A Dream

by totallynotabrony

Shadow Play, part 1

“I really hope Twilight doesn’t do something to get Alice Cooper killed.”

While there were a lot of things in this world that were about to get broken, I don’t think I could stand that.

“I’m not sure if that would make you more or less of a nice guy if No More Mister Nice Guy never existed any more,” said Pinkie.

I worked through that mentally and shrugged.

It was a rush to get my shit packed and prepared to evacuate Ponyville. Blood was starting to pool in the streets outside as Gabby methodically and personally shot every resident in the face. One wondered why they didn’t leave or something. The reason was, she had a government charter and apparently that was good enough for ponies.

I had decided not to make a big deal out of it. Not being a nice guy any more and also planning a huge paradigm shift would do that to you.

Wachowski walked in, wearing a frown. “I know you’ve been fighting Gabby for a while. Shouldn’t you be doing something?”

“I am. I’m moving. Ponyville’s about to not exist any more. Where would I get my nuts and bolts without a local hardware store? Where would I get my Twilight abuse without a local Twilight?”

“I was thinking you actually wanted to do something about her.”

“Well, ideally, but at the moment I’m going to regroup, now that I don’t care about anyone or anything anymore. Aw yeah.”

“Are you really that much of a dick?”

“I mean, you saw the struggles I went through to be a nice guy. This is kind of my natural state.”

“Is it, or are you overcompensating?”

I thought about it. “Shut up.”

“My point exactly.”

“You know, I did consider growing a goatee, but I’m not that evil. I have some restraint.”

“And aren’t we glad.”

I considered killing Wachowski. I’d probably use Pinkie’s skull; it was pretty hard.

Sunset came through the door just then. “Tin Mare’s loaded. Trixie and Daring weren’t in Ponyville, so they’re safe.”

“Who are we pulling out?” I asked.

“Well, I figured you’d want to save the remaining members of the Elements on principle. Guinness and Skyla asked to come. Sunburst and Thorax are here, so I corralled them too. I guess that leaves just Trident.”

“And me,” said Wachowski.

“What the hell,” I decided. “It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”

I walked outside. Gabby was in the middle of butchering the farmers who had come for the mobile farmers’ market on the train. I saw the guys I’d bought grapes from being led away to slaughter.

Left unattended, the train started to slowly roll away, picking up speed as it headed for the center of town and certain derailment. It would probably wipe out dozens of homes. I guess there were no brakes on the grape train.

I eyed a missile launcher set up in the town square. It hadn’t been there earlier, and I suspected that it could only be Gabby’s work.

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare, do you see this thing?”

“Affirmative. It could be trouble. While I doubt it would do serious damage to my systems, it’s always something to think about.”

“All right. You know where it is, so be aware when we take off.”

I walked back towards my place. My hooves toyed idly with my switchblade and my Desert Eagle. Now that I wasn’t a nice guy anymore, I kind of craved mayhem. Maybe Wachowski had been right that all the repressed orneriness had bubbled up.

But attacking all the citizens of Ponyville while they were down was at best kind of a dick move and and worst helping Gabby.

I waded back to my place through the blood that was collecting in the gutters. Everyone had already boarded Tin Mare. Trident, of course, needed help. She was a big girl and didn’t really move well without a rocket motor. The rest of the cargo area was filled with my stuff: electronics, weapons, snowglobes.

Everyone else sat around the cargo bay. Thorax and Sunburst had ended up pushed to the cockpit. Not that it mattered; Tin Mare was autonomous.

I looked down at the destruction below. I should have felt sad. I should have felt anything. Okay, I still hated Gabby. This would have been the perfect time for me to go all not-nice guy, but here she was taking the fun out of it.

“You know, I bet she really just needs to get laid,” said Pinkie.

Come to think of it, we hadn’t tried that yet. “So you want me to just throw you in there?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure she’s a lesbian, but she’s not my type.”

“I thought your type was ‘warm.’ Also, how do you know she’s a lesbian?”

“Playing the odds. Equestria has so many more females than males that on average most mares are.”

“I don’t think that’s quite correct,” said Twilight.

“Come on, Twilight, look around,” said Pinkie. “Even Applejack’s a lesbian.”

“What!?” shouted Applejack.

“Come on, you can’t tell me somepony with the ability to make meat puppets of herself hasn’t experimented at least once.”

Applejack pulled her hat down in front of her face, blushing furiously.

“Masturbation doesn’t count,” I said.

“But is she doing it herself, since meat puppets?” wondered Twilight.

“I would appreciate it if you all would stop this line of conversation,” Applejack mumbled.

That seemed like a good cue to get going. I wasn’t sure exactly where, but I needed a little time to put my plan into action.

Tin Mare lifted off and almost immediately sounded a missile warning. “If we stay low, we can get lost in the ground clutter.”

I heard a whoosh as the missile lost lock and went harmlessly over our heads.

Down below, I saw Gabby glance up, spotting us leaving. She pulled out a small electronic device, like a control interface.

I suddenly had a bad feeling. Maybe standing on the tailgate wasn’t such a great idea.

“Incoming,” Tin Mare warned.

I saw the missile come off the launcher. In fact, it kind of looked like it was coming straight at my face.

So I ducked. I’m not an idiot.

However, the missile flew inside Tin Mare’s cargo compartment. I didn’t want to think about a bodily analogy to that, not even an anal-ogy. At any rate, it didn’t matter, because the missile flew all the way through the cargo area, into the cockpit, and exploded.

Fortunately, it only killed Sunburst and Thorax.

Unfortunately, it tore Trident’s retaining straps.

Tin Mare threw her effort into stopping the slide, but had to dodge another missile. I made a grab for Trident but was too late. The nuclear ballistic weapon slid out the open tailgate and fell, slowly tumbling end over end.

“Trident, nooo!”

I closed my eyes because I couldn’t bear to watch, and also because the nuclear blast would sear my retinas if I did.

Tin Mare, knowing full well what more than a megaton of MIRV’d warhead could do, GTFO’d. You can't miss if you hit everything, and it wouldn't be good to be inside the blast zone.

The blast still knocked us end over end in a wash of hot air. I flopped around the cargo bay, clinging to straps. Guinness shielded Skyla. Everyone else hung on where they could.

We made it to smoother air and I found myself on the floor. I sat up and looked back.

Ponyville was gone and there was a miles-high mushroom cloud hanging over the scene.

I held no hopes that Gabby had been caught in it. She was too good.

“Well, at least we have a demonstrated nuclear capability,” I said quietly. “Suck it, North Korea.”

I realized Twilight was sitting beside me, staring with a blank expression at the cloud where her home had been. I wasn’t sure if she was still processing or actually broke.

“It’s bigger than the other thing,” she said after a moment. I figured she was talking about the Rods From God, which she had witnessed a while back.

While I had attempted to conceal my prompt global strike system as a method provided by a deity to man-up mares, I didn’t think genital manipulation could really be a good disguise for kinetic bombardment. Unless you’re doing it wrong, I guess.

Tin Mare flew us to Canterlot. I figured it was a good enough location for a final battle. We’d done it there before. We got out at the old tower where Twilight had stayed as a student.

It was also, like that Huey Lewis song, a place to go if you wanted some people because they had the most.

Well, no, I guess that would actually be Manehattan, but since when was Huey Lewis a reputable source of census figures?

Anyway, with a large pool to pick from, I began killing them.

When you’re let loose with a knife and no repercussions, things can get a little crazy. Gabby might be going for the record in executions, but there would forever be an asterisk on her title because she had the help of a legal document.

I did it au naturale, baby.

And you know what? I could have had the same pleasure playing Grand Theft Auto. Mindless destruction was kind of fun, but the mindless part sort of made it pointless. I mean, mass murder is one thing. Doing it just to do it was kind of unfulfilling.

I was still considering that as I headed back to Twilight’s place, occasionally stopping to decapitate someone.

Sunset was unpacking equipment from Tin Mare. The cockpit was still painted with gore, but with what I had in mind, there wasn’t really any need to clean it. I figured that all this would be over one way or another soon. I just had to put my plan into motion.

Sunset showed me a book, covered in Sunburst’s red blood. Thorax’s green blood was all over the other side of the cockpit.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“I think it’s Starswirl the Bearded’s journal,” she said, flipping a few pages.

“Huh, neat. Where did Sunburst get it?”

“No clue.”

“Anything interesting in there?”

“Apparently Starswirl and some random folk legends got together and formed some kind of superhero team before being betrayed. They’re gone now, and that’s where the Tree of Harmony came from.”

“Well, don’t tell Twilight. She’d do something stupid if she found out.”

I went to see Twilight just then, since she was on my mind. When I arrived in the tower, I found Twilight looking out the window, probably ruminating on the fires in the distance and the screams of the dying. She turned as I came in. “Did you just…?”

“Probably.”

“How...many?”

“Dunno. Couple thousand?”

“I can’t believe you would do this. After everything you said about Gabby and you turn it around inside of one day. You’re a monster. You’re a degenerate.”

“Yes, but I’m your monster/degenerate. Don’t forget that you said it was okay.”

“That’s not what I intended and you know it!”

“Well, you know I’m kind of a dick.” I leaned closer. “But it doesn’t matter anymore. I’ve got a plan to fix everything, and if it works I can kill anyone I like and get it all reset. And you know, I think I will, because that way I’ll know the best way to do it for the future, just in case.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” said Twilight.

“Then Gabby wins and it doesn’t matter who I killed.”

She shook her head. “But...but how are you going to do this? Kill everyone and then fix it?”

“If I tell you, I have to kill you. It’s a huge secret that I can’t risk getting out to Gabby.” I paused. “You know what? I’m going to tell you and then I’m going to kill you.”

“I, uh, don’t really want to know.”

Wow, that might have been the first time Twilight ever declined to know anything.

Coward.

Comments

[StardustSurvivor]

Coward indeed.

[mehritz]

Left unattended, the train started to slowly roll away, picking up speed as it headed for the center of town and certain derailment. It would probably wipe out dozens of homes. I guess there were no brakes on the grape train.

Goddammit you magnificent bastard that amount of buildup all for that is just unreal

[Salty Milk]

8529396
honestly, the amount of build up in this story for just one-liners alone is unreal.

[totallynotabrony]

8529396
8529501
Since April, if I'm counting correctly.

But it's all relative. I actually wrote the last few lines of the last chapter of this season before I'd even published the first chapter.

[Salty Milk]

8529083
you're anti-climatic.

[Sir Budginton]

So will we see the end of gabby, will valiant kill twilight, will everyone survive into season 8. Who the fuck knows.

[TartarusFire]

It's amazing how you keep killing characters and then ramping up the scale
Going to be waiting for an epic to close this arc

8529501
8529531
You're a fcking mad genius

[dragonstj]

Too bad Cheerilee is an immortal vampire that can only be killed by sunlight, wooden stakes, garlic, and religious symbols, because now she's alive and will blame Valiant for the destruction.