//------------------------------// // 3-5 // Story: Heroes Never Die // by Shimmerist Ari //------------------------------// Stuck at work, more importantly, stuck listening to two of the women she was stuck there with talking about the latest news story. Humans did mass shootings just about every day and nobody ever cared about that. But when one pony murdered someone? Then it was all over the news. Everybody lost their freaking minds. “That pony didn’t just kill him either,” said one of the women. “He did it from outside the house. Tore that poor guy to shreds using magic without even coming inside. Ponies can just… do that.” “What makes you do something so brutal?” The other one asked. Pied had a good reason! As far as murder went. A rehumanizer drove his brother to suicide and would never face any justice for that. Not that Ari condoned murdering abusive rehumanizers or anything like that. Obviously. But she did keep getting texts from their offices and frankly could sympathize with the desire to end those bastards. She could at least understand it. Meanwhile humans were out killing people over parking spots and boxes of oatmeal. Both of those happened last week but no mainstream news coverage. “You always hear the ponies repeating their little mantras like ‘ponies are kind’ and all that,” said the other girl. “That’s pretty easily disproven by stuff like this, isn’t it?” The number of murders ponies had committed so far was exactly five. Ari knew that because all of them were highly publicized. The number of murders from humans in that time was far more than a hundred times higher! There had been ten mass shootings in the past week. Of course humans were more violent than ponies! Humans were worse than ponies in damn near every way. How could these people not see that? More and more Ari thought non-Shimmerists were just blind, living in this little anti-reality bubble that shut out all truth. But Ari couldn’t actually say any of that. Not in enemy territory. She couldn’t even say the truth out loud. All she could do was simmer quietly holding her tongue. “You know a lot of them are so convinced by those mantras that they want to bring back ETS to force us all to be ‘kind’ ponies like that murder,” she went on. “The thought that ETS even exists is scary enough. Somebody can just alter your body and mind without your consent now? You have to keep that buried; you know?” “You look really intense right now.” One of them turned to Ari. “Did you have something to say?” Ari froze for a second before regaining her confidence. She’d been practicing for stuff like this. Reading online guides on talking to non-Shimmerists, watching videos, and practicing on the streets. You couldn’t argue people out of their emotions. If they were scared… redirect that fear. ETS legalization? Ari was equipped with an entire armory of Shimmerist talking points on that subject. It’d been like oxygen to her the past few months. She just had to do it in a way that redirected their fear of it. “Honestly? The fact that ETS is so scary is why I think it should be legal,” said Ari. Surprise. That was the first step. “What do you mean?” One of the other girls asked, curious as planned. “ETS is even scarier than all that,” said Ari. “Like a lot. I mean, I don’t care how smart Sunset Shimmer was, she was still just one person. If she could make it, then someone else can make it again. North Korea, Russia, China, and every terrorist group on the planet? You really think they don’t want this just because it’s illegal? And it could have been way worse. Like what if someone decides to turn us into morlocks?” It was easy if she were just repeating talking points, she’d heard a million times from Ragnarök. “Into what?” “Like from the Time Machine?” The second woman got the reference… sort of. Ari hesitated remembering not everybody was in her comfy rabbit hole. ‘Morlock’ was a term social Shimmerists used to describe a hypothetical nightmare scenario where… “Like the government decides to ‘encourage’ us to all turn into mindless worker drones,” said Ari. Sort of like what rehumanization does to ponies. “Or some terrorist could turn you into a self-aware bucket of slime or worse. And it could happen at any time. Someone could be ten minutes away from releasing it for all we know.” She had them hanging on the fear she stoked. Good! Ari was taking control of the situation. Redirecting their fear just like the online guide said to. And now… “And if we haven’t done any research into transformation magic ourselves, we’re just going to be screwed,” said Ari. “But they have the rehumanization spell.” “The Equestrians have that. And it doesn’t work on ponies with cutie marks, right? That means you can get stuck as whatever some sick freak wants you to be. And the terrorists will be way ahead of us if transformation magic isn’t legalized.” “I’m sure if someone released a worse version of ETS, the government would change their minds about transformation magic.” She tried to clutch onto some hope. “Then why not change our minds now? Get a head start?” Ari suggested. Now it was their turn to start getting down. The two of them ruminated on that for a while before… “Maybe your right.” Ari had to fight back her smile. She couldn’t give away the game now. So she took a deep drink of her smoothie. She did it! She did the redirect the fear technique! She’d even been expecting the conversation to go on two steps longer like it usually did when Ragnarök used these talking points. Ari felt as though she’d just discovered a magic sword! Normal people couldn’t stand up to the talking points she was equipped with now. Back home. Ari closed all the blinds and looked around her dark apartment just to be sure. She pulled up the folders filled with poster files on her computer and went to the most subversive category. One of them was a picture of Sunset Shimmer, smiling wide in front of a large crowd of ponies, leading them into a bright future as the sun rose behind them. Sunset always leads to sunrise. This sort of thing was not socially acceptable. Ari looked over her shoulder before hitting print. The SSP wouldn’t mind her doing one or two posters for personal use. Her heart was racing as she put it up on the wall, directly across the bed so she’d see it first thing upon waking up. She placed a hand over her heart, saluting the image of Sunset Shimmer. “Praise Sunset Shimmer!” Ari breathed heavy, winded. Then she smiled and collapsed back onto the bed, laughing. Doing something so completely forbidden was such catharsis! By the end of the week, Ari had four more posters of Sunset around her house, deciding that was enough. Though then she ordered a Sunset Shimmer plushie that the SSP sold. It was basically a political donation so that was okay. And she ended up with three of them. Everypony she knew had a little bit of Sunset merch. Even Dresden had a big sticker of her cutie mark on the back of his laptop. So it felt normal enough despite her being a ‘terrorist’. But that was it. Just the posters and the three plushies. Though after that she also got some orange pajamas in Sunset Shimmer’s colors, one with her cutie mark on the back. And these Sunset Shimmer slippers. And a Sunset Shimmer sticker for the back of her own laptop. But that was it. For now. Mostly because Ari couldn’t afford to buy any more stuff. But damn if she didn’t want more.