Edgy

by moonbutters

The Chapter in Which Essix Does Things and Gets Paid for Them.

Alright, where were we? Oh that's right! Essix Darryl Gertine Yonniccan! Who is the main character of this story! Whose full name I have to say at least once each chapter or I will be hunted down! Ah, yes, he just got on a pegasus-pulled bus to get to his job! Now, you might just be wondering what Essix's job was, what with being an alicorn and having a cursed sword and all that. Well, you'll just have to wait and find out, won't you?

"I clean stuff." said Essix from where he was sitting at the back of the bus, ruining the suspense I was trying to build. "I find it very calming, actually."

"Huh?!?" shouted the bus-puller pegasus, whose name was Rascal. "You sayin' somethin'?!?" he continued to shout.

"Sorry, I wasn't talking to you!" Essix shouted back.

"What?!?" shouted Rascal the bus flier, slowing down a little.

"Nothing!!" Essix shouted back, a little louder than before.

"WHAT?!?" shouted Rascal, but louder than the previous time.

"NOTHING!!!" shouted Essix, amplifying his voice with his magic this time.

"OH OKAY!!!"

Essix suddenly found himself about to lean on his sword again, probably due to annoyance, and stopped himself before he impaled the bus and possibly ruined the hover crystals. A few minutes later, the bus flier pulled into the next stop and a few more ponies got on. Each of them in turn looked to the back of the bus, where Essix was sitting, and then sat down somewhere in the front.

After a few more stops, the bus landed at Essix's stop, so he made his way to the front, thanked Rascal the bus pegasus, who will be a recurring character, and got off.

In front of Essix Darryl Gertine Yonnican was a large, two-story cottage. While it seemed very unassuming, it was actually the headquarters for Equestria's best cleaning service. Not "self proclaimed," no asterisk, just The Best™. Ever wondered who helps rebuild after the big disasters? Who keeps the royal palace spick and span? Who made Canterlot look like nothing had happened only a day and a half after the dual royal wedding and changeling invasion? It was The Best™. Which is the company's name.

Essix had worked with The Best™ for a few years now- he was pretty good at his role, and they paid well.

He went inside and greeted the lamia at the reception desk.

"Good morning Matilda."

Good morning Essssix!" Matilda hissed while stapling some papers together. "Jusssst two jobssss for you today, unlesssss-"

Essix interrupted her. "No, I will not be doing any of the maid outfit jobs. No matter how good they pay."

"It wasssss worth a sssshot." Matilda said, stapling more papers.

Essix snorted headed to the elevators in the back. He pressed the down button, and then waited. And waited. And waited. And... waited. And...

...

Waited.

"What?" said Essix, looking upwards for some reason. "Am I missing something?"

There was, of course, no reply, as there was nocreature around to hear him. With a Ding, the elevator arrived.

Essix got in and headed down to get situated.

••• ••• •••

Essix arrived at his first assignment- hold on, it looks like the company shuttle hasn't arrived yet. Well. Uh.

So. How's your day been?
Mhm.
Oh dear, really?
Oh my.
Damn.
Oh I've been fine. Perfectly fine.
Mhm.

Ah, here he is.

The company shuttle pulled up to the curb. In this case, the shuttle is just a small bus with The Best™ branded on the side. Essix disembarked the shuttle, carrying his cursed sword in its scabbard and the company-issued saddlebags full of cleaning supplies.

He looked at the Canterlotian Cottage before him and compared it to the picture he had been given. It looked much older and mustier in real life, which was the problem he had been assigned to fix. He grunted and headed inside as the shuttle drove off to drop off more passengers.

Once the door was closed behind him, Essix dropped his saddlebags by the mat and headed into the main hall. He then spread his wings out fully, and began to vibrate.

Yes, vibrate. Intensely. He held his wings stiffly, and they vibrated too. The air around him vibrated. The whole house vibrated. And like magic, the cobwebs in the corner vaporized. The dust on so many surfaces just... vanished. The three ghosts that had been haunting the house suddenly found themselves in Japony for some reason. Drains unclogged. Squeaky doors became unsqueaky.

And to be honest, I don't know how he does it.

Essix smiled to himself and vibrated for another minute before stopping. If he had gone any longer, the neighbors might've complained.

Still, like, how did he even figure out he could do that? Who just... vibrates to clean stuff?

"Now for the windows," he said, firing off a wide flat beam spell to clean the windows he could see. He went from room to room, cleaning the windows with his beam spell.

Ok so like, why did the ghosts go to Japony? How does vibration send a ghost to Japony? I don't get it.

"And I won't tell you. It's more fun that way." Essix said to the empty, much cleaner house.

It took him a while, but he finished wide-beaming the windows. After taking a moment to break, he headed outside to take care of the outside windows.

Ok so the wide beam is like a pressure washer. Like super satisfying to watch. And Essix was really good at it, which makes it even better to watch. So, Essix wasn't surprised when the neighbors came out to watch Essix do his magic. They were mesmerized.

When he finished, everycreature clapped. Including Princess Luna, who was disguised as a bush for some reason. Alicorn Starlight Glimmer from the Future also clapped, and then noticed Luna clapping from the bush. With incredibly convenient timing, the company shuttle pulled up to the curb just as Essix finished laser-washing the final window on the house, leaving it looking almost exactly like the picture I mentioned him looking at earlier. Even the flowers and plants in the garden were looking more lively. I’m not sure if Essix’s vibration did that or if they were just happy. Plants can be happy, you know.

Anyway, Essix grabbed his unused cleaning supplies from the house and re-boarded the shuttle to go to his next destination, which was nowhere near here and also nowhere near Alicorn Starlight Glimmer from the Future.

••• ••• •••

Essix’s second job was a post-haunting cleanup, which meant ectoplasm, which just so happened to be immune to his vibration tactics. I know this because Essix had just said “Damn, I can’t use my vibration to take care of the ectoplasm.” when looking at the file for his next assignment.

A few minutes later, Essix disembarked the shuttle again and found himself in front of a haunted house. Like, an actual haunted house. Both because of the ghosts that had been in it and because it was used every year as a Nightmare Night haunted house. There was even a sign out front that read “Haunted House: 5 bits. Currently closed due to actual ghosts- we apologize for the inconvenience.”

Essix headed inside and looked around. It all looked pretty normal for a haunted house besides the ectoplasm on the chandelier and the ectoplasm on the carpet (that’ll stain) and the ectoplasm on the unusually large grandfather clock (great grandfather clock?) and the trail of ectoplasm leading up the stairs, undoubtedly towards more ectoplasm. So yeah, aside from the ectoplasm, normal haunted house.

Essix used his telekinesis to scoop up the ectoplasm and put it into Ectoplasmic Containment Carriers, commonly known as heavy-duty trash bags. He kept doing this until he could see no more ectoplasm in the entrance area, so he moved on to the next first-floor room and kept scooping. Now, Essix could’ve just lasered away the ectoplasm, but it was useful for various medical applications when properly altered. In its natural state, it was just goop that smelled weird and stained rugs, but didn’t stain carpets. When altered, it can become a powerful anesthetic and antiseptic, and is widely valued in the worldwide medical community for those very properties. Which was why Essix was collecting it in the Ectoplasmic Containment Carriers. Because it gave him bonus pay. Of course, he could get more bonus pay if he did one of the maid outfit jobs-

“I will never. EVER. Do the maid outfit jobs.” Essix said, not interrupting anyone as no one besides him was there. Well, actually… “Actually what?”

Essix continued his cleaning until the ground floor was clean of ectoplasm, and then headed upstairs, where he immediately came nose-to-nose with a ghost. He couldn’t see the ghost, though, so he just walked right through her. She didn’t seem to mind, though. Also, she wasn’t one of the ectoplasmic ghosts- those are usually rowdy and like to throw things and eat your food just before you bite into it. Stuff like that. No, this ghost was named Key and she looked like an all-white pony with grey eyes that had no pupils or color. And no back legs- instead she had a little squiggly that most ghosts have. You know what I’m talking about, right? The little wibbly wobbly thing that’s kind of like a tail but it replaces the back legs and squiggles when they move? Kind of like an eel, but I feel like calling this ghost pony’s squiggly eel-like would be rude so forget I said that.

Essix ignored the ghost as he couldn’t see her and she wasn’t trying to be problematic, and followed the ectoplasmic trail into an upstairs bedroom that looked like it had been converted into a sort of costume change room for the creatures that worked at the haunted house when it wasn’t being haunted by ectoplasmic entities. He continued scooping the goo off of the floor and ceiling (surprisingly, no goo was on any of the remaining costumes), and then promptly left the room, ignoring the very obvious attic door in the ceiling that had been Absolutely Dripping with ectoplasmic slime. He’ll, uh, come back to that later.

To his surprise, Essix found only a few ghost-goo-blobs in the other upstairs rooms, which was because Key had cleaned a lot of it up by eating it, because she wanted to try to help.

Essix suddenly said “Thank you.” while removing the last remaining glob of goo from the tertiary bathroom’s bathtub, perhaps in an attempt to thank the friendly ghost, but she was not in that room, because she had gone back into the costume room. “Oh. Well, I’ll thank her later.”

After double-checking the rest of the second floor rooms, Essix went back into the costume-bedroom, and pulled the cord to drop the attic stairs.

The attic stairs dropped. And with them, the lake of ectoplasm that had been in the attic started pouring out.

Time slowed- Essix’s eyes went wide. He was fast, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop the flow of ectoplasm from hitting him.

Key, however, was fast, ‘cuz ghosts. She did a ghost thing and made a cool ghost protective barrier over Essix, to protect him from the ectoplasm. Not that ectoplasm did anything bad to ponies- as I said before, it was just goop that smelled weird and stained rugs, but didn’t stain carpets. But it would have been gross and icky and maybe a little funny but mostly gross and icky.

Since ghosts can interact with other ghosts, and also things made by other ghosts, the ectoplasm was deflected by Key’s barrier, all over the costume room. And the costumes.

Essix stood there in stunned silence for a minute. Like, an actual minute. And then he spoke. “Well. Thanks for that. That, uh, would’ve been nasty." Key was very happy to be not only recognized, but thanked. She was so happy, she, uh, well. I’ll mention that later. Essix squinted his eyes for a moment before grabbing more Ectoplasmic Containment Carriers and shoveling ectoplasm into them with his magic. It took him like, forty minutes to get it all, but it would become quite the hefty bonus when he turned it in later. Finally, he headed into the attic and removed the remaining ectoplasm from up there too, which went without incident.

Once he was certain he had gotten all of the ectoplasm into his Ectoplasmic Containment Carriers, Essix took all six of them (they were very big bags) outside. The shuttle was already waiting at the curb, as The Best™ has The Best™ timing. Little play on words for you there. Essix loaded the bags into the back of the shuttle, but instead of getting on himself, he went back into the haunted house.

Essix waited for a moment before calling out “Key? Are you there?” She was, in fact, there. She, uh, she hadn’t left Essix’s side after he thanked her, actually. If he could have heard her, he would have heard her humming a happy little tune.

“Uh, thanks again for your help. I, uh, appreciate it. I guess.” He turned to go, but just before he went out the door, Key gave him another kiss on the cheek. Yeah you read that right. Another. Because she gave him a kiss on the cheek when he thanked her the first time, but, uh, I didn't mention that because, uh, reasons I can’t say without attracting unwanted attention from a certain Alicorn from the Future. Of course, Essix didn’t know any of this. His face flushed for some other reason, of course. Not that anycreature would have been able to see his face turn red through all of the black coat-dye. “I-I’ll see you l-later.” he stammered, suddenly very nervous for no discernible reason whatsoever. And then he left, to first bring the ectoplasm back to The Best™ so he could get his job pay and the ectoplasm bonus, and then back to his house to prepare for his upcoming Not-A-Date with Sunrise Shields.

If you’re wondering, he got like, an extra 200-something bits for all that ectoplasm, which is a lot.

Author's Note:

Look, normal Starlight Glimmer is scary enough, so I do not want to deal with the older, alicornified version.

Comments

[moonbutters]

Anyway anyone that sees this please let me know if you think I could switch this over to an Everyone rating