//------------------------------// // The Ballad of Steve // Story: The God Squad // by defender2222 //------------------------------// “When we last left our heroes, Princess Luna had convinced Princess Celestia to allow her and Lord Tydal to go to Ponyville to get cupcakes. Princess Celestia, not know that the trip was merely a lie and the two gods planned to find Queen Chrysalis and beat her up, decided to go with them and convinced Princess Cadence and Royal Consort Shining Armor to join them. Our 5 heroes now march towards Ponyville-“ "Excuse me," Luna said, walking up to the strange teal-colored earth pony that was rambling on in a deep, dramatic voice. He was standing next to a tree, watching them all a bit too closely (his gaze was as intense as Twilight Sparkles when she spotted a new book on complex theorems). "What are you doing?" "I...I am narrating the story," the pony said, confused. Celestia walked over, having not heard most of the strange pony’s ramblings. “Luna, what is going on?” “I found this pony gabbing about us…he claims he is narrating.” "...why?" Celestia questioned. "Because every great story needs a narrator!" the pony declared, puffing out his chest. "Yeah...'great' story," Shining Armor grunted. Luna tilted her head, utterly bemused by the strange pony. "What is your name?" "I am Plotdump the Narrator, Princess Luna!" Tydal just stared at him, his already quite low opinion of ponies only plummeting (and let’s face it, his opinion was so low that you’d have to lift your shoe up to see it). “I vote we just let this go.” The moon goddess ignored him. "And...Plotdump...how did you know we would be walking down this trail?" Luna gave him a dark look, leaning in close to see if there were any beads of perspiration running down his brow (a sure sign he was either lying or had eaten a bad burrito). "Seems pre-tty convenient that you just happened to know where we would be and when." "Ah, but that is my special talent," Plotdump said happily, not at all showing any duress from the interrogation. "I know the backstory of anypony who happens to walk by! That allows me to narrate their lives and add a touch of magic and whimsy to their day!" “…I can kill this one, right?” Tydal asked, his razor sharp tail fan swishing at the joyful thought of the blood erupting from Plotdump’s neck as his head went bouncing down the trail. The capricorn king took a step forward, teeth gleaming in the sun. “Care to narrate this next part, Plotty?” The pony slowly began to back away in fright. “No,” Celestia said, nodding to her sister. The two of them began to walk away from the strange narrating pony, Celestia waiting for just the right moment before turning back to look at Tydal. “I decree that from now on, you are only allowed to kill somepony if Shining Armor says it’s ok.” BANG! “He fainted!” Shining Armor exclaimed, staring at the prone form of the OC. “I’ll give him mouth to mouth!” Cadence squealed, licking her lips. “Cadence, no!” Luna shouted as her niece leapt on top of Tydal, puckering up. The God Squad Episode 2: The Ballad of Steve "Princess Celestia, I still don't think this is a good idea," Shining Armor complained as the five of them entered the city limits of Ponyville ('Home of Derpy Hooves!'). "I wasn't aware you didn't like cupcakes, Captain," Celestia said, raising an eyebrow. "He doesn't like anything that is fun," Luna said sourly, having grown tired of Shining's complaining 20 minutes into the trip (about the time he had expressed his worry that they hadn’t stretched before starting and thus were risking muscle strain). "In fact, if you declared whining to be officially the funniest activity in all of Equestria, I think it would cause his brain to explode." Cadence happily skipped beside her aunts. "Sex is fun and my Shining loves that! Why, just a few hours ago while you were taking a potty break we tried this move in the Pony Sutra and I didn’t realize Shining would giggle when I stuck my tongue-" "If you finish that sentence I cannot be held accountable for my actions," Tydal warned her. His mood had only grown darker the more they had hiked (and it wasn’t helped by the fact that he couldn’t get the taste of Cadence out of his mouth… it was like he had gargled with sugar and shame). "Can we please not talk about my brain exploding or my sex life?" Shining begged. "We could talk about my sex life," Luna said with a smirk. Tydal blinked. Cadence and Shining shared a confused look. Celestia frowned. "...so Cadence, I've never heard of the Pony Sutra-" "Ha ha ha," Luna grumbled, kicking a rock and watching it skip down the road (well, not so much skip as go rocketing off into lower orbit). While her sister’s sense of humor was as dry as toast in the desert, she had a way of making a quiet, dignified insult that were worse than someone getting in your face and laughing at you so hard spittle flew from their mouth. "All kidding aside," Celestia said when she saw that she had managed, once again, to get under her sister’s skin (‘You still have it, Tia!’) "we already have the perfect disguises." Shining rolled his eyes, trying to get the rulers of Equestria to see reason. "Princess, I think you are missing the point." "I don't see what the problem is, Shining," Cadence said happily, looking about her in glee at all the wildlife that scurried around them. "We aren't wearing our royal vestments, so no pony will recognize us!" Cadence lifted up her leg, wiggling her bare hoof. They had left their crowns, necklaces and gilded shoes back at the castle (as well as some thongs and four pairs socks but no pony was quite sure why they had those). Shining had gone without his armor, trotting about like he would if he were going for a stroll in the park. Tydal had even left his battle armor behind, with strict orders to the guards to not touch it lest they come down with a bad case of ‘Being Cut In Half’ (why a god needed armor was a question for another time). "But Cadence," Shining said slowly, trying to convince his wife to see things from his point of view, "you're forgetting that you three are pretty well known! Celestia’s face is plastered everywhere, and there are paintings of all three of you hanging about Equestria.” He waved his hoof at Tydal. “And I’m sure you have a wanted poster in the post office…” Tydal glowered. “Permission to kill you, Shining?” “Denied.” Luna huffed. "That's why we brought these!" Her horn glowed and a pair of simply black glasses appeared on all of their faces. "See, no one will recognize us now!" "It's what the celebrities do," Celestia reasoned, adjusting her own pair. “I have the urge to say a pun while Tydal screams ‘Yeah!’,” Cadence stated. “I am not screaming ‘Yeah’,” the capricorn grunted, looking at the glasses in disgust. "...you can't be serious," Shining complained as the glasses appeared on his face; he didn’t notice that intrepid reporter Lotus Lane had just gotten ready to rush them before stopping short the moment the glasses appeared on their faces, leaving her wondering who the 5 nerdy ponies were and where the princesses, the king of the Mareatine and the Captain of the royal guard had gone. "We’re as serious as a tickle fight!" Cadence giggled. “And I take my tickle fights VERY seriously.” Shining looked skyward, praying for strength (which was foolish since he was traveling with 3 goddesses and a god). "Listen...I am going to say this as simply as I can...it doesn't matter what you wear...you three are alicorns and Tydal is a capricorn....and two of you are nearly 3 times the size of most ponies. You stick out of a crowd and EVERY pony is going to wonder why you are so big!" Tydal and Celestia looked at each other, then down at Shining. "We're foreign exchange students," the sun goddess finally said. Shining Armor rolled his eyes so far back he could see his brain (and it was attempting to claw its way out of his skull). "How...what..." Tydal scoffed. "Don't look at me...I could care less who recognizes me.” He turned, and at the top of his lungs, roared, “HEY EVERYPONY! I AM THE GOD OF THE SEA!" "Sure ya are!" Officer Grits said as he marched past them, tutting to himself, "and I have tea with Princess Celestia every day at four!" "I have never met that pony before and I hate tea," Celestia stated (while Cadence and Luna restrained a fuming Tydal, lest he cut the policepony's head off despite Shining’s command he not). "He was being sarcastic," Luna said gently as she struggled to hold onto Tydal's thrashing tail. "...oh, ok." After the sea god had been calmed (which involved promises of hugs from Cadence and promises of bloodshed by Luna...guess which one motivated Tydal more) the party made their way onto Ponyville's Historic Main Street (Historic because Mayor Mare had paid the 75 bits to the Equestria History Society to get a plaque put up that claimed it was ‘historic’). Shining felt his mind melting into a bubbling puddle of confusion and frustration and other words that end with –tion when not a single pony bothered to point out that their princesses, the captain of the role guard and an OC were walking past them. "So Luna," Tydal hissed while Celestia was busy saying hello to a vegetable vendor, "how do you plan on ditching these three so we can get back to the real reason we are here?” "I have a genius plan." "...I was afraid you'd say that." "My plans always work out!" Tydal looked about, staring at the sky. "Really? Because I might be confused but this is the brightest night I've ever seen." "...ok, all but one of my plans work out." “The moon is really brilliant today. I like how you set it on fire-” “I GET IT!” "Luna, we're here!" Celestia called out. The moon goddess and the capricorn looked straight ahead at Sugacube Corner. The place was so sugary and sweet that all the goddesses could feel themselves gaining 15 pounds just from staring at it (and the males in the party felt the instinctual need to tell them ‘No, those glasses don’t make you look fat!’). "Come along then, I would like to sample one of those 'bear claws' I've heard of...do you think they are made of real bears?" "No way!" Pinkie Pie said, bursting out the door to greet the new arrivals. "That would be silly!" "They are called bear claws because they are big and shaped like a bear's paw," Shining stated (while Luna hyperventilated from the sudden appearance of the pink mare). Pinkie giggled. "Well, yeah...and the fact that I have a bear help me make them!" "RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" "Shhhhh Tiny! We have customers!" Pinkie called out. She turned back to the five startled ponies (Tydal being an honorary pony, much to his annoyance) and flashed them a grin. "Wow, he gets grumpy sometimes!" She paused, looking the 5 over, before letting out a gasp. "OHMYOHMYOHMY!" "I told you this wouldn't work," Shining said in self-satisfaction. Luna smirked. "And Shining Armor is proven wrong in 3...2..." "YOU'RE NEW PONIES!" Pinkie leapt 10 feet in the air, fireworks exploding from her arms and legs. She landed on top of Celestia and began to bounce on each of the gods’ backs. "WE HAVE TO THROW YOU A PARTY! THERE WILL BE CUPCKAES AND PUNCH AND DONUTS AND BEAR CLAWS THAT AREN'T TINY'S CLAWS AND-" Pinkie took a breath, hopping off the three and giving them a grin. "But first I need to know your names! Can't have a party without names! That would be silly! Unless it was a ‘No-Name Party’, in which case I wouldn’t need your names because that would defeat the whole purpose of a ‘No-Name Party’!" “She reminds me of your daughter,” Luna whispered to Tydal, who merely nodded in agreement (Princess Coral, one of the twin daughters of King Tydal and Queen Merida, was feared throughout the Mareatine for her Party-apult). "Uh...our n...our names are...uh..." Celestia stammered as Pinkie pressed her face against hers. Of the two sisters she was always the least creative when it came to anything but pranks (which was why Luna's night sky was filled with stars, comets, meteors and other space junk while the day had...clouds). Heck, until Celestia had handed over the naming of towns to a royal Name Creator, she had basically taken the word Pony and stuck it in front of –ville, -town, -berg, and –slum (Ponyslum was actually rather nice and had a wonderful golf course, including their Par 4 Hole 17 with waterfall and sandtrap in the shape of a lamp). "I am Nightdancer," Luna gracefully lied with a smile, extending her hoof to Pinkie. While she might have been awkward the last time she had come to Ponyville, she had recently had help building her confidence... ~4 months earlier~ "What do we say if somepony mistreats us?" Iron Will called out to everypony attending his seminar. "Get in my way, I'll make you pay!" Luna screamed with the rest of the audience, stomping her hooves as Iron Will whipped them up into a frenzy. “That’s right! And you will pay… for my book, “I am Equestria (And So Can You!)”, now in paperback!” ~MC~MC~MC~ Luna turned to Celestia. "This is my...little sister, Sunny Skies.” Celestia sputtered but, not having any better ideas, had to settle for 'Nightdancer's' idea. "This is our niece, Hot Lovin and her husband Wet Blanket. He’s a eunuch." Shining ground his teeth so hard it was a wonder he didn't end up with a mouth full of dust. For her part, Cadence wondered if she should add 'Hot Lovin' to her name (Princess Mi Amora Hot Lovin Cadenza...it had a nice ring to it). Luna finally turned to Tydal. "And this is… Steve." Everyone blinked. "I'm from Detrot," Tydal said without missing a beat. "Ah," Pinkie murmured. "That makes sense. Come on, let’s go!" "And thus Tydal looked at the rest of them and shrugged, not realizing that Pinkie was leading them to their doom…" "We can still hear you!" Luna called out to Plotdump. "Sorry!"