//------------------------------// // Chapter 9: Vicious Lies // Story: The Mistress of Dreams // by McPoodle //------------------------------// The Mistress of Dreams Chapter 9: Vicious Lies A couple hours after sunrise on Canterday, two spinners set down on landing pads at Applesauce’s property. From one emerged “Twilight Sparkle” and “Pinkie Pie”. The latter was still unconscious and lying on a hoverbed. From the other came “Rainbow Dash” and “Pinkamena”. “I’m just saying that the microphone may have been open,” said “Rainbow” to “Pinkamena” as part of a conversation that had begun mid-flight. “Haphastia,” “Twilight” asked, “did you spend the night with Jalpek?” “Look,” Haphastia snarled, “you’re not my—what happened to Pinkie?” She rushed over to the bed to examine her. “What did you do to her?” she demanded of “Twilight”. Reacting to her look of shocked innocence, she then turned to the rainy sky. “What did you do to her?!” “It was her own fault,” Lunesta’s dragon piped in. “She should have known better than to start a Seed game with less than three days of free time.” “Seed, what’s this Seed?” Haphastia asked. “A video game,” Piflin replied. “It’s a planetary simulator.” “Lunesta went in for the expert level: Aladan.” “Aladan,” Haphastia whispered. She then started beating Jalpek with her hooves. “Aladan!” “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Jalpak said with a sigh. “Oh, and Piflin, all we were doing last night was looking at aeronautic pictures and blueprints. I suspect that’s pretty high up on the ‘Big Trouble in the Afterlife’ scale as far as ‘Pinkamena’s family are concerned.” “I know a little bit about video games thanks to my sis,” said a new voice with a welcome accent. “From the looks of things, I’d say this one took up residence inside poor ‘Pinkie’s head, am I right?” “Yeah, that’s the gist of it,” said “Twilight”. “By the way, welcome back.” “It’s good to be back,” “Applejack” said, with a trace of sadness in her voice. “Now let’s get to the bottom of this dream business.” “We need to find the pony who used to play Fluttershy in our little group, Rarity 15,” said Piflin. “She’s Rarity’s direct descendant?” asked Jalpek. “Yeah, I think we do need to find her.” “And I know how to find her,” said Piflin, “But we need a bigger aircraft. I could barely fit the bed in my spinner.” “Spinners aren’t going to cut it,” said Jalpek. “They get their power from the city circuit, so they’ll drop out of the air a dozen strides beyond the city limits.” Applesauce’s eyes lit up as she spied a familiar bus heading their way. “I think I know one vehicle guaranteed to be able to leave the city limits,” she told them, before running to the bus stop. “Hey Captain Linwurst!” she exclaimed. “I didn’t know I was one o’ your celebrities!” The captain leaned out the window of the bus. “Eh, you’re not,” he said with a frown. “The bosses found out about my little scheme and put the kibosh on it. This is the plain old Canterday route. But hey, can I interest you in some genuine Lunar real estate? Part of the lands liberated just yesterday, in fact! Thanks to a friend of a friend of my great nephew, I was able to get in on the ground floor on this fabulous opportunity!” He looked past Applesauce, to see the individuals behind her, several of whom were on his celebrity tour and who had threatened to shoot down his bus on numerous occasions. “I...think I’ve taken up enough of your time.” “Oh, on the contrary,” Piflin purred, “we’d like to take up quite a bit more of your time. How much would it cost to rent out your bus for the rest of the day?” “I...um, am not authorized to make that kind of decision. I could get you in touch with my bosses.” “No, I think we need this bus now,” said Jalpek, “with the fewer ponies knowing, the better.” “How about a million bits?” offered Piflin. Captain Linwurst stopped, picked up a jug of apple juice, and took a swig before suddenly spitting it out all over the front window. “A million bits! Surely you’re joking?” The ponies all stopped for a moment, and then looked over at “Pinkie Pie”. “We’re not joking,” “Pinkamena” said in a dead tone after Lunesta had failed to respond, “and don’t call her Shirley. You know, it’s not the same when ‘Pinkie’s not saying it.” “Not to mention that it doesn’t make any sense,” said “Twilight”. “I mean, what kind of name is Surely?” “Girls, girls!” “Applejack” admonished them. “I believe we had a financial deal in the works here.” “Right!” exclaimed Piflin. “So, can we have the bus? Wait, we better make sure you can fly outside the city limits first.” “Outside of Ponyopolis?!” Linwurst exclaimed. “Wait, I need to take another swig first.” “Hey, stop wasting good apple juice!” Applesauce protested. “Just answer the question.” “Well of course I can’t! What do you think this is, the Superbus?” “But this is the same route as the express, right?” asked “Applejack”. “Yes,” answered Linwurst. “Which means that the express uses the exact same bus, right?” “I think so.” “And the express goes between Baltimare and Canterlot, so it must be able to travel outside the city limits.” “Well, when you put it that way, it must be true. Say, what happened to your accent, Miss?” “Let’s take a look,” “Pinkamena” said to “Rainbow” as they boarded the bus. Gently pushing Linwurst out of the way, they poked and prodded their way through a series of controls and secret controls. Halfway through, Jalpek walked out of the bus with a frown. “The out of town mode is just an automated cart,” she said. “Out of my jurisdiction.” Piflin stood there quietly next to Jalpek for a few minutes, as Haphastia’s manipulations gradually caused a set of six wheels to sprout underneath the bus. “So,” Piflin’s dragon said with a smug grin. “Are we finally allowed to call you an egghead after this dream business is over?” “I’ve been outed as a Firefly,” “Rainbow Dash” said glumly. “Egghead’s nothing next to that.” The dragon dropped his grin. “Yeah, I suppose,” he said. “Hey, you got to be an inventor this time. That puts you one step closer to understanding Pinkie Pie. What’s it like?” “Weird,” “Rainbow” replied. “My focus used to be on how to turn everything into a stunt. Now every time I look at anything, I can see which parts I can scavenge to make my next plane. It’s like the world comes pre-labelled.” “Yup, that’s Pinkie Vision,” said Haphastia, poking her head out of the window. “Come on in, we’re ready to roll!” “Now hold on!” Captain Linwurst complained. “I don’t know how to drive...whatever you just turned this bus into!” “Oh that’s not a problem,” Haphastia said, gently pushing him out of the bus. “I can drive it just fine.” “So, about the matter of payment,” Piflin said, presenting her hoof to him. “You can’t just transfer a million bits into my account!” Linwurst exclaimed. “That would be obvious proof that I negotiated above my pay grade!” “Well what would you prefer?” Jalpek asked with a wicked glint in her eye. “That we ‘steal’ the bus and accidentally leave our loot behind?” “Hay, what about us?” asked one of the passengers out of an open window. They had been remarkably quiet until now. “You’re not getting a million bits,” Jalpek said curtly. Piflin boarded the bus and looked around. She soon found what she was looking for, a pile of paper, each sheet of which was embossed with a detailed map of the Lunar surface. “How about if I bought a million bits in Lunar real estate, and then we stole your bus?” she asked. “Are you sure we don’t have a solution that doesn’t involve theft and deception?” asked “Applejack”. “And what about us?” asked the same passenger from before. “What about you?!” Captain Linwurst said, flying up so that he could get in the poor passenger’s face. “Your ticket was non-refundable. So you’ll all have to wait here until the next bus comes along in three hours. Come on, get out—you’re the official victims of a bus-napping.” The passengers let out a collective groan as they reluctantly rose to their hooves. Lifetimes of being treated like cattle left them with no will to do more than vocally protest. And considering the labyrinthine appeals process (weighted heavily towards corporations and the rich), it was quite unlikely that any of them would bother to tell anypony in charge the truth of what they witnessed. “I’m sure my family can throw together a nice old-fashioned cookout,” Applesauce quickly offered, “with pumpkin carving, hayrides, and face painting for the fillies! All for a nominal charge, of course.” “And just like that, your objections to our plan melted away!” joked Jalpek. “Shut up,” said Applesauce with a playful jab at her friend. The ponies knew that they had passed the city limits of Ponyopolis when the Optiscan cameras in the bus loudly died. Only once this was done did Piflin remove the cover from a hatbox that she had moved from her spinner into the bus right before they had left. Opalescence’s head emerged from the box, hacking and wheezing. “At last!” she cried out. “Opal?!” Rainbow exclaimed. “In the fur!” she exclaimed. On failing to disperse Rainbow’s look of disbelief, she added, “By proxy?” When this too failed to satisfy, she sighed and said, “Rarity created me to help you out without the Dragon Emperor knowing.” “The Emperor’s personally supervising this dream,” Twilight explained. “Rarity was able to spy on him, which led her to creating this dream the way she did, but in return, it’s going to end badly, at noon today. Everypony still in Ponyopolis besides herself and Vinyl Scratch are basically doomed.” “Oh, well in that case I feel a bit better about stranding those passengers in the middle of nowhere,” said Applejack. “They’ll probably survive.” “Well...they’re not real,” said Twilight. “Or else I would have tried to do something to save more of them. Anyway, we don’t really have to do anything between now and then, but as I said before, I thought we might as well meet up with Fluttershy. I mean, Rarity went to all the trouble to create this obscenely detailed dream world, so the least we can do is take the full tour, right?” The other ponies murmured their assent. ~ ~ ~ A few minutes later, the bus was edging its way into the Everfree Forest, with directions provided by Opal. “So her house is somewhere around here?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Oh, Fluttershy’s far too crafty to have her base anywhere where Rarity would be able to find it,” Opal answered. “No, this is the caravan route that no transport ever makes it through without being robbed blind by Fluttershy’s band of merry mares.” At that moment, all six tires of the bus were simultaneously punctured by extra-large crossbow bolts. “Halt!” cried out an reverberating voice. “You are all prisoners of the Conservationists International!” Applejack stuck her head out of the window. “Take us to your leader!” she cried. “We will not take orders from you capitalist scum!” the same voice from before replied. “Show yourself!” Applejack ordered. A stallion with an eye patch and at least seven different scars across his face emerged from the darkness. “Never!” he shouted. “You will follow our commands! Which will be to follow us to a quaint little cottage in the woods. Where you will eat tea and biscuits with our leader! Even if you’re already full!” “The horror,” Spike deadpanned. ~ ~ ~ The ponies and dragons were individually seated around the large table. “Is there anything I can do for you, Mistress?” the scarred stallion from before asked beseechingly. “Perhaps polish their hooves with a belt sander?” “You wouldn’t dare!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash, tucking her hooves out of sight. “That will be enough, Shaving Accident,” said Rarity 15, a pony who looked just like Fluttershy, except with her mane in a pixie cut. Rainbow Dash snickered as she pulled her hooves back out from under her. “Hey, it’s not funny!” Shaving Accident whined. “You try cutting, cutting, cutting yourself with dull blades.” Rarity 15 gave him a look, and he backed his way out of the cottage without another word. “So,” said “Fluttershy”. “To what do I owe the pleasure of our meeting?” “Oh, well...” Twilight said, trying to sound casual, “...after all of those years of hearing Florlet 17 tell us horrible stories about what you were up to out here in the woods, we thought we’d come out here to get your side of the story.” “Everything she told you was a lie,” “Fluttershy” said in a cold fury. “In fact, everything you were ever told about the past or anything outside of Ponyopolis was also a lie.” “Okay,” Twilight said with a nod. “Let’s start with what happened to the princesses after the Second Great War. Florlet told us that Princess Luna destroyed the Dragon Emperor, but in the chaos Princess Celestia disappeared, and with her departure, all pony magic in Equestria faded way. Luna then left this plane of existence in despair.” “No,” said “Fluttershy”. “What really happened was that the Emperor kidnapped Luna and held her captive in the Castle by the Sea, the source of all magic in Equestria. Celestia went to rescue her, and in the ensuing battle, both Emperor and Luna were destroyed, as well as the magical source. After a few months of mourning, Princess Celestia attempted to steer her subjects in a new direction, into a world without magic.” She walked over to a portrait of the grieving princess on the wall. “She never made a secret of the fact that her ponies were meant to live in a universe devoid of magic after we had healed the ancient damage to the ecosystem and the orbits of the worlds, and that she was trying to get us used to this state of affairs by allowing the growth of non-magical science and technology. This just accelerated matters.” “So what about the Republic?” Twilight asked. “Your hero, Twilight Sparkle, was unwilling to accept a world without magic, so she led the revolution which turned Celestia into a prisoner in her own castle. Twilight even induced greed growth in her dragon Spike, so that he would consider Celestia his treasure and guard her for the rest of his life.” “That’s horrible!” Twilight exclaimed. “And then she got elected the first president of the Republic and covered up the truth,” “Fluttershy” added dryly. “That’s even more horrible!” Twilight exclaimed. “Well I dunno,” Applejack said reluctantly. “I can kinda see her point of view, since giving up magic just like that would probably have pretty nasty consequences short-term.” “Plus I can totally see her snapping one day and turning on the Princess,” added Rainbow Dash. “Hey!” Twilight exclaimed. “Yeah, yeah I can see her doing that,” Pinkamena added. “Well...maybe on a really bad day,” Spike added, scratching the back of his head. “Unbelievable,” said Twilight dryly. “‘Broken Smart Mare’,” said Pinkamena under her breath. “What was that?” Twilight asked incredulously. “That was the trope Pinkie assigned to you,” Pinkamena said, slowly backing away. “She figured there was a one in three chance that you’d go ‘Nightmare Moon’ on us one day and we’d have to drag you back to the good side.” Twilight got a very, very dark look in her eyes. “That’s not going to happen,” she said quietly. “I’ve seen where that path leads me, and I am not a fool.” “And besides,” Spike added, “Princess Celestia sent me to her to keep her from going off the deep end.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “That was only a paranoid theory, Spike, that I came up with during my Dark Period. I’m better now.” She looked around at all of them. “Honest!” “Florlet really messed you ponies up with that simulator of hers,” said “Fluttershy”. “On the other hoof, even the historic Twilight Sparkle is preferable to Piflin 85.” “Agreed,” said Twilight under her breath. “Hey, it’s fifteen minutes after noon,” said Pinkamena. “How long before pony civilization collapses?” “Is there something you’re not telling me?” asked “Fluttershy” in a quiet voice. “Do you have any way of knowin’ what’s goin’ on in Ponyopolis right now?” Applejack asked. “No, of course not,” said “Fluttershy”. “The CI doesn’t use any magically-infused technology.” Twilight walked out the door of the cottage, shortly followed by the other ponies. “This dream won’t end before Ponyopolis’ fall. So let’s try to cause it.” She walked into the bus. The ponies and Spike shared looks of doubt. The other dragons shared looks of horror. “We are your servantss?” Rainbow Dash’s dragon asked, just in case. Twilight emerged with a pile of paper. “Spike, from the dragons’ point of view, what’s the most egregious crime that Florlet ever committed?” Spike shrugged. “I dunno. I know all of Piflin’s memories so I can restore them at any time, but that’s about it.” “Well what about her dragon?” “Fluttershy” said. “After all, that was the initial cause of the break between us.” “What did she do?” Twilight asked. “Florlet’s little sister was dying of a brain disease,” “Fluttershy” explained. “Rather than accept this, she coerced her dragon into volunteering for experimental psychic surgery to replace her mind with that of her sister. The operation failed, leaving the dragon a mindless vegetable.” “Did any of you know this?” Twilight asked the dragons. “I...I heard the story,” Pinkie Pie’s dragon said. “But I assumed it to be a lie. No pony would ever do something so...We are your servantss! We are your servantss!” Twilight stepped forward, so that she was in the center of the dragon group. “But she did do that. Ponies are not perfect, no more than dragons are.” “We are inferior!” wailed Rainbow Dash’s dragon. “No!” cried Twilight. “Never believe that. You are the descendants of a great and mighty race, a race that ruled this planet once. And, I think, given how the ponies have ruined this world, it’s time for you to rule again.” “We are your servantss! We are your servants!” The non-Spike dragons cried out in agony. “I come bearing gifts,” Twilight said, a tight grin on her face. “Recently, I came into possession of the Moon. The whole Moon. I bought it, for a million bits. Now think about how much money that is, how much you can buy with it. That’s how valuable the Moon is.” She pointed upward, at where the pale disk sat in the daylight sky—they were far enough away from the city and the mines to actually be able to see it. “Look at it. Take in its beauty. It’s like an opal in the sky, a million bit opal. And I am going to give a piece of that treasure to each of you.” She began handing out the lunar titles. “Each of these deeds is made out to ‘The Dragon’. That means you, or any other dragon you give one of these titles to. I’m giving the whole satellite...to you.” At hearing the word “treasure”, a terrified Spike turned and raced into the bus, his claws over his ears. The remaining dragons looked hungrily at their deeds. Silent storms of magic bloomed from their heads as their safety spells were burned out by the power of greed. Slowly, they began to grow. “The Moon was just the beginning!” Twilight encouraged them. “Ponyopolis was built on the sweat of your slave labor. Labor that those ponies have no right to claim from you. So take the city! Take every last building, every bit, every work of art and every gem! Ponyopolis is your hoard to take! So take it!” With a sudden flash, the four dragons were transformed into their full sized forms, complete with wings. They took to the air and flew towards the distant city, trailing the corrupting deeds in their wake. Applejack walked up to Twilight, a dazed expression on her face. “Did...did you just topple Pony Civilization with a real estate scam?” “Uh-huh,” Twilight said with a nod. With a straight face, she added, “I wonder sometimes if I am always a force for good.”