Act 3 Chapter 42: Beer
"My sister will not appreciate this comparison, but revenge is like cake. You can become fat with it, though a taste now and then is delicious. I could, for instance, send the dragonlords an army of death-dealing killers that would render their lands uninhabitable and their peoples sterile, but that would leave me with crushing guilt. Guilt is why we do not eat too much cake.
I would rather have stamped their armies under hoof, then invited them to peace summits where I served fresh salad, okra, and spinach. Have you ever watched a dragon attempt to eat okra and maintain a diplomatic smile? It is hilarious."
-Princess Luna, when asked in an interview why she'd never destroyed the remaining dragons after the war.
“The...the insult! I will rip them to shreds! I will boil their flesh and spread it on biscuits! Why is this beer empty?! I want more beer!”
Another beer appeared in front of her as Nightmare stalked back and forth across the room, her rage unabated by the sixth alcoholic beverage she’d emptied in what my mental clock said was probably the last twenty minutes. She snatched it up, tore the lid off, and guzzled it so quickly I thought for sure she would choke. Fortunately, with Gale plying her with booze, she seemed increasingly unable to control her mouth.
Meanwhile, Juniper and I were enjoying the opportunity to curl up on the old couch, sipping beers and watching the alicorn storm about. The alcohol seemed to be having a much stronger effect on Nightmare than it was on either myself or my ex-partner, hence we were treated to a rare entertainment: watching an ancient alicorn drink herself knock-kneed.
“To use my armor!” she snarled, spilling beer down her front that instantly sizzled into steam. “How dare they?! Has the world gone mad? A thousand years upon the moon, and I am reduced to little more than a wand or horn for the casting of those spells! Those spells! Blasphemers! I’ll clip them like shrubberies!”
Her great swooshing shadow of a tail swept past my face and I shoved it away as she stumbled onto her stomach, sitting there staring at the carpet as though offended it had caught her. A few thin tears started to leak from her eyes as she stared at her beer bottle, then dropped it between her forelegs. She hiccuped softly, then wiped her nose on the back of her foreleg.
“All I wanted was a little submission. Maybe some respect. Was that so hard?” she moaned, curling her wings over her head as Juniper and I tried not to look like we were listening too intently. “Stupid little ponies and their awful magic! Just because I killed a few of them and drove a few insane, I had to spend a thousand years on the moon with the whiniest pony ever...and...and then they break my memory engrams, shatter me into little pieces, and when I finally get put back together, they stick me in three separate vaults! Cold vaults, no less! Cold vaults with nothing to read!”
Slowly, like a landslide, she slumped forward until her chin rested on the carpet.
“T-those treacherous snakes,” she breathed, a hitch in her voice. “They...they must have u-used the same spell…”
Juniper caught my attention with a quick nudge, then flicked the tip of his tail at the toasted mare.
I furrowed my brow and mouthed, ‘What do you want me to do?’
He picked up one of the couch pillows and quickly mimed putting it under her head, then made a kiss-face at me.
“Do I look stupid?” I whispered.
“No, but you’re suicidally chivalrous and we need more information,” Juniper replied, just as quietly. “So...go make nice with the drunk brain eater for the five minutes required to get her talking in complete sentences.”
I put my face in my hooves and let out a long, drawn out sigh.
‘Oh, Juniper, I’d forgotten how often I wanted to beat you to death with a brick. Thank you for reminding me.’
Pulling myself off the sofa, I grabbed a pillow in my teeth and carefully approached Nightmare Moon. Reaching down, I gingerly lifted her head, which was considerably heavier than it looked. She tensed, then went completely limp when the pillow slid under her cheek. One slitted eye opened, and she peered up at me, tears dripping off her nose.
“I want to k-kill you, but you’re being pleasant to me and my social prediction algorithm is malfunctioning,” she muttered, hugging the pillow so tightly some of the stuffing popped out of one corner.
“Tell me about this spell they used. You said it was ‘the same’?” I said.
Nightmare’s lip quivered and she hid her wet eyes against her cushion.
“My peytral is an archive of magic that is c-cast upon it.” She cocked her head forward. “Every spell.”
My brain did a little tango over this piece of information; out there, somewhere, there was a thousand year old storage device for magic spells, all wrapped up in a convenient, easy to use package. As a matter of fact, it probably contained hexes that’d only seen the light of day an eon ago in a battle between princesses.
‘Oh…’
“So that’s where they got the magic to banish the Royals to the moon,” Juniper mused. “It was the spell Princess Celestia used to banish Luna .”
“And powered by decades worth of the misery of Detrot’s populace,” I added, softly. “It was enough to send Canterlot and the outlying cities to another world. I wonder why they didn’t just kill Luna and Celestia.”
Nightmare tilted her head until her cheek rested on her cushion. “Y-you cannot kill true immortals, foolish pony. Even i-if you destroy their bodies, their essence is not of this world. It...returns. Better to seal them away, helpless and weak. That was my plan, of course. Stolen, along with my dignity!”
----
“Drunk. You got the Nightmare...drunk.”
“Well, to be fair, she got herself drunk. I only facilitated. Still, official police work requires using all of the resources at your disposal within the confines of the law. Un-official, un-sanctioned, world-saving police work requires beer.”
“Is that what you want carved on your headstone?”
“Yes.”
----
“One more question. Ruby Blue. Why her?” I asked.
Nightmare Moon’s ears gradually lay back against her head. “She was available. This...Family intends to reunite me with the rest of my armor. I know not how, nor why, but...I feel certain they have some means of bending me to their will. The last spell cast upon the armor might have been accessible to them, but without my helm, they cannot weave new magicks. Ruby Blue was a means to an end. Nothing more—”
“No! No, she saw things,” I snapped, a bit more harshly than I meant to. “She saw the future! She saw what happened to Juniper! It was in her journal!”
The alicorn bared her teeth for a moment, then slumped over onto her side. “Damn that mare. Would that I could have destroyed her mind entirely. When I whispered, she obeyed, but when she carried my helm from the altar of those pitiful cultists, she would not succumb. When we were away...I tore at her. I tried to take her. She fought back.”
“Fought back? Against you?”
Struggling upright, she swiped at me with one of her gigantic wings. It was a lazy attack and easily ducked, but it got the message across. “I am not at my full power! Princess Luna’s spirit was weak and pathetic beside that mare! Her mind was a fortress; an endless bastion, full of traps and walls! For every crevice of her brain I crept my way into, she would reach into me and rip something back! She stole my sight, again and again, to watch things she should not have!”
“And...wrote it down in the journal,” I murmured. “You manipulated her. She manipulated you.”
“Yesss…” she hissed, trying to prop herself on her forelegs and having to resort to one half open wing to keep herself up. “That...that unicorn knew somepony, somewhere, must stop the oncoming storm. She knew I wanted the pony with no fate, the pony around whom probability bent. I wanted the empty pony. The pony with no destiny. You would have made an excellent vessel...”
“What went wrong?” Juniper asked.
“This!” she barked, throwing her hooves toward the ceiling. “I placed an unfettered piece of my energies into her horn, that I might direct her body and meet with the Family’s representative to convince them the helm was lost to them! With her death, I should have freed myself of her and drawn you to me! Together, we might have reclaimed my other parts.” She pointed at my chest with one black toe. “Somehow, that mare must have known! Somehow, she...she must have hidden the heart’s true power from me, else I would have torn it from your chest before I set hoof in your mind!”
“Wait, you...you were in control of her body?” I asked. “You drove her off the roof?”
Nightmare’s gaze hardened. “I barely had time to place my final instructions into her dying grey matter. I would have granted her final death, and a kind trip to the afterlife, but she willingly drank from the poisoned bottle the Family’s representative brought with them. She did it knowing what it would do to her! I told her their alchemy would corrupt her! I know not what happened after that, but I’ve seen in your memory: her dead, soulless, and hornless body, lying in an alleyway.”
A quiet hope suddenly burst to life in my stomach. I felt my tail begin to smack back and forth against my legs, but there wasn’t a thing I could have done to stop it. My cutie-mark started to burn.
“Nightmare...Did you see who the Family sent? Did you see the pony with the cane?”
Her pencil thin eyebrows crawled up onto her forehead. “I saw only the ponies who came, and never face or body. They were three. Two, in suits, one in a long cowl with a strange, wooden cane. His hooves were black, but my memories are badly fragmented. They are damaged by distance.”
A dark blue blanket covered in glittery sequins appeared at my hooves and I took the cue, carefully throwing it over the alicorn’s back. Nightmare gave me a look like a foal who’s found the medicine they’ve been forced to take tastes exactly like cotton candy: confused, a bit disturbed, and desperate for more. Considering she’d been locked away with the world’s loneliest alicorn for a millennium, that played.
‘Oh, I am going to need a shower in hot acid after this one…’
“I’m listening, Nightmare,” I murmured, settling down beside her. I edged closer until my foreleg touched hers and she jerked, looking up at Juniper, then back at me with big, frightened eyes.
“This is trickery,” she muttered, folding her wings in tightly against herself.
“You don’t care if it is or not, and I’m not leaving until we’re done talking. You’ve got a pony who will listen,” I replied, putting my hoof over top of hers. Her fetlock radiated the sort of heat you’d expect standing near a blast furnace. “If you play fair, you get a body, you get a pardon, and you can go out in the world and get all the affection you’ve ever wanted. Modern Equestria is different than it was a thousand years ago. You still want be worshipped, I imagine there’s lines of perverts around the block happy to kiss your hooves.”
“The mare, Ruby Blue, brought many rich memories from the place called ‘The Vivarium’,” she said, looking down at my hoof and shuffling her wings. “Currency exchanged for worship and intercourse. I am intrigued. Do you believe they would accept my custom?”
----
“I cannot believe you…”
“Are you saying your moral fiber is impeccable?”
“No, b-but manipulating Nightmare Moon with...with...basic psychology and booze! How did you know she’d respond?”
“Because I’m a drunk. I know drunks. Needy drunks turn into affectionate drunks. It doesn’t matter if she was some sort of magical parasite. Nightmare Moon spent a thousand years trapped in Princess Luna’s brain. Can you think of any being in the world more needy than the mare who almost destroyed the world because nopony was paying attention to her?”
----
The look on Juniper’s face made me glad he didn’t have a camera with which to complete my humiliation. The bastard was enjoying this. It didn’t help that Gale had materialized another beer and Nightmare was sulkily nursing from it through a drinking straw.
I don’t know whether the alicorn realized she had one massive, black wing draped across my back, but the smell of weepy mare mixed with a hint of ‘terror from the void’ was giving me cognitive dissonance bad enough to cause internal bleeding. If I had to judge based on the slight quiver in her hooves or the way she was barely keeping the straw in her mouth, she was at about a ‘seven’. Perfect interrogation time.
“Nightmare, what happened at the meeting with Ruby Blue?” I asked.
One of her eyes rolled in my direction and she blinked, as though surprised to find me so close.
“It is vague,” she replied, her shadowy tail swishing around to settle on my hip. “The chemicals...interfered with my connection to her. The fools threatened her family, as expected, and when she told them she did not know where I was, they attacked. There was a flashing blade which sprang from the cane. After that, I abandoned my connection.”
“Because her horn was gone?” Juniper added, tugging at his tie.
“Because...I did not wish to experience dying again!” she retorted, her wing jerking me tighter against her as a distant, haunted look filled her eyes. “Being torn apart once was quite enough for one existence!”
My former partner’s lips thinned to a sharp line. “I...I can respect not wanting to go through that twice.”
“Before the meeting, Ruby Blue hid me to await his arrival,” Nightmare continued, peering down at my face from well inside my personal space. It being Nightmare Moon, my personal space was something like five hundred miles in diameter, but I fought the urge to back away. Even drunk and with an agreement not to skin me, she was scary as Celestia in heat.
“He is a very curious stallion, isn’t he?” she went on. “I had hoped he’d be fool enough to try me on right away, but major magical influences were inevitable, considering the movements within the city. Annoying. I might have prevented the Eclipse, given a body with his informational resources.”
“So why didn’t you just snatch my brain the second you had the chance?” I asked. “Seemed to have no issue taking over poor Night Bloom…”
“Ruby Blue required almost two weeks before she listened to the whispers in her mind regarding those ridiculous cultists planning her murder. Fortunate that I have no plans towards domination of this world again.”
“Excuse me if I’m a little skeptical, but why is that?” Juniper inquired, shifting his weight onto the end of the couch.
“You ponies have much too high a success rate against direct confrontation,” Nightmare’s ears slipped an inch downward. “I have had sixty years to observe the other failed would-be masters of this world. This ‘Family’ defeated your justice system, obscured their motives, and evaded notice by the Royals. To date, the only portion of their plan which has shown even a modicum of unpredictability has involved this pitiful stallion; the pony with no fate. They may have staggering ego, but they do not show an ounce of hubris.”
“How do you “figure? That army of mutants was a pretty big show,” I said.
“No...Kid, think about it. She’s right,” Juni interjected. “They knew you couldn’t deal with all those mutants in the time they’d given you. They knew you’d have to surrender the helm. They gave you three hours and were prepared to kill hundreds just to bring this to closure.”
Putting my hooves under myself, I sat up as much as I could while still being wrapped in the uncomfortably warm wing. “Speaking of three hours, Nightmare, we need to make this deal and I need to get going.”
Reluctantly, she removed her wing from my shoulders, using her forked tongue to wrestle the straw of her beer bottle back to her muzzle and slurp the dregs out of the bottom.
“You intend to turn me over to our enemies covered in trackable magic substances, then retrieve me in hopes it can be done before their plan is complete and after you have a suitable defensive arrangement?” she asked, then blinked at her beer. “I no longer feel very intoxicated. I wish to be intoxicated again. It is a pleasant sensation.”
“I’m starting to realize how irritating it is having somepony squatting in my brain. I owe Swift an apology,” I said, shaking my head. “I guess I don’t have to tell you the plan, then.”
Nightmare rolled the empty beer bottle away and stood in one smooth, graceful motion, folding her wings in against her hips.
“This so called ‘plan’ has a probable success rate of less than ten percent. You will die in one of thirty-nine different ways, should you execute it without modifications. The most likely is a gunshot wound to the head, followed by having your heart ripped out by a mutant pony, followed by your driver tearing your skull from your shoulders when she hears of your many unreported risks, deaths, and comforting lies. I cannot guarantee that last one is permanent, but it is very likely.”
I worked my jaw a little and said, “I’m glad ‘death by Taxi’ is only number three. I’ve tended to put her just below ‘death by Iris Jade’ in my ‘one’ and ‘two’ spots for most of my recent life.”
“Then you’ll be glad to know that being murdered by the former Chief of Police is only the eighth most likely outcome,” she added, smirking. “Regardless, your plan will fail, and your friends will die.”
Juniper rolled off the couch with a soft thump. “You hear that, kid? I think that sound was Nightmare Moon volunteering to keep your gold and grey ass alive.”
“You know, that’s what I heard, too?” I chuckled. “After all, if she wants a body and a pardon, I’m the only pony in a position to make either of those things happen. And she can’t possess me. Quite a pickle. I’m glad I have such a noble, kind hearted savior, willing to stand between me and the horrors of the world.”
If there’s a look for having swallowed a whole bucket of lemons and chased it with half a liter of hot toothpaste it was reflected on Nightmare Moon’s face when she realized just how badly she’d cornered herself. Her wings popped out hard enough to rock her back on her hooves and her eyes almost bugged out of her head.
“W-wait! That is not what I intended! He must listen to my directives or he will die! I am to be given control of his body instead!” She hesitated, then paled a couple of shades of black. “B-but that won’t work and this situation becomes increasingly uncontrolled! Buffer overflow!”
There was a soft ‘boop’ sound, like a droplet of water hitting a still pond. Nightmare Moon’s eyes rolled back in her head, then went white again, joined by the soft sound of static.
Juniper stuffed the last bit of cheese from his plate into his muzzle, let out a belch that shook the floor, then trotted in a small circle around the frozen alicorn. “You know, if there was ever a time to draw on a pony’s face—”
“So, are you going to finally tell me what you are?” I asked.
“Kid, when I know what I am, I’ll be sure to leave a post-it note,” he said, lifting one of Nightmare’s ears and peering inside. “For now, it’s going to remain a mystery to both of us. You’re important enough to warrant the attention of some parties whose interest tends to herald the destruction of planets and nobody I’ve met out here actually knows what’s going on. I can’t even say for sure there’s life after death. I only know that I’m dead, and there are still jobs as need doing.”
“Unhelpful, but I’m coming to expect that. What about her? You think we can afford to trust her?”
“Self interest seems to drive Nightmare, so yes, insofar as you hold up your end of things. Do you think you can really convince the Royals to give her a pardon when this is over?”
I shrugged. “Princess Sparkle is a smart pony and she likes making friends out of enemies. Give her the chance, and she’ll set Nightmare up with a nice bungalow in upper Canterlot with a cab on hand to take her to any brothel in the city, day or night. You buy her thing about her memory having holes in it?”
“Whatever Nightmare might be, she’s frightened, and whoever is pulling strings and cutting throats scares her. They scare her bad enough that she tried to take control of the one pony she couldn’t predict just to patch a hole in her mathematical models.”
I leaned my head to one side. “You think she’s like the Aroyo Ancestors? Using math and magic to see the future?”
Juniper ran his tongue over his lips, then sucked his teeth. “Tsk...Somepony had the Aroyo’s technology a thousand years before they did and she’s precognitive in a way they only wish they could be. Not perfect prophesy, but better than what all but bleeding edge Equestrian technological sorcery can manage. I doubt the Family, even with all their resources, came up with that.”
“You think it was whatever they made a deal with for power and fortune?”
“I’d bet my grave on it. Particularly since whatever it is seems able to avoid both the Aroyo Ancestor’s predictive methods and Nightmare Moon’s.”
Getting to all fours, I strolled over to the front door of the apartment and tugged it open. Beyond, a grand starfield still glistened in the dark; from the lintels of my door I could see the whole of the universe. Taking a deep breath of the absolute nothingness outside, I shut the portal.
“It really is just that beautiful out there, kid,” Juniper murmured.
“Makes me wish I’d just shot myself before the world was relying on me not to,” I replied, resting a toe on the door. “There are a lot of good ponies who don’t deserve to die in a darkened land.”
A faint whistling sound from Nightmare Moon’s direction brought me around. Her eyes faded back into their normal colors and she adopted a pout that wouldn’t have been out of place on a foal told she wasn’t getting ice-cream for dinner.
“I want to kill you again,” she mumbled, pushing Juniper away from her with one wingtip. “Unfortunately, my calculations dictate this will not mesh with any scenario leading to my freedom or continued existence as an independent being. To that end, I will add a portion of my magical essence to your brain.”
Trotting in front of her, I held my foreleg out. “I want your promise that this is in good faith. You try to take over, or screw with me, I will let Juniper here take both of us on a tour of all the nasty places out there.”
The alicorn’s breath came out in a steamy rush on my face. “If I could beguile you, I already would have!”
“Promise me, Nightmare. Swear that if I set you free, if I save this world, and if I give you a place in the society that grows from what is left, that you will not make me or any future generation of Equestrians regret it!” I shoved my hoof against her chestplate. “Swear it!”
----
“She...she swore?”
“When do you think the last time somepony trusted her was?”
“Well...I mean...never. Who would be crazy enough to do that?”
“Exactly.”
----
Nightmare’s breathing hitched as she slowly extended her leg. Her hoof was a little cold. as she pressed it against my chest in a bit of odd mimicry that was somehow more meaningful than if she’d just shaken my hoof.
“You would accept me in your world? You would make room for a being that has tried to cause your extinction?”
“It’s been done before, and if this ends without everyone dead, I’ll personally punch anyone who wants to stand in the way of your freedom. My pledge is solid and my word is as golden as these scales on my ass. What about yours?”
Her gaze danced back and forth, then over my shoulder at Juniper before returning to my face. “I am most confused by this turn of events. However, I have no systemic objections. If...if you achieve all you have offered, I forswear any acts of malice upon you, yours, or your species, except in self defense. I shall, forthwith, not make you regret freeing me.”
“Then we have a deal.” I looked up at the ceiling and dropped my hoof. “Gale? Are you hearing this?”
I listen…
That voice made the two intruders in my head shiver, but it sent a wave of comfort through me that felt like sprawling in front of a warm fireplace back home.
“Let her do whatever she needs to. Monitor it, and make sure I’m not getting worms in my noggin, but otherwise let her work. Got me?”
I understand…
Cracking a smile, I turned back to Juniper and the alicorn who were both standing there shaking like they’d just come down from an Ace high.
“Oog. Kid, that spirit isn’t half so weak and scared as the one I ran into just after you got shot,” Juniper commented, rubbing at his forelegs like they were covered in bugs. “Be glad he likes you. If he didn’t, he’d give Nightmare a run for her money.”
“It is disturbing that you choose to contain a being of that power in your chest,” Nightmare said, nervously stretching her wings.
“I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather he be,” I chuckled. “Now then...it’s your show, Miss Moon.”
“Miss Moon...Hrmph. That is a more pleasant form of address than ‘Pissy’,” Nightmare murmured, flicking her tongue at me. “Now, the modifications to your plan may have to be made in real time. I will leave a spark of my brilliance in your mind. Do listen to it, and...brace yourself. This will be excruciatingly painful.”
“If I were to ask exactly what you’re about to do, would it make it hurt any less?” I asked.
“Nothing will make this less agonizing. If your spirit interferes with the process, it may cause brain damage.”
“It can’t be any worse up there, I guess. Alright, then. Juniper?”
“Yes, kid?”
“I’ll see you on the next sunny day.”
“Hah! It’s a date, kid!”
----
And with that, I was tossed out of a sky chariot into a volcano full of angry lava bees and endless torment. I don’t really remember the pain, except as a sort of abstract condition. It’s the sort of thing a pony should remember.
Nightmare Moon flayed me, fricasseed my bones and blasted my eyes right out of their sockets. I was slow roasted, liquified, shredded, blended, and frappe’d. Cats ate my liver and bugs ate my brain. I went three hundred rounds in the Pit, getting beaten up by every monster the abyss has ever conjured.
Pain—past a certain point—just stops mattering; you can’t meaningfully feel the difference between being frozen solid and being boiled. Nerve endings are limited, and once they’ve been overloaded, they can only send the idea of agony, rather than the practical sensations.
So it was, that when I came to, I wasn’t in pain. What’d felt like a millennium or two of the most extreme torture a person can endure ended with a sleepy hiccup and the desire to roll over and go back to sleep. My neck had a kink in it and my muzzle was dry as a bone, but that was it.
Nearby, nervous hooves stomped back and forth.
“—he dies, then we’re all going to die. Maybe I can use artifact one-one-six to reanimate him! No...no... that only ever worked on golems made of spinach. But artifact six-eight-two-bravo-six can turn organic matter into fruit! Is spinach a fruit? I don’t—”
I let out a loud moan, if only to stop the monologue. Hauling myself up, I felt Nightmare’s Helm come loose and roll off my head. My skull felt a couple of sizes too small and packed full of packing peanuts.
Cereus was frantically pacing back and forth, but he stopped as soon as I moved.
“Detective! Oh Celestia’s tail, Detective, are you alright?” he squeaked, his leathery wings flapping frantically at the air. “I came in and saw you wearing the helm and Agent Bloom was unconscious and you were breathing really hard—”
“How long have I been lying here?” I asked blearily.
He shook his head, turning sideways to show me a couple of plates on his back, heavily laden with a heap of his mouth-watering cooking.
“I...I don’t know. I just went to get the sandwiches and came back and you were lying there! It can’t have been more than twenty minutes!”
I blinked my hazy eyes at him, glancing around the high security vault. Everything seemed to be as it had been, minus the swirling, creepy shadows and the sense of imminent death. Working a bit of saliva into my mouth, I tried to get my legs to shift.
Agent Bloom was still where she’d been, sprawled on her side with a bit of drying blood on her upper lip. Reaching over, I gave her a light poke in the ribs. She didn’t move or respond, but her breathing seemed relatively even.
“Get her in bed. She should be fine, in a bit. While you’re at it, bundle up the helm for travel. I’m going to have to make a delivery.”
“A delivery?” he asked.
“Oh...and get me that magic walkie talkie, would you? I need to update a certain nosey princess on the situation in the city at some point. If I feel like it.”
----
“Couldn’t you have let me in on the situation before you delivered the helm into the hooves of these monsters?!”
“If I’d done that, you’d have wasted time trying to talk me out of it.”
“Yes! Yes, I would have! Gah! And you let Nightmare Moon mess with your head in some fashion! I am regretting not braining you with my bottle and using one of my old apprentice’s mind control spells to make you less crazy!”
“Then neither of us would have had the joy of hearing Nightmare’s ‘alterations’ to my plan, now would we?”
“I swear, if you go get another beer, I will find a way to lecture you forever, mister!”
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"though a taste now and then, is delicious"
"though a taste now and then is delicious"?
8546917 Sigh...fixed.
The problem with writing those quotes and bits of lore off the cuff right before I publish is that there's rarely time to edit.
-Chessie
Remember. Always wear protection.
Trojan.
8546941
Well, that's why I have a habit of looking the opening quotes/lore bits over after I see the chapter's released. :)
I have loved these small moments of hardy being hardy to powers and creations beyond his ken. And doing the honestly kind thing, and it works. When every else fails, he gets through on gall, gumption, and being to stubborn to see failure as anything but not possible.
First off:
dark-circuit.com/random/data/media/3/hooray%20beer.jpg
Second:
PFFFFFFT.
Third:
Well, unless I missed something earlier/forgot something that was mentioned earlier...that's finally that.
8547009 You have forgotten something significant. Namely that the Family's alchemy locks souls in parts of the body.
-Chessie
8547023
Welp...four years and 100 storyverses later, things just kinda get lost in the mix. What can I say...
8547034 Hehehe...you really have been reading that long, haven't you? God, I swear this story will be over soon. Sorry it's gone on so long. I didn't really expect it to become one of the longest stories on Fimfic.
-Chessie
8546996 At the end of the day, this is a pony story. It might be way off the deep end in terms of horror and violence, but it's also a story about a place where friendship really is magic.
-Chessie
8547223
And why hardy is such a gem. He is a simple pony, and as everyone has these complicated weaves and plays. He is a sledgehammer that just whammies through things in a delightful fashion. And doing what makes a pony story, a good pony story.
Tabloid reporter Red-Top was not satisfied with Luna's answer to Yellow Journalism's question so she waved her hoof in the air and shouted over an Equestria Daily reporter who was nattering on about something boring regarding reparations or somesuch.
"Princess Luna! Princes Luna! If you are so dead set against annihilating the dragons, what do you say about the rumours regarding the conspiracies surrounding Project Jolly Manticore?"
Luna blinked.
"Jolly Manticore?" Luna pointed an accusatory hoof at Red-Top. "You mean the rumours you and your publication spread, besmirching my Sister's and Twilight's good names?"
Red-Top hunkered down under the glares of the princess and her peers, ears splayed back.
"The rumours regarding a weapon so powerful that it would burn the all the dragons and the Ash Lands down to their constituent mesons, bosons and thaumaturgical quibbs and use the magic of Harmony to reconstitute them into fellow ponies and the region into a second Dream Valley? Those rumours, yes?"
Red-Top meekly nodded "yes".
Luna smirked. Whether it was a trick of the light or just the tense atmosphere, for a brief moment something predatory and cold as winter starlight glinted back. That smirk did not belong on a pony; too many teeth.
"Fat-free cake."
8547263
And his irreverence. Absolute gold. I don't give two shits unless I'm sober.
8547631 Too many heroes expect to live and bank on that. Hardy is just waiting to die. It's happened before, repeatedly, and it doesn't much bother him.
-Chessie
You know, for all the theories and possible interpretations of Nightmare Moon that I've seen and read, I never saw it done like you have, here. Makes her sound like an AI, with all the talk about matrices and algorithms. Makes me wonder if Nightmare Moon is instead an artificial creation, magic and numbers to do...whatever she does.
And for all the foresight that the CMC and her can do, the power backing The Family is even greater. Plus whatever plot armour Hardy has that puts him outside destiny.
...maybe it's the beer? Nightmare Moon gets drunk and the ex-doombringer of eternal night gets all sobby and spills everything. On dream beer. Hardy drinks beer, hardly anything else, and look what he's done. Don't know the relative difference with Juniper, but since he died, I'm sure Hardy was drinking enough for both of them. The Family is quite obviously rich, wines and imported spirits are easily accessible for them, forget about beer.
Calling it now, the higher power fueling all this, is beer.
8547806 It would be great if it was beer, wouldn't it? Keep in mind...I am from Wisconsin. That is an alcoholic state.
-Chessie
You ain't the only one...
'Bout time he pops up where I expected...
Hardy, as true to you as this is, I am sure you will not get a say in what goes on your headstone.... the one you are speaking to will ensure it says far more and that it embarrasses you every time somepony reads it.
And this is exactly why I think these two have for more in common than they will ever admit.... the only other pony who would have granted this level of trust in an enemy in this scenario would be her younger and more idealistic self... or possibly even her present self if she was not sidetracked by her frustration with Hardy and being stuck on the sidelines.
And that is the perfect way to end a chapter, these two arguing like very old friends... or a married couple... and probably secretly enjoying it just a little too much...
8547263
Some problems require the pen, words flowing forth to steal hearts and minds. Some problems require the knife, slipping into the smallest of gaps at just the right point. And some problems require a sledge hammer.
It always pays to know the right tool for the job.
8547009
Also pretty easy to figure out now just WHO was the one who cut off Ruby Blue’s horn.
8547944
Some jobs need an RPG.
8549154 There have been times during this story where I thought 'Exterminatus: It's The Only Way To Be Sure'.
-Chessie
8549223
Nah. Bombardment by Planetary Siege Unit Bolo company. Four years.
- This. God I love this story.
8549784 Heh, I really like writing lines like that.
-Chessie
8547213
How much longer, till it is finished, do you think?
I fond this very funny.
8551232 Within the year? I've got a few major scenes left, then the climax, then it's over.
-Chessie
Even with all the new revelations and witty lines, I must say my favourite part about this chapter is the title. All the chapter titles have been brilliant in their own way, but the single-word simplicity of this one, contrasted with the seriousness of the previous chapter, got me chuckling.
Ugh, I feel like I need to set aside a big block of time so I can read through this whole thing again. So many details that I know I've forgotten just because it has been so long since I read the relevant chapters.
-Chimera
8525355
I’m inclined to agree.
8551496
Same here, have theories wanderin' around in my noggin but probably need to reread the whole box-n-dice to remind myself why I seem so set on some of these. Most seem to still hold up although one has definitely bitten the dust... and mind you, I wish a couple more had not been right. On the whole "Who is DW?" thing I have my theory based on a few phrases and a motto and they seem to have been backed up recently by a mannerism but we'll see what happens.
8549976
Glad you do, you always have a couple good Hardy-isms in each chapter... and not just from Junior now... it seems to run in the family.
Hope the new residential situation is going as good as you hoped, too.
Here's hoping this gets a good wrapping up spoon, the wheels seem to be spinning in place again...
8557981 It will get a good ending very spoon. I promise that spoon, things will all make sense. Do you require spooner? SPPOOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!
pre00.deviantart.net/6d47/th/pre/i/2016/314/7/7/the_tick_spoon__hope_poster_parody_by_wanderingent-d8ltjps.png
I still say the battle royal of mares what want our good detective for themselves will be really big. During or after that alliances will be forged. He won't get a say and will likely roll with it to keep the peace. Where to place those bets....
8547891
For whatever bizarre reason, I had assumed you were British this entire time. Maybe because I assume all verbose people are British. I need to rethink my life.
8558139
Ha ha. It was meant to be 'soon'....
8555117
Something tells me just up and did that one day without even asking or considering what other people would want/think. Typical Twilight control freak move imho. I mean it's kind useful that she didn't get swept off the planet, but she's pretty useless anyway....
8563613 Well, when alicorns reach a certain age, they become automatically useless. We have seen this demonstrated repeatedly.
-Chessie
8563613
8563617
Au contraire!
It is a well known fact that Equestria does not levy taxes on her citizens. What is less well known is where all the money for Equestria's vast social, economic, and military programs actually comes from. In a word merchandising
Twlight's ascension alone boosted the Royal Budget by nearly 2 orders of magnitude and put the Royal Exchequer in the black for the first time in nearly 60 years. Sales of the "Pretty Princess Twilight" mane and tail colouring and styling kits to young ponies single-hoofedly funded the construction of the Crystal Empire railway extension and royalties of her Friendship Journal helped create a trust fund to assist Thorax's changelings integrate into Equestrian society with small-business micro-loans.
8563617
Says who? I call plot-based shenanigans (a.k.a sloppy writing and author handwaving). "Canon" has become more and more of a trash argument.
8575974 Canon! I CALL CANON! Because Canon in Equestria is whaaaateever you want it to be!
-Chessie
Ni! Ni!
You must, because you keep doing the stupid, and it's what all your friends keep expecting from you.
Headstone, ha! Justice is immortal!
While Hardy reacts like an adult to the same medicine - oh yuck, get it off my tongue!
And Hardy knows Celestia's fertility schedule... why, exactly?
Stop talking about yourself in the third person, Hardy. You know that's a bad sign.
That sounds like a comic book introduction.
Uh ... thanks but no??
Twi, you know that wouldn't have worked. You would have better luck replacing Taxi's cutie mark with an equal sign.
Haha
I look forward to catching up
But not today
Today I sleep
Mild act of trolling. This mixture of noir flick and funni poneshow is what I live for, goodness.