• Published 2nd Mar 2012
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A Dream - totallynotabrony



A not so standard human-in-Equestria story including but not limited to: democracy, tequila, and robots.

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The Beginning of the End - part 2

Making tequila is a complicated and nuanced process. Doing it wrong will still probably get you drunk, but if we’re being honest here, life is too short to drink shitty booze. Accidentally retconning myself right out of this universe’s history was apparently giving me existential thoughts like that.

I was busy trying to synthesize the proper esters and ethers when Twilight ran into the laboratory. “King Sombra is back and he’s destroyed the tree of harmony!”

Without looking at her, I put my tape recorder down on the table and and pressed play.

I think this might be an isolated incident,” said Twilight’s voice.

“You are insufferable!”

“I’m also right.”

She ground her teeth. “Then please can we get some help defeating him?”

“I’m kind of busy here.”

“Doing what?”

“Trying to discover a new way of making tequila in a lab because I don’t have the kind of time required for agave plants to grow to maturity.”

“I think this is a little more important!”

“I don’t.”

“King Sombra has brainwashed everypony in town! He’s made them all storm Canterlot! He destroyed the Elements, and the tree that kept the Everfree Forest from growing out of control!

“Wait, what? The forest is growing out of control?”

“Is that what-”

I ignored her and ran out.

I found the other girls fighting the forest with whatever tools they could. They did not seem to appreciate how I ran into the midst of the growing forest to plant blue agave.

The blue agave is named for the distinctive color of its spiky leaves. It resembles a yucca, which in turn resembles a sea urchin. The species is notable for its high sugar content in his heart. The plant normally takes six to ten years to reach proper maturity, at which point the heart could weigh more than a hundred pounds. Fortunately, with the magic evil forest going nuts, all that happened on the order of six to ten minutes.

“Give me that hoe,” I ordered.

“You don’t need to resort to name calling,” huffed Rarity.

“I didn’t mean you! I meant Pinkie.”

Pinkie stepped forward and handed over her hoe.

I dug the plant out and then using a kitchen knife I’d taken from the castle to chop the leaves off until I had just the agave heart and then carried it back to the lab. It was difficult finding an oven large enough to cook it, so I just roasted it over an open fire and kept pouring water on it for a steam effect. That’s what it takes to convert the complex carbohydrates into simpler sugars. It also helps soften the heart up for the next step.

Twilight would probably be angry about me building an open fire on the floor of the lab. Whatever, the building was made of solid crystal.

After the roasting came the crushing, to extract the juice. Working with the knife I had borrowed and my own hooves, I got everything mashed as well as I could and made sure to drain it off.

The dried mash could probably be used for animal feed or something. I could maybe sell it as gourmet to people who cared. But money came later. I figured I could keep mooching on Twilight for a while. Hell, she wasn’t even in the castle at the moment. Probably fighting bad guys like it mattered.

After collecting the sugar-rich juice, next it had to be fermented. While I was out earlier, I’d remembered to also expose a sample of yeast to the Everfree Forrest’s overgrowth. It wasn’t the kind I really wanted, just some stuff I’d scrounged from the kitchen, but it would do. And with it going nuts just like the forest, it reduced the fermenting process from two weeks down to just a couple of minutes.

I’d heard that some yeast naturally grew on the agave leaves, but had never tried that process. At any rate, we weren’t exactly doing it organically anyway.

I wondered for a moment if any pony agriculture could be described as organic. Did magic count? Also, putting manure on the fields for fertilizer raised a whole host of other, extremely uncomfortable questions. I imagined it might be even worse for the cows.

With the fermentation done, I lit one of the lab’s bunsen burners and began to heat the mixture that came out of fermenting. I set up the weird corkscrew glass tubes and began the distillation. Without it, the fermented agave juice was basically just a weak Mexican grape-free wine.

After distilling the batch once, I distilled it again. Now we were talking. I could have gone further. I could have done a lot of things. But this was fine. It was all fine.

I glanced at the burning table where I’d knocked over the bunsen burner. It was fine.

It took about a dozen pounds of agave heart to produce one quart of tequila, so this batch was more than a gallon. Examining the distilled mixture, it looked like that would be enough.

I poured some of the distilled mixture into a temperature-safe beaker and then poured liquid nitrogen over it. It bubbled for a few minutes before evaporating.

It resulted in a perfectly chilled glass of tequila and it had only taken me an afternoon.

I slugged it.

A warm feeling of contentment spread up and down my body despite the cold liquid and I closed my eyes and let out a sigh that lasted perhaps ten seconds.

Everything was gonna be okay.

I was vaguely aware that I was lying to myself, but I was on my way to being drunk, so why should I trust myself anyway?

Now finally and properly fortified, I walked to the window and looked outside. The forest was being held back by some weird flashes of magic at the edge of town.

Where had Twilight said Sombra was? Canterlot?

I went outside with some tequila for the road. The airship we’d borrowed was carelessly parked on the front lawn. The lifting bag was slightly deflated from the shenanigans we’d already pulled, but it might hold for one more trip. The Guard airship, while not being really up to my standards, was well built and better than nothing.

I started encountering brainwashed ponies the closer I got to Canterlot. They didn’t really start paying me any mind until I got close to the castle.

A couple of unicorns started shooting their horns at me. They mostly just hit the wooden hull. The average unicorn wasn’t really a threat.

It was the armed pegasi that were more concerning. They flew up to the airship with spears.

“Hey, get away from there!” I shouted. I started throwing whatever I could reach: ropes, tools, whatever wasn’t bolted down. The ship’s bell was too firmly fastened.

They all started poking. Fortunately, not me, but unfortunately it was the airship. I heard a hiss of escaping gas and it started to go down.

I pulled the attitude controls for all they were worth, but it still landed near-vertical on its bow in the castle courtyard. The hull held together, but I was thrown from the wheel and landed in a heap on the cobblestone.

It was a good thing I was drunk and didn’t feel a thing. Picking myself up, I walked into the castle.

For some reason, the throne room was right there, no physical security except two wooden doors between it and the courtyard. Of course, that was par for the course around here. This was the same place Celestia and Luna had pulled off that masterful trolling of Twilight, telling her that Equestria was about to be her problem to run.

Sombra was there, shooting random black crystals everywhere. He noticed when I walked in. “You! How did you get through my defenses?”

“Brainwashing civilians is kind of a shitty defense.” I looked around. He could make huge crystals, and yet he chose to pull the Soviet strategy of bodies as armor. Not body armor, bodies as armor.

I sniffed the air. “What’s that? Some kind of…liquorice?”

“Well, it was only natural that I subjugate the Elements especially hard. In Pinkie Pie’s case, I had her employers, the Cakes, bake a black liquorice fruitcake that says ‘Congratulations to Our Favorite Supreme Emperor King Sombra’ in green frosting.” He laughed, evilly. “I don’t even like cake!”

“Wow, for as petty as you are, you still probably conquered Equestria about as efficiently as anybody ever has.” I shook my head. “Which honestly says more about the state of Equestria’s security than anything.” I paused to tap my chin. “You know, if it’s that easy, maybe I could claim sovereignty once I kill you.”

He laughed. “How foolish!”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Maybe later. I’ve got too much else on my mind right now to consider running a country.”

“I meant thinking you could defeat me,” he snarled. “I will show you the error of your ways.”

I raised the kitchen knife I’d taken from the castle. Wait, why didn’t I stop to pick up a sword or something along the way?

Sombra fired some of his purple magic at me. Given no other option, I slashed at it with the flat of the knife and actually managed to deflect the blast. That probably would have hurt if it hit me.

I looked down at the knife, which had been turned to black crystal. “Hey, is this obsidian? Like, down to a molecular level edge?”

Sombra growled and fired at me again. I swatted the blast down again, honestly a little easier this time since the knife was already made out of the same crystal he was shooting everywhere.

An idea came to me. What if I could get him to crystalize other things, too?

I turned tail for the door. “Can’t catch me, bitchass!”

To my delight, he followed me out the door. The airship, gas bag deflating, had come to rest on its side in the courtyard. Sombra chased me around it for a couple of laps, though I was having trouble getting him to line up his horn where I wanted it. Maybe I could close in and do something about that.

On my next lap around the airship, I tried to get the bell off again. To my surprise, the knife went right through the wood cradle as if it was paper. I knew obsidian blades were sharp, but damn. Maybe it was also magically molecular.

Sombra rounded the corner of the airship and I slammed the bell down on his head. “Knock knock! Or is that ding dong?”

“Who’s there?” said Pinkie. I looked up. The six Elements had assembled, along with Discord.

“Hey guys,” I said. “I was just trying to see if I could put Sombra in a headlock or something and then point his horn where I wanted it, so we could crystalize things that we wanted to.” I showed them the knife.

Lifting the bell off his head, I saw to my amusement that his mane had taken on the shape of the inside. Unfortunately, I’d broken his horn, so that kind of called off my experiment.

I put my knife to his throat, but paused. Oh yeah. First impressions and all that. I probably shouldn’t murder a wounded prisoner in front of everybody.

I mean, I knew if we threw him in the dungeon he would just escape to threaten Equestria again later, but hell, maybe I could try the crystal experiment with his horn again at that time.

Well, whatever. I dropped him and wandered away to find that cake.

I was eating a big slice of it that I’d cut with the knife when Twilight came to find me.

“We took Sombra prisoner,” she said. “Everypony’s been freed and things are starting to go back to how they used to be.”

She paused. “I want to thank you for your help. We need to discuss a few things if you’re going to stay here, and I really want to know more about you, but for now, you may have just saved Equestria.”

“Well, as I’ve said, I’m trying to go to a different universe so I’m not planning to spend too much time here. I might get some time to sit down and tell you about a few of my favorite things, though.” I smiled.

“I’d like that.”

“I know you will.”

Celestia and Luna came in just then. Twilight looked at the wreckage around the throne room and cringed. “I know what you’re going to say. I should have called on you as soon as I knew how dangerous it was. A good leader knows when to ask for help, and I didn’t. And because of me, the Tree of Harmony was destroyed. Equestria deserves somepony much better than me as its leader.”

“A good leader knows when to ask for help, but a great leader has the courage to admit when they’ve made a mistake and the strength to make it right,” said Celestia. “Today, you’ve proven to me beyond any doubt that you will be a great leader.”

Something in her tone made Twilight say, “Will be?”

Celestia nodded. “Luna and I have decided it may have been a bit unfair to thrust this upon you without giving you the time you need to prepare.”

I laughed. “Called it. Once again, masterful trolling, ladies. You got Twilight Twilighting so hard.”

“Why is everypony suddenly saying ‘Twilighting’ like it’s a thing?” Twilight demanded.

“Because it is.” I cut another piece of cake and headed back outside.

The airship wasn’t too bad off and I could probably fix it and keep using it. Maybe I should just go ahead and chisel the Guard logos off and call it my own. What should I name it?

Dirty Hooker Took My Money...II

I shook my head. Come on, I wasn’t so drunk that I couldn’t come up with something better than that.

I set to work fixing it as Guards, castle personnel, and civilians began to wake up from the spell and wander back into the castle.

A thought nagged the back of my mind in wondering that if Sombra reawoke to attack Equestria again, who else might be next?

Goddamnit, how many more assholes was I going to have to fight before I got out of here? Was it too much to ask to just be instantly transported back to the universe I had created for myself and reign supreme?

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