The Element of Tackiness

People love to wax poetic about 'true beauty.' Some things, usually their special somehumans, supposedly surpass all that came before them and all that could possibly exist in the future. Well, if true beauty can exist, so too must true ugliness. For something to reach a state of ugly of that magnitude, it not only has to surpass the unsightliness of Sweetie Belle's hoof-stitched dresses, but it also has to radiate an aura of sheer repulsiveness so extreme that its affront to all things perceptible can be felt not only in its home dimension, but in all dimensions that can possibly exist.

Breezies live in a pocket dimension attached to Equestria that separated the world of ponies from the rest of the multiverse, and, as such, they were the first to notice when something tried to enter or bleed in from a neighboring dimension. Perhaps the best way to think of that arrangement would be as an airlock. Anything attempting to enter or leave Equestria first had to pass through the breezie's realm. This positioning made them uniquely suited to serve as defense against outside incursions. However, it also made them the most vulnerable.

“<<Code red! Code red! This is not a drill!>>” Seabreeze hovered in the center of town with a megaphone barking orders to the confused and panicking crowd. The native Breezie language sounded like a mix of Swedish and Norwegian. “<<Everybreezie break your wings and get straight to the town square! This is not a matter for slackers. A breach is in progress and we must take immediate action!>>”

The sky was normally a gradient of orange and black hues but today there was something else as well. It was roughly rectangular in shape and everybreezie waited with apprehension to see if would go away or further resolve itself. Unfortunately, it was doing the latter.

“<<What is that thing?>>” somebreezie asked.

“<<It's so ugly!>>” Twirly, a yellowish Breezie with light and dark cyan hair screamed and shielded his eyes.

It was a horrific box-shaped abomination. It had two mismatched colors, light silver and navy blue. Not only did the colors not go well together, but they were also arranged in the least aesthetically pleasing pattern possible. The doors, hood and the top of the roof were all silver, while the rest was blue, along with a blue stripe along the top of the frame. Black-tinted windows that wrapped around the entire back half contrasted hideously with the clear windows in the front. It was a Honda Element, and it bathed them in its tackiness.

“<<My eyes!>>” The collective gathering of breezies winced and averted their eyes.

“<<Stay calm, everybreezie. We don't know if it's a threat yet.>>” Seabreeze watched it warily.

A large buzzing noise heralded the arrival of a bumblebee, who passed off a letter to a light blue breezie and received a sack of pollen as payment. The breezie curled her long blue antennae down to provide extra light while she read her bee-mail. “<<Dear, Windfall. We're sorry to inform you that because that thing is so ugly, we've had to cancel your exhibit of pollen feathers.>>” Her eyes teared up. “<<No! My life's work!>>”

“<<That may have been a coincidence,>>” Seabreeze said.

“<<Hold me, Brezette.>>” A mushroom-capped breezie reached for his wife.

“<<No!>>” She pushed him away. “<<That thing is so ugly, I don't love you anymore!>>”

Waves of panic rippled through the crowd. Their gossamer wings fluttered enough to stir up dust.

“<<Breezies, calm down!>>”

A building burst into flames. “<<No! That thing is so ugly, my house just committed suicide!>>”

The crowd screamed and breezies began flying around randomly. Even Seabreeze screaming into his microphone couldn't control them. He groaned and pressed a leg against his forehead. “<<I did not want to do this, but in this case, I think we have no choice. Everybreezie to your posts! I'm starting Omega Protocol.>>”

The panic ceased and they all looked up at him with stunned expressions. He couldn't possibly mean...?

***

My name is Franini, and my day was ruined when somebody vandalized my car. Well, my day was already ruined since I had to work late on a Sunday, but the vandalism was like icing on a dog turd. My brand new Honda Element was covered in toilet paper. I was shocked and blamed the local youth, but nobody was around. Aside from me, the parking lot looked deserted. The wind rustled and blew around some fallen leaves and a discarded plastic bag.

Annoyed, I tore off the toilet paper and drove home. Some punk kid was probably laughing his ass off right now.

***

Dimensionality is fundamentally non-euclidean. Well, aside from the measurable dimensions such as length, width and height. Those are. Er...

Anyway, when talking about worlds connected to worlds, and worlds that lie within worlds, concepts such as 'size' and 'time' can often get a little fuzzy. In the Omega room stood the the breezie's biggest secret, and also their most powerful tool. It was a hollow globe that not only looked like Equestia, including its satellite Sun and Moon, but it was Equestria. Inside it was a control room that they'd built so they could pilot it around. How that worked exactly was unknown, but they couldn't deny its usefulness.

Seabreeze's team had recently returned from taking it on a trip, and the breezies watched through a viewing portal the results of their actions. They were disappointed.

“<<Why did he not get rid of that ugly monstrosity?>>”

“<<Perhaps we needed to use more toilet paper?>>”

“<<Everybreezie would know what that meant.>>”

“<<But he isn't a breezie, is he?>>”

“<<Maybe something a bit less ambiguous?>>”

“<<I'll get the chalk.>>”

***

The next incident wasn't until Wednesday. Well, on Monday I hit a huge bug, and Tuesday some bird crapped on my windshield, but that's neither here nor there. On Wednesday, my car was chalked—yes, chalked. I have no idea how long that must have taken, but it was unmistakably pure white chalk. Here's the really weird thing: it was only on the left side. My car looked like some kind of ugly tiled bread-box. Okay, so it looked like that when it was clean too, but I bought it when it was on sale. That's what really matters, right?

Anyway, I'd just had my car vandalized for the second time in the space of a week. I felt like I was being watched, and this time I saw the vandal.

It was three balls. The center one was the largest, about the size of a volleyball. It was white and bluish with a hint of green and it almost looked like a miniature earth, but the shapes of the continents were all wrong. Orbiting it were two smaller balls. One was white and cratered like a moon, but given the size it looked more like an abused golf ball. The third ball must have been a miniature sun, because that one was glowing brightly, although for some reason it didn't hurt to look at or leave any spots in my eyes. I’d been visited by another planet entirely, albeit a miniature one. Perhaps I was crazy. It left before I could take any pictures.

That thing unnerved me almost as much as the eerie chalk on my car.

I-I decided to leave. I could have cleaned off the chalk with a garden hose, but all I did was turn on the windshield wiper and roll down the side window. I didn't even bother taking it to a car wash since I knew a storm was brewing. It turned out to be quite the boomer too, and the rain started pouring even before I got home.

***

Once again, the breezies were disappointed. The use of Equestria itself as a spaceship allowed the them to penetrate far into the adjoining dimensions without getting trapped or losing their way, but it wasn't without its risks.

“<<We can't keep making trips like this. If we do, we run the risk of a resonance portal cascade failure.>>” Twirly shuddered, and the other breezies nodded solemnly. He was, of course, alluding to their one major failure. The Discord that had arisen from that accidental uncontrolled merging of dimensions hadn't been harmonized until recently. While that event had occurred long in the past, a more recent scare kept the matter fresh on their minds. A resonance portal started to tear open, but Celestia trapped it within a mirror. That portal still opens periodically, but it's stable enough not to consume both worlds.

“<<Perhaps we should speak to the owner of that thing directly?>>”

“<<Can we even make ourselves heard?>>”

“<<We're running out of time. The blankets we've been shielding our homes with are starting to wear thin, and I don't think anybreezie can take much more of being trapped indoors. We have to at least try.>>”

Seabreeze tapped on his chin. “<<We'll need to make sure the owner doesn't run away. Being approached by a planet can be... frightening.>>”

***

I found myself nervously looking out the window all day Thursday. I wasn't worried so much about my car as I was about my own sanity. Perhaps, if nothing happened again I could believe that the whole thing was just a hallucination. I had no such luck. Despite not having seen anything approach my car, when I sat down I was shocked to find the seat… squishy.

I tried to get back up, but I was stuck. Whatever it was the seat was coated in was incredibly sticky. I struggled to get loose but it was just too strong. While I was trapped, it returned again. It hovered right outside my windshield. The expletives on my tongue died on my lips, though not my fury. If it weren’t for the glass in the way I could have, and probably would have, spit on the damn thing.

If I'd any doubt it'd been a planet before, I didn't have any now. What was that place? Why was it here? Ah! Gah kesino! Uu tu ge miuse konda! I had to blink. Why was I thinking gibberish?

Despite my livid hatred, I couldn't help but notice some of the finer details on the planet's surface. There was one large continent in the front that was kind of squarish and stretched all the way to its north pole. It looked familiar somehow, but I'm not sure why. The clouds were organized and connected by tiny little rainbows. Its sun lit up the side it was facing, and the moon seemed to darken the other side. They weren't directly opposite each other, so it was a strange effect. It reminded me of one of those historical earth-centric maps of the heavens. It wasn't just a planet, it was its own solar system, and, for some reason, it hated my car.

Supa laipas data kurpa! Mise neku ersken laika maur! Siripat sulat! More gibberish? That-was it coming from the planet? Was it mocking me? It was, wasn't it? I freaking swear, the damn thing was laughing at me!

The buttons tore off my shirt and I was finally able to get my arms free. I slammed on the horn and the planet left from whence it came. Score one for me, I guess?

I unzipped my pants and awkwardly climbed out of the car. Thankfully, I had spare clothes in the trunk. There was no way I was driving my car as it was, so I got it towed to the dealer. I could pick up the damage estimate tomorrow. I had plenty of time to think about how crazy I was while waiting for a taxi to take me home.

***

“<<Did we do it? Did we get through to him?>>”

“<<He sent that hideous thing off to get it fixed, not destroyed.>>”

Everybreeze solemnly stared at the image before them. It mocked them with its hideousness. It was so ugly that they now owed five years worth of back taxes.

“<<We have no choice.>>” Seabreeze sighed and held a leg to his chest. “<<We will have to ask for their help.>>” He pointed at Equestria itself which was parked in the room.

“<<You mean the alicorns?>>”

Seabreeze nodded.

“<<That's a good idea, with their help we can boost our signal enough to make sure that our message gets heard.>>”

Seabreeze snickered. “<<That too, but with their assistance, we can do something a lot more direct...>>”

***

Well, I won’t have to worry about the upholstery problem anymore, because when I went to the shop to pick up the damage estimate, I caught something flashing in the corner of my eye.

Filled with dread, I ran outside to find that rogue planet shooting my car with fucking huge beams of light! It was mesmerizing. The rays of destruction came from the sun and the moon. The few smouldering remains that were left of my car looked like Swiss cheese.

I’m a manly man, but right then I broke down crying. “No! My car! Why did you vaporize my car!? Why?”

I hadn’t expected an answer, but I got one.

A holographic image of some lithe-bodied little blue fairy thing with poofy pink hair and freakishly huge eyelashes appeared before me. It was wearing a black suit. It must have been an inhabitant of that tiny world. “Merki marshken plumatu—”

“More gibberish! What the fuck!?”

Its lips curled down in a scowl. “Yeesh, and breezies call me foul mouthed. So you speak like the ponies do; no matter, I—”

“Wait, breezes? Ponies!?” Suddenly it occurred to me where I'd seen a landmass like that. “Is that Equestria? Did Equestria just nuke my car!?”

“Yes, it is, and it did. And—”

“Augh! Why? Why would you do something like that!? Why?”

“Go pucker up to a dragonfly and stop interrupting me! I was getting to that. So, you want to know why I've targeted your abomination, do you? Well it's simple: I and my kind have been tasked with searching the multiverse to remove any threat to Harmony that could potentially bleed over from neighboring dimensions. And, I'm sorry to say, your ridiculously hideous Honda Element of Tackiness just had to go.”

“You... melted my car because you thought it was ugly!? But that's not even a real thing! Ugliness is only in the eye of the beholder! I thought my car was great. There was no need to obliterate it.”

“Your car sucked! We wipe our butts with your opinion. You thought your car should have been spared? We'll chalk that up to your being half-white. Ugliness may be in the eye of the beholder, but we took exception when even the inanimate objects thought it was ugly. I bet this revelation has you glued to your seat! That unholy thing could only be made holey, with lasers.”

It smirked and nodded in satisfaction at the charred remains of my vehicle. I wanted to scream and strangle that smug look off its face, but its antennae flashed with light and the hologram ceased. The planet abruptly vanished too, presumably back to the dimension from which it came.

I stood there gaping at the wreckage. Somehow, I was the only witness, as the mechanic looked even more shocked than I was and ran off muttering something about a 'bomb squad.' Trembling, I took out my cell phone. I had to make a call to my insurance agent to file a claims report. They probably heard a lot of strange tales in their job, but this one was truly out of this world.

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