Castle Mane-ia
Sunset Shimmer was a great roommate. She didn’t speak unless spoken to, didn’t leave dirty dishes lying around, and hardly ever tried to conquer the world.
Trixie had told me where we found Sunset, and I had to say, I was impressed. Such a grand thing when your daughter grows up to be a universe-hopping badass.
Going back to the part about Sunset being cool to live with, she let me sleep as late as I wanted. This was handy when I got plastered drunk, such as the night I returned from space and subsequently went on a quest to save the Princesses with the Elements of Harmony. For all my galactic badassery, I have still not learned how to handle my tequila.
I did eventually get up late that morning. Sunset was busy organizing the shelves and being quiet as a churchmouse about it. I nodded to her and stumbled out the door.
I was on my way to meet with Princess Luna. She had asked me to visit after we rescued her and Celestia from the evil tentacle vines in the Everfree Forest. I didn’t know if I was supposed to go to the castle to get an official attaboy for my contribution, or if this was about something else. Either way, going with a hangover was at least doing something productive instead of just sitting around with a hangover.
I had a lot of options for getting to Canterlot. Under the circumstances, however, I decided to let someone else drive and bought a train ticket.
The trains were slower than I remembered. I thought I had fixed that. If I had really been gone for months like everyone kept claiming, then maybe things had changed in my absence. I guess ponies don’t have what it takes to keep jet engines and MAGLEV running. What technological wimps.
Regardless, I could think about that later. I slept most of the way to Canterlot and was feeling reasonably refreshed by the time the train arrived.
I went up to the castle. There was a new guard on duty that I didn’t recognize. Granted, most guards were pretty hard to tell apart, but this guy was a bright orange pegasus. He had a trainee nametag that read Flash Sentry. I decided that I didn’t like him as soon as I saw him. Funny how some ponies can inspire that.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Who the hell do you think I am? How many times do I have to save Equestria before you guys recognize me?”
“I uh…”
I shook my head and took out a framed picture of myself. It had my autograph on it. I had appraised it at being worth several hundred bits. “The name is Valiant.”
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Where did you get that picture from?”
I rolled my eyes and broke the portrait, glass and all, over his head. The frame ended up bracketed nicely around his neck as he slumped to the ground.
I sighed and stepped over his limp form. “Jeez, if ponies don’t have pockets you’d think that more of them would have heard of hammerspace.”
I thought it might have been better to have hit him with one of those cartoon extendo boxing gloves on a pantograph, the kind that you work the levers and it shoots out and punches someone. I didn’t have one of those, though. Note to self: get one.
Luna met me in the castle atrium and we went to her office. I sat down across from her at the large desk where she did her Princess paperwork, which is a lot like normal paperwork but more girly.
“I would like to hear about your adventures in outer space,” she said.
I shrugged. “Going into an environment like that, no air, no warmth, no life…basically every waking moment all you’re doing is just trying to survive. After you struggle against the void for so long it gets kind of boring really.”
“Is that it?” Luna asked.
I shrugged and said nothing.
“Very well. You’re back now and I am interested to know if you are still interested in fulfilling your contracts with the military.”
“For the combat robots?” I remembered. “Eh, I don’t know. After being gone for so long, it might take a while for me to get my skills back. Plus, you know me; I don’t really do series production that well. I’d get finished with one and be trying to do something different for the next one. I have other sources of income as well.”
“Are you trying to renege on our contract?” Luna’s eyes narrowed.
“No.” Yes.
“Perhaps I can offer you a different form of employment, then.” Luna looked thoughtful. “What if I were to give you a number and take away your name?”
Faint strains of Secret Agent Man began to play in the back of my mind, but I asked, “We’re talking figuratively, right?”
“Yes.”
“Just making sure.” I paused. “That actually sounds really cool. I didn’t know you guys had secret agents.”
Luna frowned. “I thought you’d already met my Mares in Black.”
“Secret asshole agents don’t count.”
“And what about Cheerilee, who you recommended to me?”
“Same answer.”
Luna considered that. “I was thinking of disbanding MiB. We simply don’t have enough of their type of work anymore. We need agents that are a little more diverse and applicable. A little less conspicuous. I know you’re capable of being incognito, if I pay you enough.”
“Princess, for the right price, I’ll be a goddamned ghost.”
She nodded and smiled. “I’ll contact you again soon.”
That was my cue to leave. It seemed a little suspicious that Luna was willing to just drop the robot contract so easily. I frowned. As usual, there were a lot of unanswered questions when it came to the Princesses. Now that I thought about it, why had she and her sister ended up tangled in vines in the Everfree Forest? Did they get kidnapped by somepony? Did they go willingly all the way from Canterlot and put themselves in those traps? Why didn’t Twilight ever ask these questions?
Speaking of, I ran across Twilight and Spike who were packing a chariot for a ride to Ponyville. She waved me over. I figured a free ride was worth tolerating her company. That was until I realized why she wanted to talk to me.
It was a bombardment of questions. Everything from the success of my rocket to the life support systems to my observations of interstellar travel. And then she started in on how apparently I came back different after being gone so long. I swear, I would have pushed her over the side of the chariot if she didn’t have wings.
“Maybe you just think I’m different because all of you changed while I was gone,” I said. “You told me I was gone a long time.”
Twilight frowned at that. “I guess it’s possible. I’m a Princess. Rainbow had a foal. Sunset came to Ponyville. So much else has happened.”
I remember Guinness had knocked up Rainbow before I left. Trixie told me that there were a few strange things about the pregnancy, but it had ultimately resulted in a cute little filly.
While Twilight was still speculating about who or what had changed, I took out my sunglasses and put them on. Twilight seized my hoof and jerked it into the air, checking around the vicinity of my armpit and down towards my tail.
“Twilight, what.” I didn’t finish the question. By the tone of my voice and by her actions, the question I was asking should be pretty clear.
“Where did you get those from?” she demanded.
I sighed and rolled my eyes. “It’s going to be from your ass if you don’t let me go.”
One of the pegasus guards pulling the chariot looked back. “Did you just threaten the Princess?”
“You should have seen me back when I was actively trying to murder her.”
There was an awkward silence. The guards, I think, took it as a joke with incredibly poor taste. Twilight remembered back when I was actively trying to murder her, and let me go.
Arriving in Ponyville, Twilight and Spike got out and headed towards the forest. Twilight said something about going to the old castle and searching for books. It was tied into the mysterious chest with six keyholes that had been found. Something about how it shouldn’t exist because there wasn’t a reference in the library.
She could have just asked me about the chest, although actually getting me to tell her would have been difficult.
While Twilight and Spike went into the forest, I headed towards the center of town where Guinness was working on the pub he was building. He noticed me as I approached.
Rainbow wasn’t around, but their filly was sitting in a highchair and watching her father work. The little pony was a pegasus, light teal in color with the same rainbow mane as her mother. Also, her eyes had slitted pupils and gave off an aura of blackest evil. She opened her small mouth, showing off impressive fangs. The voice that came out was something like James Earl Jones with feedback and an echo. “What are you looking at, mortal?”
I turned to Guinness. “Were you aware that your kid is the Antichrist?”
He threw up his hooves. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everypony since she was born!”
The filly growled, “I’ve told you before, father, I am to be addressed as ‘he’!”
Guinness shook his head and turned back to me. “You are the first one to see her the way I do. Must be because we’re human or something.”
“Have you tried an exorcism?” I asked.
“Not yet, although I’ve considered it. I just didn’t want to hurt little-”
The filly interrupted. “I am the King in Yellow, Harbinger of the Fourth Syzygy. I will destroy your souls!”
“Er, we call her Rainbow Catcher,” finished Guinness.
I looked at the filly sitting there in the highchair, waving her little hooves and wings at us. “So…is it all talk or is your kid really destroying souls?”
Guinness actually looked a little relieved. “Nothing serious. No telling what will happen when she learns to walk and fly, but it is a start.”
That seemed like a good transition to talk about something else. “So what’s with the pub?”
“Well, I figured we needed to Irish this place up a little. Ponyville could use a good venue for good food, good music, and if we can figure it out, good beverages.” He sounded enthusiastic, but abruptly turned to me, grinning with excitement. “But enough about that. You just got back, man. Tell me about space!”
I shrugged. “After you get used to the zero-g it’s kind of boring.”
“But…you were gone for so long. Surely something interesting had to have happened.”
“You said good music for the pub?” I asked. “I think I can handle that. Put me on lead guitar and I know Trixie has a hell of a drumline.”
“Cool, I’ve been learning how to play the bass. But what does that have to do with space?”
“You ask a lot of questions for someone who’s getting a free house band.” I gave him a look before turning to walk away.
I spotted Rarity heading towards the forest. Fluttershy was with her, and Pinkie was with her. Pinkie was smooching Fluttershy as per norm, and Rarity looked like she was struggling to put up with it.
Rarity was probably trying to distract herself when she spoke to me. “Hello Valiant. We were just on our way to the ancient castle of the royal pony sisters to look for interesting tapestry projects.”
I shrugged and fell in step beside them. “It’s been a while since I’ve been out there. I guess I’ll go and see what’s up.”
We got out to the castle and the three of them split off to look for tapestries. I searched around for something more interesting, because they weren’t any fun, jumping at the slightest noises and stuff.
I thought I heard something from the basement and headed down to check it out. In retrospect, it may not have been the greatest idea, since in this world of magic it was a lot more likely to actually encounter a ghostie or ghoulie. Unfortunately, I found something worse: Rainbow Dash.
She and Applejack were trying to scare each other or something. They seemed to be doing a bang-up job of it, too, so I left them to it.
Twilight and Spike were upstairs, having found a lot of books just like Twilight wanted. Spike seemed to be bored. Twilight was having her usual nerd out bookgasm.
I frowned at that thought. Or would it be printing lust? Were there special fetishes for different fonts?
Ugh. Back home, on the internet, probably yes.
Anyway, at some point, they all started to freak out individually. Even Twilight came down out of the library and met up with her five friends so they could all have a nice little hextuple freakout. Plus Spike.
I looked up from playing my theremin. “Something the matter, you guys?”
Stats
Page generated in 0.039 seconds
Total duration
740 users online
956,161 hits today, 1,872,792 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
fav and like for the description alone!! LOL!!
"Now here is an example of a question that doesn't deserve to be answered, EVER.
Twilight be careful with your font fetish, you can get Hobo STD.
Lol don't change Valiant. Never stop being awesome.
theremin for second best instrument
Rainbow Catcher grows at insane rate, joins CMC, and gets them cutie marks in pony sacrifice and Demon summoning.
3559646 CULTIST MARK CRUSADERS DARK RITUALS YAY!
I like how Valiant was so blasé about the kid being the Anti-Christ.
3559313
img18.imageshack.us/img18/484/hy34.png
3559646
We shall see...
3559576
A theremin is great for sci-fi music scores, but for a horror soundtrack, you want the waterphone:
3560595 i want it
3560602
DIY Waterphone
It won't produce the exact same results as a real one, which is much more complicated to build, but it'll still make cool noises.
3560614 while it would be nice to have the real thing, this is still going to be used to have a lot of fun.
3560614>>3560654 You guys don't have theremins?
3560701 i would very much like to.
I liked this chapter. Also I shall be the first to point out the terrible pun title. I don't care if the chapter made me laugh alot! Terrible pun is terrible pun nothing changes that.
3559270 If you can incite bloodlust in others simply by misusing comic sans, I'd say it's plausible.
For those of you that are confused as to what a Theremin is...
[youtube=w5qf9O6c20o]
The theremin /ˈθɛrəmɪn/,
[1] originally known as the ætherphone/etherphone, thereminophone
[2] or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the thereminist (performer). It is named after the westernized name of its Russian inventor, Léon Theremin, who patented the device in 1928
A theremin. Really? that. Is. So. AWESOME.
At least its not more cultists.
3570838 True dat.
3560701
I'm just sayin'... waterphone > theremin when it comes to horror soundtracks. Theremin > waterphone for sci-fi.
3570838
*cough*
Nope, I have no bias for Rainbow Catcher at all. /em liarjack
Also: syzygy is quite possibly the second-best Hangman word evar, right behind twyndyllyngs.
Also also: while a syzygy technically can apply to three celestial bodies lining up (Sun-Earth-Mars happens approximately every other year), syzygy with more bodies is more interesting. Aligning 5 planets in our solar system happens roughly 3 times a century. Aligning all 9 (or all 8, I guess... sorry, Pluto) takes millions of years.
Also also also: Sun-Earth-Moon syzygy can trigger moonquakes. I wonder if Luna had to deal with that?
3572092
Oh, that wasn't a reference to the guys who took Dracula's box back to his castle?
Hopefully Catcher will know better than to steal lawn Gnomes.
This story still makes me laugh. Keep it up you crazy sob.
3576043
I understood that reference!
Rainbow catcher is now second favorite character lol
3561162 But... that's the name of the episode!
?
Do you not like Hasbro's puns? They put so much effort into them...
Why are all of the Fluttershy emotes sad ones except for
3560595 That is one freaky musical instrument.
From the filly having a evil deep voice, I'm going to guess you've played Fable 2 and at least reached as far as the entrance to the Crucible.
You clever bastard.
HASTUR! HASTUR! HASTUR!
(Otherwise, insert Thrackerzod Joke here.)
Lol, Trixie playing drums. Because eight limbs... wait, that actually makes me a little upset. Now I want eight limbs.
Comic Sans? OMG WEBDINGS.