//------------------------------// // In Which a Princess is Upset // Story: The Usurper King of Equestria // by UsurperBronyZant //------------------------------// “Hmm. I pissed off Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle all at once. That is a new record!” “Who knows,” I mused. “Maybe I did.” “No. You aren't the one polluting the atmosphere. Or secretly launching nukes at Iraq and blaming it on Russia.” “Yeah, but Lilium and I were supposed to wait in Town Hall for Twilight and the Mayor to come out of their meeting.” Then I realized what Church had just said. “Wait, what?” “Oh shit. You weren't supposed to know about that.” “Meh, I’ll probably forget it soon enough anyway,” I said in a disregarding manner. “ZANT!” Clearly the locals were unhappy. “Ah shit,” I said under my breath. “Yes, dearest?” I asked satirically. “Don't worry I'll cover for you,” Church said before he projected his voice outside the pelican. “You are currently in a UNSC warzone. Leave the area immediately unless you wish to join the conflict.” Clearly that wasn't the right thing to say judging by what Twilight screamed next. “SHUT UP!” As she did this, her mane, tail, and coat seemed to start glowing white a bit, and even began to smoke. “I’ll deal with you later!” She yelled, pointing her hoof at Church. “Oh shit,” I thought. “Is she going to evolve into Rapidash?” I equipped my helmet just in case. “Yeah no. I like Twilight but I don't like her like that.” Church then realized he was still projecting his voice. An awkward silence ensued. A random cough, seemingly from out of nowhere, was heard by all six of us. After a few moments, I finally broke the silence. “So…” I said, “This is awkward…” “SHUT UP!” A Spartan in armor yelled at me. I then realized he was just a member of the ship’s crew. “...dafuq?” I mumbled to myself. “Who took a piss in his cereal this morning?” “Oh. That is Albert. He's always angry,” Church explained. “Fuck you Church!” Albert yelled. “Ahem,” Church coughed. “Err, I mean, Fuck you, Sir!” “That is better.” I looked back to Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. They all seemed to have calmed down a bit, but they all looked annoyed. Twilight opened her mouth to say something, then stopped and said, “Know what? No. I’m done. Nope!” “Stop. Get in the ship young lady! You need some fast food!” Twilight and her two friends were forcibly teleported in. “Do you hear me?! You need to sit down and calm down… While we serve you five star food!” Twilight looked about ready to burst. Right when I thought she would evolve into Rapidash, she seemingly remembered her time-tested technique and brought her hoof to her chest, then thrust it outward, taking a deep breath as she did so. “Chefs! Get this...lady some...What do you want? Free of course.” Twilight gave a sigh of exasperation and said, “Just...just some cupcakes or something. Maybe some donuts. Comfort food.” Church suddenly remembered he wasn't a chef and talked over the intercom. “Food staff, we have very important guests here. Get them everything sweet you can imagine!” I couldn't understand a word he was saying as he wasn't speaking English. Spanish, maybe? It sounded familiar but I still couldn’t understand a word he said. Carrying a huge cart were a squad of six Spartans wearing the same armor as Lopez. They stopped in front of the mares and took the cover off the cart, displaying donuts, cupcakes, ice cream, even different kinds from other countries. “Now THAT is a spread!” I said, thoroughly impressed. “Thank you,” Twilight said before helping herself to some ice cream and a jelly donut. “That will be negative two thousand dollars,” Church said. Twilight didn’t hear him, as she was too busy stress-eating. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy just looked at each other and shrugged before helping themselves. “Here! Complimentary!” A Lopez showered them in coins. “This is for the casino. That we don't actually have...I think.” Twilight looked up from her food just long enough to mutter “thanks” before returning to her binge. Church suddenly started laughing hard, “T-Those are American coins… Good luck using them!” At this point, Twilight was beyond caring. There was just her and her sweets. As for the other two, they didn’t have any idea as to what Church was going on about, so they just ignored him. “Guys. You learn something new every day. Twilight has a sweets problem. She has more in common with Celestia than I thought.” “Nah,” I said. “I think that’s just the stress. I mean, not only do we have this hostage situation, but there’s a Nightmare Moon cult conspiring to kill her, as well as the other Elements.” “Actually this isn't a hostage situation. A hostage situation would be me putting her in a cryochamber.” “I was referring to Desert Gem,” I said. “You know, the one we came here to save?” “Wait save?! YOU HIRED ME TO KILL HER NOT SAVE HER!” I facepalmed. Hard. It hurt, even through my helmet. “Not THAT kind of marehunt, goddammit!” I said, incredibly frustrated. “CAN ONE OF YOU JUST PROJECT AN IMAGE OF THE ONE WE ARE LOOKING FOR?! OR GIVE ME A PIECE OF DNA!” “I already showed you a picture!” I yelled. “A changeling disguised as her tried to kill Twilight! We tried to contact the mare in question but never heard back. We assumed the worst, and here we are.” “Songnam. Direct all priorities to finding subject with this file,” Church said to the ship. As he did, the computer screens around us showed an image of the mare I described and the geographic map of Equus with markers around it. “Ooooh, fancy,” I snarked. “Found two matches.” An electronic voice replied. One came up in Ponyville. That was the changeling. The other was very close to us, in what must have been the heart of the temple. Or perhaps, temples, as there seemed to be two in one. “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!” Church screamed at the computer. “I thought you would be more...appreciative, Director,” Songnam said in a sad tone. “I am. It's just that STUPID. FUCKING. TEMPLE.” He started taking deep breaths until he calmed down. “Well,” I said, “At least we have a map.” I went to the screen and examined the temple map. Most of the rooms were blue, while a few were orange. “So, we’ve been in the orange ones, and the blue ones are places we’ve yet to explore,” I said, half to myself and half to the others. “That’s a lot of blue.” “Oh and by the way. If you say we have to land the pelican on the poison I will throw all of you off the ship and into space,” Church said deadly serious. “Well, we could do that,” I said sarcastically, “or I could just disperse the fog with my new airbending.” “Okay Einstein. You do that. But first… Let's see… this is a complicated process…” I suddenly felt the air I was breathing become a lot cleaner. It was odd, to say the least. The sensation really defies description, yet it’s unmistakable. I pretty much had an invisible oxygen mask on that contained fresh air. But for how long, I did not know. Knowing what I had to do, I teleported outside the ship, and used my levitation to lower myself to the ground. As I got closer, I activated my wind magic, using it to dispel the lethal fog. It just sort of dissipated into the rest of the room, some of it going out through holes Church’s weapons had made during the fight with Armogohma. As I watched the poison fade, I noticed the pelican landing in a clearing a few feet away, perched precariously over a narrow stream of vile fluid. I saw the hatch open as Church ran away from very angry mares. “Fuck off!” “NO! YOU TOOK AWAY THE FOOD!” They screamed. “Oh GOD, WHAT HAS HE DONE?!” I thought, horrified. If there is one thing you never ever do EVER, it’s take away a stressed mare’s comfort food! “Fuck this! Alalalala- *muffled*” “Did…did he just jump into the poison...?” Rainbow Dash asked in shock. Once again, I facepalmed. “Yes, Rainbow,” I said, exasperated. “Yes he did.” Our jaws dropped when we saw Church get flung out of the water by a tentacle, “THAT WASN'T POISON! THAT WAS PISS!” He screamed as he was sent flying. We all just looked at him, then the tentacle, then back at him, in horror. Church landed in front of us sobbing. Well…I think he was- no wait he's coughing. The piss liquid was what he coughed out. We let him have a moment. Then I asked, “Time for another body?” “I'll just have this one washed in an industrial car wash…But yeah...” ~A few minutes later…~ Church had returned as a human again but was wearing armor from a game I hadn't played. “What’s this then?” I asked. “I'm Isaac Clarke. You know, from Dead Space…kind of. The color is off.” “Oh yeah, that guy,” I said. “Never played the games. Closest I got was watching the Zero Punctuation reviews.” “At least I can go in contaminated areas now.” “True,” I said. “Why are you mares looking at me like that?” He asked. They were looking at his armor in confusion. “I think it’s the whole body-swapping thing,” I said to him. “Well. I am dead,” He said bluntly to the mares, who automatically assumed he was doing something evil. Before they could say anything Church held up a hand and said, “No I am not a necromancer. Just your ordinary Artificial Intelligence.” After he said that he walked away until he was at the edge of the ravine. And then just…jumped. Once again we all stared in shock. As soon as we got over the initial surprise, we ran over to the edge of the ravine, careful to to slip on the wet moss, only to hear an ominous *sploosh*. Church, it seemed, had fallen into the purple piss-river at the bottom of the ravine. He swam up to the surface and jumped out of the piss, somehow clean. Lilium and I didn’t even bother facepalming/hoofing this time. The other three mares, however, still stared in shock. “Hey! Get down here! It's safe!” “I think you broke them!” I called down to him. “Hey Twilight! And her friends! If you help us with this I'll give you back your food!” Twilight, Rainbow, and Fluttershy just fell over, each stiff as a board. Luckily they didn’t fall over the side of the ravine. Church suddenly adopted Celestia’s voice. “TWILIGHT SPARKLE! YOU ARE TARDY!” Suddenly Twilight shot straight up. “TARDY?!” She exclaimed. “I CAN’T BE TARDYYYYYYYYYYYY!” “Okay, now you won't be tardy if you help your friends out of their shocked states and help Zant and the others with their mission.” Church was hidden so she couldn't tell it was him saying this. “Yes ma’am!” Twilight replied quickly. She gave a painful zap to Rainbow and Fluttershy to wake them up, then teleported the three of them as well as Lilium and myself to the bottom of the ravine, hyperventilating all the while. Church suddenly whispered so that only Lilium and I could hear. “You better not say anything.” His tone promised space ejection. I made a loop with my thumb and index finger, my other three fingers extended, giving him the universal sign for “okay.” “So, any ideas where this elusive mare is?” Church asked the still-hyperventilating Twilight Sparkle. “No ma’am!” Twilight replied stiffly. “The A.I.-undead-whatever had a map but I couldn’t understand it ma’am!” The more she spoke the more tense and worried she sounded. “You seem disappointed. Mayhaps it was because of the format of the map?’ “No ma’am!” Twilight responded. “I couldn’t understand the language!” Church spoke in his normal voice, and one could practically hear the smirk in his tone. “Be right back.” He teleported back after a few seconds holding a datapad. “Yours. It supports many languages but I currently have it in Equestrian. There’s a LOT of information on here. Over a yottabyte. Go crazy,” He said as he handed her the datapad. Suddenly Twilight realized what had happened. She stopped hyperventilating. Her expression contorted to one full of rage. Then, she took a deep breath. She used her magic to snatch the datapad out of Church’s hand, then proceeded to fire a high-intensity beam of magic at him, most likely some high-caliber offensive spell. His body glowed so bright, the rest of us had to look away. And when the light finally became bearable…Church was still standing there with his arms crossed. Twilight, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy were nowhere to be seen.