//------------------------------// // The Perils of Parenting Petite Ponies // Story: Wily's Wittle Wub // by Tatsurou //------------------------------// Albert slowly awoke the following morning after getting dead drunk with Mikhail to 'celebrate his liberty and legal victory' rather than deal with the awkward conversation of explaining the differences between humans and ponies, males and females to Vinyl after the...revelation from Secret. He'd left Protoman in charge of the kids before they'd started drinking. Unfortunately, he felt he hadn't drunk enough, since he could still remember the previous night's unpleasant events. Groaning, he pushed himself out of bed and went to the window, looking forward to staring out at the snowy landscape to relax himself. Unfortunately, he found himself witness to a different fluffy white landscape against the far too brightly blue sky. Reaching out, he discovered that yes, that was a cloud right outside his window. Cumulus, if he wasn't mistaken, but he never did make a study of clouds so he couldn't be sure. One thing was certain, though. It didn't belong outside his window when his bedroom was at ground level...or at least it was last he checked. "VINYL!" he roared out before clutching at his head, having forgotten briefly about hangovers. Vinyl entered shortly, dressed in an adorable blue fuzzy bathrobe decorated with music notes and pink bunny slippers on each of her four hooves. She let out an adorable yawn as she lifted one forehoof out of her slipper to rub the sleep out of her eyes. "Yeah Dad?" she asked tiredly. "Can you explain this?" Albert demanded with a groan, gesturing out the window. Vinyl glanced over sleepily. "That's a window," she grumbled. "It opens to let in a fresh breeze, or closes to keep out rain and stuff-" "Outside the window," Albert groaned. Shaking her head, Vinyl placed her forehooves on the windowsill and glanced outside. "It's a cloud," Vinyl explained. "Altocumulus, to be exact." "Why is there a cloud outside my window, I mean?" Albert growled out. "Oh...why didn't you say so in the first place?" Vinyl settled back down on the floor, scratching at one ear with a hind leg for better leverage. "Cause our fortress is flying now. Ours and the Cossack's." "...and if I ask why we're flying, am I going to get another frustrating half answer?" Albert asked morosely. "Because Mutilus' castle was the prototype for this all along," Vinyl explained logically. "I like living here with the Cossack's as our neighbors, but if we stay in one place too long - even if we use different fortresses for any future world takeover attempts - Mega Man will eventually know where to look for us when he decides its time to arrest us again. When I explained this to Kalinka, she suggested making the location move instead of us. So I decided to make a self-sustaining flying island, complete with the cloaking field Snake Man was building for his planetoid, so we're completely invisible to any detection equipment, even the naked eye unless you're within the field. So now we've got our own independent country!" Albert stared at her. "It's not much of a country if its just us and the Cossacks," he pointed out, deciding not to start questioning the science or logic of 'make a flying country' just yet. "It is if robots are citizens," Vinyl countered readily. "I've already sent out invitations to various roboticists who are dissatisfied with the way the International Robotics Committee handles these things and are firmly in the camp of letting robots be equals with humans, along with several families who treat their robotic companions as family members instead of servants or appliances. Once they've cleared background checks and the like, we'll have several thousand human and robotic citizens." "And what about an economy?" Wily demanded. "Agriculture? The other infrastructure?" "Hydroponics Man." "...what?" "Kalinka built a Robot Master to handle all the food growing," Vinyl explained more clearly. "And she also built Weather Man to provide us with clean air up here, as well as harvesting airborne pollutants to be recycled into resources we'll sell to other countries at premium prices. And with all the robots being brought up here, we'll be able to start colonizing and mining the Moon before too much longer." Wily shook his head. "And the high level of robotics tech in use means that the rest of it is all automated?" "Yup!" Vinyl proclaimed proudly. "Impressive, isn't it?" "Very," Albert agreed. "But don't you think you should have asked us first before setting something like this up?" "We did!" Vinyl insisted. "You and Dr. Cossack said it was a great idea, and that we should install death lasers and nukes and a...Molecular Destabilizer Device for defensive weapons. Then you both laughed and chugged from your bottles again." She shrugged. "Death rays and nukes were easy enough, but I had to look up the MD Device, and that was only in science fiction. Sounds fascinating, though!" Her eyes shone at the idea. Albert stared down at her. He couldn't really fault her logic. She apparently did ask for - and get - permission. And it was certainly an impressive accomplishment. He just wished he had a bit more warning about it when he was sober. "And you built all this last night?" he asked, amazed. "Oh, no!" Vinyl countered. "I built it all before making the effort to break you out of prison! Last night I just asked for permission to switch it all on!" Albert stared at her in disbelief, then shook his head ruefully. "At least I don't need coffee this morning anymore..." he grumbled. "At least tell me you've accounted for atmospheric differentials." "Weather Man surrounded the whole place with an atmosphere bubble," Vinyl replied. "Once we have a full population, he'll gradually adjust it so everyone can adapt." Wily nodded helplessly. "So...how long is this place going to stay afloat?" he asked worriedly. "Unless someone damages the power core...about 1000 years or so without need for maintenance," Vinyl replied. "I call it the Sky Lagoon!"