Uncommon Bond
We were really doing funerals too often.
A couple of people had shown up for Rainbow’s. Her friends were there. Also her associates, which brought the grand total up to three. Four if you count Pinkie’s skull.
Guinness wore a black suit and a somber expression. He tried to keep Skyla under control and quiet.
Rainbow’s parents were decidedly less composed.
Bible stepped up to the podium. “In lieu of a composed speech, we have elected to read a selection of newspaper clippings about Rainbow Dash. Her exploits and feats were widely known across all of Equestria.”
He cleared his throat. “Oh my God, what a bitch. Bitchbow Bitch bitchiness. Bitchest of all bitches.”
Apparently, they had just randomly pulled headlines to read about Rainbow. I’d done so much bitching about her that the majority of print available was mine. So randomly grabbing samples of writing about Rainbow had backfired beautifully. Ding dong, the bitch is dead. I didn’t say that out loud, though.
Bible hurried through the rest of the ceremony. “We now commit her body to the earth.”
“Wait, why are you burying her?” called Rainbow’s father.
Bible stuttered. “Er, how else are we supposed to do it?”
“She’s a pegasus. It’s traditional to do cremation and let the ashes fly free with the wind.”
“I was until recently a holy book from another planet, so I’m not really up with all the customs around here,” said Bible. “But we already got the casket and I think it’s too big to fit in an oven now.”
“While I wouldn’t normally step in to give Rainbow’s ghost the time of day, I think we should accommodate the request,” I said. I had recently renewed my efforts to be a nice guy.
“Thank you, young stallion,” said Rainbow’s mother. “Were you a friend of Rainbow?”
“We knew each other,” was what I managed to say, though it was strained. I quickly hurried away before I slipped and said what I really thought.
At least I got to burn Rainbow and wave goodbye.
I went over to the library afterwards. I really just wanted to polish my snowglobes and not think about things.
Twilight dragged me back into it, though.
“You need to help me!”
“Starlight Glimmer the ghost proving too much for you to handle?”
Twilight glared at me and then pointed at the glass jar where said spirit still sat. “No, but until I figure out the exact method to successfully return a soul to life, you need to do whatever it is you do to fix things.”
“What, you mean Rainbow?”
“Yes!”
“She wanted to die. Plus, why would I? She was such a bi-” I came up short. Being a nice guy kind of sucks sometimes. “And anyway, I can’t. We just cremated her per her parents’ wishes so that’s as bad as salt.”
“What about if there was something left? Can a spirit be recovered if you still have the body?”
“Are you talking about your parents, Cadance, Shining, Flurry, and Iron Will?”
Twilight nodded.
“And you still have their parts. That’s disgusting, but at the same time I guess I didn’t want to have six more funerals. I guess maybe that could work, though we only have a few parts of each of them so it would be a chimera of the worst possible things. Well, not entirely, I guess; we have Iron Will’s abs. That would be pretty sick.”
“So there’s no way to get Rainbow back?”
“No.”
“And there’s no way to get the others back?”
“Not without making them a horrible chimera with sick abs.”
The door opened. I turned to look. “Well if it isn’t the ambiguously gay duo.”
“I really wish you’d stop calling us that,” said Sunburst.
“All you have to do is stop being ambiguously gay. Go one way or the other.”
“It’s not nice to call ponies names,” said Twilight.
“I’m not calling them a bad name, just pointing out an observation,” I pointed out.
“Still, I thought you were trying to be a nice guy.”
God, shit from Twilight too? I let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“Anyway, what are you guys doing here?” I said, turning back to Sunburst and Thorax.
“Antiquing!” Sunburst exclaimed.
Thorax rubbed the back of his head. “Um, I kind of grew up in a hive in the middle of nowhere, but sometimes I can kinda see where Valiant’s coming from.”
Sunburst shook his head. “Look, just let me buy a grab bag and we’ll call it good, okay dude?”
Well, he may have only ended up with the one grab bag, which was actually a barrel for some reason, but he didn’t specify that he would also be looking around the store for several hours just shopping.
I was surprised to discover a common love of bricks. I’m particularly a fan of the extruded ones myself. Not only do I appreciate machine efficiency, but it called to mind certain parallels to shitting bricks.
You may be wondering why I like bricks. Have you ever thrown one at someone’s head?
Shit, you’re supposed to be a nice guy, Valiant.
As we were walking through the antique shop, though, Sunburst asked, “So...what’s with that thing you’re carrying?”
“I mean, technically a D5 Trident II is an antique design.” Not that I’m calling Trident old or anything.
“So why did you come antiquing?” he asked. “You don’t look like you’re enjoying yourself. Is it because you’re trying to keep me away from some sort of weird science project Twilight was doing?”
I had forgotten that Sunburst, while easy to make fun of, was still a scholar and had seen just enough shit to be savvy.
“Yeah, you got me. We have Starlight’s ghost in a jar.”
“You what?” He shook his head. “I hate to say it, but she changed so much. She definitely wasn’t the same pony I knew growing up.”
“Twilight’s going to try a postmortem redemption. First of its kind, I understand.”
“But...Starlight will still be dead unless you somehow manage to come up with a body and put her in it.”
“There is that.”
Sunburst turned his head. “Hey, check that out! A Mighty Helm map!”
“Hey, what’s this board game?” Thorax asked, coming up just then.
Sunburst gasped. “Wow, I haven’t seen Dragon Pit in years! Hey Valiant, do you want to play?”
“You both have magic,” I pointed out. “I don’t know how that makes rolling dice fair.”
Sunburst frowned. “Now that I think about it, that could explain why Starlight and I were always tieing.”
I was about to leave, when Sunburst said, “We were going to go to the mirror pool later. We can combine my love of geologic phenomenon with Thorax’s love of dark caves.”
“Why are you inviting me?”
“So you can see once and for all whether we’re gay. Or not.”
I shook my head. “God, just pick one already.”
Sunburst glanced at Thorax. “Fine. I’m gay.”
“No you’re not, not with that terrible beard.”
I try to be a nice guy, but sometimes you just have to tell it like it is.
I went over to the farmer’s market train to buy some grapes. On my way, I saw a flier advertising new and improved population enhancement laws that would optimize all of Equestria. A team would be arriving in Ponyville later that day in order to optimize it.
“What’s this?” I asked.
Applejack happened to be nearby, being that it was a farmer’s market and all. “Something about the government making the ponies better. I never really bought into government interference and didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“Wait, where did you hear about it?”
“I didn’t expect you to know about it,” said a haughty mare who butted in. “You not being a citizen.”
I wanted to strongly correct her, but in the interest of trying to be a nice guy, had to restrain myself.
I guess my reputation was getting around if even random ponies on the street knew about me.
The CMC ran by just then. While I wasn’t paying much attention, I heard something about a mirror pool.
While I didn’t know a lot about mirror pools, there was the one that had cloned Pinkie Pie. And if the CMC were talking about it, nothing good could come of this.
Being a nice guy and not wanting to see the town overrun by multiple copies of the CMC, I quickly hurried after them.
However, to my great surprise, I discovered that my misgivings were actually misguided. Be still my heart, they weren’t there to create mischief, they only wanted to study rocks and were using the mirror pool just for its location in a cave.
Jesus, talking about a lucky break.
Of course, though, it immediately went to shit. When we got there, we discovered that the place actually had a tunnel connecting it to an underground headquarters. Sunburst and Thorax were already there.
“Wow, I didn’t think hollow granite usually came with secret hideouts,” said Apple Bloom.
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t,” Sweetie pointed out.
“Um, why does everything have a logo that says ‘Gabby?’” said Scootaloo.
I facehoofed. Had Gabby had this place the whole time? That would explain why she had been able to have pretty much free reign near Ponyville.
“That’s what we were trying to figure out,” said Sunburst. “This looks like a pretty sophisticated operation.
He was right, it looked like a pretty sweet cave. Maud would like it. Outside the rocks, though, it had been heavily renovated. Giving the place a look over, it seemed like it had been pretty well outfitted.
Arts and crafts projects were everywhere, many with blue ribbons attached. Apparently Gabby had been busy at being the best at everything. Various weapons decorated the walls. In one corner was a near-duplicate of one of my terminals. The screen was turned on, showing a couple of schematics.
I was instantly suspicious. This had been too easy. I hadn’t even seen any security systems around. Still, I couldn’t help but look at the screen.
Plan to be The Best at Political Satire
- Get citizens riled up
- Present a plan to solve all their problems
- “Solve” all their problems
I really didn’t like the look of those quotation marks.
“We should probably get back to town,” I said. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Back in Ponyville, Gabby was lining up ponies to shoot them in the street. Well, good to know my feelings were on track.
I was all ready to jump into battle when the mayor got in my way. “Mr. Valiant, a word?”
“I’m kind of busy!”
“Yes, but what we have here is a royal decree to optimize our town.” She showed me a piece of paper.
“Gabby probably wrote that herself while she was Princess Celestia!”
The mayor gave me a blank look. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Princess Celestia’s dead, Gabby took over the throne for a while.”
“That doesn’t make any sense either, and if true, the implications are frankly too horrible to think about so I’m going to treat that statement like nonsense and follow the lead of this decree and that extremely talented griffon.”
“She’s literally murdering people!”
“First of all, you’re one to talk.”
“I’ve changed! I’m a nice guy now!”
“Then second of all, if you’re really a nice guy now, you’ll obey the law.”
“The false law that involves literal genocide!’
“The law.”
Goddamnit.
I spun around. The haughty mare from earlier was pleading for her life as Gabby leveled her gun. “No, please!” The bodies of dozens of already-optimized ponies lay nearby.
Despite the situation, I couldn’t help but kick her while she was down. “You wanted this. You wanted to optimize the town. This is what you get when you vote for the shooting-people-in-the-streets party.”
“I didn’t think they would shoot me in the streets! Also, what’s voting and what does it have to do with the Equestrian government?”
It was a small win for democracy, but a decidedly huge loss for me versus Gabby.
I couldn’t even engage her there and then, I didn’t have all my gear. Sure, the Santa bag carried a lot of it and I was sorely tempted to try, but there was still some experimental stuff I had to finish. I still had some stuff. I was carrying a nuke after all, but using that meant I’d die too and that just wasn’t really acceptable. Dying sucks.
I hustled over to the library. Twilight was watching the scene in the street worriedly. I mean, that was definitely an understatement considering what was happening, but I was too focused on gearing up to carefully document Twilght’s exact reaction.
“Valiant,” she called. “You really need to do something.”
“I’m trying to work out how,” I said. “She has a royal decree.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Celestia is dead.”
“And if you didn’t know that, you’d probably just blindly go along with it because you’re a good little pony who don’t not take shit off not nobody.”
“But what are you going to do?”
“I’m trying to think. Being a nice guy, I can’t just violate the law of the land.”
Twilight gave me a look.
“Anymore. Look, I understand a royal decree. Yeah, I thumb my nose at them, but I understand how it makes me look when everybody goes along with them.” I shook my head. “God, ponies are stupidly herdlike sometimes.”
“I thought you were trying to be a nice guy. Insults don’t help.”
“Damn it! Yes, I am. Look, I am honestly trying, you can see that, can’t you?”
“Yes, I really can. And I have to say, Valiant, I think it’s amazing.” Twilight glanced out the window. “But I can’t believe I’m saying this, but something really needs to be done about Gabby.”
“How?”
She turned back to me. “Valiant, much as your reputation has improved lately, it’s still bad. You don’t have a lot to lose.”
“Thanks for invalidating all my work trying to be a nice guy.”
“Look, Valiant, believe me, this hurts to say, but I think you might be the only one who can do this.” Twilight closed her eyes, sucked in a breath, and sighed. She looked at me. “Do it.”
I stared at her. “Are you saying…?”
“Do what you have to do. Anything to stop Gabby.”
I blinked slowly, taking it in. I crossed the room and wrapped Twilight up in a hug, probably surprising me more than her.
“I didn’t expect that from you,” she said.
“Yeah. Just I might never get the chance again. When this gets going, I honestly don’t know the endgame.”
She sighed. “I know. I know the kind of fire I’m playing with here. But I don’t see any other option, not after so many lives have already been taken. Just make sure it’s for something, okay?”
“Okay.” I disengaged. Twilight turned away, apparently unable to look.
I paused to grab a few of my favorite snow globes. Then, I headed for the door.
As I walked, my mouth started to smile. Even if I was Santa Claus, my lips just kept stretching up my cheeks into a full-on Grinch grin.
No more Mister Nice Guy.
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Oh this oughta be good. *grabs popcorn*
I have a feeling that literally the only point of the nice guy angle was buildup JUST FOR THIS ONE LINE RIGHT HERE ONLY.
8516674
And I would be okay with that. It is a nice line.
Ummm... Why snowglobes? Are they weapons? That would be cool.
8516674
You would be correct.
8516866
There is also significant buildup on the snowglobes.
8516959
Are the snow globes like stasis cubes? is he storing things and/or ponies?
..
Uh oh
Is one of the snow globes a Warp Star?!
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Warp_star
8517592
huh, nice.
I'm really liking where this is going. I was waiting for genocide to make a reappearance in this series again
8517332
I'm pretty sure I gave you a thumbs up to even out the downvotes :p
8516674
I would be almost disappointed if not