I Am Thinking About Doing Illegal Things
The door to Dusty Draft’s apartment swung open quickly, but to Shining Armor it seemed to happen in slow motion. It swung back on its hinges interminably slow in his mind as the prince felt his heart beat faster and faster. Would he finally start getting the answers he sought? The tension was unbearable.
It didn’t help that Shining Armor was really, really tired. He’d been through a lot lately.
Finally, the door opened. There was a pony standing in the doorway— a unicorn. This wasn’t Dusty Draft. It was someone else. But Shining wasn’t exactly surprised to see this pony instead of Dusty Draft.
After all, Shining had been running into this pony constantly.
“Hello, how may I help you?” Prince Blueblood asked as he stood in the doorframe of an old man's apartment.
Shining sighed. He was too tired to be annoyed by Blueblood at this point. Maybe he'd started building up an immunity to Blueblood's idiocy over all of their recent interactions. It was like with how some ponies asked snakes to bite them until they were immune to venom.
“What are you doing here, Blueblood?” Shining asked with a heavy sigh.
“For your information, I own this apartment building,” Blueblood said, for some reason trying to sound dignified. “It’s filled with old people, and I hate that fact. Every day I have to check to make sure they’re still alive or else I’ll get charged with negligence again. In exchange, however, all of the old people have to pay me for letting them live in my big house, and I love that.”
“I didn’t know you were a landlord!” Flash Sentry said, sounding much more surprised than he should have been.
“Oh, but I am, yellow man.” Blueblood smiled. For some reason, he seemed to be proud of the fact that he was rich enough to own an apartment. “I own exactly three buildings; my house, this apartment, and the abandoned funhouse on the edge of town where the evil clown lives. I make the evil clown pay rent, too, but I never do anything to stop him from being evil. I could, but I don’t.”
Everyone was very happy about that story.
“Who’s that at the front door?!” A familiar voice from inside the apartment yelled. Shining recognized the voice at once—it was the crotchety throat-vibrations of Old Man Dusty Draft. He could tell because the pegasus's voice sounded like a skeleton shaking hands with a mummy.
It didn’t take very long for the nasty man to hobble his way to the door.
As soon as he saw Prince Shining Armor’s group, Dusty Draft narrowed his beady little eyes in recognition. Alternatively, his eyes were just covered up by his wrinkly, giant eyelids. Both were equally likely.
“Well, well, well, look who it is! Looks like the Three Dummies finally want to listen to Dusty Draft use all the words about the things he knows!”
The Three Dummies all looked around awkwardly, trying to avoid looking directly at Dusty Draft. It wasn’t easy to come asking for help from somepony that you’d dismissed as crazy, even if they were a nutty old weirdo. Shining Armor knew that he and Flash Sentry would need to swallow their pride and apologize.
Thorax didn’t have much pride, so he didn’t really have to swallow anything. He was just dealing with social anxiety.
Flurry Heart also didn’t need to apologize. She was a baby and could get away with anything, especially larceny.
“Dusty… we need your help,” Shining Armor said to the old pegasus. “We need you to tell us what you know about the princesses’ disappearance. We’re willing to listen to you this time.”
“Not that we didn’t listen to you last time,” Thorax added. “It’s just we didn’t take what you said seriously because of how awful and crazy you sounded.”
Shining nodded in agreement.
Dusty Draft took a moment to look over the creatures gathered in his doorway thoughtfully. After a few seconds of contemplation, Dusty gestured for the group to follow him as he walked back into his apartment. Shining shared a relieved look with Thorax and Flash Sentry before he carried Flurry Heart into Draft’s home, the others following after him.
Also, Blueblood was still there.
Dusty Draft led the group into what was probably the living room of his apartment. To say it was sparsely decorated would be an understatement; there was absolutely no furniture. The windows had been boarded up with boards, and the only light came from the miniature chandelier hanging from the ceiling.
The walls were covered with photographs, maps, and charts. Bits of string connected the various pictures, just like Crystal Clear had described. Shining couldn’t make out what the strings represented, though. For instance, Dusty Draft had used a piece of string to connect two identical pictures of himself. Some of the strings were only pinned to one picture, with their other ends dangling down onto the floor. One string connected a picture of a cat to a bowel of cereal sitting on the shelf in Dusty's apartment.
It was bizarre, to say the very least, and Shining understood immediately that Draft was a stallion who was consumed by his work. Even though he was retired, his old job still dominated his lifestyle and his living space. It was so bad that the only normal thing in the room was the life-sized sculpture of himself that Dusty kept in the corner.
Dusty Draft himself had wandered over to the far side of the room, examining a wall that was covered in more pictures than any other. Each of the pictures was of a different water park Dusty Draft had visited, and there were dozens of them. Shining Armor was extremely impressed.
“I always knew this day would come,” he said, keeping his back to his visitors. “Well, I mean, not this day. I mean the day when the princesses went missing. It’d be weird if I’d expected this day to come, you know? Why would I expect for this day to come? I’m not psychic.”
Dusty turned around.
“This almost happened once before,” he explained. “… Again, I’m talking about the princesses vanishing. It nearly happened years ago, when I was one of the EIEIO’s top agents. Of course, back then it was only Celestia who almost went missing. We knew it was going to happen in advance, though, so we were able to stop it. This time, though…”
Draft trailed off and shook his head, a bitter look on his face.
“I made a mistake putting Crystal Clear in charge of the EIEIO,” he grumbled. “I had meant to fire her, but I accidentally got the paperwork mixed up. By the time I’d caught my mistake, I was getting ready to retire and didn’t want to deal with it. But now I realize I should have actually put some effort into letting my successor know that this would happen again.”
“That would have been nice,” Flash Sentry agreed.
Draft simply shrugged, then shook his head again. All of his wrinkles made gross noises whenever he moved.
“I won’t make that mistake again,” Draft said. “I’ll tell you what I know, but I don’t know what good it will do at this point. Maybe if I tell you the story of how we foiled Celestia’s kidnapping last time, you’ll be able to come up with a plan for what to do.”
Dusty Draft wandered to the center of the room and pretended to sit in an imaginary chair. The others gathered around to hear his story. Including Blueblood, for some reason.
“It happened decades ago…” Draft began. “It was so long ago… I guess it must have happened in the past. I was younger then, and Equestria was different. The nightlife was booming like never before, and it felt like the party would never stop. I was out on the town, looking for Princess Celestia at one of her Canterlot hangouts…”
It was midnight in Canterlot, and the city was alive with the glow of neon lights and the funky rhythm of disco music pouring out of a dozen nightclubs. Cool cats and foxy mamas were all stepping out onto the dance floor to groove along to those hot, hot beats. Bellbottoms and bling reigned supreme and ponies were wearing sunglasses inside. It was total madness, and nopony had the common sense to put a stop to it.
The happeningest nightclub in Canterlot at the time was the Abattoir of Funk. It had three whole disco balls. Like on most nights, it was nearly full to capacity, and everything was copacetic. Outta sight.
When the clock struck midnight and the party started to get into full swing, who should walk into the Abattoir of Funk but the baddest secret agent to ever step his platform horseshoes onto the streets of Canterlot? The doors swung open and that young pegasus walked his medallion-wearing self into the club.
Everyone knew who he was. He was the pony who would risk his neck for his fellow pony. The cat who wouldn’t cop out when there was danger all about:
Draft. Darn right.
Draft scanned the club from behind his funky mirrored sunglasses. They were actually prescription mirrored sunglasses, and had been prescribed to him by a disco doctor. But whatever they were, they weren’t showing him what he wanted to see.
“Darn,” Draft muttered to himself funkily. “Not copacetic.”
“Dusty Draft, my man!”
Draft turned to see what brother was trying to chat with him. It was a real jive turkey by the name of Neighsay. Him and Draft were tight, but the Dust-man knew that his boy was a real fool.
“Neighsay,” Draft greeted with a very hip nod as the stallion approached him. “What it is?”
“Hang on.”
Shining Armor interrupted Dusty Draft’s scary story, a confused look on his face.
“Are you trying to tell me that Chancellor Neighsay was alive back then?” Shining asked. “That’s impossible. He’s, like, my dad’s age. Even if he was alive, he wouldn’t be your age. He’d be younger.”
Dusty Draft glared at Shining Armor. Obviously, the old geezer didn't like being interrupted while telling a story.
“Listen, boy,” he said, waving a hoof at the prince. “I can’t be bothered to remember the names and faces of everypony in this story. If I choose to replace someone with someone else, it’s for convenience’s sake!”
Blueblood nodded. “He has a point, Shining Armor. That’s just basic storytelling.”
Shining Armor hung his head in shame. Flurry Heart reached up and squeezed his nose. This did nothing to make him feel better.
“But fine,” Dusty Draft grumbled irritably. “If it really bothers you that much, I’ll replace him with someone more appropriate, then, Mr. Complainington.”
“Thorax,” Draft greeted with a very hip nod as the Changeling approached him. “What it is?”
“Ey, that’s what I’m talking about,” Thorax said. He and Draft slapped hooves. They were definitely with it.
“Dig this, my friend,” Draft said as the song playing switched from ‘Arrested for Dancing at the Post Office’ to ‘My Legs Have Been Cursed With Dancing Energy’. “I need the skinny on Princess Celestia. Some bad mamma-jammas are fixing to work some major mojo, and I need to let her know so she can outfox ‘em.”
Thorax could only shrug his funky shoulders in response.
“Sorry, my man. I ain’t seen her in a twinkling of the witching hour,” he said. “She usually shows up around this time, though. Stick around and you’ll probably see her.”
“Out of sight,” Draft said. “Thanks, Thorax. You’re a real ostrich.”
“I’m a what?” Thorax asked, confused.
Draft rolled his eyes in a way that was totally with it.
“Don’t you peep the lingo?” He asked. “It’s the latest slang. If you’re a real ostrich, it means you’re good at telling spies what they need to know about Princess Celestia.”
Thorax nodded in understanding. “Oh, I get it! Thanks, brother. You’re one hot kettle of soup.”
“I’m a what?” Draft asked, confused.
“It means you know what’s going on,” Thorax explained.
“Oh.” Draft smiled and nodded. “Right on.”
“Cool,” Thorax said. “Well, I gotta go. I'm gonna eat a hot kettle of soup.”
They slapped hooves again a few times in a way that was both funky and fresh. Then Thorax walked away, exiting the flashback.
Draft looked around and made his way to the Abbatoir of Funk’s snack bar. The dance floor was crowded with dancers who were vibrating and shrieking in time with the music, so the line for snacks was pretty much nonexistent. That meant that Draft didn’t need to wait at all to get a seat.
“Dusty Draft!” The pony in charge of the snack bar said when he looked up from the noodles he was tying together. “Haven’t seen you around here in a long time!”
Draft gave the snack barkeep a nod.
“What it is, Starswirl the Bearded?” He asked.
The friendly smile on Starswirl's face turned slowly into a worried frown. After glancing around to make sure he wouldn't be neglecting any customers, the snack-master leaned across the counter to speak quietly with Draft.
“Not so great!” He yelled. “My cousin, Rice Wind? He caught that bug that's been going around. Now he's in quarantine, and they've put him inside of a giant hamster ball. He loves it, but he's still really sick.”
“How unfunky,” Draft said sympathetically. “I'm sorry to hear that, Starswirl. I like your cousin more than you. I wish you were sick instead.”
For some reason, Starswirl looked hurt by that. Draft didn't know why. Maybe it was just because the bearded unicorn was so young. When he got to be Draft's age, maybe he'd understand how hip and with it his cousin was.
But before anypony could start aging, the doors to the Abattoir of Funk swung out onto the street. This was bad, because they were push doors. But the mare standing in the doorway made her own rules, and nopony was going to tell her how to open doors unless they felt like it.
It was Princess Celestia, in all her glory. Back in those days, she'd been big on hitting the discos and partying all night. She strode into the club, larger than life, her massive platform horseshoes adding to her already impressive height. For just a moment, the dancing and partying came to a halt as everypony stared at Celestia and her glorious, shimmering afro.
Dusty Draft wasn't starstruck, though. He worked for The Mare, and when you worked for The Mare, a lot of the glamour was wiped away. Draft knew that Celestia was a good leader, but she was no goddess. She put her bellbottoms on one leg at a time, just like everypony else who had more than one leg.
It didn't take long for Celestia to notice Draft sitting at the snack bar. Her eyes lit up when she recognized the spymaster of the EIEIO, and she made her way towards him as the music picked back up.
“Dusty Draft!” Celestia exclaimed cheerfully. “What's cracking, youngblood? Surprised to see you at this joint. You here for your gig, or is this strictly social?”
Draft looked for a drink to nonchalantly sip from while he spoke to Celestia. Unfortunately, he couldn't find anything. He settled instead for grabbing a pepper shaker, opening it up, and pouring all of its contents into his mouth at once. Then he wiped his mouth on the back of his hoof and looked Celestia in the eyes.
“I'm afraid I've got a real bummer for you, your highness,” he said. “You and me need to confab, 'cause things are getting real freaky-deaky.”
The seriousness of his words wiped the smile off of Celestia's face. She nodded understandingly and sat on the stool next to his.
“Lay it out for me, my corn pipe,” Celestia said solemnly. “What's the skinny?”
Dusty Draft proceeded to tell her what the skinny was.
“You're in danger,” he said. “We need to get you to safety, Princess Celestia. I have evidence that suggests someone might be planning to kidnap you, ya dig? This situation's a real turkey, my mango.”
Celestia's eyes widened, and did not stop widening for the next three minutes.
“Jeepers creepers!” She exclaimed in a shocked whisper. “Why would anyone want to kidnap me and my afro?”
“I've got my theories, but nothing concrete.” Draft said as he reached into his cool vest. “All I know is that, if it's going down, it's gonna go down tonight. We need to get you somewhere safe. Or at least safer than a disco, which is literally one of the most dangerous places you can be.”
Princess Celestia gave it some thought.
“Let's head back to my castle,” she said. “I can lock myself in my bathroom, and the kidnapper won't be able to get to me without seeming really gross.”
This was a great plan, and it would have totally worked. But when Celestia and Dusty Draft got up from their seats and began to walk away from the snack bar, they had no way of knowing it was already too late. Nevertheless, they sprinted quickly towards the door.
“Not so fast!” A pair of voices yelled from out on the dance floor.
Celestia and Dusty Draft slowed down to a leisurely trot.
“That's better!” The voices said. “You shouldn't run indoors! Also, I am a kidnapper!”
The music playing in the club came to a stop. This was because the DJ had fallen asleep. As the ponies who had been infected with dancing out on the floor came to a slow, confused stop, a single figure rose up from among the crowd.
It was a large, centaur-like creature with impossibly long arms. Its bulbous head hung languidly to the side, and there was an expression on its face that clearly indicated how much it loved abducting things. The creature's hooves made nasty squishing sounds as it approached Celestia and Dusty Draft, stepping into clearer view.
When Draft got a better look at the creature, though, he was horrified to realize that it was no centaur. Instead of just having the lower half of an equine, this creature had an entire pony, complete with neck and head. The ape-like body of the centaur sprouted out from the center of the pony's back, and its nasty arms dragged on the floor as its horse body carried it forward.
Draft looked at the creature's horse-head, and it stared back at him with a single, glowing red eye. Its bottom lip was pierced, and it was wearing a trucker hat on top of its horsey head. The trucker hat read 'I AM THINKING ABOUT DOING ILLEGAL THINGS AND I LOVE IT.' The hat also had a picture of a bass fish on it.
“Good gosh!” One of the dancers out on the floor exclaimed. “They're not wearing any bell-bottoms!”
The entire crowd gasped in terror. This included the two-headed monster, for some reason.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” the creature's ape head said. It raised one of its long arms and pointed at itself with a pointy finger. “My name is Dennis.”
He pointed down at the horse creature that made up its lower half.
“And this,” he said, “is The Robert Bruce Experience.”
The horse head nodded. “Aye.”
“We are here to do a shoplifting of your person,” Dennis said to Princess Celestia with a lopsided grin. “We are going to take you from this place and put you in another place against your will. Then we won't let you leave, even if you ask us very nicely. It is very rude, this thing we're doing.”
“My name is The Robert Bruce Experience,” The Robert Bruce Experience said.
“He is! And you can't stop him!” Dennis tried to nod his over-sized head, but it just kind of fell forward and dangled there.
Everypony stared at the two-headed monster who was not funky at all, except for a couple of ponies in the back of the club who were having a very interesting conversation. No one had ever seen a monster like this before. If this bizarre mishmash of creatures had a name, there was no way of knowing it. It defied definition.
“Oh, a nuckelavee,” Shining said.
Dusty Draft was momentarily snapped out of his storytelling to stare at Shining in confusion.
“... A what?” He asked.
“You know, a nuckelavee,” Shining repeated. “The monster you're describing? A pony with, like, an ape's upper body growing out of its back? That's a nuckelavee. Everypony knows that. I read about them in my old O&O Monster Manual. How do you not know this?”
Draft glared at Shining Armor irritably.
“Look, sonny,” he growled. “Just because you know what that thing was called doesn't mean anyone else does. So why should I know anything about--?”
“Weren't the nuckelavee one of Grogar's last creations?” Blueblood asked, interrupting Draft. “I remember hearing that he made the nuckelavee right before Gusty the Great stole his magic bell and then beat him in a cage match.”
Draft stared at Blueblood in disbelief. If Blueblood knew something, Dusty Draft had no excuse for not knowing it. He was the true fool.
Utterly defeated, he cleared his throat and continued on with his boring story.
Draft looked at the two chuckleheads who were were the same chucklehead. He narrowed his eyes. These guys were bad news, but they were also very unhip. Also, they smelled like dead fish, which wasn't with it at all. Someone had to teach these jive turkeys a lesson, and that someone was Dusty Draft.
He didn't get a chance to, though; Celestia started talking before he could.
“You've got a lot of nerve to try and kidnap me in my favorite place to pretend I can dance!” Princess Celestia said, boldly taking a step forward. Then she boldly took a step sideways. “What makes you think I'll come along quietly?”
Dennis and the Robert Bruce Experience both laughed. It was very clear, however, that neither of them knew how to laugh, so they just made weird croaking noises. They made these noises for two minutes, then stopped.
“You don't have a choice!” Dennis said proudly. “We are going to cast a very good spell that will turn you into a kidnapping victim! It'll be great! Once you're trapped in our secret lair off the coast of Seaweedattle, we'll use your magic to spread a disease all across Equestria! We've already got a cool, like, magic battery thing that we're going to put you inside of!”
“I agree!” The Robert Bruce Experience added.
Dusty Draft narrowed his eyes even more. By this point, his eyes were completely closed.
“Why are you telling us all this?”
The smug, sinister smiles that Dennis and the Robert Bruce Experience had been sporting turned into confused frowns.
“I don't understand the question,” Dennis said.
“Wouldn't it have been better to keep this a secret, my man?” Draft asked. “Now that Princess Celestia knows your plan, she can, like... defend herself, or blast you with her magic. Really seems like you're shooting yourself in the hoof here.”
Dennis blinked. He looked down at the Robert Bruce Experience, who had the same confused expression as him. After a moment, Dennis looked back up, the confidence he'd previously had completely gone.
“Well... You see, the reason is...” He said slowly. “Uh... I mean... Well, it's... rude to keep secrets? I guess?”
Somepony out on the dance floor that Draft couldn't see laughed at the monster. They deserved it. Draft found himself chuckling, too He let out a small, very funky laugh under his breath.
Dennis and the Robert Bruce Experience whipped their heads around to glare at Draft furiously.
“This isn't funny!” Dennis snapped. “I'm going to kidnap your princess and give you all a very bad disease! I'm a very genuine threat! Take me serious, dad!”
The look of rage on Dennis's face turned into one of shock once he realized what he'd just said. He tried to look around, but since his head just sort of dangled off to the side, he wasn't able to check and see if anyone had noticed what he'd said. Regardless of whether or not his head could move, though, Dennis looked mortified.
“Hey!” A pony by the name of Funkenstein's Monster cried out. “That big guy who's two guys called Dusty Draft 'dad', even though he is in fact not his dad! What a humorous slip-up! Let's ridicule him!”
Soon, the Abattoir of Funk was filled with the wet gargling sounds that ponies made when they were amused. It was always funny when a monster made a verbal mistake like that, and everyone loved it. Even Princess Celestia, who was still slightly on-guard due to the threat of being kidnapped, found herself laughing.
Dennis scowled, furious about the fact that he was totally getting owned in this night club.
“Shut up!” He yelled. “We'll see how funny you think it is when I kidnap your dumb princess!”
Oh, right. Everypony had been so busy laughing at this monster's lameness that they'd forgotten what he was doing here. The laughter died down as Dennis lifted his hands into the air and began wiggling his fingers in a disgustingly magical way. A strange, orange aura enveloped the two-headed beast, and the air was filled with the mystical sounds of goats screaming.
“Oh no!” Dusty Draft exclaimed. “I should do something!”
Draft continued to watch as the two-headed monster that literally no one knew the name of cast its awful spell. Soon, Dennis flung his hands forward. The orange aura of magic surrounding him flew forward all at once, rushing through the air towards Celestia. Tendrils of hungry magic seemed to reach out for the Princess as the blob of energy raced towards her. The air howled as it flew towards her like a bolt of lightning. In less than a second, it was mere inches from ensnaring her.
Celestia blasted it out of the air with her magic and it disappeared.
Dennis slowly lowered his hands as the spell he'd cast faded away. For a moment, the nuckelavee was stunned. He and the Robert Bruce Experience stared at Celestia in disbelief.
“... Oh,” Dennis croaked. “Oh, you just... kinda ruined our whole plan.”
“I told you we should have brought a sack,” the Robert Bruce Experience grumbled. “Nopony can resist getting crammed into a kidnapping sack.”
Celestia took a single step forward, bringing her hoof down hard onto the stone floor of the Abattoir of Funk. The sound of her golden platform shoe stomping into the ground drew a worried look from both of the nuckelavee's heads. There was a serious expression on Celestia's face, unlike everyone else in the club, who was still quietly laughing at the nuckelavee.
“It's over, you turkeys.” Celestia said, using the most savage insult in the current parlance. “You tried to kidnap me, and you did a real bad job. Now it's time for you to boogey on down to the cooler. By which I mean jail. By which I mean Tartarus. And you can dig that.”
As it turned out, however, they couldn't dig it. Before Celestia could cast her own spell that would teleport the nuckelavee into Tartarus, the awful horse-ape scrambled and ran back towards the dance floor. They charged through the crowd of ponies who had been watching his terrible kidnapping attempt. Nopony tried to stop the nuckelavee because they didn't care.
Celestia squinted her eyes as the nuckelavee disappeared into the crowd of ponies. She was trying to get a clear shot at the monster, but Dusty Draft could tell she wouldn't be able to get it. There were just too many ponies out on the dance floor. Why were they still on the dance floor if they weren't dancing? That seemed like a bad decision.
While Celestia's horn crackled with magical energy, Draft took it upon himself to try and get a better view. Using his wings, he lifted himself up into the air until he could look down on the dance floor. From this vantage point, he could see that the nuckelavee was pushing their way to the very back of the crowd.
“They're going to come out on the other side!” Draft yelled down at Celestia.
The princess thought for a moment. Then, she gasped. “He must be trying to get to the bathrooms so he can escape!”
“Oh no!” Dusty Draft said in a way that made it very clear that this wasn't groovy. “You have to go through the dance floor to get to the bathrooms? That's inconvenient club design!”
“Go after him, Draft!” Celestia ordered. “If he goes into the stallions' restroom, I won't be able to follow him!”
Draft nodded. He looked back down at the crowd of dancing ponies. Unfortunately, while he and Celestia had been talking, the nuckelavee had made it into the stallion's bathroom.
“What a bummer!” Dusty Draft exclaimed.
There was no more time to waste. Draft soared over the dance floor, above the ponies who were still just standing around and watching what was happening. He barged into the stallions' bathroom, throwing his body into the door as he flew in.
Draft entered just in time to see one of the stall doors slam shut. Then, almost immediately, he heard the sound of a toilet flushing.
“No!” Draft exclaimed as he realized what was about to happen.
The pegasus raced to the stall with the closed door. Sure enough, the flushing sound was coming from inside. Thankfully, none of the bathroom stalls in the Abattoir of Funk had locks. Draft flung the door open and looked inside, only to discover he was too late.
The stall was empty. The only thing to look out was the toilet refilling with water after it finished its flushing. Draft roared in frustration as the water bubbled back up through the pipes.
The nuckelavee had escaped by flushing themselves down the toilet.
“Not dy-no-mite!” Draft swore. He ripped off his cool sunglasses and threw them to the linoleum floor in anger. Then he took out a second pair of sunglasses and did it again. Finally, after taking a moment to calm down and steal all of the paper towels, he left the bathroom.
Princess Celestia landed in front of the door just as Draft left. All she needed was to see the look on Draft's face to know the nuckelavee had escaped.
“This isn't outta sight at all,” Celestia grumbled. “Do you know where those pipes go?”
Draft shook his head. “No one does. No one has ever cared about the sewers. All I know is that all of our sewer water gets boxed and shipped off to Seaweedattle so it can be dumped into the ocean for no reason.”
Celestia sighed.
“This is so totally bogus,” she said sternly. “Oh, well. I don't think we'll need to worry about them for the time being. But we should be prepared for in case they ever try to make another kidnapping attempt. There's always a chance they could become powerful enough to successfully cast a kidnapping spell.”
Draft raised an eyebrow. “How long would that take?”
“Oh, I couldn't say for sure.” Celestia shrugged. “If I had to guess, though, I'd say it would take several decades for them to amass enough power. Heck, in that amount of time, they could learn to cast a spell that would kidnap four or five princesses, plus five non-alicorns and maybe a small dragon. This is all just a theory, though.”
“So we just have all of that useless guesswork?” Draft asked., already growing frustrated
Celestia nodded, an understanding look on her funky face.
“Unfortunately, yes,” she said. “But don't worry. We have plenty of time to find this nuckelavee. As long as you don't go insane and ponies stop taking you seriously, there shouldn't be any problems.”
“Yeah, sure,” Draft said. He wasn't really paying attention. He was thinking about how great it would be to go insane after he retired.
Celestia looked away from Draft as the music began to play. The DJ had woken up and started playing the number-one disco hit, 'Screaming Instead of Singing For Eight Solid Minutes.' Almost immediately, the mood in the Abattoir of Funk lightened. The ponies on the dance floor went back to trying to jump up and steal the disco ball.
A small smile formed on Celestia's face. She turned back to Draft and gave him a friendly nod.
“That's enough work, though,” she said. “I think it's time for you to go out on the dance floor and show off your famous dancing tricks. Come on, snake, let's rattle.”
Dusty Draft nodded. “I can dig it.”
Princess Celestia and her spymaster began to make their way out to the dance floor. But before Draft could show off any of his moves, like 'The Manehattan Splits' or 'The Trottingham Limb Devastation', the music once again came to a stop. Ponies looked around in unhip confusion as the club's lights all turned on.
At the very front of the club, the door to the manager's office opened up. The owner of the Abattoir of Funk stepped out of his office. It was Prince Blueblood, obviously, because he was definitely alive back then.
“Hey, guys, it's me; Prince Blueblood,” Prince Blueblood announced. “I'm in the flashback now. Dusty Draft definitely isn't misremembering anything. Anyway, I'm here to let you know that we're closing down. Disco is dead, so everyone has to go home.”
There were murmurs and groans of disappointment all throughout the club. Everypony took off their gold jewelery, platform horseshoes, and afros and left the club dejected. When they got home, they would all have to start dressing into bright clothes with big shoulders and get their manes permed.
It was the end of an era. The world would never be the same.
Literally nobody cared.
“That was the end for me being cool. I was never cool again,” Dusty Draft said with a tear in his eye. He shook his old head, shaking his dentures around noisily in his mouth as he did so. “All the cool detectives started wearing white suits and sunglasses, but I was never able to find any that fit me.”
The incredibly old, useless pegasus sighed.
“You're probably wondering why I told you all that,” Draft said as he looked up. “It's because I need you to understand how cool I used to be. I was really great. You should all feel sorry for me and stop being mean. I don't like young people, and I once punched a yak in the face. This is the end of my old man story. Thank you for coming. I--”
“Draft?” Blueblood interrupted. “They're all gone.”
Dusty Draft blinked. He looked around with his old, greasy eyeballs. Sure enough, Shining, Flash, Thorax, and Flurry weren't in his apartment anymore.
“... When did they leave?!” Draft asked in confusion.
“A while ago,” Blueblood said. “Right after you mentioned that the nuckelavee had a secret base near Seaweedattle. I think they left because you were so boring and terrible.”
Draft thought about this for a bit. It made sense. His story had been mostly an excuse to tell them that Celestia used to have an afro. Also, he had taken the time to hum all of the disco songs from the story in their entirety just to make things more boring.
“Why are you still here, then?” Draft asked, looking up at Blueblood.
“I'm still waiting to make sure you're still alive so I don't go to jail for negligence again,” Blueblood answered. “After listening to you talk for nearly an hour, I'm still not sure if you're dead or not. Are you dead?”
The many wrinkles in Dusty Draft's face contorted in such a way that attempted to convey anger.
“No, I'm not dead!” He snappped.
“Okay,” Blueblood said. “You owe me 800 bits in rent, then.”
With that, Blueblood left.
Dusty Draft immeditaely forgot everything that had just happened.
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I worry that the story may have just peaked. Where else is there to go?
So.
The moment Dusty [1]walked into the Abbatoir of Funk, my brain instantly supplied backing music in the form of That One Song by the Bee Gees That They Always Play and didn't stop. Leading me to the conclusion that all of the songs at the disco were in fact, That One Song by the Bee Gees,
(Would that be here the Gee Gees...?
...
...
I'm so sorry, everyone.)
In the context of this story, that would actually make a lot of sense.
[1]It wasn't until half paragraph later the reality of What You Had Done There with Draft (how long had you planned that?!) hit me.
10137568
The entire reason he was named Draft was so I could set up this joke.
I've peaked as a writer.