A Dream

by totallynotabrony

Castle Sweet Castle

"Twilight, have you ever thought about expanding?" Spike asked.

Between a pile of books, some pillows for comfort, and a few empty teacups, Twilight looked up from the text she was currently reading. "Spike, if this is going to turn into a joke about my posterior..."

Spike shook his head. "No, the library. Since you came to Ponyville, this place has gotten so many more books. That, plus the crime-fighting business, means we're running out of space."

He had a point. The common area in the center of the library was about the last open space in the whole tree-building. Well, there was the basement, but between the portal to Hell and the half-dozen ponies chained to the wall, nobody really wanted to go down there.

Twilight instead elected to focus on the crime-fighting aspect. "This is a library. It's supposed to be full of books. It's too bad that it doesn't make a very good secret headquarters."

"We've been using it for meetings ever since you and your friends became the Elements of Harmony," Spike reminded her. "Since we started doing more stuff outside Ponyville and needing supersuits and gadgets, we don't have enough room."

Twilight frowned. "We've never actually used supersuits and gadgets."

"And you're missing out!" Spike threw up his claws, gesturing at the closet where said superhero suits sat in storage.

"I suppose it'll be the next time we get tipped to a crime but can't intervene as our true identities," Twilight said. "Which is probably never, because saving Equestria is kind of what we do and nopony has ever complained. What are they going to do, arrest us for vigilantism?"

Spike looked disappointed. "Yeah, okay."

Still, he had a point. Twilight looked around. A lot had happened at the library. There were a lot of memories.

Like the memory of how Valiant had once slept on the couch and been a terrible roommate.

Twilight stood up. "Spike, we're going to find a new HQ."

He jumped to his feet and pumped a fist. "Yes! Where?"

Twilight paused. "I have no idea."

"So...get the team together and have a superhero summit?"

"A meeting with the girls might be nice," Twilight acknowledged.

"A...super meeting?"

"Mmm, probably just a talk over lunch."

Spike grinned. "That works too."

Later that day, the left Bible to watch the library and met the girls at The Half Pint. It was not the best place to eat in town, but the pub food had been steadily improving and it certainly wasn't a bad place for a chat.

Guinness got them a room in the back. The midday tavern was quiet, but it was even quieter in the private room. It was furnished with a long wooden table and decorated with a parchment map of Equestria behind glass on the wall. Guinness called it the World Room.

It was perhaps slightly fancier than the rest of the place, but in Twilight's mind not enough to really merit a special designation. She didn't say anything, though, and fortunately neither did Rarity.

The six of them and Spike met around the table. Guinness and Squibles served lunch and then let them be, closing the door behind them.

"I called this meeting to discuss a new place to meet," said Twilight.

"So we need a new place to meet and you had us all meet here to talk about where to meet?" Applejack said.

"That's the long and short of it," Twilight confirmed.

"Well, we're meeting right now," Rainbow said.

"Yes, but we need a meeting location to meet at," Twilight corrected.

"What's wrong with this one?" Rarity asked.

"We need a place to meet in the future," Twilight explained.

"Can't we meet here in the future?" Applejack asked.

"This is just an intermediate meeting place for meeting to discuss meeting in the future." Twilight was beginning to grow a little agitated.

"So we're here to talk about where we're going to talk about stuff when, should it become necessary, we need to talk about stuff?" Pinkie asked.

"Right."

"Well, why didn't you say so?"

The tinest curl of steam wisped off Twilight's mane. These ponies were as dumb as bricks sometimes. It was hard out here for an egghead. "Well anyway, now that we're all on the same page, does anypony have any ideas?"

"What's wrong with the library?" Pinkie asked.

"It's getting crowded with too many books," Twilight replied.

"How about the old castle in Everfree Forest?" Fluttershy suggested.

"Not a bad idea, but a lot of disadvantages," said Applejack. "Needs a lot of work."

"We're six of the hardest-working ponies in Equestria," Rarity said.

"Rainbow included?" Applejack snickered.

"Hey, if you can make duplicates of yourself at will, then why should I have to do all the work?" Rainbow protested. "Plus, we've got two unicorns that can do whatever they want without breaking a sweat."

"Be that as it may," said Twilight, "The old castle is also a long way from town."

"We could move it," Pinkie suggested.

It sounded ridiculous. Then again, after some of the things that had been moved across the land - an Ursa Minor, a ship called Milwaukee - maybe it wasn't so crazy after all.

Rarity rejected the idea, however. "Do you have any idea how garish a castle would look in the middle of all these average homes?"

"We could dress it up," Pinkie offered.

"That would only make the difference worse," Rarity countered.

"We could dress up all the houses in town."

"Valiant stopped me from that once," Rarity said. "I was possessed by a magic book."

As if on cue, Bible poked his head into the room. "Twilight? There you are. A telegram for you just arrived at the library."

"What's it say?" Twilight asked.

Bible held up a card and read from it. "'Attention Twilight, stop. Man up and learn to drive a tank, stop. It'd be badass, not to mention sort of important to the fate of Equestria, stop. Stop, hammertime, stop.' It's not signed."

"Doesn't need to be," Applejack muttered.

"I didn't know they had telegram stations on the moon," Pinkie said.

"We don’t know that Valiant is actually on the moon," Twilight admonished.

"Well, he did rise up into the sky and didn't come back," said Rainbow. "Aside from the risk of potentially running into him someday while I'm flying, I'm pretty happy with the arrangement. He isn't here."

"But what if he is?" Pinkie began giving the rest of them suspicious looks.

"If he was, I'm pretty sure he would announce himself," said Twlilght flatly. "This is Valiant we're talking about, after all."

There was a general murmur of agreement and the conversation turned back to finding a suitable meeting place.

"I'll say it again," suggested Applejack. "Why can't we meet here, in this room? We met here for lunch today because it's a good place to meet."

"It's centrally located," Rarity added.

"With food," appended Pinkie.

"I'm sure Guinness would be a bro and store our superhero stuff," Spike said.

Twilight looked around. "All in favor?"

Hooves went up around the room.

"Very well. We'll meet in the back room of The Half Pint from now on."

"Well then, if it's going to be our little place, we should make it a little more homey," Applejack said. "Coat racks, hat racks, boot racks..."

"And definitely decorations," added Rarity.

Pinkie showed Rarity where the emergency-remodeling-stash-for-remodeling-emergencies was kept before announcing, "We should celebrate! I'll get the cake!"

She ran out of the room. They heard Squibles squawk in surprise as she invaded the kitchen.

"If we're making this place an awesome place to hang out, we should hang some awesome posters and get a radio," Rainbow said. "So we can listen to awesome programs."

"You told me there haven't been any awesome programs since the Wonderbolts were decommissioned," Twilight argued, but Rainbow had already gone to get the radio from the other room.

Twilight shrugged and began summoning reference books from the library, teleporting them in. She got a few dozen, just the ones that might come in handy for any superhero situations that might arise.

Between Applejack's duplicates doing carpentry, Pinkie coming back with cake, Rainbow trying to find a place with good reception to situate the radio, Rarity placing table centerpieces and starting on new wallpaper, piles of heavy books piling up, and Fluttershy sneezing and rapidly changing races because of dust, the room was filled with busy activity.

Guinness tried to see what was going on, but between sawdust and spare lumber, buckets of paint, and a mound of reference books, the door wouldn't open. He knocked. "Hey, what's going on in there? Rainbow? Guys?"

Nobody heard him. He knocked louder, and shouted, "I want to come inside, Rainbow Dash!"

Pinkie giggled as she opened the door for him. "I thought you already did!"

Guinness entered, looking around. "What's going on here?"

"We're moving in, apparently," said Spike.

It looked like they were already well on their way. The place already looked nothing like the slightly-nicer-than-average back room of the pub.

"You can't do this!" Guinness protested. "This is a fine dining and ale house!"

"Says your brochure," Applejack corrected. "You also serve cider."

"Yeah, and lager too, but that's not that point! You can't just decide to take this room over for yourselves!"

"So how much does it cost to rent?" Twilight asked.

Guinness paused and frowned. "Uh..."

"Whatever he comes up with, it'll be fine," said Rainbow. "We're married, so it's just like renting to ourselves, which is like no rent at all."

"Sounds legit," said Pinkie.

"Now hold on-" Guinness tried to break in, but everyone was already talking over him again. He shook his head and retreated from the room.

The decorating went on, and went splendidly for each of them. Taken all together, however... Well, it sucked. The rustic country feel mixed with the sophisticated designer touch, the awesome accoutrements, the miniature library, and cake frosting everywhere did not lend itself to a sense of harmony.

However, since Applejack was a hard worker and so were all her meat puppets, wood paneling won out. It was accented by heavy varnish and polished brass that trickled down from Rarity's efforts. The plush armchairs were Rainbow's doing because they were perfect for snoozing. A command center with live radio inputs, a projector, video teleconferencing to Canterlot, and a rack of reference material had been installed by Twilight. The conveyer belt from the kitchen was all Pinkie.

In the end, it came out sort of like the library, but more sophisticated, higher-tech, and just plain nicer. Somewhere along the way, the walls had been surreptitiously armored and an electronic biometric scanner installed on the door.

"Freakin' sweet!" said Spike.

"I told you not to say things like that!" Twilight scolded. "Do you want to end up like Valiant?"

"As an alicorn living on the moon with his devoted girlfriend?"

"As a psycho forced out of Equestria due to his inability to get along with society," Twilight retorted.

"I guess not." Spike looked around. "You gotta admit, though, it is a really cool meeting place."

"It totally is, you guys," totallynotabrony confirmed. "Think like Google headquarters combined with a war room combined with a smoking lounge. Like my home office, basically."

Guinness opened the door again, blinking in surprise at the transformation. "This is actually not all that bad."

"We'll need permanent reservations," said Twilight. "Twenty four/seven."

"We're not open those hours," Guinness started to say, but the girls were talking excitedly again.

"I'm honestly surprised how well it works together," Rarity said. "There's a bit of all of us in here."

"Are these your trophies?" Fluttershy asked Rainbow.

"I prefer to think of them as everypony's trophies but with my name permanently etched onto them," Rainbow replied. She grinned and gestured around the room. "This is gonna be so cool! It's like a super awesome HQ with all the comforts of home yet all the equipment we need to find and stop crime anywhere in Equestria!"

"And a supply of food limited only by the speed of this conveyer belt!" Pinkie added. Squibles looked at her in disgust from the kitchen as she placed her open mouth at the end of the line, but dutifully placed a tray of cupcakes on it.

It was then that an angry rabbit and half a dozen foals burst into the room.

"We...we made a huge mistake!" Sweetie Belle cried.

The fact that the CMC were admitting their errors either meant that they'd learned something heartfelt, or that something truly horrifying had happened. Everyone was immediately on the alert.

"What do you mean?" Applejack asked.

"Well, we had an idea to get cutie marks in pet grooming," Apple Bloom began.

Angel glowered at them and crossed his paws in front of his chest.

"And a few of the others had the idea to get their cutie marks in spa treatments," Scootaloo went on, gesturing to some of the new recruits.

"Which, since they seemed so similar, it seemed like a good idea to have a pet spa," Sweetie Belle added.

"You didn't..." Rarity gasped.

"It was a horrible accident!" Apple Bloom burst out. She covered her eyes. "Blood everywhere."

Nobody wanted to know, but somebody had to ask. After a long silence, Applejack said, "What's the damage?"

"You've been looking for a soprano for your quartet, right?" Sweetie asked Rarity. "You might want to talk to Bulk Biceps."

"Um, also, Thunderlane's in the hospital. He tried to help," said another foal, Strawberry Glaze.

"To be fair, he kinda deserved it," said Inkspot.

"El burro negro," muttered Cordoba.

"Now now, let's not play the blame game," said Twilight. "We all know who's at fault here."

"Sure do," said Apple Bloom. "Angel."

There was a general chorus of agreement around the room. Whether or not he was actually guilty, the bunny deserved it.

The CMC left, taking Angel with them. Only Fluttershy seemed concerned about their intentions.

"Well, it's been a productive day," Twilight observed.

"Yeah, we got so much done!" said Pinkie through a mouthful of cupcakes. "Got this sweet pad and all. It's still only early afternoon and I haven't even banged Fluttershy yet today."

Fluttershy's cheeks went as pink as her mane.

"Pinkie, we are all very well aware of your interpersonal habits, but please try to limit their discussion during polite conversation," Rarity admonished.

Ignoring her completely, Pinkie went on. She elbowed Applejack. "Maybe I could borrow one of your meat puppets for a while, with extra meat puppet, if you know what I mean."

Applejack stared at her. "Aside from the fact that I don't know if that's possible, no."

Unperturbed, Pinkie then wink-wink-nudge-nudged Rainbow. "How about a threesome? I'll make an extra special exception for Guinness. I'd love to take a big, hot-"

A party cannon went off with a perfect headshot, knocking Pinkie ass over teakettle. She shook her head and got up from the floor giggling, shaking glitter and confetti out of her mane. "Oops. I forgot that I hid party cannons all around this place while we were decorating."

"Well, we could use some security," Applejack allowed. "Not that we've got a whole lot of secret stuff going on now, but you never know."

"Now that the CMC know the location of our secret HQ," Rarity grumped.

"They can be remarkably oblivious kids," Twilight pointed out. "They probably didn't realize what we were doing here."

"I'm so glad HLS doesn't cause kids," said Pinkie.

So were the rest of them. Pinkie would be a terrible parent. Fortunately, Fluttershy would probably be pretty good, albeit reluctant.

Speaking of one parent that balanced out the other, Guinness came in. "Hey girls, Trixie just stopped by. She said something cryptic about a party."

"What party?" Twilight asked.

"Any party!" Pinkie exclaimed.

Rainbow cocked an eyebrow. "The Communist party?"

Guinness shrugged. "Just something about a party coming up soon."

"I think I know what he means," Applejack said.

They all crowded around to hear her explanation.

Comments

[Dimentio]

5867779 Actually Kim Jung Un likely does believe that he's doing good. I mean, he was raised with the people of North Korea thinking that he was a god.

Psychopaths lack a sense of right or wrong.

[TheOnlyOneWhoCared]

A challenge, dear sir!
You may have gotten the IWTCIRD in, but can you get the IWPCTPIMM in?
I eagerly await a response, or the lack of one!
~TOOWC

[Feurisson]

Three years and the story is still going. Must be one of the longest-running on this site already

[Nightmare]

Valiant wasn't that bad

[totallynotabrony]

5877505 I'm sure Twilight thinks that statement is the Equestrian version of "Hitler did nothing wrong."

[totallynotabrony]

Yeah, so...I have a few ideas what IWPCTPIMM means, but I'm on a work computer and I don't think I should Google it to make sure.

[Nightmare]

5877520 he could have done much worse, let's be honest, he's done midly bad things compared to other fanfics and stuff

[Alex Prior]

5877523
It wontains words like 'Princess Celestia', 'peg', and 'mom'.

I'm sure you can figure it out.

[StevieBond]

I couldn't stop laughing in some parts.

[thatonerandombrony]

I almost came when they got the telegram from Valiant. Also, when will he actually appear?

[thatonerandombrony]

5884999 true. But I had yet to see Terminator back then. Those were some dark times for me.

[thatonerandombrony]

5881653 nah, that is EXACTLY what Valiant would say

[Jet_Lag]

5877523 *Cough* I want Princess Celestia to pee in my Mouth *Cough*

[thatonerandombrony]

You know, I wanna know what the CMC were doing.

[ibeachu]

Holy shit I just realized something; Rainbow should be dead!!

I mean, she was making out with Pinkie earlier in the story, right? Why didn't her face melt if Ms. Pinkamina over here is so gawdamn poisonous!?

[totallynotabrony]

7163896 I have to be honest, at almost 300,000 words, I've forgotten where that happened. I do remember where Pinkie kissed Valiant once, and how Luna alludes to it. Clearly this is either a recently acquired poison power or it's easy to develop a resistance.

[Coretz]

7164043
Obviously The Elements of Harmony Bearers can't hurt each other on accident. Otherwise friendly fire would have killed them all already.

[totallynotabrony]

9659153
They technically never left and have been in disguise this whole time.

[Amos Anon]

He had a point. The common area in the center of the library was about the last open space in the whole tree-building. Well, there was the basement, but between the portal to Hell and the half-dozen ponies chained to the wall, nobody really wanted to go down there.

How are they still alive?