Even Alicorns Roll Ones

by TheGreatEater

Chapter 3 [Celestia's School for Engineers] (Professor Pie chapter)

The first things Celestia did after leaving was go to the campus's cafeteria. It had been awhile since she had eaten simple fair without much aplomb, additions, or unnecessary hoof kissing. Not that she didn't like her little ponies being happy, but being stressed was different than joy.

But here in her capital, in one of the schools she funded. She was able to enjoy seven cakes, three wedges of fudge, what looked like carrot she had generously slathered with icing, and a ten shot macchiato, double espresso, choco-hazelnut coffee, with a small mint leaf to add some green to her meal.

"Luna, I implore you as the once holder for the Element of Honesty to answer a question, but remember. I'm feeling quite down and your sister, so please remember you were also once Loyalty and Laughter.

I'm not fat am I? After an accident anypony could make, and accidentally destroying a classroom, and most of the dance wing, while dancing. I was told that my royal self should go on a diet, or at least get lessons in a room capable of handling earthquakes.

I am eager for your reply.

-Celestia, the Plushie Flufflekins"

Celestia hoped that using Luna's old nickname for when she was younger and much more physically affectionate. Prone to snuggles, cuddles, and huggling her sister. That Luna would agree that she was in no way shape or form fat. Much less needing to go on the dreaded D word.

"Of course your not fat sister. In our time a mare was supposed to have ample cushioning on her haunches and a bit of plush pudge on her belly. It showed that she was able to bear many young, wealthy enough to stay well fed, and the bearings of a good wife. Regardless of if she ended up with another mare or a stallion. Just as Stallions were required to have long luxurious beards, and or massive mustaches. It showed they had wealth, dedication, and you could easily tell the personality of any stallion by what they wore.

Sure, you're not thin as a model, but you are a healthy 1,820 pounds. You haven't even hit the ton mark yet. Hope that helps?

PS: You don't have to play the Element card Fluffers, I am your sister and I love you. Even if you'd be considered fat by modern time standards ... although a diet would do well for the sugar sweat. Not that I am complaining too much, but your throne is quite sticky, and smells of syrup."

Celestia felt her jaw drop. So she was fat, her own sister agreed to that. Sure she said that in her time she was a healthy weight. But the modern times were more enlightened then back then. A mare wasn't expected to bear many young, while also holding down a job, and supporting the family as the Boss Mare of the house. While the other mate did the house cleaning, offered physical protection from external threats, and all of the child raising.

Stallions were just as needed for working jobs any mare could do, facial accessories no longer determined wealth or status, and being thin was a sign of wealth and prosperity. But if Luna was honestly saying this was going to be her last 'real' meal. She'd go out with a bang.

Celestia woke up in a strange room, filled with strange ponies in labcoats, and was restrained to an examination table with various doodads sticking out of her. Somewhere between the tenth pot of espresso, fiftieth cake, and clearing out half of the campus' kitchens Celestia blacked out. And from the groaning in her distended belly, and the way her nerves felt more alive than ever before. It was worth it.

"Hello Princess Celestia, are you alright?"

"Mmmmm! Cake!" Celestia purred.

"I take that as a no," the nondescript doctor looking pony said.

"I mean, I'm good. Where am I and how did I get here?"

"Well you dear Princess, are in the Celestia's School of Engineers. As for how you got here, you blasted in through the ceiling of our Electronics Lab screaming and I quote, "Fear me! For I am a fluffy, pretty princess and all your cakes are belong to Us! And your coffee! Surrender them, or I shall gobble your homework!" End quote."

"Oh!"

"Then you farted a mist of condensed sugar and passed out. So we brought you to the infirmary until you could get whatever that was out of your system."

"Oh!" Celestia repeated. A furious blush gracing her face.

"It's not that bad, the sugar solidified into a 3 dimensional representation of a crystal matrix, which the students are finding enlightening. And we were able to access your physical health. Now ... I'm sure your doctors are amazing ... and in no way bought off. But you do know you're over six hundred pounds overweight, and your blood is twenty percent syrup by volume?"

"I was vaguely aware?" Celestia admitted feeling bad for all the malpractice doctors she hired and paid generously to overlook certain things.

"How are you not diabetic, or dead?" He asked exasperatedly.

"Easy, I'm a goddess. Tied to the sun. And tons and tons of magic. As in enough to level a planet, to ensure I'm able to handle my sugar."

"Well that explains several things. Well now that you're alright, we can let you go, and let your physician know about your health needs."

"But I eat colored greens every day! That's healthy!" Celestia said.

"As in colored green, or as in green vegetables?"

"I partake in green 'vegetation', and food colored green counts."

"Light roasted coffee, mint leaves, and tea don't count as vegetables. Also coloring food green doesn't count as eating actual vegetables."

"Well they should, and veggies are icky ... I think I'm allergic to them ... and what would happen if I had an allergy attack from the vegetables attacking my sugar levels?" Celestia pouted.

"We'll let your doctors handle it. For now we can see you off if you're feeling up to it?"

"I'm fine. But I was going to come here for a different reason."

"Hmmm?"

"I'm going to take a class or two today!" Celestia exclaimed teleporting to the infirmary doctor. Something that after much debate Celestia had granted, what with all the damages they incurred, dangerousness of the equipment, and chance of maiming. And she was glad she did. It would've been embarrassing if she ended up in a normal hospital and Luna got wind of this.

A letter popped up in front of her, Speak of the draconequus. Let's see here ... 'everypony's talking about it' ... 'I'll use this ammo for centuries' ... 'accidentally blew up the school and Luna is letting them use the castle for classes' ... 'Luna's now best princesses for the musicians and dancers who told her everything' ... 'is firing my doctors and replacing them with her own personally chosen staff' ... 'setting me on a diet as soon as I get home and is telling Twilight all about this.'

Celestia let the note drop as she fainted. As was completely reasonable for any mare in her situation.

The academy faced with the choice of letting Celestia learn, or accidentally destroying something weighed heavily on the minds of the faculty. But thankfully Pinkie Pie came in to save the day. By being her assistant and taking her to some of her classes. With the protection of a tenured professor, as a side job, and an Element of Harmony to boot. They saw no problems with letting Celestia in.

"So Pinkie Pie, what do you do here?" Celestia asked.

"Well, I have a doctorate in Experimental, and Applied Theoretical Mechanics and Engineering."

"Really?" Celestia replied thoroughly impressed.

"Yep, how else do you think I could both afford to build, and build all my inventions?" Pinkie Pie asked with a cake eating grin.

"Well ... I thought it simply just appeared to be quite honest."

"You silly filly, everything needs to come from something, even if it's restructured quanta or spirit particles compressed into to three dimensional time space."

"Oh! I knew that," Celestia mumbled.

"Yep, everything from cakes, to cupcakes, to plutonium powered time travel devices need to come from somewhere before they are those things. So I'll let you sit in on my next class. We'll be creating lasers today. Won't that be fun!"

"Oh! I can make lasers! I created the first one with a chunk of the sun two millennia ago. Of course it made the Badlands, but still totally counts!"

"Sun Laser!" Pinkie gasped in what Celestia thought was beyond the limits of an Equines lung capacity. Save her sister, or Blue Blood when he was feeling particularly needy, "We are so going to do that! Although we'll need to shoot it into space first! Then we can demand that you finally pro... Ooops!"

"Finally what?" Celestia asked bemusedly.

"I'm not supposed to say," Pinkie said.

"Did you Pinkie Promise?"

"No."

"And we are friends right?" Celestia asked.

"Yep!"

"So you can tell me."

"Okay. So, for the last ten years we made things that would have revolutionized Equestria, but the patent pony who represents you said that you said that the technology was too much on a strain on Equestria's economy. So making things that cheap wasn't feasible. But the end costs for what has been accepted is only used by the rich, or nobles.

"Or very prestigious scientists. So we are pretty miffed. I mean I was hoping to get Mr. and Mrs. Cake a TV for the twins to watch, or a phone to have. But we can't do that legally yet. Some of us were thinking of using our inventions to get you or Luna to agree with Twilight to get the tech released for public use." Pinkie Pie said in a rather long and anecdotal manner.

"Hmmm ... and what if this is my first time hearing this," Celestia asked.

"But why would somepony you appointed who's a family member of the aristocracy, and is probably making millions off of our toils, lie about making sure you see technology that's put the common pony on equal technological ground with the aristocrats, and the insanely wealthy?

"It's not like the wealthy are purposefully blocking the grants and scholarships that would allow anypony of skill to join your academies rather than those who can afford the crippling intuition cost, or the exuberantly expensive cost to stay here, at least if it wasn't for this academy and the Culinary Academy paying out of their own pockets to get the underprivileged in to our schools," Pinkie asked. Completely missing her own point.

"Well I'll still help make the laser, but then I have thinking to do. But what of you. How'd you get in here?"

"That's simple my family's rock farmers. We literally grow money. I have a million bits in the bank myself, but bits aren't really that important. What's important in making other ponies happy. Even if that means I donate non-tax deductible bits to the school."

"Non-tax deducted?"

"Well I could, but then it wouldn't be from the heart. At least that's what Rarity said during one of our charity runs," Pinkie said bouncing along merrily.

"Rarity said that?" Celestia asked flummoxed.

"Yepperoni! That and I don't care about getting tax deductions. I mean seriously I'd be even richer if I did. What with the parties, and the charities, and the random things I do for ponies who need a smile. Like chemo-kids, the homeless, or even those grouchy accountants at the Equestrian Revenue Service.

“Even the anonymous donations to Fluttershy so she can run her animal shelter." Pinkie listed.

"So ... you like Fluttershy?" Celestia asked.

"Of course I love all my friends," Pinkie replied obliviously, "Although does it make me a bad pony that I love my BPFFEoHSHG more?"

"What's the BPFF ... thingie?"

"Best Pony Friends Forever Elements of Harmony Super Heroes Go! of course," Pinkie explained.

"Of course. And no it doesn't make you bad. So do you love Fluttershy more than the others?"

"Not really. I mean they are special to me. So I see them all as special someponies. Although I don't have a special-special somepony, But that'll happen someday. Well here we are," Pinkie said.

Celestia was surprised at not only how much she learned about how her schools functioned. But more about a pony normally seen as merely random. If not totally oblivious to some things, What'd be like to have her naivety sometimes.

"Alright! Now we got everything set up, and our special guest Princess Celestia is going to show how to turn this Death Ray into a Sun Laser! Whoohoo!" Pinkie shouted.

The class burst into applause, and screams of approval. While Celestia didn't like the name Death Ray, the two story structure, with its massive arrays, technological thingymajigs, and a gargantuan lenses and mirror set up made it an almost fitting name. Celestia would have prefered "Friendship Cannon" but alas she respected the objects creators enough to name it as they would.

Although she didn't know why 'Mad Science 501' would have need for a Death Ray, nor the Closet of Holding storing all the Mechas she saw. Although Pinkie Pie was rather deflective on what a Mecha was. Or why the steampunk as she was told they were called, golems, had wooden boxes in them that a pony would fit inside. Weren't golems supposed to be autonomous?

Alas such musings were cut short when Celestia started the spell to solidify the parts of a sun to make her laser. Drawing upon the sun, she took a small speck of it, and forced it into Equestria, while compressing it so hard it turned from a gas to a liquid, then solidified it into a crystal. All the while redundantly collapsing the radiation into the crystal to prevent killing or neutering everything in a hundred mile radius of non-alicorn, draconequus, or dragon origins.

When it was finished a glowing orange crystal the size of Celestia's head was placed in the device. As she put it in, she saw the crystal's power accidentally bend a few arrays and knock the focusing lens out of place, oh well. What's a few centimeters, and a few knocked out components matter. It's not like a train with a loose oven thingie won't run, or a loose pin here or there won't function. It's perfectly safe ... although I really don't know much about trains. All technology has redundant unneeded things in it.

"Now let's let our guest start it up. Although Princess Celestia, can you do that remote window, viewy thing Twilight uses to watch you shower? Or stargaze in the middle of the day?"

"What was the first one?" Celestia gushed.

"Twilight watches you shower. It makes her do funny things in her alone time, but I watch her sometimes when I have nothing better to do. It's almost as good as watching TV, or Rares and Dashie when they're wrestling, or Flutters when she's doing her funny stretches."

"I ... I don't know what to say to that," Celestia admitted caught between feeling hot and bothered, and slightly annoyed that Twilight was beating Celestia at the game she invented with her telescope.

"Pst! Don't worry about it, Professor Pie is too innocent to know what that stuff means, and we're all bound by the Pinkie Promise not to talk about what happens in here without permission from her and anyone she talks about first. Now that we'd have to. She's like the most awesome teacher ever ... it sucks she isn't a Princess. No offense princess," a young stallion whispered to her as Pinkie went on about the various weird things she saw that day.

Whispering back, "Thank you, and I've figured as much listening to her on a personal level," before turning to Pinkie Pie. "Yes I can give that window viewing thing. And thank you for letting me fire it up as it were."

Now it should be said, that Celestia while funding these schools, hadn't been to school herself in centuries. And didn't really get modern technology. As well as was unprepared to what technology, and alicorn magic did to each other when used haphazardly.

As the Beam shot out, the lens wobbled and the arrays bent it at the end causing the beam to curve. Right into Luna's Moon. Celestia shaking the device screaming at it to stop, wasn't helping. Rather instead it moved the beam around at random. Shaking and bobbing, and overall doodling, until Pinkie Pie cut the power. But then it was too late.

A giant picture of a laughing Celestia was burnt into the moons surface, and in elegant, flowery cursive, spot on to Celestia's normal hoof writing right beneath it was "Dietz R Bad! Tia Rulez! lol! lol! lol!"

"Oh my holy mother! Luna's going to devour my candy flavored soul! There's no way she'll think this was an accident!" Celestia moaned in existential agony.

"But we can all tell her it was an accident and what really happened," Pinkie said, with the rest of her students yelling in agreement.

"Thank you all! I'll be forever in your debt if Luna doesn't kill me before I find out a way to make it up to you," Celestia cried.

"Just leave it to us! Oh, although you might want to write a letter to her explaining everything. So she knows you really sent us."

Celestia just nodded. While she told Luna about everything she learned about the misappropriation of funds, the upper class screwing over Equestria like a two bit Prench whorse on a monday. As well as her kerfluffle that resulted in her sister remembering that she loves her, and won't dance in her entrails, or devour her soul, or use her for target practice with her shooting stars. Or worse! Eternal Diets!

With the note made she went to her almost last refuge. The one place noone could touch her. CSFGU.

Author's Note:

Last two chapter this Saturday! [CSFGU and an Epilogue]

OMC! I loved writing this chapter so much. It's one of my more favorite ones. I personally find it funny that Pinkie Pie has shown in the show tremendous amounts of engineering know how, and gets the Smart Ball fairly often.

As for Boss Mare. That's actually a thing in equine society. The Alpha Mare guides all manner of a herd, does all the important duties, and is basically the ruler. While the stallions give protection from predators and other stallions (on Earth). So basically think flipped gender roles for humans, and that's what I basically used.

But yeah, the nobles in this fic are purely for laughs, screwing over the poor so they can keep all the goodies. That otherwise would be cheaply created and affordable to the poor. I used 8 bit theaters Elfs, and a flanderization of negative rich people sterotypes for them.

And the idea of Engineers making Wood and Steel Mechas and Death Rays to overthrow the government to give better education and fair treatment to all ponies sounds both ridiculously awesome, and fantastically insane. Also does anyone but me think that Pinkie Pie would be the greatest Professor of all time?)

Punned Name List:

Max Plank: Max Planck [physicist]

Bright Pen: Albert = Bright; Einstein = To surround or enclose with stone. Traditional Pens (Dry stone pens) were made with stone and surround / enclose things.

I thought Bright Pen for Albert Einstein truly fits the ponies naming themes. And is a rather witty ponification.

[Side not for those interested:] Plack-Einstein Relation is a real mathematical formula. [E=hv]

Comments

[Mayhew Cullen]

Sugar Sweat is best Sweat!

Pinkie is awesome and I hope that Celestia gets things sorted out at the patent office. WAIT WAIT WAIT WAITWAITWAITWAIT! Death Ray? As in, “Death Ray” Death Ray? Pinkie... what are you up to?

Okay another amusing chapter with more PinkieShy ship threats and Twilestia nods. Also Raridash sounds cute, I never thought of Rarity as somepony who would enjoy wrestling... wait... um... Oh! Aw... so cute.

Well on to the final classes of the day for Celestia, I’ll see you at the next chapter.