Leap of Faith
“Why do you wear your hat when you swim?” I asked.
Applejack frowned. “Well, why would I take it off?”
“Oh, I don’t know…it might get wet or something?”
“Well yeah, but so does the rest of me.” Applejack shrugged. “I mean, it takes my fur a little while to dry, and it takes the hat a little while to dry too.”
“Hair,” I said.
Applejack looked at me. “Huh?”
“Ponies have hair, not fur.”
“Says who?”
“Says me. We can argue all you want about terminology, but at the end of the day there is no overwhelming evidence to prove that I’m wrong.”
“Any overwhelming evidence that you’re right?” Applejack asked.
Clever girl. “Shut up.”
Applejack turned away and went back to swimming with her family. She, Apple Bloom and Big Macintosh liked to come to the swimming hole. Apparently it had been a favorite of Granny Smith.
Granny, before she died of supercancer, had apparently been into aquabatics and had discovered the family swimming hole. She’d also been a high diver and had once jumped six stories into a deep dish pie pan.
I left the Apple Family farm and headed back towards town. I’d really only been there long enough to ask about Applejack’s hat. That might tell you how bored I was today.
Fortunately, a welcome distraction presented itself. I noticed a large tent set up outside of town. Music was playing gaily from inside. I headed in that direction.
When I got to the tent, I encountered Sir Win coming out. He looked a little disappointed.
“The music was playing gaily, not gayly,” he said.
“Sorry to hear that.”
He went on his way and I stepped into the tent.
It wasn’t a circus, but that didn’t hurt my feelings any. Aside from not being a fan of clowns, I might have had to pay an admission fee. Instead, the tent had been set up for selling things. Near the musical calliope at the front, there was a curtain behind which bottles of green liquid were stacked. They were all labeled “Powerthirst.”
Just then, the Flim Flam Brothers stepped out onto the stage. I had seen them around before, and I knew that they had helped Trixie defeat an evil alien a while back. They were generally okay guys, but you always had to be wary that they were about to scam you.
Just like you, Valiant, said my conscience.
“What the hell? Since when do I have a conscience?”
“Quiet,” shushed a pony in the crowd. Just then, the Flim Flam Brothers began their little song and show routine.
“Do you sometimes feel tired?” asked one of them.
“Do you wonder if there is some way to give yourself a little boost of energy?” said the other.
“Or maybe a biiiig boost!”
“Well, ladies and gentlecolts, we have the solution!”
“It’s Powerthirst, our patented formula for giving you unsafe levels of energy!”
“Hang on, what do you mean by ‘unsafe?’” asked one of the audience members.
“I’m glad you asked,” said Flim.
“Because it just so happens that we have a long time Powerthirst user here with us today,” responded Flam. “Mister Blaster, come up here, please.”
A grey stallion with big sunglasses and a long flowing mane came up on the stage.
“Tell the nice folks what Powerthirst has done for you.”
“It’s totally the best, brah,” said the guest. “It gives me energy and stuff. The unsafe thing is how many mares it attracts. They’re all over me. Radical, brah.”
“And there are no side effects!”
Mister Blaster showed off his teeth, which were all pearly white and perfectly straight.
“So it’s just an energy drink?” some other pony called.
“It’ll make everypony so energetic that it can practically make the dead get up and dance!”
“Does it do anything else?” questioned another member of the crowd.
“Oh, it does much more than that!”
“Like what?” the townspony asked. “Can it disinfect?”
“If you say so.”
“Alcohol does that, too,” I commented to myself.
“Does it make your breath fresher?” someone asked.
“Sure, why not?”
“Can it make me musically talented and famous?” said someone else standing nearby.
“As it happens…” The Flim Flam Brothers suddenly swapped outfits, eschewing their traditional boater hats and striped shirts for do rags and sagging pants. One did the beat and the other dropped the lyrics.
Powerthirst! Make it big!
Powerthirst! Have a swig!
Powerthirst! It’s for you!
Powerthirst! Nice and smooth!
Powerthirst! Pumps you up!
Powerthirst! You’re not a chump!
Powerthirst! Makes you fast!
Powerthirst! You won’t be last!
Powerthirst! Makes you strong!
Powerthirst! All day long!
Powerthirst! Makes you sweat!
Powerthirst! It’s the best!
Powerthirst! All the time!
Powerthirst! Outta rhymes!
Powerthirst! Energy!
Powerthirst! Give your bits to me!
Ponies in Ponyville were not fans of rap.
Having said that, they still bought the shit out of the Powerthirst.
I decided not to buy any. I mean, if I was energetic, somebody might ask me to do something. Work, probably. Besides, something else was on my mind. I couldn’t quite remember what it was, but something about Powerthirst didn’t seem right.
The Flim Flam Brothers had pitched me the product and I’d used it to threaten - I mean convince - Luna into giving me control of the dreamscape. Despite that, and them showing up in Ponyville to sell it, I still didn’t know much about the stuff.
I headed back to the library. I found Sunset down in the basement. She was working on the magic converter that we had used to create a charge big enough to send me on my last trip to Earth.
“Do you have my notes somewhere?” I asked.
She looked up from her work. “What notes? I didn’t know you kept any.”
“I don’t, usually. I’m talking about anything I may have written down, as a reminder to myself or whatever.”
“Well, let me see…” Sunset walked across the basement laboratory, carefully avoiding the loose floorboards that covered the portal to Hell. Digging in a box, she produced several hoofuls of writing paper that bore my distinctive scribble.
“You kept all this?” I asked. “Like…obsessively keeping everything I ever wrote as some sort of memento of me?”
“Um…” Sunset’s face flushed.
“Thanks!” I grabbed the page I wanted and set it down on the lab table. I had written it during a drunk spell back about the time of the breezy incident. My eyes scanned the list.
Track universal transit progress of USS Milwaukee
Keep training for Equestria Games to represent Milwaukee
Speak to seaponies - Re: failed conquest of Milwaukee Manehattan
Do something with that stuff I stole
Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss the abyss gazes also into you
Create more anagrams to confuse Twilight
POWERTHIRST = CRYSTAL METH IN A CAN
I facehoofed. “Powerthirst is crystal meth!”
“Is that bad?” Sunset asked.
“Very bad,” I confirmed. “I just let the Flim Flam Brothers sell narcotics to the whole town. ‘It’ll make everypony so energetic that it can practically make the dead get up and dance’ my ass.”
“What do we do?” she asked, concerned.
“Well…methamphetamine isn’t illegal here. Hell, the whole Crystal Empire is made of the stuff. I guess I’ll just have to run a massive, nationwide public health campaign and educate ponies on the dangers of drug use.”
I shrugged. “Or something. I’ll get to it eventually.”
I passed the ponies who I’d captured and were still chained to the basement wall and went upstairs. Since I was in the library, I thought I might do some research.
When in the dreamland, I had discovered Trixie’s grandmother and the fact that her brother’s last known location was Trottingham. It was easy enough to find a Trottingham address book on the shelf and look up the residents.
I browsed for a few minutes, eventually coming across a name. My eyes narrowed in suspicion, but then widened at the implications. Trixie’s brother was named Glimmer Spark. He’d stolen my identity a while back.
It was not really a huge blip in my personal memory. I’d tracked him down. After that, things got fuzzy, but he stopped posing as me.
Still, I would have thought that I would remember personally taking care of him. I mean, obviously whatever I had done had worked because I never heard from him again.
But then it hit me. Literally. I’d been bucked in the face and that’s why I couldn’t remember so quickly. Glimmer, a unicorn, had been magically posing as me. He had used the trick to get close to Cheerilee. I don’t really know why he did that or her personal beef with him, but she ripped out his throat. Then, when I came to congratulate her on taking care of my problem, she kicked me and I blacked out.
Aside from suddenly remembering that I owed Cheerilee a literal headache from that, the consequences were huge. I knew who Trixie’s brother was, I knew that he hadn’t been on the level, and I knew that Cheerilee had murdered him.
Talk about family affairs.
Quite obviously, this raised a host of problems. Did I tell Trixie, have her get mad at Cheerilee, and ashamed of her brother? Did I just keep quiet, keeping a secret from Trixie and not giving her closure?
Well damn, this sounded like a problem for tequila.
On the other hand, what if I went to talk to Cheerilee? At least then I could feel better about rubbing it in her face.
With that plan in mind, I gathered some equipment and happily trotted out the door. It was already afternoon and school should be getting out for the day.
When I arrived at the schoolhouse, I saw Cheerilee inside grading some papers. I came in and bolted to the floor a stout metal box with speakers on it. Around it, I set up an electric cage with a powerful charge.
“Valiant, what are you doing?” Cheerilee demanded. Several times.
“You’ll find out later,” I said. “Now, do you remember Glimmer Spark? He was a unicorn stallion, silver with a blue mane. He was posing as me and you killed him.”
“Yes, I remember,” Cheerilee said. “Why?”
“He was Trixie’s brother. Tell me how I’m going to explain to my little girl that you murdered her relative?”
Cheerilee shot me a look. “He was a bad pony.”
Oh. I paused. That changed things. “Yeah, I guess that is pretty good justification. I actually agree with you. Thanks for agreeing with me.”
Cheerilee did not appear to like the idea that we might have the same opinion on something. That was okay; it didn’t happen very often.
I turned to go. “Thanks. Anyway, this is for kicking me.” As I walked out the door, I pulled out a remote control and clicked the button. The equipment I had set up inside the school began to blare a deafening noise at about three kilohertz, the most common alarm clock frequency.
The player was sturdily built and the electric fence around it would make it harder to get to. Cheerilee might have been a vampire, but the shock would forcibly lock up her muscles if nothing else. Meanwhile, she would have to endure the piercing screech.
What can I say? When I owe someone a headache, I don’t screw around.
I walked back through town. Something strange had happened while I was gone. There was the swim meet that afternoon and the display of aquabatics, but that wasn’t the weird thing. Sure, synchronized swimming is one of the strangest sports I’d ever seen, but I’m talking about strange on a whole other level.
It was ponies on meth.
I stopped and stared. Sure enough, the Flim Flam Brothers were selling a product that gave you energy. Of course, they didn’t mention the side effects of psychosis and rotten teeth. In a town where everyone ate tons of sugar, it was hard to believe dental problems could get worse.
Oh, and the addiction. Flim and Flam were making money as fast as they could sell bottles of their beverage to repeat customers. The drugged ponies, those that weren’t failing badly at synchronized swimming or jumping six stories into a deep dish pie pan, were all gathered around the brothers’ wagon, trying to get more Powerthirst.
“Everypony just be patient!” I heard Flim call.
“There’s enough for you all, so stop pushing!” added Flam.
Both of them sounded a little flustered, and with good reason. The crowd was pushing closer and becoming more demanding.
The large tank of Powerthirst in the back of their wagon must have been very tempting, because a couple of ponies skipped the line and began trying to help themselves. Flim and Flam swatted the first few away, but their efforts were soon buried by the onrushing wave of meth heads.
The wagon rocked back and forth, threatening to tip over. The crowd shoved harder and the tank came loose, hitting the ground and rolling away. The addicted ponies tried to chase it, but were unsuccessful.
The tank rolled away down the hill out of Ponyville, gaining speed. It reached the precipice that overlooked the valleys below and shot into the air, flying away in a graceful arc that put it on course for the cemetery.
Even from so far away, I could hear the crash as the tank hit the ground among the headstones and burst apart. The green liquid inside splashed out, covering the earth in the cemetery and quickly soaking into the soil.
And suddenly nothing happened. Meth doesn’t bring the dead back to life. That would be stupid. In fact, research shows that it actually kills people. Don’t do drugs.
The crowd was silent for a long moment as they watched their stash disappear. Then, like ponies they were, they quietly went to the hospital and checked themselves in for rehab.
Although if you knew anything about ponies, you’d know that was a lie and that they actually freaked the hell out.
The Flim Flam Brothers, for all their flaws, had excellent self-preservation skills and began to sneak out of town as soon as they saw that there was going to be a problem. I intercepted them.
“Where did you get that stuff?” I asked.
They both choked and were unable to answer. I let up the pressure of my double headlock a little until they started to talk.
“We just found a natural spring of it,” gasped Flim.
“Where?” I asked.
“Crystal Empire,” wheezed Flam.
That made sense. “So it just bubbles up naturally? How come I never heard about this before?”
“Only just started. Something might be seeping into the local water supply. That spring was the strongest source of it, though.”
I let them both go. “Stay out of my territory.”
They skedaddled. The alleged Mister Blaster hurried after them. He made the mistake of getting too close to me and I punched him right out of his sunglasses and wig.
I picked up a golden bit that he had dropped and moseyed off towards the library, idly flipping the coin. Ponyville had become a massive den of meth addicts with no supply to sate them, and I knew where the source of that supply was.
So I said nothing and let them all go to rehab. So then, when even commoners were going, it make celebrity trips to rehab a lot less cool and several tabloids went out of business due to lack of readers.
All in all, not a bad day’s work.
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I love Valiant in the least sexual way.
4159814 I'm sure he'd be happy to hear that.
Valiant's greatest victory.
4159830 Yeah? Good! Because I Approve of his use of realism in a world of pastel ponies.
Oh my. Oh lord. A crystal meth stream? Walter White would be so pleased.
Ponies on Meth: only slightly less amusing than it's humanized knockoff Stick Figures on Crack.
Someone ponify Walter White, warn him about valiant, and have him go by Heisenberg. Then have him eliminate his competition. With extreme prejudice. Perhaps drowning Flimflam in their own Meth.
So, Valiant is picking up all the rainbow items. Not sure if that's good or bad...
Meeester said:
Dear Savior,
Your story 4 Friends vs. Equestria has failed moderation on FimFiction for the following reason: The short description of your story is not adequate. It needs to be a synopsis.
Meeester sent me this earlier today.
saw the description to this story.
I'm actually kinda pissed that he missed you somehow
probably gonna tell him about this
4160406 I change it every week. To be fair, it is kind of minimal. I've added more to it.
4160411
I see
4160434 I do feel kind of bad when I unthinkingly break some of the site's rules. Thank you for keeping me in check.
So you're working on your first story? Is there anything I can do to help?
4160439
Well...I was breaking the rules as well, sense I'm new I wanted to test the moderators.
I actually might need an editor in the near future, if you be open for that with the next month I might ring you up!
4160450 No problem.
4160439
also not bad of a story!
4160455
Hey! read a chapter of this and I say this some funny stuff.
If you haven't been in a collab you should be!
4160411
4160406
Also, I'm pretty sure the mods are only notified automatically for new stories, not edits to existing ones. And I don't think Meester specifically was a mod when A Dream was first published, so he wouldn't have been the reviewing mod.
...god I love this story...
...wouldn't the ponies chained to the wall start dying of dehydration? or is sunset looking after them?
Those Rehab centers sprang up real quick to deal with Valiant, eh? I thought they didn't know what drugs were!
EDIT: there's also a typo in here, like the ponies they were
I hope you save all the different story descriptions you've written.
4160483 Totes and I are actually working on a story about BABSCon to be released in a few weeks!
Man, there's so much of this story I've forgotten about. You really need an appendix with brief chapter summaries.
4163003
Thats pretty badass for you guys!
Have some fun
CRYSTAL METH MAKES EVERYTHING BETTER
4164903 It's from Thor, the movie.
http://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-att-us&hl=en&gl=us&biw=533&bih=320&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=9Rw-U9KyB4a10AGY_oGwDg&q=abandon+thread+flood+gif&oq=abandon+thread+flood+gif&gs_l=mobile-gws-serp.3...33067.34274.0.34891.6.5.0.0.0.0.406.949.0j1j0j1j1.3.0....0...1c.1.39.mobile-gws-serp..4.2.541.D_PMXCTepH0#biv=i%7C0%3Bd%7CdhVDqUDiJdpRhM%3A
Season 3:
CE1:
withdrawal
I would have shown her that pirate flag.
You know, the one where she's-
WA:
SAYS:
Kind of luck, or sarcastically calling it kind?
GPP:
imagination
MMC:
hadn't
Your impulse control is too poor to resist...
You gave the season a clever twist. Still, I wonder why self insert HiEs that progress to this complex stage (only other story I know of at this mass is TTEOAP, which is sillier yet more serious) involve Equestria being an artificial construct of humans... though this is the first where the protagonist has dated a fair number of the production crew.
I am pretty GAR for Valiant at this point. Keep up the good work, it's an inspiration.
4182647 I swear you're making at least half of those acronyms up on the spot.
4160283 Well, to be fair, Trixie did pick the lock on the box, so they don't even need the keys anymore.
4163635 then you die
Death to tabloids!