A Dream

by totallynotabrony

Grannies Gone Wild

“Sorry,” I said.

Valiantina’s mouth opened and closed, unable to express her rage with mere words.

“...that my daughter got you pregnant and we subsequently stole the baby,” I continued.

My autodarkening sunglasses darkened just then. I think they were trying to protect me from harmful rays. Huh, didn’t know she had eye lasers. I should really investigate that.

“Come on, somebody back me up here,” I said, glancing around the room at the rest of the council of Valiants. All of them were suddenly looking elsewhere, and/or slugging tequila.

“Anyway,” I said, turning back, “It wasn’t even my idea, I saved you from the pain of childbirth and child support, not to mention, it’s also that Rainbow Catcher asshole so it’s like I’m doing you a favor. I’m sure you’d do the same to me.”

“You can’t get pregnant,” pointed out one of the others.

“Or can he?” questioned Tnailav.

“How about we not explore that line of thought and get back to me and Valiantina being cool,” I said.

“We are not cool,” she finally said through grinding teeth.

“Speak for yourself,” I said, sitting back.

“You’re a school principal who recently became a grandfather,” someone pointed out. “You aren’t cool.”

He was right. Shit.

“Anyway,” I said. “I need to be going. School is about to be commissioned.”

I made a hasty exit and headed down to the shipyards where the good submarine In Need of Beaning was making ready for its first semester. I’d make extra certain that the Equestrian Education Association wouldn’t try any funny business at the ceremony, but had Tin Mare and Libby watching the skies, just to be certain.

The sub was outfitted with bunting and tasteful education-themed decoration. You know those cardstock borders that teachers would staple to the corkboards in elementary school? Yeah. Tons of those.

There was a podium set up. I had invited Twilight to come in from Silent Hill to see it, but I wasn’t sure if she’d gotten my letter yet. Or maybe she just knew that I was going to throw my school success in her face and decided not to come. What did she ever do for education? I built a goddamned nuclear submarine...elementary school.

I stepped up to the microphone. Children, parents, and others from around Equestria and the wider world had come to the ceremony.

There were also a bunch of old dudes wearing robes in the crowd. I had a good idea who they were, but chose to ignore them for the moment.

“Hello everyone, and welcome to the opening ceremony of your new school-slash-submarine. I’m Principal Valiant, and I hope all the students will find this a positive experience.”

“Hail science!” shouted someone.

That was supposed to be my line, but I guess I could work it into my speech. “Yes, and-”

“Hail biology!” shouted someone else.

“Hail history!”

“Hail mathematics!”

“Hail sex-ed!”

They started pulling their hoods back, and clustering together, charging spells.

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare!”

“Aw, why not me?” said Libby.

“Because we need precision direct-fire,” I replied.

“I can do direct fire.”

“I mean precisely targeting individuals not areas.”

“Carpet bombing is very precise.”

“Just because it’s guaranteed to hit the ground doesn’t mean it’s precise!” I snapped. Why am I arguing with a robot?

Tin Mare, meanwhile, had already swung in on the target and put half a dozen 30mm shells into half a dozen school board brains.

I tapped my earpiece again. “Twilight, get me a forensic sweep on what spell they were trying to cast.”

“Um, okay.”

I had only recently given her an earpiece of her own, and she was still a little unused to this whole magic DEVGRU thing I was trying to set up. No time like the present to investigate spells.

I turned back to the microphone. “Anyway folks, your kids are in good hands.”

I gestured next to me on stage. “And if you have any concerns or anything of the kind about safety or legality or sanity, just have a listen to this band and don't worry about it.”

I hopped behind my drum set and Das Booty launched into our second-ever performance. Amazing how distracting punk bands can be.

I once heard a story that someone asked the Sex Pistols to write a song called "Submission." They wrote about a submarine mission. You can see where I'm going with this.

Later that afternoon, after all the parents had left, some of them with more misgivings than others, we had a bonfire on the beach. We had literal tons of cardstock borders to get rid of, not to mention a couple of bodies of EEA administrators.

The kids loved it.

I caught a quiet moment with Twilight and we went over a few things by bonfirelight. We talked for several minutes as I caught her up on all the crazy shit that had happened over the past few days and what I hoped would happen as we went forward.

“So this is bad,” I finished.

Twilight stared at me, quill poised over her notebook. “Your grandson, who you named Fizzlepop Berrytwist, is a demon.”

“Right.”

“That nopony else can see.”

“Well, nobody except Guinness and my artificial intelligences.” I frowned. “Or would that be artificial intelli? Whatever.”

“And you’ve killed this demon before.”

“Well, killed in the sense that any demon can be killed. Basically just sent back to hell.”

“And the last time this happened, you used it as part of an arcane ritual to turn yourself into an alicorn.”

“A demon sacrifice, yes.”

Twilight looked at her notes. “I can see why you want to start DEVGRU. This sounds like complicated magic.”

“But you can keep track of everything, right? You’re supposed to be pretty nerdy.”

She blushed. “I mean, I try to avoid labels.”

I looked skyward. “Meanwhile, I need to label a couple of things of my own. Libby is ‘troublesome.’”

“Something wrong with her consciousness?”

“Yeah. I should never have used that personality base.”

Twilight cocked her head. “Base?”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

I walked her through a few points about how I wanted to run both the school and DEVGRU.

While we were talking, Rarity came over. “There you are, Valiant. I wanted to talk to you about improvements to the show.”

“Like what?”

“Do you still have Starlight Glimmer’s ghost in a jar? I feel like we could do something with that.”

“Let’s talk about something else,” I said. “I was meaning to ask, what’s the deal with the SCP thing that you do?”

“You’ll...have to be more specific,” she said guardedly.

“Something about clothes. Fluttershy mentioned it when she was running your shop in Manehattan.”

“Oh.” Rarity relaxed. “It stands for ‘season, color, price.’”

“Okay.” I nodded. I paused. “Wait, why did I have to be more specific? What else does SCP stand for?”

“Let’s talk about something else.”

I saw what she was doing there, but I couldn’t come up with a good argument not to. “What did you have in mind?”

“Have you decided to formalize the subjects taught by each of us at this school?”

“Sure.” I pulled out my list. “Pretty standard. I’ve got you down for music. You and Pinkie are doubling on home-ec. Fluttershy is doing biology. Applejack has ethics. Maud is doing sex-ed.”

I flipped a couple of pages, looked around, and frowned. “Where’s Rainbow?”

“We worked out a deal so that I would cover a few of her classes,” said Applejack, walking over. One of her meat puppets wore glasses and carried a textbook, her mane pinned back in a bun.

“Okay, but where is she?”

“Las Pegasus, riding some roller coaster with old folks.”

“Old folks?” As out of character as that sounded even for hairdresser-Rainbow, I just had to ask.

“My Granny Smith and some of her friends.”

“Granny Smith is alive?”

Applejack cocked her head. “Of course she is. What’s with all the questions?”

Huh. I’d kind of gotten used to Granny Smith being dead of supercancer. Well, that was nice that she was still alive in this universe.

I went aboard the submarine. It was tied up to the pier now and we’d be leaving on the maiden semester the next day. I’d had most of my possessions transferred aboard so we could operate anywhere and do anything. Trixie and Daring had agreed to live with me, mostly so I could keep an eye on Fizzy. No telling what he would get up to.

With the real Twilight gone, a significant fraction of my stuff was the Ponyville Library. I figured it would also be a good resource for the school. Owlowiscious was part of that. He’d come aboard and usually hung out with Twilight. As an owl, he wasn’t really great at magic, but he’d apparently learned a few things by hanging around magical libraries for so long.

I glanced into Twilight’s room and saw her huddling with Owlowiscious and Yona the yak. They weren’t in costume, but conspiratorial whispering told me Mystic and Super Cow were up to something.

“Are you up to something?” I asked.

“What makes you think we’re up to something?” Twilight asked.

“You’re whispering conspiratorially.”

“You’re always doing things conspiratorially,” she pointed out.

“And I’m always up to something.”

“He have point,” said Yona.

“We were just talking about the advantages and limitations that were going to come to our superhero enterprise now that we’re on a boat.”

“A submarine.”

“Is a submarine a kind of boat?”

“Technically, this one is big enough to be a ship,” I said. “But it’s a boat.”

“What’s the difference between a ship and a boat?” Twilight asked.

“One’s a shit and the other one floats.”

I shook my head. “Sorry. I really shouldn’t attempt offhand rhymes. I’m terrible at rap.”

I left them alone to see what everyone else was doing. I needed to give some people other jobs to do. It was a big submarine.

To my surprise, I encountered Rarity refitting her personal space into a clothing shop.

“Do you expect a lot of business?” I asked.

She smiled. “No, but that isn’t the point. I called my shop in Manehattan ‘Rarity for You.’ This is a much more exclusive boutique, ‘Undersea for Me.’”

“So, being on a submarine, it’s basically impossible for the general public to actually visit and buy anything,” I realized

She nodded. “What’s more enticing than something that one cannot have?”

I quickly checked my list for things that needed done. “So you’re saying I can count on your help with acoustic quieting to keep this sub hidden?”

Rarity frowned briefly, but rolled her eyes. “Oh, all right.”

“Great, put on this headset. You’re the sonarman now.”

I made the rounds, divvying up other auxiliary duties. Naturally, Applejack handled the engineering. Pinkie did the cooking. I let Admiral Falcon be the symbolic captain.

I made another pass through the steel passageways, looking for a suitable candidate to run communications, when suddenly the phone rang. Guess it was me, then.

I picked it up. “What?”

“Uh...Valiant?”

“Speaking.”

“It’s Rainbow Dash.”

“Okay.”

“Um...Granny Smith died of supercancer.”

“Oh shit.”

“So did all her friends.”

“Oh shit.”

“And I think maybe a bellhop that one of them was hitting on.”

“Oh crud.”

“So, um…”

“Go back to your hotel room. Don’t leave. Don’t interact with anyone. I’m sending Tin Mare and mobile decontamination supplies. If this is what I think it is, you’re highly radioactive.”

“How...how could this have happened!?”

“You’re a rainbow of every part of the spectrum, gamma rays included. I can’t believe I forgot about this. You need medication to keep it under control. I’ll contact Zecora to whip something up.”

“Am...am I going to be alright?”

“Maybe. I’m more worried about the possibly hundreds of ponies you’ve interacted with in your hairdressing job.”

“...ponyfeathers.”

“Yeah.”

Shit.

Good thing I was just about to leave on a submarine and it wouldn’t be my problem.

Comments

[Hawattie]

...What color is this submarine?

[Sir Budginton]

All submarines, no matter how big, are boats. The largest submarine ever, made by the soviets, weighed about 48,000 tons when submerged, and it’s still a boat.

The reason all submarines are boats is because in the past all subs were very short range, so to reach anything of value, they needed to be deployed by ships relatively close to their target. And anything launched by a ship is a boat. And even when submarines became fully independent vessels, they kept being called boats.

[zalla661]

I'm liking this but damn with those Starlight Glimmer teases you rascal!

[zalla661]

8888736
Yellow Submarine!

[Coretz]

There was a podium set up. I had invited Twilight to come in from Silent Hill to see it, but I wasn’t sure if she’d gotten my letter yet. Or maybe she just knew that I was going to throw my school success in her face and decided not to come. What did she ever do for education? I built a goddamned nuclear submarine...elementary school.

Actually, the school is supposed to be a secondary. Then again, Valiant probably didn't know the difference, and built a primary instead.

[TartarusFire]

Aww dang, I forgot about the radiation too; welp, story was bound for a murder anyway at some point

[Amos Anon]

I left them alone to see what everyone else was doing. I needed to give some people other jobs to do. It was a big submarine.

Missed opportunity to paint your sub yellow, and make another Beatles joke.