• Published 21st Jan 2015
  • 12,672 Views, 209 Comments

Plural Possessive - Aquaman



King Sombra meant to possess Twilight Sparkle's body and take over Equestria with it. Due to an addressing error, he ends up in Dinky Doo's body instead. Neither of them is very happy about it. *5th place in the More Most Dangerous Game contest*

  • ...
20
 209
 12,672

And In All Likelihood Just Embarrass Everypony Involved

“Okay, so just to review: we’ll get to school around 8:25, and Tidal Wave’s dad always drops him at 8:30 exactly. From then we’ll have exactly twenty-five minutes, heretofore referred to as ‘Time Block A’, to talk to him until 8:55, which is when Miss Cheerilee will call everypony into the schoolhouse and take roll before class officially begins at 9 o’clock sharp. Depending on the situation, we’ll also potentially have twenty-eight minutes during lunch, not counting set-up and clean-up, and an additional thirty for recess, but those are emergency blocks, B and C respectively, reserved for any unforeseen situation that prevents the completion of Operation: High Tide at any point during Time Block A. Any questions?”

An expectant pause follows Dinky Doo’s spiel as she waits for my input. I blink her eyes twice, and neither one of them helps clear the fog out from my mind or the apathy from my voice.

“I have a question,” I tell her. “By accident or intent, you have successfully trapped me inside your body until such time as you permit me to depart it. Through this, you have acquired the capacity to blackmail me into assisting you, in any way I am able, with anything in the world you request of me. And your request, out of the aforementioned anything in the world, is that I help you ask an adolescent colt, for whom you harbor undisclosed romantic affections, out on a date.”

Dinky stops walking for a moment, and I make no effort to force her back into motion. “That wasn’t a question.”

“My question was very heavily implied.”

“Well, I didn’t ask for you to accidentally possess me while you tried to brainwash Princess Twilight and take over Equestria,” Dinky says with a sigh as she picks up her pace again. “And this is what you screwed up for me when you did. So now you’re going to help me fix it.”

“My second question involves your psychological health.”

“No, no more questions,” Dinky says with a nod towards a squat red building in the distance. “We’re almost there. Operation Tidal Wave is a go.”

I squeeze out one last sigh from a real pair of lungs, then pull back to allow Dinky full reign over her body. One of the stipulations of my release is that I allow her to maintain an illusion of normalcy while Operation: Mortal Stupidity is in effect. In other words, from now until the end of the school day, I am to speak to her only through our mental link instead of out loud. This, this told me, is so nopony thinks she’s crazy. One wonders at whatever might have inspired that conclusion beforehand.

Soft echoes of conversations carry over to us as we approach the schoolyard, none of them distinct enough to overhear. The smattering of foals milling around outside the schoolhouse don’t seem to notice our arrival, which I’m inclined to believe is a good thing. The list of potential obstacles Dinky Doo predicted during Time Block A included several entries directly related to the—as she put it—“laughingstock” I made of her during our first visit here yesterday. Upon being presented with the opinion that her condition at the time was—as I put it—paramountly her fault, Dinky deigned to add another entry to the list: “Sombra acts like a melonhead and ruins my life again.” Upon being reminded that I have paved roads a hundred miles long with the congealed blood of my enemies, the final entry on the list was underlined twice.

After finding a seat against the shaded wall of the schoolhouse, Dinky settles down to wait for her self-described “target” to arrive, that being the colt—named, in the classically incongruous Equestrian style, Tidal Wave—to whom I recently made her feelings slightly less undisclosed than she’d have preferred. In the meantime, two more familiar faces appear inside Dinky’s sights: the pink and gray fillies I encountered yesterday as well.

“Don’t even think about talking to them,” Dinky warns me the moment they catch her eye. “That’s Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, the biggest bullies in the whole school.”

Although I’m no longer allowed to speak through her mouth, Dinky never specifically outlawed shrugging with her shoulders. They seemed nice.

“Are you kidding?” Dinky says after a scoff. “They tease me all the time, they’re mean to anyone who doesn’t do what they want, and they don’t ever think about anypony but themselves.”

I make Dinky shrug again. Exactly. They seem nice. I could use some commandants with backbone in my empire.

Dinky rolls her eyes, but a gasp steals her response right off her lips. At the schoolyard gate, a well-built pegasus bumps his sky-blue hoof against that of an orange colt standing next to him, who sports a mane of deeper blue identical to his own. The esteemed Master Wave has arrived. Let the inanity commence.

Several minutes pass as Dinky surveys her target from the safety of the schoolhouse. In light of the significant lack of inanity during that time, I take it upon myself to remind Dinky of the agreed-upon procedure.

Time Block A is upon us.

“I’m aware, thanks,” she says through her teeth.

Seventeen minutes remain in Time Block A.

“Yep.”

None of the obstacles on your list have presented themselves.

“Sure haven’t!”

Dinky takes in a deep breath, then lets it out all at once. A bead of sweat rolls down her forehead, dripping off the end of her chin once another three breaths have cycled through her lungs.

Fifteen minutes remain in Time Block—

“Okay, you know what?” Dinky says, interrupting me with a stomp of her forehoof. “I’m not gonna rush this. This is a very delicate process. If I’m not fully prepared for it now, then that’s what Time Blocks B and C are for, so just… I got this.”

I consider asking her how confident she feels in that assertion, but it seems pointless to waste time doing so. Every emotion roiling through her mind brushes past mine at the same time, and every physiological response to them I feel as well. Judging by her elevated heart rate, her sweating and tingling hooves, and the additional ten minutes that pass without her making any motion towards Tidal Wave, I’m inclined to conclude that—as a pony might say—she don’t got this at all.

Perhaps she feels unsatisfied with her chosen mate. Perhaps I can say something—literally anything—that will lend her the intestinal fortitude to end this charade as quickly as possible.

Speaking from an objective and equine-focused perspective, his face and form are both aesthetically pleasing. His lineage appears strong as well, and at his age his vigor and virility should go without question. Your progenitive taste appears to be without fault.

Dinky’s mouth drops open, and after a while the noises drifting out of it begin to sound Equestrian. “I… he… w-what are you even talking about?”

I shrug her shoulders again. I’m just saying he would make a fine broodmate. I’m sure you would sire many strong sons together.

“Wha… why are you even…”

Is that not the purpose of this endeavor? To embrace the inherent biological impulses of the equine race and facilitate its propagation through conceptive acts of courtship?

No!” Dinky answers through a cringe, squeezing her eyes shut as her pulse accelerates even further. “I just… I kind of like him and I was… you were so embarrassing before and I didn’t want him to… don’t…” Before she can finish, Dinky buries her head in her forehooves and moans. “Oh Celestia, this was a bad idea.”

A picture of pursed lips works its way from my mind onto Dinky’s face. Time Block B will begin in three hours and nine minutes.

“Screw it.” Dinky stands up so fast we both get dizzy, but once her knees stop wobbling, they hold firm underneath her. “I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna go over there, and I’m gonna talk to Tidal Wave like a normal filly, and then I’m gonna—”

“Gonna do what, Dinky?” a silky voice murmurs into Dinky’s right ear, provoking a violent twitch from her half of our brain that makes her ears lie flat against her skull. “Trip over your hooves again? Throw up all over Miss Cheerilee’s? Pass out right in front of everypony out of sheer embarrassment?”

Dinky shrivels like a prune at the taunts of the pink filly—the one she called Diamond Tiara. I don’t understand her reaction. If somepony insulted my dignity like that, it would be the last time they ever used their tongue. Even with her friend by her size, the pink filly hardly seems a threat. A few simple hexes would dispatch them with ease.

“Or maybe she’s too busy taking over the world,” the other filly—Silver Spoon—adds with a smirk. “Where are you gonna start, huh? Manehattan? Stalliongrad? Maybe Tidal Wave’s house?”

As a matter of fact, I planned to focus on Canterlot in an initial blitzkrieg-style strike before moving east to cut off—

“Look, e-everything that happened yesterday, I… w-well, I wasn’t… really in my right mind, I guess, so…” Dinky says, stammering through every word like a pup being scolded by her pack leader.

“Well, that’s hardly anything new,” Diamond Tiara says over her. In the name of Tartarus, Dinky Doo, equine tongues aren’t even that hard to remove. You get a firm grip with a pair of blacksmith tongs, and then you just—

“Ha ha, heh… yeah, I’m… y’know, i-it was just a thought I had, I wasn’t really, um…”

“Aw, really? I’m so disappointed,” Silver Spoon says with a cock-eyed look at Diamond Tiara. Imposing though they are, I’m beginning to understand why Dinky Doo doesn’t care for these two. I’d still like an opportunity to test their mettle in combat, but then again, Dinky’s the leader of this operation, not me. Clearly she knows the proper course of action in this scenario.

“Yeah,” Diamond Tiara says, a sneer curling onto her lips. “We would’ve loved to see you try.”

Or maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she’s really thinking about giving up on the operation entirely. Maybe she’s losing her nerve for good now, content to let these two fillies no bigger than her—even the slightest bit shorter, at a second glance—divert her from the path she thinks will lead her to success. Or, more importantly, the path that will lead to my freedom from being trapped inside her body.

It’s as if I can see the future already: through an improbable collusion of poor fortune and interpersonal dysfunction, Dinky and I will fail time and time again to complete one simple task together, each bound to the other by mutually exclusive desires and neither willing to give any ground. Over time, we’ll probably end up drawn closer together over some unexpected common preference or predilection, and although we’ll be leery of the other’s intentions and probably hate each other for a brief period over some retrospectively comedic misunderstanding, by the end of our time together we will have accomplished our respective goals through cooperation and camaraderie, and maybe even discovered that what we thought we really wanted was inside us all along.

I don’t have time for that. I have a kingdom to conquer. I’m ending this now.

“Excuse me,” I say to Dinky’s tormentors, edging around them before they or Dinky herself can do anything to stop me. From there I make a beeline straight for the orange-coated colt standing by the schoolyard fence, who sees me coming just moments before I stop right in front of him. For the sake of the vociferous filly protesting inside my head, I make an attempt to bend the lethargic look off her face before I engage with her target. For the sake of my own sanity, the attempt falls somewhat short of the best effort I could have put forth.

“Good morning, Tidal Wave,” I start off, keeping my sentences swift and blunt in light of the diminishing time remaining in Time Block A. “My name is Dinky Doo, and you may recognize me as the severely concussed young mare who, upon admitting her physiological attraction to you about this time yesterday, proceeded to lose consciousness and, according to certain reports, vomit profusely. While I admit that this was a mortifying and altogether unfortunate turn of events, I nevertheless still maintain said romantic affections, and would rather reinforce their validity now than spend the rest of my miserably short mortal life pretending they aren’t morbidly apparent. So, with that being said, I would like to request of you an approximate two and a half hours of your time this coming evening, during which you would accompany me through a series of courtship rituals that would not culminate in any sort of lasting procreative relationship, because as is of course obvious to us all, that’s totally not what this is about.”

When I finish my speech, no one else in earshot so much as takes in a breath. Dinky fumbles around trying to regain motor control for several moments before she realizes I’ve left them all open for her to utilize at her leisure. “What I, uh…” she says as her face flushes with color. “W-what I meant to say is that I was… was just wondering if you might wanna go see a movie sometime or… something like that. With me. As a… just, whenever.”

The gathered crowd’s silence persists as Dinky plasters a toothy smile on her face, her mane soaked with perspiration even after just a few moments back in her own skin.

WHAT. THE HAY. WAS THAT.

I resist the urge to shrug this time, but only just. You told me you wanted my help asking him on a date. You never said anything about making sure he said—

“Yeah,” Tidal Wave says through a small shake of his head. “I-I mean, yeah… sure. I guess.”

A trio of popping sounds emanates from the crowd, one from Dinky’s mouth falling open and the others from Diamond and Silver doing the same. “Really?” Dinky whispers, her eyes wide as saucers.

Really?” Diamond says, her face twisted with derision.

“All right, everypony, time for class!” Miss Cheerilee calls out from the schoolhouse door.

Zero minutes left in Time Block A. You’re welcome. Now for the love of all you hold dear, do not ever make me do that again.