Guardian

by EvilMastermind

A lovely sibling and two jokers.

The sun started setting. With only rays of sunlight visible from the horizon, the night lights of Manehattan lit up as the sky grew darker. The white unicorn stallion kept walking through a dark, grim street, wearing a pair of clear glasses. The only sources of light are four street lights and a neon sign with a wooden sign on the entrance door called The Woozy Pony. It showed Manehattans filthy truth, camouflaged by the city's high-rise buildings, on rise fashion and the propaganda of fabulously dressed ponies and night-life. It is only for ponies to be allured to the center of Manehattan city, and for visits to the statue of liberty as well.

At Silicon's right was a dirty, garbage bag filled alley, with two ponies wearing beanies and hoodies trade bags of bits for a large duffel bag. Possibly drugs, or something even worse. When they exchanged eyes to Silicon, they immediately split and start walking back to their safe haven,hoping that they were not caught.

Of course, he already knew, and could do nothing about it immediately.

He paced quickly to his home, as he felt trickles of water falling down from the sky, running down on his fur. A few streets more to his place before the city will be drenched.

He arrived just in time to a highrise, 20 foot story apartment, with an architectural style of modernism. Each story having at least two large glass paneled windows, with a big lofty penthouse. Silicon trotted to the Front large gate entrance. At the other side of the gate is an elegant entrance yard. Having a beautiful, welcoming garden, with rose and lily shrubs and small patches of neatly trimmed grass, all protected by a huge metal gate.

Just behind the gate was a gray earth pony standing guard, wearing a cap with an emblem of some kind of a logo of a security company. Both Silicon and the security guard locked eyes and smiled.

"Hey Crimson, hows work?" Silicon greeted him, giving the gray stallion a waving hoof.

"Hehe, not so bad." Crimson replied, opening the gate with a press of a button on the side of the gate, slowly sliding open the gate. "You?"

"It sucked, had to surf my signature on a hundred or more contracts for hours." Silicon stepped inside the entrance yard and stopped next to the security guard. "I wish you can take my job for at least a week. You get to have an easier job. Just stand there, and make sure nopony is stupid enough to jump over the gate."

"Hehehe, until somepony climbs over with a knife starts charging at you ready to shank ya." The two shared a good chuckle and the grey pony pressed the button again and the gate automatically shuts.

"Please, I know judo, tae kwon do, krav maga, jiu jitsu and a whole lot more to protect myself against a guy with a knife." The guard rolled his eyes and shaked his head.

"Sigh, sweet Celestia, few even know that you know any martial arts. Gosh, you got the wealth, the business, and the skills to survive in this city. Few ponies are that fortunate."

Silicon's smile disappeared and bowed his head. He rubbed his shoulder uncomfortably."Well, yeah... I guess. But I don't have a lot of good friends you know? I know some who just want my money, I guess I kind of understand that." The guards smile disappeared as well and stared at him confused.

"You think so? I don't think its true, surely you must have got some pals to at least try to hang out with ya or at least buy ya a drink you know?"

"Pah! Yeah, they'll buy a billionaire a drink." Silicon laughed. Crimson still looked at him with a confused look but then shared a smile. "Well, I think I should get inside right now, it's about to rain any minute now."

"Awww and you didn't get me a raincoat or an umbrella?" moaned Crimson, with a tone that showed that he is not serious.

"Hehe, just head inside the apartment and get you one quickly!" chuckled Silicon, punching Crimsons shoulder lightly. "Good night Crimson."

"Don't let the jellyfish sting ya, I know how much your afraid of them." Crimson chuckled while Silicon started shivering of the thought of the marine animal.

"Please Crimson, please." Silicon then turned around and went inside the apartment, before hearing a chuckle from the guard. Siliconn chuckled as well, shaking off the warning anyways, as Crimson was always playing jokes with him. Its rare for him to actually be serious with the warnings if he is in a good mood.

Silicon entered the elevator, and insert his hoof into a hoofprint scanner on top of the buttons of the apartment floors. The machine started scanning his hoof, inspecting it to be one registered to enter.

Some ponies that are important to Silicon, like his sister or his parents, are allowed access to the machine though, and be allowed entrance to the penthouse.

The machine finished scanning, and it turned green. The elevator sends Silicon up to his penthouse in just a matter of seconds. While the elevator took him up, the unicorn rubbed his forehead and gave a hefty, tireful sigh. His eyes feeling a little sleepy, ready for his eyelids to close his vision, ready to start another day. Silicon hummed happily at the thought, thinking that this is what he wants to do first. No need for dinner, as he wasn't hungry anyways.

The elevator doors slide open and the stallion stepped inside his luxurious, modernistic looking penthouse. He stepped inside the living room and slouched on his couch, ready to close his eyes to let his brain relax, escape the stress from working 13 hours on a desk with paperwork and managing the multi-million dollops company. He was ready to sleep soundly and peacefully, no distractions are around the white stallion to destroy his moment of rest. Nothing at al-
“MISS SCRATCH! Get that jellyfish away from Silicon now!”

Silicon felt a thousand goosebumps of fear rise up from his fur, eyes wide in fear and legs curled up almost into a ball, hearing the name of his very fear itself.
“JELLYFISH!?” yelped Silicon in terror and confusion. He looked behind him and his snout pressed on a fish bowl, inside it is a blue small jellyfish, small one, but its tentacles were long enough to wrap around a ponys hoof.

"AHHH!" Silicon shrieked in terror, almost as painstakingly high pitch as a filly watching a horror movie alone. Then the pony holding the “fish bowl” stepped back and bellowed with laughter, obviously amused at Silicons sudden fright. Crimson was not actually joking with the warning.

Silicon's heart rate was abnormally high, breathing heavily of seeing the sea creature, his biggest fear of encountering again, almost turning him off from swimming in beaches. His breathing slowly went down as he looked up at the bellowing pony.

A mare. Her fur is white and her mane electric blue, also spiky as well, as if she was into some kind of crazy band or fashion trend of some sort. She was holding the fish bowl tight on her chest while laughing at the stallions terrified expression. Even the pair of dark purple shades covering her eyes, cannot hide her amusement of seeing Silicon's sudden fright and hearing his high-pitched shriek.

"Dammit Vinyl!" Silicon yelled at her, his face contorted with anger. He got himself up and continued looking at her with an angry glare, the white mare only snorted in reply.

"Ya shoulda seen the look on your face!" Said Vinyl, breathing heavily from her laughter, her chest hurting from her bellowing. Another mare stepped in from the kitchen. She was a young, elegant mare, with a ash grey coat, bright purple eyes and a white collar with a bow tie as her only piece of clothing. She was staring at the heavily breathing pony, with a shaking head of disapproval.
“Vinyl!” yelled Octavia, snapping Vinyls attention to the grey mare. “I told you to put that jellyfish in the guests bedroom! You could’ve gave my brother a heart attack! Or wet himself and the couch!”

"Hey!" Yelled Silicon. Vinyl rolled her eyes at Octavia, scoffing at Octavia's nagging.
"Come on Tavi," groaned Vinyl, still holding the bowl with the jellyfish floating around inside. "I was just having a little fun! It always make my day scaring him."

"Using ponies fear on them is NOT the best laugh for anypony!" Silicon objected, still shivering at the sight of the jellyfish. "WHERE did you even find it!?"

"What? Afraid that a jellofish is gonna sting youuuuu?" said Vinyl teasingly, with a tone that a mother would ask a baby who is a good one.

"Jellyfish! And a box shaped one can kill you in 2 to 5 minutes!"

"Hehehe, you always crack me up dude." Vinyl managed to chuckle, as she put the fish bowl on top of a small bookshelf behind her "I mean come on, you NEVER see these things in Manehattan! Well except in aquariums of course, which I got it from actually, but you get my point. So why pee yourself from them?"

"A long story Vinyl dear," Sighed Octavia as she walked and laid down on the couch "but we shouldn't be discussing about my brother's fear of the sea creature." she turned her gaze to Silicon, who was sweating slightly, still looking at the jellyfish on top of the small bookshelf. "How was work Silicon?"

The white stallion shook away his attention of the sea creature and turned his head to Octavia. He cleared his throat and wiped some sweat off of his brow.

"Uhhh, busy!" said Silicon,rubbing the back of his head, still trying to recover from the shock of seeing the jellyfish."Reaaaal busy, I was real tired until I had my lunch."

"Really?" questioned Octavia as she gave him an interested look, however the sibling can see that she is just trying to be nice to him. "Anything interesting happened during work?"

"Aside from reading your letters and having a quick view outside my window, no." Siliconn answered his sister as he gazed at Vinyl, rummaging through the fridge for something sweet. She was lucky enough to find a can of grape soda to gulp on. Silicon never had a full fridge, as he spends most of his nights going out to five star restaurants and occasionally fast food joints to eat. Of course, without the heat of ponies asking him for a photo or how much they like his company.

He was always a bad cook too, as every time he tries to cook something, even noodles, it always ended up burnt, mushy or sometimes on fire. It was a good excuse to go out to eat every night. The only time he ever ate inside his home was when Octavia or his mother decides to cook for him and others.

And Silicon wondered why he has a carton of eggs in the fridge, if he was such a bad cook. He did love eggs anyways.

"Pfft, since when do you ever have anything interesting in your office?" mocked Vinyl, as she continued gulping down the soft drink until its half empty, having time to breath before she continues gulping the sweet fizzy drink. "What is the only cool thing to you big guy? Staring at graphs and pie charts? Oh yeah, Pie." She started searching through the fridge again, hoping to find some cold, sweet pie to chew on, not caring what flavor it is, as long as it is pie.

"Noooo no no no." Silicon shook his head, waiting for Vinyl to find out there is no pie in the fridge, only milk, jars of jam, mayonnaise and some vegetables and eggs. " I do have a bit of fun! In my free time at work I do a bit of drawing on blank paper, just making ideas of what to build next. I watch out at the city and take in the view of the metropolis, its beautiful towering buildings, the thousands of ponies swarming around the city center, traveling to work, to a restaurant, a mall or even all at the same time! Little specks of ponies and zebras just wandering about. I also take a view of the world outside the city, the forests just at the west have thousands of shades of-"

"Laaaaaaaame!" Vinyl shuts the fridge door closed and went back to gulping on his grape soda. "Told you there is nothing cool about you." Silicon rolled his eyes and sighed, dropping again on another couch next to Octavia.

"Oh don't listen to her dear." said Octavia, agreeing with Silicon's reaction to Vinyls stubbornness. " I think that is a very interesting thing you do in your free time at the office." Octavia cleared her throat, as if she was going to tell her brother some news or something else. " But you know, I think you should have spend some time outside the office. I think you are stressed out from the work."

The white stallion managed to chuckle "Thanks sis, but I'm fine. I'm not stressed."

"You are honey." Octavia's tone was a little more serious, but not serious enough to make her brother sit up-straight. "I've seen you before every time you come back from work, you have those tired eyes and you always rub your head when you enter inside the elevator whenever I am with you. Also you drop on the couch almost tiredly like you need a nap. Come on I really do think it's time for you to have at least one vacation per year."

Octavia was now looking at him frowning, gazing at him with stern eyes, almost comparable to Tech Savvy, their father. Usually Silicon would have an amused smirk of Octavia's attempt of being serious, but now he doesn't have that smirk now. Instead, taken back by the seriousness of Octavia's concern of his stress, and even actually agreeing to having a rest from his job.

Silicon gave a long, restless sigh and looked up the ceiling lazily, letting his head hang on the top edge of the sofa. "Only if I have the time for that. Which will be a while to find the time"

Octavia gave a nod and a warm smile to the white unicorn. "Well as long as you can find the time for a vacation." She gave Silicon a wink, and laid back on the couch lazily as well.

"Hey, can ya tell me why you have no bread but have jars of jelly and mayo inside?" questioned Vinyl, scavenging for more food in the fridge.

"Crackers are on the second cupboard on your left." Silicon laughed.