
Well, cat’s out of the bag now. “So you know how Twilight kicked Sombra’s ass,” Celestia nodded. “Well, he was still kicking and was just napping in his old chambers, and I found this out when I went out to explore this shit. Anyways, he tried to suck me dry of any dark magic I had, failed since I don’t have any to begin with, and then I showed him this blank piece of paper that I enchanted.”
“What did you do to that piece of paper?”
“Cursed it so it always shows people their worst fears. Anyways, Sombra is scared of you wearing a pink dress for some reason. Scared of it to the point that he went and-“
“Oh, so that is why Sombra came to me, begging for protection,” Celestia rubbed her chin as she magicked away a blanket from her bed, and revealed Sombra, who was cowering under the bed. What the fuck? He was a fucking skeleton not even twelve hours ago! “He asked me to keep ‘that foul creature’ away from him and I don’t know why he came running back to me for protection…” Celestia shook her head. “This is why I don’t date anypony, every single one I date ends up being evil.”
“Chrysalis isn’t evil.”
“That’s because she likes you, and is behaving herself so you don’t get in trouble.”
“What in Tartarus Celly? I know I have done horrible things in the past, but then you summon this foul creature to torture me once more?” Sombra began to start crying. Celestia looked ready to give the poor guy a wing hug.
“So, what did you do to my ex to make him so scared of you? Beyond the whole ‘cursed picture’ thing.”
“I saw what was in his mind! Take a look!” I got hit by a yellow, magical beam and Celestia tilted her head. “Well? Do you see what I mean now?”
“Well Fruit, I didn’t know your mind was so dark,” wat?
“What? I was just thinking of what else me and Chryssy were gonna do this evening after dinner.”
“I know, but there’s random bits of ‘what if I eat this?’ or ‘I should scratch my butt’ Celestia giggled. “Nothing too morbid, but it’s quite confusing. I know you have a mental illness of some sort, and it might have broken Sombra.”
I pulled out the cursed piece of paper and showed Sombra again. “Why is he scared of you wearing a dress with a pink mane and tail, if I may ask?”
“Aw, is Sombra still scared of the first of our first date?” Sombra quickly nodded. “Well, I will keep Fruit Punch away from you on two conditions,” Sombra looked up at Celestia with the biggest puppy eyes I’ve ever seen. Scatter could probably outdo him on the puppy eye department, but it was still kinda surprising to see from a magically corrupted pony.
“The first thing would be that you renounce your wicked ways; stop using dark magic,” Celestia’s small ‘I’m a pretty princess’ smile slowly turned into a hopeful smile. “And perhaps we can be a couple again? I do miss how we used to snuggle up on cold days, or how your face would redden when I teased you. Or how you would seize up after I catch you staring at my rear end,” Celestia chuckled when Sombra nodded, and his eyes slowly started turning into a more natural color than blood red. “Well? Do we have a deal?”
“Yes dear,” Sombra said with an… ounce of happiness in his voice. Celestia lowered on all fours and the two of them booped noses. You know what? This was nice, cute and it was kinda nice to see Sombra not be an evil maniac. It was nice and all, but how the fuck is this guy alive? He fucking died, I got him to kill himself, and he’s just here, cowering under Celly’s bed. Now the two were cuddling, and Sombra actually had a happy little smile on his face while Celestia groomed him-
Wait why the fuck am I watching this? Without hesitation, I turned around and quickly walked out of the room. I’m also going to ignore how Celestia just casually forgave Pony Hitler and decided to start cuddling with said Pony Hitler.
Well, it’s almost time to meet Chrysalis at that restaurant she wanted to go to, so I suppose I should actually show up. I get to test out if this will work now, oh sick, it does!
I can teleport!
I was now sitting outside of Chrysalis’s room(we didn’t officially share a room since we were staying in the Crystal Castle). I whipped out a mirror with my magic and made sure I didn’t look completely terrible, which I didn’t; I looked presentable! And pulled out the roses I got for Chryssy. I then knocked on the door and the Queen stepped out while wearing a simple dress.
“Fruit, I said I was going to pick you up, not the other way around!”
Fuck.