Love Stealing Is Optimal (Twilight Sparkle Hacks the Neightrix and Tries to Invent the Singularity with Benefits)

by Mockingbirb

All You Need Is Love

Twilight slowly awoke in her bed at the Castle of Friendship. She heard a familar voice from outside the room. "Twilight?" Spike said. "I brought you breakfast in bed."

Twilight slowly stretched. "Oh, Spike, you're so thoughtful. Unlike SOME ponies. Come in."

The door opened, letting Twilight see a tray of delicious-smelling food, carried by a creature with a shiny, smooth, colorless face. Nasty-looking fangs protruded from the face's mouth.

"NOOOO!" Twilight shouted. "The world IS controlled by changelings! It was real!" She fainted.

Spike pulled off his changeling mask and yelled, "Rainbow! It worked, but not the way we wanted it to. She was so scared she fainted!"

Rainbow walked into the room. "Ha ha ha! We pranked her good!"

"TOO good," Spike complained. "When she wakes up, she's going to be SO MAD."

Rainbow shrugged. "I'll be long out of here by the time she wakes up. Unless I think of a good idea to double-prank her when she wakes up the second time!" Rainbow leaped into the air, excitedly flying around the room. "What would be a good follow-up?"

"Great idea, Rainbow," Spike said sarcastically. "You can do that, while I find somewhere to hide."

"Right, Spike! The prank will probably work better if she doesn't see you."

Spike huffed in exasperation. "Or maybe I should stay here, just to keep an eye on you." He glared at Rainbow. "Doesn't it make you think about how you live your life, when a baby dragon has to be the responsible grown-up around here?"

"I'm plenty responsible! I work a job as a weather pegasus! I have my own cloud house! I clean it up myself...mostly...often enough that it's hardly ever completely full of pizza boxes!"

Spike shouted, "That's because after a while, the pizza boxes just drift down through the cloud floor and litter the whole field under your house! That's not responsibility! That's the exact opposite of responsibility!"

Twilight started to move languidly. "Ha," she said.

Spike ran to her side. "Twilight? Are you ok?"

Twilight smiled. "I just had a really weird dream." She opened her eyes. "Should I tell Rupert?"

Spike reached out to touch her hoof. "Who's Rupert?"

Twilight grinned. "That's a relief. So the whole thing really was a dream, from Rupert on."

Rainbow asked, "Who's Rupert?"

Twilight insisted, "That's not important. What's important is, I'm awake now. In a world where I have the best friends ever. And I love them and they love me."

Spike hugged Twilight. "We sure do! You're my best big sister ever! Except maybe if I count dragons and FOSTER FOSTER sisters. Because Ember's pretty cool too."

Twilight snorted. "I guess I'm okay with maybe being number two, if it means I'm a FOSTER FOSTER FOSTER sister to the queen of the Dragonlands. Really, once I became an alicorn it was probably inevitable. Everypony says royalty are kind of inbred."

Twilight turned towards Rainbow, which involved constant additional movements as the pegasus kept flitting around the room. "So how about you, awesome pegasus? Aren't you happy to have friends who LOVE YOU?"

Rainbow blushed. "You know I'm not into mushy stuff, Twilight."

Twilight snorted. "Says the pony who isn't afraid to scare the wingfeathers off me before I even finish waking up. But saying 'I love you too?' THAT'S too tough for her to handle!"

Rainbow blushed more deeply. "See you later!" she shouted as she flew out of the room. Judging by the echoing thuds, she didn't crash into the walls more than two or three times as she fled.

Author's Note

"Friendship is Optimal" is also a story.

Comments

[fanreader999999]

Satire?

[Mockingbirb]

10682301
What, did you think I was 100% serious?

[FanOfMostEverything]

You and Rupert...you and a million other ponies constantly dreaming of their disgustingly self-indulgent little OCs.

"OCs?"
"Oneiric Casanovas. Would that I could be rid of the lot of them."

In any case, this honestly felt more like a send-up of The Price of a Smile than FiO. Goofy fun, but it definitely got didactic at points, to the extent that Luna started bobbling her second-person pronouns. Still, entertaining more often than not. Let's just hope Twilight doesn't get any bright ideas involving syringes and Thorax...

[hamster wizard]

Poor Twilight. Ever since her entry level philosophy class she's become quite insufferable.

Overall not the worst review of The Matrix I've read.

[Mockingbirb]

10682324
There's some pretty usable stuff in that comment of yours (the first [on my todo list] being including that I can polish or Luna-standardize Luna's dialog, which is the easiest first thing to do.) Thanks!

Update: Since reading your comment I did that absolutely easiest Lunaspeak standardization stuff, although I probably missed some things.

Of course, the observations from you that are hardest to apply might not see application until future stories (one hopes I will get full benefit from them at least then.)