The Cutie Map - part 1
“And another thing, which one of you featherbrains decided to let my little Skyla drink?!”
It was rare to see Rainbow Dash so angry. It didn’t help that she was currently a fire-breathing dragon taking up most of the library common room.
Guinness, hiding behind a piece of furniture, tentatively raised a hoof. “Uh…it’s basically grain in liquid form, has antiseptic properties, and she likes it.”
Rainbow turned on him. “Alcohol is an incredibly irresponsible thing to give to a filly!”
“A filly that Valiant gave us,” Guinness reminded her.
Groans went up from the other ponies hidden around the room.
“I thought we agreed not to mention Valiant!” Rarity protested.
“Like how we said we wouldn’t talk about how Princess Skyla is the new kid Valiant gave to Guinness and Rainbow Dash to replace the demonchild he sacrificed to become an alicorn,” Pinkie added.
“Now you’ve just gone and done both at once!” Applejack shouted.
“And the part about Skyla being a princess, we haven’t confirmed that,” Twilight added.
“She’s an alicorn filly,” Fluttershy said.
“Yes, but that doesn’t necessarily imply royalty,” Twilight argued.
“Name one alicorn that wasn’t a princess,” Applejack countered.
“Valiant!” Pinkie replied.
“Now you’ve gone and done it again!”
Guinness stood up, holding his hooves above his head. “Dashie, please, I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.”
Rainbow gave him a hard look, but reverted back to her pony form. Everyone silently let out a breath. Rainbow could tear up enough without weighing a couple of tons and having the ability to spit fireballs. They all decided not to mention that it was Valiant who had been the catalyst for her gaining that ability.
Applejack got up. A couple of duplicates of her were already cleaning up the scattered books. Due to mysterious circumstances involving cannibalism, she was able to produce protein-based doubles of herself. Valiant had been involved.
One of the meat puppets swept up a thin trace of salt from the floor. Rarity had been shedding. She’d started doing that ever since a magic, equinimorphic bible had turned her into a literal pillar of salt and back again. The book had formerly belonged to Valiant.
Fluttershy emerged from her hiding place. Her head was down, her mane covering one eye, but not the horn that sprouted from her head. After accidentally eating Discord – long story – she had started swapping races every time she sneezed. In addition, she had slaves. This was also a matter Valiant had been involved in, as he had stabbed Discord with a tent stake in the place where Fluttershy had later planted a vegetable garden.
Twilight looked glumly at the library. Little damage had been done, but she was irked that it had happened at all. Princesses probably didn’t have to put up with this, and Twilight was no longer a princess, again. This was directly Valiant’s fault. Again.
Rainbow had gone over to the baby carrier to retrieve the young alicorn. The filly was pink with a yellow and lavender mane.
“Yay!” had been her first word, and she happily said it once more as Rainbow picked her up.
“At least we’re lucky I’m still milking after the last kid,” Rainbow said. Most of the gathered ponies winced.
The door opened and a brown unicorn came in carrying a bag full of fruit. He had a white underbelly and a gold cross for a cutie mark. “Hello everypony, I brought some lunch. Twilight said it would be good for me to learn the importance of eating.”
This was Bible. He used to be a book and was just now getting used to being a pony. Twilight had a crush on him.
Distracted by food, everyone gathered around. Within minutes, the argument over raising pints with babies had been forgotten, and the group was enjoying a meal together.
As they were eating, Trixie and Daring stopped by. The two of them were dressed in adventure gear, which is to say the regular clothes they wore all the time because they were now pretty much adventuring 24/7.
“We’re about to head out,” said Trixie.
“Something about a mysterious such-and-such up in the northern plains,” added Daring.
“That seems remarkably unspecific,” Twilight observed.
Pinkie stage-whispered, “I bet they’re sneaking off to have HLS in a new, exotic location!”
Neither Trixie nor Daring commented, instead turning for the door. On the way out, however, Daring paused and said, “Hey, I heard something about a weird equals-sign place out in the wasteland. Sounded weird. You guys do weird, right?”
“What did that mean?” Twilight wondered aloud as the door closed.
“Sounds like business,” said Rainbow.
“Business?”
“You know, the stuff we do all the time?” Rainbow said. “Fighting ninjas and pirates and lasers and stuff.”
Applejack said, “Well, usually that stuff comes to us a little bit more direct.”
“Yeah, but I’m bored,” Rainbow said.
“Bored with being a mother to a wonderful foal?” Guinness asked.
“I could never be bored with that.” Rainbow waved a hoof. “I’m talking about my day job.”
“Wait, you have a day job?” Rarity asked.
“The weather patrol?” said Fluttershy.
“Nah, I quit that to be an Element of Harmony full time,” said Rainbow. “Way more interesting. That is, when interesting stuff happens.”
Twilight glanced around the library. “I hate to say it, but after doing this for a while, being a librarian again does sound kind of dull.”
“Spike did want us to become a superhero team,” Fluttershy reminded them quietly.
“Speaking of, where is he?” Pinkie asked.
The door burst open. Spike ran in, breathless. “Everypony…we’ve got tanks.”
A collective “huh?” went around the room. Gesturing to follow him, Spike led the rest out of the library.
Parked outside were six brightly painted armored vehicles. Twilight, who had once visited a museum in the human world, knew what she was looking at. “Oh, this is bad!”
“What are they?” Rainbow asked, flying over to check out the one that was painted like her.
“They roll on tracks and have large cannons,” Twilight summarized.
“Where did they come from?” Applejack wondered.
All of them were silent. They all sort of suspected, but nobody wanted to say it.
The tanks were parked in a neat row in front of the library. If anyone had bothered to ask Guinness, he might have told the girls that they resembled M4 Shermans. However, Guinness was smart enough that he would have instead told them that the tanks resembled M4 Shermans.
“Well, what are we supposed to do with them?” Rarity asked after a while. The others were busy exploring the internals of their individual tank. Rarity didn’t, because it looked greasy.
“I think it’s pretty clear that they were some kind of weird gift,” said Twilight. She quickly emphasized, “But I think we should explore every option first and definitely not jump to any conclusions.”
From Fluttershy’s tank, they heard “AchooKABOOMeeeeeek!”
She had sneezed, inadvertently setting off the cannon with her restored wings.
The shell left the barrel and flew through the center of town. It punched a neat hole through the statue in the fountain in front of city hall, breezed right through the wooden walls of the public building, and through a few more things behind it that were susceptible to getting hit with a lot of force in not a lot of surface area.
When they pulled Fluttershy out of the tank, she was dazed and blinking away the smoke from the main gun. Twilight dropped down into the tank, fanning away the fumes. She found the expended shell and compared it to a few others that were stocked along the wall. The designation stenciled on them was vague, but it looked like they contained tungsten darts. A few others were marked “high explosive.”
“So are we going to take these things on a joyride or what?” said Rainbow. “You heard Daring, we should totally go check out that place she mentioned.”
“Until we know how to drive them and not destroy Ponyville, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” replied Applejack.
Pinkie waved a hoof. “Psh, everything destroys Ponyville.”
“Which is exactly why we should go on some adventure instead!” Rainbow insisted.
“Looks like it's time for a road trip,” Twilight agreed.
Rainbow left Skyla with Guinness. His pub, The Half Pint, was still open for business, and in fact, business was booming. Squibles, his griffon business partner, could take up some of the slack. Skyla was very well behaved, for Rainbow at least. For him, the little alicorn foal was a troublemaker. Still, Guinness was secretly delighted by the fact that this new foal Valiant had found somewhere wasn’t hellspawn, although hadn’t mentioned it to Rainbow.
While they waited for Rainbow to come back, the Cutie Mark Crusaders came by. Their number had expanded by a few as of late. One of them was a blue and white filly named Cordoba, who spoke Spanish about half the time and had been involved in some hilarious misunderstandings, like that time the CMC had launched an actual religious crusade.
“What are those things?” Scootaloo asked.
“Never you mind,” Rarity replied. Nobody wanted the CMC to get their hooves on tanks. Robots had been bad enough.
The kids ran along. Next to stop by were Daisy, Lilly, and Rose. They clustered around Fluttershy, who looked uncomfortable.
“What can we do for you today, master?” Daisy asked.
“Anything at all,” added Lilly.
“Um, fix the damage that this tank did with the cannon, if that’s not too much trouble?” Fluttershy said.
“Oh, anything for you!” exclaimed Rose. The three flower ponies went off to do Fluttershy’s bidding.
Rainbow rejoined the group. She raised her eyebrows at the reaction of the three mares, but by now the news that Fluttershy had slaves wasn’t new anymore. Just one of those things.
The girls headed out to find the mysterious equals-sign place. It took a while because none of them knew where they were going. Partway there, they managed to find a map shop and purchased a rough sketch that was not really helpful, but did feature an equals sign on it.
They knew they were in the right place when at long last, they crested a ridge and found the town below them.
Twilight looked up from her navigating. “That's it! That's the place on the map!”
“Right, let's get down there and find the spa,” Rarity grumbled. It had been a longer journey than it really needed to be. Dirtier too.
The rest started forward, but Twilight cautioned, “Wait, we don't know anything about this place. We shouldn't just walk right in. It could be dangerous.”
“Yes!” Rainbow exclaimed. “That’s exactly why we should walk right in!” She punched the air a few times. “They won’t know what hit ‘em.”
“Or maybe they’re regular law-abiding ponies and would take offense to some featherbrain stirrin’ up trouble where there wasn’t none,” Applejack deadpanned.
“If they’re regular law-abiding ponies then they could use a party!” Pinkie exclaimed. “Stay behind me, everypony! I'm on it!”
She skipped down the hill and into town. The rest followed. The buildings were set up in two straight rows and all were exactly alike.
“Ugh,” Rainbow grumbled. “It looks like the most boring place in Equestria.”
“It looks like just an ordinary village full of ordinary pony folk,” Applejack said, although she agreed.
“It could certainly use a few more architectural flourishes,” Rarity decided. “Or any architectural flourishes.”
Pinkie frowned. “I don't like it. I don't like it one bit. I know smiles. And those smiles? They're just not right.”
Twilight’s eyes popped open wide. “Forget the smiles. Look at the cutie marks!”
Every pony in town, regardless of race, gender, or other, had exactly the same equals sign cutie mark.
“Okay, that's weird,” Rainbow acknowledged.
“Welcome!” said a stallion trotting by with a huge grin on his face. So did a few others, with identical, super-creepy grins.
“I’ve seen enough movies to know what we should probably do when we’re new in town and need some information,” said Applejack. “Let’s go have a bite to eat and met with some locals. They can tell us a little more about the situation.”
“Plus, I’m super hungry after all that traveling!” Pinkie emphasized.
Applejack stopped one of the ponies in the street. “‘Scuse me, where’s the best restaurant in town?”
“Best?” she said. “Why would we need more than one?”
“Competition,” Rainbow said.
“Variety,” Rarity added.
The mysterious equals-sign pony blinked, as if those words were foreign concepts. “Anyway, it’s down the street.”
“Which street?” Pinkie asked.
“Why do we need more than one street?”
“It was a joke,” Pinkie said. “You…you have jokes, right?”
“We have one joke.”
The rest dragged Pinkie away before she could ask.
At the restaurant, they found seats and the waiter came over. It turned out there were only a few things on the menu: black bread, borscht, potatoes, and blintzes for dessert.
Twilight, who knew the history of many types of food from around the world, began to get a bad feeling.
That intensified when the meal was over. The waiter came to clear away the plates. Applejack asked, “How much do we owe ya?”
He paused, as if considering it. “Owe? You mean like money?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Rainbow.
“I’ll just leave this,” Twilight said, putting out what she thought was appropriate, plus a generous tip. The waiter stared at it and was still staring when they left.
“Okay, this place is getting weirder by the second,” Applejack muttered as they walked down the one street.
Twilight glanced at the drab architecture. There was only one kind of everything, one restaurant, one grocery store.
“What’s the deal with these guys?” Rainbow asked. “Nopony tries to outdo anypony else, they don’t seem to know what to do with money, everything is so dull.”
“I have a theory,” said Twilight. “Valiant warned us about this.”
“I thought we agreed not to talk about him!” Rainbow protested.
“Yes, but this place is remarkably like how he described them.”
“Described who?” Rarity asked.
Twilight glanced around and lowered her voice. “Communists.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.046 seconds
Total duration
1,047 users online
1,430,435 hits today, 2,004,447 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.®
I must admit, when I was a small child, I drank my father's beer. My mother eventually put a stop to it when I told my teacher, "I like beer!"
And a new adventure begins!
COMMUNISM?!
Death is a preferable alternative to Communism.
~Crystalline Electrostatic~
Now I'll be listening to this over the musical numbers. And it will be awesome.
We have officially reached a point we don't even need to watch the show anymore to predict what happens
Communism... Sounds like dissent to me!
th03.deviantart.net/fs43/PRE/i/2009/089/0/9/Anti_Communist_Propaganda_by_third2.png
Happy April Fools. I was confused when I saw the chapter, but then I looked at the date. xD
ah... an updated story on April first that isn't a "prank"
Oh so glade for this
5812463 This ain't no joke.
Hm, I wonder who dropped 6 tanks randomly in Ponyville? Couldn't be Valiant, he is at.... Wait, where is he again? Didn't he steal a battleship or something?
5815078 Dear mother of God, this was the legit thing? And four days before what it's based off of comes out. And you wanted to shake the theory that you work for Hasbro.
Dirty Communists.........
Democracy is truth, Communism is death!
Wait a second! Something just occurred to me! The crystal empire is empty due to all the crystal meth ponies being shot up by Valiant. Those ruins would be the perfect spot for a Gulag.
Part 2? /begs
5822711 Next week. I'm getting into a delayed schedule.
5822850
But, that's like... FOREVER from now! What an I gonna do until then?
Kinda interesting how Valiant isn't in this chapter, but his presence is heavily felt.
Anyways, it's great to see this story back. One of my top favorites on this site.
I was unsure where this was heading until suddenly "Communists." And then I lost it.
I read the ending=
5881361 orig15.deviantart.net/f514/f/2009/327/0/c/liberty_prime___better_dead_by_goronguy.jpg
Hmmm... Possibly... I'd have called the "Equal" town more of a socialist system than communist. The ponies living there were owned as property is owned, but they themselves owned nothing. Thinking back on that episode, I wonder why the town wasn't surrounded by farmland. Their food had to come from somewhere...
Maybe Starlight Glimmer was selling them into slavery, prostitution, or both, and using the money to buy supplies for the town.
Suddenly, an orange alicorn with a black mane appears and starts shooting a gun that fires the American flag.
Oh god more Commies! Starlight Glimmer must be Comrade Glimmer!
XD ALMOST FELL OF MY BED!