A Dream

by totallynotabrony

2, 4, 6, Greaaat

“You’ve got to be shitting me.”

I looked in surprise at Lemon Pledge. Clearly, she’d been hanging around me too often.

I looked back at Celestia. “Yeah, me too.”

We were gathered in the throne room, where Celestia had summoned us. She said, “While you’re certainly an effective Chief of Staff, Valiant, your methods leave something to be desired. Somepony has to practically follow you around and clean up your messes. So I thought, ‘who has experience cleaning up your messes?’ and Ms. Lemon Pledge was the natural choice.”

“That isn’t even my name! Er, respectfully, Princess.” She shot me a glare before turning back to Celestia. “And I deal with literal messes. I’m hardly qualified for secretarial or assistant work.”

“And it’s not like I need a secretary or an assistant,” I said. The last thing I needed was somebody else around me being a drag.

Celestia leaned forward. For a microsecond, I saw a flash of that smile I knew all too well. She hid it well, however, and as her face drew close to mine, she said, “Too bad.”

The worst part about arguing with Celestia was, well, you couldn’t.

I grumbled all the way back to my office. I walked in, picked up the papers in the inbox, and put them in the outbox. There was a copy of the daily newspaper on the desk and I glanced at it. The front page featured a picture of Prince Blueblood with his mane in a ridiculous style left over from getting a bell dropped on his head. Pictures had, ah, leaked.

I turned around and nearly ran into Lemon Pledge. “Aren’t you going to do that paperwork?” she said, gesturing to my now-empty inbox.

“I just did, didn’t you see me?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s what Princess Celestia was talking about! I may not know anything about the job, but it doesn’t seem right to me.”

“That leaves me more time for a little project I’ve been planning. The throne room floor needs, like, fifteen coats of wax.”

“Now this is a job I do know something about, and no it doesn’t.”

“I want to make it ultra smooth. That’s the best way to do it.”

“Why?”

“Friction experiments.”

She looked at me distrustfully. I said, “I was going to do it myself, but I’ve never waxed a floor before, so I’ll probably end up making a mess.”

Lemon was about to reply, but Raven Inkwell walked in just then. She looked with annoyance at the full outbox, but picked it up. Turning for the door, she said over her shoulder, “The buckball match is today.”

Oh yeah. We’d made a sports league or something. “Why did we make a sports league or something?”

“Rainbow Dash needs to learn a lesson, so Princesses Twilight and Celestia developed a scholastic buckball league leveraging their two schools in order to provide plausible deniability to create a cheerleading squad for Rainbow Dash to manage.”

I laughed. “Oh my God, I love it! This totally makes up for my disappointment at the floor not being waxed.”

“It is waxed,” Lemon said. “And I should think I’m good enough at it that fifteen coats were not required.”

“Could always use a little more.” I went to my desk and plugged in the small space heater. It was a room in a stone castle, after all. I opened the can of wax I had been going to use myself, and instead just coated my hooves with it. Then, I dried them on the heater, leaving my hooves shiny and polished.

Lemon watched me dubiously, but apparently had decided she didn’t want to know.

That was roughly the same expression Celestia wore when she saw me Kramer-slide into the throne room.

“So I hear we’re messing with Rainbow Dash.”

“I didn’t want to trouble you, as this is a rather personal project for me,” said Celestia. “But yes, Twilight requested assistance and I couldn’t resist.”

“Neither can I. I’ll get started right away. I’m going to need about five hundred pounds of black powder.”

I don’t know why I was telling her. I’d already placed the order myself. I gave her a casual salute and moonwalked backwards out of the throne room. Let me tell you, it’s way easier to do on four legs.

Having a low-friction floor also probably saved my life when Derpy dropped off my order a few seconds later. She literally dropped it.

The castle front doors blew off their hinges and had I not waxed my hooves, I probably would have absorbed their kinetic energy with my face. As it was, I found myself carried along with them at a high rate of speed...and rapidly running out of castle hallway.

This was not strictly within the definition of a mess, but Lemon was there to clean it. She managed to grab me before I spent all my kinetic energy against a stone wall and bring me to a halt, wings beating furiously. She said something, but her voice sounded distant and small.

“Whaaat!?” I could barely hear myself over my ears ringing.

“I said, this is going to be a disaster to clean up!” she yelled in my ear.

“Well, Princess Celestia did tell you to follow me around and clean up my messes, and since my explosives are apparently not here anymore, I’m going to go to Ponyville right now. Are you coming?”

Lemon looked conflicted, but agreed.

Legally, we should have taken a VIP train. It was admittedly more comfortable than the airship and didn’t come with uncomfortable questions about using personal vehicles on official business. Damnit, I hated this job. But we took the airship because I hated this job. If you do something badly enough, they won’t keep asking you to do it.

Upon arrival in Ponyville, I first went to Twilight to figure out how we could coordinate to make Rainbow miserable. She seemed a little miffed that I had arrived with that express purpose in mind. She was also curious why there was a Canterlot Castle maid following me around. “Who is this?”

“Lemon Pledge,” I said. I was maybe a little too loud due to my deafness, though Lemon was probably glaring at me because I’d talked over her.

Having to speak up to get me to understand her was nothing new for Twilight, so at least she didn’t have a problem there. “Well, come along. I was just about to meet the others.”

The Ponyville Buckball team - Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Snails - had agreed to train the Friendship School team. Still, we all agreed that there wasn’t much time to put together a team from scratch.

“Maybe they could play a few other schools first. Like the Mane and Tail Styling College or the Scroll-Making Institute?” Pinkie suggested.

“Well, I guess squirrels have to come from somewhere,” I said. “Why not an institute?”

They all looked at me. “Uh, the Squirrel-Making Institute?” I said.

“Scroll,” Twilight corrected, loudly enough for me to understand. “Why did you think squirrel made sense in this context?”

“It was Pinkie, I didn’t even question it. But anyway, the buckball team isn’t why I’m here.”

Just then, Rainbow arrived. “Sorry I’m late, but when Twilight said she needed my help with the buckball team, I figured I’d better grab every piece of coaching equipment I could find! So what should I focus on? Offense? Defense? Trick plays?”

She emptied an enormous pile of gear out of a bag. Oh good, she’d brought enough idiot balls for herself.

Twilight smiled. “I was thinking of something even more important.”

“Awesome!” said Rainbow. “Lay it on me. Whatever it is, I’ll give it a hundred and twenty percent!”

“I knew I could count on your enthusiasm!” Twilight delivered the final blow. “That’s why I want you to coach the cheer squad!”

I took several pictures, both to capture Rainbow’s face as it dawned on her and also because I couldn’t hear the camera shutter click and wanted to be sure I got it. Beautiful.

Twilight had already discussed that she thought I was taking humiliating Rainbow too seriously, but she was the one who had laid out an elaborate plan to teach one of her friends a lesson, so who was the real asshole here?

I didn’t much care about the cheerleading itself or the sports tournament, so I left and headed into town. I still kind of wanted that black powder and thought I might be able to get it from my usual suppliers.

“You know about industrial chemicals, right?” I said to Lemon as we walked.

She looked suspicious, but said, “It’s part of my job.”

“Excellent. If we can’t find what I’m looking for, we’re going to need make our own with charcoal, sulpher, and saltpeter. Hopefully we’re not going to encounter any tentacle difficulties along the way.”

“What?”

“What?” I replied.

“Don’t you mean ‘technical difficulties?’”

“What did I say?”

“Tentacle difficulties.”

“That’s what I meant. I thought you said tentacle difficulties when you corrected me. Did you think I meant technical difficulties but said tentacle difficulties because I can still barely hear myself talk?”

“Yes.”

“Good, because I can barely hear myself talk.”

I started to walk away again. She caught up. “But why would we have tentacle difficulties?”

“We won’t, but we do run the risk of tentacle difficulties.”

Fortunately, we didn’t. Also, waxed hooves turned out to be a boon when I stepped in a mud puddle on the way and they stayed perfectly clean. I can’t say the same for Lemon, who was splashed. You’d think the professional castle staff of a country with superpowered magic could figure out Scotchguarded uniforms or something.

I met Rainbow at Black Powder and Nail Files. Surprised, I said, “Aren’t you supposed to be coaching cheerleaders or something?”

“I am. Pinkie let me borrow her party cannon for the show, so I had to get the stuff for it.”

“Is she loading it with improvised shrapnel now?”

“What? No, the blasting charge!”

I knew that, but rarely missed an opportunity to make this version of Rainbow answer stupid questions. “Do you need any help?” I asked innocently.

She almost snapped, “No,” but then I saw the wheels in her head turning, probably wondering if she could Tom Sawyer me into coaching the cheerleading team for her. Just as planned, so I could do nothing and make her look bad.

“Sure, come with me back to the school,” she said.

I stopped by the ATHSS on the way to drop off the black powder I had bought and then headed for the school. Rainbow introduced me to the squad. It was Yona, Ocellus, Smolder, and two mares I’d never seen before, Shimmy Shake and Lighthoof.

“Why do you two look like Scootaloo’s aunts?” I said.

Rainbow paused, looked at them, and then a curious look went over her face. Then she remembered she was trying to sneak out and leave me with a job, and she stealthily left the room.

“Scootaloo’s aunts?” Shimmy Shake asked. She sounded more like a valley girl than an Australian, but the coloring and appearance between her and Lighthoof, and Scootaloo’s aunts, was striking.

Thinking about Scootaloo’s aunts reminded me of the weird radio station we’d discovered near Ponyville that was apparently a rebroadcast station from the moon. That was part of why I had begrudgingly taken the Chief of Staff job, in an attempt to get to the moon because in this universe I hadn’t yet amassed the wealth or equipment to do it myself.

“Mr. Valiant.”

“Huh?” I jerked in surprise, and looked around. I was standing in a small room. Distantly, I thought I could hear a crowd. Lemon was with me, and other than that, we were alone.

“What the hell? How did we get here? Where is here?”

“What are you talking about?” she said.

“I mean, I blinked and suddenly we were here. A second ago, we were talking about those two cheerleaders who looked like Scootaloo’s aunts.”

“That was hours ago,” she said, frowning.

I’d time-skipped again. This was getting concerning. “What happened?”

“Well, you told me to clean up after the cheerleaders and then you left. A few minutes ago, and you told me I needed to meet you here.”

If that was true, then there was no way to tell what I’d done in those few hours. “Did I say why?”

Lemon was about to reply, when there was a knock on the door. Lemon was closest, and opened it. On the other side was an angry Rainbow Dash. “There you are, Valiant!”

“Tell her I’m not here.”

Lemon stared at me for a long moment, and then turned back to Rainbow. “No, Mr. Valiant isn’t here.”

“He’s standing right behind you!”

“No, no, he’s not here.” Lemon closed the door. She looked back at me. “What kind of mess did you make this time?”

I raised my hooves. “I’m at a loss. I honestly have no memory of the past couple of hours.”

With all the weird stuff happening recently, it took me until then to realize she wasn’t wearing her uniform. “Also, why are you naked?”

“The mud, or do you not remember that, either?”

I decided not to reply to that and changed the subject. “So where are we?”

“A dressing room under the buckball stadium. The game is about to start.”

“Oh good, I want to see this utter failure of cheerleading.”

“They aren’t bad, actually,” said Lemon as I opened the door. “I cleaned up their act.”

“Oh,” I said. I guess I didn’t really want the kids to suffer for Rainbow Dash’s idiocy.

Though as we walked up to the main part of the stadium, I wondered if I should be concerned about the kids. I had thought this was a buckball league for schools. None of the players looked like children. Despite the contrived nature of the game, maybe Twilight and Celestia were both calling in ringers.

I did think it was kind of amusing that due to Celestia’s school being for gifted unicorns, they had to put a horn inhibitor on one to act as the team earth pony and another had to use the butterfly wing spell to act as the pegasus.

And despite those relative handicaps, and being on Ponyville’s home turf, and the Ponyville team being trained by the Pinkie-Fluttershy-Snails champions of Equestria, and Ponyville actually not having half-bad cheerleaders, Canterlot still won.

Well, that was mildly disappointing, but no skin off my nose. Plus, I did get to enjoy a little bit of Rainbow getting an earful from Twilight.

I was distracted, however, by a shadow passing over the stadium. I glanced up. The ATHSS was drifting freely, slowly coming overhead and gaining altitude. “I could have sworn I tied that down.”

I turned to Lemon and gestured skyward. “Are you going to clean up this mess?”

“I don’t know how to drive an airship!”

I sighed and called to Twilight. “Hey, can you help me out?”

She looked at me, away from Rainbow, who took the opportunity to dash off. “Why?”

I gestured at the airship. “I need to get up there.”

I expected her to teleport me, but instead she buttered me up.

I glanced at the glittery magical wings on my back, sighed, swore under my breath, and then flittered up to the drifting airship. Lemon had come with me, and looked like she was suppressing amusement.

I checked over the topside and nothing seemed out of place. The mooring lines were gone, not torn. Either I’d tied the knots wrong, or someone had purposely set it loose. And if there’s one thing I can do drunk or sober, it’s tie goddamned knots.

“That’s weird,” I said. “Why would someone just set it loose? When a significant fraction of the Equestrian population is capable of intercepting an airship, what purpose does it serve?”

I hadn’t checked the lower decks yet, and upon poking my head below deck, immediately got my answer. There was smoke. Not fire yet, but if that fuse leading to the black powder burned for much longer, there would be a reaction quite a bit more energetic than mere flame.

“Abandon ship!” I ran for the railing, grabbing Lemon as I went. That was really more to slow my fall than anything, as I forgot in the heat of the moment that I also had wings.

We were halfway to the ground when the ATHSS exploded. The shockwave sent me tumbling midair and it was only landing on Yona that probably saved my life.

She looked at me curiously as I rolled off her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I guess.” The butterfly wings were tattered, but I wasn’t planning to leave the ground for a little while.

Lemon was shaken, but had managed to land herself. Debris was falling all around. The stadium crowd seemed to think it was a really lame fireworks show, or a huge piñata that was filled with fragments of wood and scraps of cloth.

“What was that!?” Twilight demanded.

I couldn’t clearly say that it had been an attempt on my life, because whoever had set the fuse couldn’t have counted on me getting aboard so soon. At the same time, someone had done it, so nefarious circumstances were definitely afoot.

I opened my mouth to reply, but then a piece of paper fluttering down from above stuck to my face. I pulled it off and glanced at it.

It was a marriage certificate for Plymouth Valiant and Lemon Pledge.

“Oh shit.”

I glanced at Lemon in surprise. “Where the hell did you learn that phrase!?”

I frowned. “Oh wait…”

Author's Note:

Thanks to MitchH, Shrink Laureate, and Lithl for some dialogue

Comments

[StardustSurvivor]

What an absolutely wild ride this is, I have no way to predict anything that could possibly happen here and I love it.

[mustangdrew4]

Valiant having bits where he loses his time/memory is worrying. Almost like a biological hack or some kind of hypnosis.

[Telly Vision]

I feel as if this is a universe that had a valiant that actually fit with canon, being all “friendly” and “a productive member of society” but when our valiant shows up he replaced him and now when he time skips it’s the other “canon” valiant doing...something.