When I woke up in the morning there were two red lines on the ground that extended through Ponyville. It looked rather strange.
“What could that be?” asked Trixie. She had continued to grow, and this morning was almost on the same level height-wise as the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
I shrugged. “No idea. Why don’t you go that way and I’ll go this way and we’ll try to find the ends.”
She agreed to that and we set off. I followed one end of the twin trails. I began to get the feeling that perhaps this wasn’t paint, as there appeared to be small chunks in it. Occasionally, little pieces of white stuff would also show up. Bone, perhaps? Had someone been put through a wood chipper?
The trail terminated at the edge of town. Walking back, I met up with Trixie. She reported a similar finding on the other side of Ponyville.
We both agreed that it was strange. Did two lines imply a pair of pulped ponies? Anyone I knew?
At any rate, Trixie and I weren’t distracted for long. There was still a lot of work to be done. Most of it was centered around the Desert Eagle currently under construction. It was neither a simple nor a quick process.
I also worked on reforging and honing the blade on the sword I had recovered from the forest. I was looking for new sharpening techniques, so I took it over to the library to see if Twilight had any books about metalworking that could give me an edge. Literally.
She managed to come up with a few books that might help. I saw her examining the sword, which was a little out of character for her as she didn’t really like weapons.
“See something you like?” I asked.
“With a little more work, this could turn into something more than just a blade. More like a work of art,” Twilight commented.
I narrowed my eyes. “Have you been reading those period romance novels again?”
“What? No, that’s not what I meant at all. I was just reading a letter from my brother about the magic shared between a weapon and its wielder. Some soldiers have even given their swords names.”
I considered that. I had named robots and aircraft before. “So what do you think this sword should be called?”
“Hmm.” Twilight thought. “Edge?”
“I’m not naming anything after a member of U2.”
She didn’t get the reference, but continued on. “Sword of Highly Incredible Technology?”
“Well it is, but think about the acronym.”
Twilight made a face. “How about Sting?”
“Do I look like a hobbit?”
Later in the day, Trixie had gone off to play with the Crusaders. Her magical ability was pretty much superior to any unicorn in her age group, so Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo wanted her help for their shenanigans.
I still owed the Crusaders a robot, but I had a few more important things to take care of. While I hadn’t seen the Black Twins yet that day, I figured it was only a matter of time until they put in an appearance. I was probably luckier than most ponies in Equestria, but no way was I lucky enough to have those twin blood trails be what was left of the Twins.
The day wore on. Work on the handgun was slower since Trixie wasn’t around. She came by with the Crusaders late that afternoon. “Dad, can I spend the night?”
“I have no problems with that.” I didn’t worry a whole lot about Trixie. She’d already shown more than enough competence with magic. The Crusaders, while often finding themselves in sticky situations, usually managed to get out of them easily enough. The best part was, Trixie didn’t seem to need school. As she grew older, her memories seemed to be coming back. I hadn’t asked whether they conflicted with her new childhood, but she hadn’t said anything was bothering her.
I actually had a pretty relaxing evening. I didn’t drink to excess, but just enough to relax. While I was at the library, Twilight had loaned me the newest Daring Do book. My recreational reading had dropped off since I first arrived in Equestria, and it was nice to just hang out for a bit and think about other things. I still couldn’t believe that I hadn’t seen the Black Twins.
In the morning, Trixie wasn’t back yet, but I asked about her to Applejack and Rarity when I saw them. They both confirmed that she was having a blast with the Crusaders.
I met up with the two mares at a picnic. Pinkie was hosting it because she was so excited to find out if Rainbow had been accepted to the Wonderbolts Academy. So very excited, in fact, that she had cancelled her own wedding.
“I mean, it would probably just get interrupted by something anyway,” she said.
While Fluttershy was agreeable, I was a little angry. “I mean, it’s not my wedding or anything, but you blew it off like it was nothing.”
“Silly Valiant, you can get married as much as you want whenever you want. This is the only time Dashie could get a letter from the Wonderbolts Academy!”
In a strange way, that made a lot of sense.
Post Haste showed up with a letter for Rainbow. I hadn’t seen him around much since he’d helped with the whole combat-robots-versus-Changelings in Canterlot. He gave Rainbow her letter and we chatted for a little while before he left to continue his route.
To no one’s surprise, Rainbow had been accepted to the Academy. Not that I liked seeing her happy, but as the only pony to ever do a sonic rainboom, let alone twice, and as an Element Bearer who had saved Equestria a couple of times, not to mention saving the lives of the Wonderbolts themselves that one time in Cloudsdale, I was a little surprised that the Wonderbolts hadn’t come in person to recruit her. I concluded that they must be even more conceited than Rainbow was.
“DON’T FORGET TO WRITE!” thundered Pinkie through a megaphone at Rainbow as she departed for the academy.
I yanked it out of her grasp. “I’ll take care of this. You’re loud enough already.”
“Okie Dokie Lokie!” Pinkie turned to go.
“Hey, while I’m thinking about it, when did the wedding get rescheduled to?”
She shrugged. “We can’t have it without Rainbow. And since I don’t know when she’s coming back, I don’t know when the wedding will be, and I don’t know when I can finally not feel guilty about getting some of that sweet Fluttershy flank!”
The yellow pegasus in question gulped. Pinkie grinned and pulled her away.
The next couple of days passed quickly and pleasantly. Trixie was still hanging out with the Crusaders, and I still hadn’t seen the Black Twins. I even managed to get the gun almost finished.
Pinkie continued to hang out by the mailbox, obsessively waiting for a letter to arrive. She eventually agreed that maybe it would be best to visit Rainbow and bring her a care package.
I was tasked with transportation. The Academy was located at the peak of a very steep mountain with a flat top. I had no idea how the building materials for the place had gotten up there, but it had a very nice paved runway.
It had been a very long time since I had been able to make a conventional landing with the Monstrosity aircraft. In the tight confines of Ponyville, it was usually VTOL only.
There was a little tornado we had to fly through to arrive. It wasn’t as powerful as the one that had been used to lift water from Ponyville to Cloudsdale, and I had no trouble navigating through it.
“Wow, I’m kind of glad we didn’t take the balloon,” said Twilight. “It might have been a rougher flight.”
Rainbow was there to greet us as we stepped out of the aircraft. “What are you all doing here?”
“We wanted to bring you a care package,” said Applejack. “Didn't realize you'd be in the middle of some crazy tornado drill.”
“That was awesome!” cheered a pegasus who looked a little like Rainbow. “We totally wiped the clouds out with that tornado. The other cadets will have to be up there for days to bust as many as we did.”
“That was your tornado?” I said. “Bitch, please. You don’t know a damn thing about severe weather.”
“It’s kind of true, Lightning Dust,” agreed Rainbow. “On top of that, you made me clip my wing and you sent half of our class into serious tail spins on the obstacle course.”
Lightning put on a so what look. “Yeah, and…?”
“I get that you want to be the best,” said Rainbow. “So do I, but you're going about it in the wrong way.”
“The Wonderbolts don't seem to think so,” argued Lightning. “After all, Spitfire did make me the leader and you the wing pony.”
Rainbow sighed. “You're right. She did.”
Speaking of Spitfire, she flew over to us, probably trying to figure out what the heck had just landed on her runway. I might be in a little bit of trouble, but I had tried to call the tower before landing and got no response. Probably because there wasn’t a tower.
“You two are supposed to be up there busting clouds,” said Spitfire, looking at Rainbow and Lightning.
“We're done with that, ma'am,” answered Rainbow.
Spitfire looked surpried. “Already? That's an academy record! Explain your methods.”
“I decided to use a tornado,” said Lightning.
Spitfire hmm’d. “A bit excessive for cloud-busting, but judging from your time, it was obviously an effective tactic.”
“Not really,” I said. “As the guy who had to fly though it, I can say that it didn’t even make me wet my pants even a little.”
“Who is this?” asked Spitfire.
“Don’t listen to him,” put in Lightening. “He’s just an earth pony thinks he knows something about flying.”
“Oh, so now it’s about racism?” I said. I quickly ran back to Monstrosity and retrieved the megaphone I had taken from Pinkie. “GOT NEWS FOR YOU. WE ARE ALL EQUAL NO MATTER OUR PHYSICAL ATTRIBUTES. IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THAT, I WOULD BE GLAD TO SHANK YOU WHERE YOU STAND.”
I could have followed up on the threat, too. I just happened to have brought the sword with me. The gun was not operational yet, but I had brought that too in case I got some downtime to work on it.
Everyone who had been on the receiving end of the megaphone looked a little windswept and like their ears were ringing. Twilight edged over to me. “You realize you just threatened a major celebrity who is a member of the Equestrian military?”
“Well, it wasn't directly aimed at Spitfire, but I can do whatever I want. I have the megaphone. GOT THAT, BITCHES?”
After dropping off Rainbow’s care package, we left. The conversation on the way back centered around Rainbow’s new Academy acquaintance.
“I think it was admirable how Rainbow took the higher road,” said Rarity. “She accepted Spitfire’s decision to make her the wing pony.”
“Well, that did get reversed after you made Lightning appear incompetent,” observed Twilight, looking at me.
“Yeah, I do kind of regret that,” I said. “We should keep her around. It isn’t often that you find a pony who makes Rainbow look like less of a bitch by comparison.”
Back in Ponyville, a press conference had been called. I didn't know of anything noteworthy as of late, so it was a little confusing as to why the Mayor wanted the whole town to assemble.
When we were all there, the Mayor broke the news. “Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon have been missing for several days now. Along with those two blood trails through town, I think we can agree that they could be injured.”
“No, they’re definitely dead,” put in Sir Win.
“Yes!” I shouted.
All eyes turned to me. From the podium, the Mayor said, “Mr. Valiant, could you please tell us what you know about that?”
I heard the suspicion in her voice. “Yeah, it was true that I wanted to kill the two of them. But do you think I would be so crazy as to leave that much evidence spilled on the street?”
“You’ve never been the most sane pony,” I heard someone mutter. I felt something in the crowd dynamic change as angry herd mentality kicked in. All the building hostility was aimed squarely at me. I glanced away from the irate faces to see two ponies shouldering the Mayor away from the podium.
“Good afternoon. My name is Blackwood. This is my sister, Beauty. We’re here to take responsibility for the killing of Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon.”
My mouth dropped so far open in surprise that I thought my jaw would unhinge.
The mare spoke up. “They weren’t very nice fillies, but mostly my brother and I did it to antagonize Valiant and deny him the satisfaction of killing them himself.”
The crowd had gone dead silent. The Black Twins presented evidence of their deed: DT’s crown and SS’s glasses.
“Sorry there isn’t more to show,” apologized Woody.
“They were pretty much meat paste after we were finished,” added Beauty.
My legs began to shake. I was vaguely aware that it was caused by rage. The casual manner in which the Black Twins had slaughtered two fillies caused part of it. The fact that they had done it specifically because they knew it would anger me also contributed. They hadn’t threatened or even mentioned Trixie, but it was clear that they wouldn’t mind hurting her. I hoped that her magic would somehow deny them the ability.
“Get them!” shouted Post Haste, the first pony to snap out of the horror-trance that most of the crowd was under. The Black Twins pointed their horns at him and he exploded.
Once more, the crowd was silent. Being showered with blood will do that to you. It also explained how easily DT and SS had been pulped.
Well, it was now clear that basically no one was safe, not even our mail ponies. I had used so much of my self control trying to keep my thoughts rational up to this point that my still-growing fury broke loose, overwhelming my consciousness and causing my mind to go dark for safety purposes. I didn’t even feel it when I hit the ground.
I woke up on Twilight’s couch. She was looking at me. “Oh, you’re awake. I guess you didn’t have an aneurysm after all.”
As much as it pissed me off that my body had reached its design limits, I was kind of grateful that it shut down before my heart could overpressurize things and blow a blood vessel. I guess my brain was smarter than I was.
“What did I miss?” I asked.
“Well after murdering Post Haste right in front of everypony, they left the stage. We were all too afraid to follow them.”
“At least you now understand what I’ve been dealing with since they showed up.”
Twilight nodded. “I’m sorry. I had no idea. This is a serious problem. I’ve already written to Princess Celestia.”
I felt anger rising again, but managed to quell it. It was becoming clear that this might not be a problem I could handle myself. I didn’t like to admit that, and came dangerously close to another infarction.
After a few minutes, I finally restored enough control to sit up from the couch. “Twilight, why am I here?”
“Oh, um, after their little demonstration the Black Twins leveled your building.”
I took a deep breath. “How is the damage?”
“I just told you. They leveled it – it’s flat. Literally. There aren’t two bricks stacked on top of each other.”
“I thought you put defensive spells on it,” I said.
“Clearly that didn’t stop them.”
“You’re the freaking Element of Magic! How is that possible?”
“Well, defensive spells have never been my best work,” said Twilight.
I took another breath and let it go. This was way less severe than the other things the Black Twins had done. It was almost petty by comparison. Huh, I think my anger tolerance was going up. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, as they say. Maybe there was some way I could use that to my advantage.
“Twilight, start annoying me. If I can build up my stamina, I can be the angriest pony in Equestria.”