//------------------------------// // A Canterlot Wedding - part 1 // Story: A Dream // by totallynotabrony //------------------------------// I didn’t wake up that morning expecting to be lynched. Most people wouldn’t have. Unfortunately, I wasn’t most people. I was vampire pony who’d accidentally registered under the wrong fake name at a hotel. While I hadn’t been anticipating any specific threats, I was at least prepared. History had shown that there really were ponies out to get me, so a reasonable amount of paranoia was justified. When the angry Mustang family came knocking on my door, I went out the window. It had nothing at all to do with the fact that there were a dozen of them and they were armed with torches and pitchforks. There was also the added bonus of eliminating the need to pay my hotel bill. I met up with my companions at the train station. The improved speed of the returning Friendship Express was welcome. I was eager to put Canterlot behind me. Had I known what was about to go severely wrong in Equestria, I would have kidnapped the train crew and forced the locomotive to keep going as far away from Canterlot as humanly possible. Ponily possible. Whatever. There was a picnic planned for when we got back. Spike showed up with a letter from Celestia. Everyone was invited to a wedding. “I wonder who’s getting married?” asked Twilight. “Your brother,” I said. I laughed at the shocked look on her face. “Oh my gosh, I have been waiting for this for so long. You have no idea.” “I don’t understand!” she cried. “He’s my BBBFF. Why didn’t he tell me himself?” All of us looked at her curiously. She rolled her eyes. “Big Brother Best Friend Forever. Before I came here and learned the importance of friendship, Shining Armor was the only pony I really accepted as a friend.” “I have more friends that you do, Twilight, and that’s saying something.” It was only after I said that that I realized how bad it made me sound. Anyway, Twilight broke into song with the other five ponies providing backup vocals. I got bored and thought about leaving, but decided to wait a little while and see if anything interesting would happen. The Cutie Mark Crusaders came by. “What’s up?” I asked. “We're goin’ to be flower girls for the wedding!” said Apple Bloom. “You already know about it?” “Word travels fast,” said Sweetie Belle. “Fair enough. I don’t think that’s a good idea, though.” “Why not?” asked Scootaloo. “Have you ever been to a wedding before?” They hadn’t. “Good. Mostly, it’ll be stuffy formalities and little to no excitement. You three would be better off staying home.” “Well, if you say so Valiant,” said Apple Bloom. “Come on, girls.” They left. The song was over. “I think your brother sounds like a real nice guy,” said Applejack. “I guess,” said Twilight. “They don’t just let anypony be Captain of the Royal Guard.” “Let me get this straight,” said Rarity. “I get to make dresses for a Guard Captain too? Good thing I’ve been working on the bride's dress since Valiant told me about it.” Twilight’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know about it?” she asked me. “How didn’t you?” I said. “The rest of us knew.” The other ponies nodded in agreement. Twilight groaned. “Well, I guess we should get started.” We got back on the train. “Serious waste of resources, here,” I said. “Kind of terrible to get back from the dessert competition just to have a picnic and return to Canterlot.” Nobody paid me any mind. “I get to host the bachelor party!” Spike was saying. I made a mental note to get him some booze to make things interesting. I did manage to chat with Pinkie a little. "I have a theory!" she told me. "Let's hear it." "You know how everypony says that earth ponies have a kind of magic of their own?" "Sure." "Well, I'm the only pony I know who can use it!" She frowned. "Well, Applejack probably can too, but she's too honest to break the laws of physics. Anyway, nopony in Ponyville does either because all that randomness would be too much for one town to handle!" "So the whole random behavior thing is just earth pony magic?" "Yep!" I thought about it. It did make sense, or at least more sense than any other explanation I'd ever heard for why Pinkie acted the way she did. Pinkie looked out the window. “Hey, why is the castle inside a giant bubble?” At the train station, Twilight stormed off to give Shining Armor a piece of her mind. Sounded like fun, so I went along. She screamed at him for a little while as I stood in the background. “I’m really sorry I couldn’t come to Ponyville to tell you,” he said. “Princess Celestia has ordered an increase in security because of a threat against Canterlot.” I figured this was the big, evil event the Mares in Black had been preparing for. It made me wish I’d brought my switchblade. Oh wait, of course I did. Why wouldn't I have it with me everywhere? Shining Armor revealed that he was the one keeping the bubble in place. “Okay, I get it,” said Twilight. “You’ve got a big job protecting Canterlot with a forcefield only you can conjure up.” “Uh, didn’t you do something like that to keep the Cutie Mark Crusaders out of the library when they were snooping for Gabby Gums articles?” I said. “And surely the Princesses can do it, too.” “Who’s this?” asked Shining Armor, sounding offended. “Hi, I’m Valiant, the local badass.” “I’ve never heard of you,” he said. “Well, local to Ponyville anyway. I hang out with your sister and keep her out of trouble.” “What are you talking about?” shouted Twilight. “Hey, calm down,” said Shining Armor. “Don’t get all worked up before the wedding.” “Speaking of, who are you marrying, anyway?” asked Twilight. “It’s Cadance,” he said. “Oh, my old foalsitter!” said Twilight. “That's great! She's so special. How many ponies can just spread love wherever they go?” “If that’s her unique talent,” I said, “how do we know this marriage is consensual?” “I hope I’m not interrupting anything important,” said a voice. A multicolored, but mostly pink, pony appeared. Cadance, I presumed. I realized that if I stayed, I’d probably insult the bride and have the whole Royal Guard after me, so I took a walk. See, sometimes I make smart choices. I encountered Spike in the kitchen. “Where the hell did you even get action figures of the bride and groom?” I asked. “Oh, these go on the cake,” he explained. “Cool. I’m going to go see if I can find Blueblood and put a stake in his heart.” “All right—wait, what?” “Nevermind.” I was unsuccessful in my search, and eventually admitted defeat. Someday, you bloodsucker. I met up with everyone that evening. Twilight complained bitterly about Princess Cadance. “I thought you liked her,” I said. “But she’s changed! It’s like she doesn’t even remember me! She’s being fake, and totally insincere.” “That isn’t too different from, say, Rarity,” I said, “but you make a good case. I’ll go get my wedding-ruining kit.” “You have a kit for that?” asked Spike. “It’s called starting a fire in the event hall.” “Don’t do that,” said Twilight. “I’ll sort this out.” “Oh, all right.” I rolled my eyes. While Twilight was gone, a messenger came by to recruit the other five ponies as bridesmaids. Rarity quickly whipped up some outfits for them. “We’ll have to see about getting outfits for the new flower girls,” she said. “Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo were supposed to do it, but they had something else going on.” “I heard Derpy is doing flowers,” said Rainbow. “That sounds like a terrible idea,” I said. The pegasus shrugged. “I saw her in Canterlot earlier. It must be true.” Twilight seemed very surprised when she got back. “We’re the new bridesmaids!” said Applejack. “New ones? What happened to the old ones?” Twilight shook her head. “Never mind that, Shining Armor’s in real trouble! You have to help!” They told her she was overreacting. “What kind of trouble is he in?” I asked. Twilight turned to me. “I saw Cadance using a spell on him. I think it might be some kind of mind control!” “Fair enough.” I cracked my neck. “Let’s go tear this bitch a new one.” “A new what?” I rolled my eyes. “Let’s ruin her.” Twilight nodded and we were about to leave when another messenger came by asking us to report to the event center for the wedding rehearsal. It sounded like a good opportunity to confront the Princess. Well, Twilight blew it. She accused Cadance of being evil in front of everyone, and Shining Armor tore her a new one. I was left alone in the hall with a despondent Twilight. I didn’t really want to see her tears, so I told her, “Stop it.” “I can’t!” she wailed. “I made a terrible mistake. I’m so sorry.” “You will be,” said Cadance, who had returned silently. Her horn lit up and a ring of green fire drew a circle on the carpet around us. “Well, if it’s any consolation Twilight, I believe you now,” I said. Cadance walked away, chuckling evilly to herself. I made a move to jump over the ring of fire and go after her, but Twilight stopped me. “You have no idea what this stuff is. Escape might be impossible. Why would she just walk away if she thought that you could get out?” “Well, what do you suggest we do? Hey, did you feel that?” The floor beneath us appeared to be shifting. “Oh, this isn’t good!” said Twilight. “I think this is a ground collapse spell! We have to get out of here before we get dropped into the huge caverns beneath the castle!” “Like I said before, what do you suggest we do?” Twilight’s horn lit up, probing the magic that held us. “I think I can use a teleportation spell…but it will only work for one of us.” “Well, I always knew my bad deeds would catch up with me,” I said. “I just never thought I would find myself about to fall into a giant cave through magical means and the only unicorn who could help hates my guts.” “Actually,” said Twilight. “you’re the only pony who believed me when I found out Cadance was evil. For that I…I owe you something.” Her horn glowed brighter and in a flash I was back in Ponyville. I sat up from dirt where I had ended up. “I’ve said it before,” I muttered to myself, “but I don’t think any situation has ever called for a statement regarding the reality of excrement more than this one.” I sighed. “Shit just got real.” I picked myself up and made some quick plans. While I felt no particular reason to oppose whatever mischief Cadance was up to, I was determined to pay her back for forcing Twilight into that ground collapsing spell. That was some really nice carpet she ruined. “Hey, Post!” I shouted. The mailpony in question happened to be walking down the street towards me. “How’s it going, Valiant?” he said. “Canterlot’s got an evil wedding going on, and I’m about to go beat the bride into a pulp.” He nodded slowly. “Want to help?” I asked. “I’m only authorized to take extreme physical measures in relation to mail delivery,” he said. “Hang on.” I went to get the panzerfaust replica I had built. The old German rocket launcher only carried one shot, but I wasn’t taking it into combat. I filled out an address label for Princess Celestia and stuck it to the weapon. “So if Celestia was under attack, you’d fight your way through the crowd to deliver this?” I asked. Post nodded seriously. “Neither wind nor rain nor armed assailants stop the Royal Mail Service from completing our deliveries.” “Right on. Can I offer you a ride?” I pointed to the row of six combat robots that I had built at the behest of the Mares in Black, and the extra one that I'd built for me. Post was okay with that, so I gave him some basic training with the controls and let him practice while I went to look for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. While I didn’t think they were mature enough to participate in a wedding, there were few ponies who I trusted more with advanced weapons of destruction. Screwy, ain’t it? The three fillies were in their treehouse at Sweet Apple Acres. They quickly agreed to come with me and bring some pain to Cadance. I saw Braeburn nearby. “Hey, you want to help save and/or ruin a wedding?” I asked. “I don’t know if I’m qualified.” He’d been really down since I’d implanted cybernetics into his body. It’s like he didn’t want to be half-robot or something. “Look, I know you’re feeling all depressed about being seen in public. This is going to be a formal event, so you’ve got an excuse to wear clothes so nobody will be the wiser.” “Well, since you put it that way, I guess I can help,” he said, rather reluctantly. I nodded. “Thanks.” I did a quick mental checklist. I had Post committed to the job, or at least as long as it took to deliver the special package. The Crusaders were with me, and Braeburn would probably go along with it if I forced him. That left one robot unaccounted for. I instantly thought of Derpy. Her independent eyes would be an advantage in combat, but she was in Canterlot and unavailable. The Elements of Harmony and Spike were also out of reach. I reviewed a couple of other names. “Who should I pick?” I muttered. Author note: Please answer Valiant’s question. Which Ponyville resident do you want to see piloting a combat robot? You have until 0200 UTC on April 23 (about 27 hours from the upload time of this chapter)