Time Turner is preparing for the most important lecture of his life. One wrong move will mess up everything. Thankfully, his friends are there to help him relax. The problem is not his friends being sociopaths, but his friends being mad at him too.
Time Turner is preparing for the most important lecture of his life. However, he's so nervous he feels like one wrong move will mess up everything. Thankfully, his friends are there to help him relax.
The problem is not that his friends are sociopaths. The problem is that they are sociopaths and mad at him.
“Look,” Derpy said, smiling warmly at Turner and taking him by his hoof, both to comfort him and to prevent him from biting his hooves again, “I still think you’re overreacting. It’s not such a huge deal, and you know it.”
“Easy for you to say that!” Turner shook his head and gulped, sweat running down his forehead. “My whole career depends on this afternoon, and I know it’s going to go horribly wrong!”
“Oh, come on!” She rolled her eyes. “Doc, you’re brilliant. You’re better than all of those old ponies together. Nothing can go wrong as long as you don’t set fire to their beards.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “But what if I forget it?!”
Derpy shook her head. “You have it perfectly memorized.”
“What if they don’t like it?!”
“They will.”
“WHAT IF I’VE MADE A MISTAKE AND EVERYTHING GOES WRONG AND I’M EXPELLED?!”
Derpy sighed. It was going to be a very long day.
The two had been sitting on that sofa for hours. Derpy loved that piece of furniture—it was big, it was comfortable, and it was perfect for snuggling. Yes, she had never snuggled with Turner on there yet, but she had high hopes.
They were, of course, at Turner’s place. Derpy had spent the night there, as he had been too much of a nervous wreck to be left alone. Sadly, that hadn’t changed with the morning.
“I’m pretty sure you haven’t made any mistakes, Doc. You’re going to nail it, and then we’ll go to the pub and we’ll celebrate, okay?” Derpy got closer to him and put a foreleg over his shoulders. “Come on, I’ll be there for you.” She blushed a little. She had learned how to blush at will a long time ago. “I’m pretty sure I can do something to help you relax, right? We can get a little more comfortable, and…”
“Uh, no, thanks.” Turner coughed and moved a couple inches away from Derpy, enough for their flanks to stop touching. He then put Derpy’s leg away. “Right now I believe that thinking about, um, celebrations won’t do me any good.”
Derpy frowned and got closer to him again, still blushing. “What do you mean? You need to calm down. Relax a little…”
“No, I need to concentrate. I have everything memorized, but all it takes is a simple mishap, and—”
He was interrupted by the sound of the main door opening.
“Fuck, no.” Both Derpy and Turner muttered at the same time, and then Derpy got up and flew as fast as she could to the door, just in time to see four of her friends about to enter the house.
“The hell are you doing here?!” she whispered, frowning. Octavia, Vinyl, Carrot Top, and Lyra were standing there, with Vinyl levitating her keys to Turner’s house. “Get out this very instant!”
“Cool, you’re here.” Vinyl smirked at Derpy and pushed her away, getting in with no trouble. “We went to your place before and saw that you weren’t there. I should have guessed you’d be here. Is Turner home?”
“You dick!”
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’ Better luck next time!” Vinyl stuck out her tongue and entered the house, quickly followed by Lyra and Carrot, the latter nodding at Derpy as a greeting.
Octavia was the one who stayed there. “Hello, Derpy,” she said. “I take from your words that we are not welcome here?”
Derpy bared her teeth and flew back a couple meters, stopping Vinyl and the others. “No, you aren’t!” she said. “Doc has a very important lecture in a couple hours, and we were spending some quality time together! Get the hell out of here before he hears you!”
“Wait, he has a lecture?” Lyra chuckled. “Well, that’s interesting. Is he nervous?”
Derpy glared at her. “Yeah, pretty much. That’s why I was trying to…”
“Get in his bed?”
“I was going to say ‘calm him down.’ But yeah, that one too. So, if you don’t mind…”
Carrot frowned. “What’s a lecture?”
“Screw my life. Not only one, but four of you assholes are here?!”
Derpy bit her lip. Too late. Turner was at the other side of the corridor, looking at them with a worried look. “Doc…” she said.
He sighed and turned back to the hall. “A drink and you’re gone, sorry. I’m not in the mood today,” he said. “And can I ask you a favor? Don’t be irritating. I know that’s quite the deal for you, girls, but you can at least try.”
As Vinyl, Lyra, and Carrot Top followed him to the hall, Derpy and Octavia were left alone in the corridor. Derpy kicked the ground. “Crapbaskets.”
“Come on, dear.” Her friend patted her on the head before walking away. “You can try to seduce him tomorrow.”
“Yeah, but today was perfect,” Derpy said. “I was going to get the socks out in five minutes…”
Time Turner’s house was exactly the kind of house one would expect a respected Doctor in Electrical Engineering to have—big, ugly, and filled with shiny metallic things that went beep when you touched them. None of his friends knew what in the name of Luna his work was, but he had a lot of money and knew how to spend it. The entire gang had spent many hours in that big hall, and soon all of them went to their favorite places while Turner went to the kitchen: Lyra took the entire sofa for herself, Octavia sat elegantly in Turner’s favorite elbow chair, Carrot Top sat on the ground, next to the table, and Vinyl sat on her particular stool, which nopony else used.
Derpy glared daggers at all of them when she got back from the corridor before sitting on the arm of Turner’s usual armchair. “So, enlighten me: What are you doing here?”
“Bon Bon’s working and we’re bored,” said Carrot Top. “Vinyl said we could come here.”
“Yeah, we had nothing to do.” Vinyl looked at Derpy from above her shades. “So I thought that bothering Bon Bon together sounded like a plan. I guess that’s changed, though.”
“Let me guess: you’re going to bother me instead,” Turner said, back from the kitchen with a bunch of drinks. Only one was alcoholic, and right after putting all of them on the table, he took it. “Well, congratulations: you’re already doing that. You’re always doing that, by virtue of existing. Especially you, Vinyl.”
Vinyl raised an eyebrow. “Somepony’s grumpy.”
“Is that lecture that important?” Octavia asked.
“Yes.”
“I still don’t know what a lecture is,” Carrot Top said.
Turner growled and sat down on his usual place. Derpy, who was still sitting on the arm of that armchair, started caressing his mane with a wing absentmindedly. “Carrot,” he said, moving his head to avoid Derpy’s feathers, “I’ve been working as a lector for a year and a half now. I spend a quarter of my time in this city giving lectures. I’ve practiced them with you and Derpy countless times.”
Silence.
Carrot frowned. “So… it has to do with your job?”
“Say whatever you want about her, Carrot always brings us top-notch entertainment,” Lyra said, drinking. “You go, girl. You can conquer the world with those deductive abilities.”
Derpy scowled at her. “Lyra, your Bon Bon is showing.”
“I don’t believe it counts as being Bon when you do it to Carrot,” Lyra said, smiling. “It’s like insulting a rock. Am I right, Topsie?”
Carrot squinted her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m comparing you to a piece of granite.”
“Oh.” Carrot blinked. “Thanks?”
“Carrot, being compared to a rock is not good,” Derpy said, still frowning at Lyra. “Don’t be thankful.”
“But I like rocks!”
“That’s adorable, honey.” Octavia looked to Turner, who was glaring daggers at all of them. “So, anyway, what’s the lecture about? Something sciencey?”
“Do you even care?” He sighed. “Honestly, girls, today I’m definitely not in the mood for hanging around. I need to be alone, I need to concentrate on what’s going to happen, because if I mess up, nopony at the university will ever let me live it down, and I’ll be the laughing stock of…”
The words died in his mouth. Everypony, even Carrot Top, was looking at him with a small smirk and a particular gleam in their eyes. Derpy herself noticed she couldn’t help but rise the corners of her mouth a little. “Bad wording, Doc,” she muttered.
“What? Derpy? Oh my effing Celestia, you’re also smirking. Why are you smirking?” He frowned. “I don’t—OH FUCK NO!”
Too late. Carrot Top had already tackled him down.
“Um, excuse me?”
“Hmm.”
“I, uh… I ordered a caffe latte with vanilla.”
“And I’m incredibly happy for you, miss. I couldn’t have made it through the day without that kind of information. Now, if you excuse me, I have more important things to do than talking about drinks with customers, like doing nothing or thinking about setting my own eyelids on fire.”
“Uh. I… Sorry?”
“I am so glad you’re still here, miss. You see, I was totally not trying to word the sentence ‘I don’t care, go away’ in an original way. Far from it! In fact, why don’t you just sit there and explain to me everything you know about your order? Hell, explain to me everything about your life! I’m completely sure it’s going to be interesting enough to keep myself from committing suicide!”
Silence.
“Uh… You… You got me a caffe latte with chocolate. You see, I ordered vanilla, and the flavor...”
Bon Bon sighed. “You know? This is why I love this job. This is why I love this Celestia-forsaken cafeteria: because of whiny customers like you who can totally read between the lines. But come on, don’t stop talking! Keep ranting about caffeinated products! That’s my most favorite activity! Let me experience the joy of me not giving a damn about your order! I’m absolutely sure if you keep annoying me everything will take a turn for the better. In fact, now that I think about it, that has to be the best idea I’ve ever heard: annoy your waitress until everything fixes itself. Yes, you are definitely a genius, miss.”
The customer, a yellow pegasus mare with a pink mane, blinked twice. “B-but… you’re my waitress!”
“Thank you for explaining that to me,” Bon Bon said. “You know, I had no idea. Don’t let the fact that I just said the exact same thing three seconds ago fool you: you totally blew my mind here, miss.”
The mare opened her mouth, then closed it again. She shook her head and frowned. “What kind of service is this?! I am a customer, you’re forced to treat me with some respect!” she yelled. “I demand to talk with your supervisor!”
“Oh, yes. Because I’m so getting him here so you can complain to his face. We have nothing better to do in this shop than taking care of ponies whose coffee is slightly different from what they ordered.”
The mare threw the cup to the floor. “You’ve lost a customer,” she said before going away.
“Great loss. The remorse won’t let me sleep tonight,” Bon Bon said. And for once, she stopped after just one sentence, as the moment the yellow mare opened the door of the cafeteria to walk away, a certain white unicorn crossed it in the opposite direction, walking straight to Bon Bon with a bright smile upon her face.
“And add another pony that won’t ever come back to this store thanks to you, Bon,” Vinyl said, looking at her from above her glasses. “You never disappoint at being horrible, did you know that?”
“Oh, for crying out loud.” Bon Bon massaged her temples. “I’ve dealt with my daily dose of stupidity already, I don’t need you to come here and make my day even worse. What the hell do you want?”
Vinyl smirked. Bon Bon was behind the counter, attending the cash register, so she couldn’t move, and Vinyl knew it. “Can’t a mare just ask for a good ol’ coffee at her friends’ workplace?” she asked.
“Fuck no. Go away.”
“You’re as charming as always, Bon Bon.”
If there was anything she hated more than her job, it was working at that place while her friends were there too. Bon Bon sighed and looked at the ceiling, wondering what she had done in her past life to deserve such torture.
The worst thing was, her friends hung around that stupid cafeteria way too often, so she didn’t even have the relief of it being an extraordinary thing. Then again, Bon Bon did work at the most popular cafe in Canterlot, so the place was always filled with ponies. With green and brown walls and twenty beautiful oak tables, the thing was actually bigger than Bon Bon’s apartment. Which was completely stupid, she always thought, because a place that only serves coffee and that charges fifteen bits per cup didn’t deserve to be popular.
“You can’t imagine how much I enjoy your compliments,” Bon Bon replied. “They are like music to my ears, except that instead of music I just hear the most retarded mare I’ve ever met being a total imbecile. But I absolutely adore that—!”
“Why are you still working here again?” Vinyl looked around. “Every time I come here the place is completely full, and yet you keep scaring ponies away. Anyway, I’m here because I want a coffee, actually. For Turner.”
Bon Bon blinked. “For Turner?”
“Yeah. You see, we went to his place, and turns out he has a very important thing this afternoon.”
Bon Bon rested her hoof against her forehead. “You know, this is incredible. I’ve never cared about something so little in my whole life. I thought that was impossible, as usually I deal with you guys all the time. But this?” Bon Bon nodded. “Yes, this is a new record. Truly an inspiring turn of events: you are talking to me about Turner. It’s like, you know that particular feeling, that mixture between misanthropy, regular hate, and extreme boredom that you develop when you’re trapped in a two-hour-long train trip and there’s a particularly annoying foal sitting right behind you that does nothing but kick your seat? This. This is that. You’ve managed to synthesize that emotion and turn it into a conversation.” She shook her head. “What am I saying? It’s not even a full-length conversation! You’ve managed to make me feel that thing with just a sentence!”
Vinyl frowned. “Would you please shut up? Look, I’m telling you this because—”
“And yet you keep talking! Vinyl, I’m going to try to talk Retard, as apparently that’s the only language you can speak: you are not welcome here, get the fuck away!”
Silence. Bon Bon noticed that at least half of the customers were looking at her with a surprised—or offended, she couldn’t really grasp it—look. Vinyl, on the other hoof, looked unimpressed.
“Are you done?”
Bon Bon glared daggers at her.
“Okay, I’ll take that as a yes. Deep breaths, girl.” Vinyl patted Bon Bon on the head. “You’re even more of an ass when you’re working, did you know that?”
“I hate you so much.”
“Yes, you made that point quite clear.”
“I don’t mean this in an endearing way.” Bon Bon squinted her eyes. “It physically hurts me to interact with you so often.”
“The only reason why I hang around with you is because of the others, darling.” Vinyl said. “So, hey! The feeling is mutual!” She rested a hoof against her chest. “I honestly swear that I absolutely despise you, Bon. And I mean it.” Vinyl took Bon Bon by the shoulders and pulled her closer, pressing their cheeks together above the counter. “I’ve felt hate for others before, yes, but it wasn’t the same. What we have here? This is special.”
Bon Bon sighed. “Are we really doing this?”
“We have a connection, Bon Bon.”
“Do you really think that this joke is original? Because it isn’t.”
“Our detestation can move mountains and cross the stars!”
“I’m going to punch you.”
“We were meant to be! We were born to abhor each other’s guts!”
“I am seriously going to punch you.”
“Hate-marry me, Bon Bon! Let’s make this official! I want everypony to know that I will kick your rotten corpse and then laugh at it once you die!” Vinyl took Bon Bon’s face between her hooves and pressed their noses together. “But first, give me a coffee, because Turner wants to relax.”
Then she released Bon Bon, and as she had been pressed against her side of the counter due to Vinyl pulling from her face, she almost fell to the ground. She managed to regain her balance in time, though, and when she got up, Vinyl was levitating twenty bits in front of her face with her magic.
“You want a coffee to relax him,” Bon Bon said. “Your cleverness still manages to impress me.”
“I said he wants to relax, not that I want him to be relaxed,” Vinyl said. “You see, he said it’s a very important thing for him, and he really really really wants to calm down, or else he’ll mess up and then…” She grinned. “Time Turner will become the laughing stock of the university.”
Bon Bon didn’t say a word for a couple seconds.
“And all of you are at his place at this very moment?”
“Yeah. Octavia and Carrot tied him to his chair so he can’t move. Remember how he put tracking devices in our food? He’s going to pay for it now.”
Bon Bon nodded. “Good.” She took the money with a quick movement. “I’ll bring you an extra caffeinated one.”
Vinyl left the store in a surprisingly bright mood, trying to maintain the giant cup of coffee Bon Bon had given her in balance. She didn’t want to spill any of its content—Time Turner was going to swallow that quarter of a liter of coffee, even if she had to spoon-feed it to him. She was so looking forward to it.
In fact, she was in such a bright mood and so concentrated on not spilling any of the caffeinated madness in front of her she almost failed to notice the white ball of fur that went running straight between her legs.
However, “almost” was the key word here. With the quick reflexes that only a pony that’s planning to screw one of her best friend’s afternoon can have, Vinyl grabbed that unknown mass of hair and meows with her magic and, without missing a beat, she threw it over her shoulder without even looking at it.
That ball of fur was, of course, a cat. A pretty cute one, going by the standard eyes-to-paws ratio. Not like Vinyl would have cared, truth be told, but the cat deserved at least some kind of recognition.
That cat also happened to have an owner. A pretty cute one too, judging again by the standard eyes-to-paws ratio. Which was impressive, as the owner was a little filly and little fillies usually have no paws whatsoever. She was that cute. With a baby blue coat, a lavender mane, and two eyes the size of small watermelons. That little filly, named Tootsie Flute, gasped in a quite adorable way when she saw her quite adorable kitty flying through the air like a quite adorable cannonball.
Luckily for them both, the cat didn’t end up as a quite adorable sticky smudge on a brick wall. Instead, it flew right into what possibly was the tallest tree in the whole city of Canterlot, and managed to grab one of the highest branches instead of falling to a quite adorable—if possibly a little traumatizing for Tootsie Flute—death.
Tootsie stood there, dumbfounded in the middle of the street for a bunch of seconds, enough for her to make sure that her cat was not dying. Then she realized that, judging by the way it was grabbing that branch with a passion usually reserved to your lover or your pillow on a Monday morning, and by the way its pupils turned the size of two particularly small mosquitoes when it looked at the ground, that cat wasn’t getting off that branch by itself.
“Oh, no!” Tootsie Flute said. “My cat is trapped on that tree and can’t climb down!”
Surprisingly, showing off her natural ability to unnecessarily describe what had happened just in front of her eyes didn’t help her cat. Tootsie was not a filly without resources, though.
“Miss!” she said, in a soft, high-pitched tone that might as well had been scientifically designed to be as endearing as possible. “Miss! My kitty!”
“Your kitty,” Vinyl agreed, still looking at her coffee. Turner’s house was pretty close to Bon Bon’s workplace, and she had walked that distance so many times that she didn’t even need to think about what she was doing. “Completely yours, kiddo.”
“No, Miss, you don’t understand!” Tootsie Flute ran towards Vinyl, but the latter didn’t stop. They were almost at the end of the street. “My kitty is trapped in a tree! You need to help me! Please, Miss!”
“Hm, let me think about it for a second.” Vinyl stopped right on the spot. She looked at Tootsie Flute, looking at her with her adorable, enormous eyes. Then she looked at the tree at the other side of the street, with the horrified cat on top of it. Then she looked at the coffee.
Silence.
“Nah. Better things to do.” And then she kept on walking, and before Tootsie could say another word, she had turned around the corner and the little filly was left alone in that street with her tree and her cat.
“Well, I… I guess I’ll ask someone else...”
“L-Lyra?”
“Hmmm?”
“What…?” Turner gulped. “What are you doing?”
“Looking at your eye.”
Turner would have moved away, but that is pretty difficult when one os tied to an armchair. He could move his hind legs a little, but his front ones, his head, and his entire torso were tightly pressed against the back and arms of his seat.
On the one hoof, that was pretty cool, as nopony could realize he was shaking like a madpony. On the other hoof, he was tied to a chair and Lyra was three centimeters away from his face, looking at him with a bored expression.
“I…” Turner licked his lips. “Yes, I see that. My question here is why are you—”
“Found it!” Carrot Top’s voice came from Turner’s room, interrupting him. “Girls, I found it!”
“Oh?” Octavia sounded really impressed. Both Lyra and Turner looked to the right, where the voices were coming from. “Let me see, dear?”
“Here it is!”
Silence.
“Carrot, that’s a can opener.”
“Oh.”
Lyra turned to Turner. “You have a can opener in your room.”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” he answered. “It goes surprisingly well when I need to cut thin metal sheets.”
“I see…” Lyra put her hoof on Turner’s forehead. “Don’t close your eye.”
“Eh, may I ask why you are doing this?”
Lyra raised an eyebrow and put just a tiny little bit of pressure against Turner’s forehead. “I said don’t close that eye,” she muttered, with a voice a grade colder than before.
Turner closed his mouth, opened both eyes wide, and tried to fight back tears.
“Derpy was pretty pissed off when we came here, by the way,” Lyra said absent-mindedly. “I think she wanted to seduce you this morning.”
Turner managed to growl and be scared at the same time. “Yeah, tell me about it. I’m sure she was going to get the socks in five minutes or something.”
“If I cared the slightlest about your business I would recommend you to just screw her and put an end to this whole stupidity,” Lyra said. “But then again, that would be against my personal policy.”
“Of not giving a damn?”
“If somepony’s gonna stab Derpy, it’s going to be me,” Lyra said.
Silence.
“Wow. That was actually funny.” Turner huffed, trying to ignore the fact that Lyra was still looking at his left eye. “I can’t do that, however.”
“You’re gayer than I expected.”
Turner would have rolled his eyes at this, but he was pretty sure Lyra would have stabbed him in the eyeball if he had done so. “It’s more complicated than that and you know it.”
“You still loved when she made out with Octavia.”
“Hey, that was different,” Turner said. “I can look at the menu, I just can’t order.”
“Still mommy issues?”
Turner frowned. “...Partially.”
“You’re pathetic.” Lyra tilted her head to the side. “Anyway, this morning, right after hiding Bon Bon’s reading glasses, a thought came to my mind. I told to myself: ‘Hey, Lyra, you know what would be funny? To grab Turner’s eye and—’”
“Found it!” Carrot interrupted again. “I found it, girls!”
Octavia sighed. “Let me see.”
“Here!”
Silence. Lyra and Turner both looked at the right again.
“Carrot, that’s the same can opener.”
“Oh.”
Then there was the sound of something falling to the ground, and Derpy gasped. “Here it is! It was inside a box!”
“Huh?” Octavia asked. “Oh, good job, Derpy! Wait, it was in his closet?”
“Under his pajamas, yes.”
Lyra looked back at Turner. “Betcha she was sniffing them and found the communicator by accident.”
Turner squinted his eyes. “Thanks for the mental picture.”
Lyra gave him that particular smirk, and Turner’s blood ran cold.
Luckily for him, that was the moment when Carrot, Derpy, and Octavia came back from Turner’s room, holding a white box. “What are you doing?” Derpy asked. “Lyra, get away from him.”
“Why?” Lyra got even closer, her nose against Turner’s cheek. “It’s fun. He’s scared.”
“That’s exactly the reason why you should get away!” Derpy said, separating them. “We’re not scaring him, we’re distracting him—”
Turner sighed. “Celestia. Thanks, Derpy…”
“—so he messes up the lecture later.”
“Oh, come on!”
Lyra shrugged. “You see, it’s just that I decided that, after all, he needs to learn a lesson.”
Turner struggled against the ropes unsuccessfully. “You said you weren’t angry! You literally told me you weren’t angry when we were running to Blueblood’s!”
“She also said that, had she been angry, you would have ended up one-eyed,” Octavia said. “But anyway…” The sound of the main door opening came to the hall. “Oh, Vinyl’s here.”
Turner glared at Derpy. “You were supposed to be my ally here!” he said.
“Hey! Lookie here what I’ve got!” Vinyl said, entering the room with a giant cup of coffee floating in front of her. “Heart-attack inducing; two thirds caffeine and one third sugar!”
“How was Bon?” Carrot asked. “I haven’t seen her in three days. Did you say ‘hi’ on my part?”
“Nah, sorry. I was too busy dealing with Bon Bon acting like a total ass.” Vinyl shook her head. “I swear to Celestia, that mare seriously needs to get laid.”
Turner snickered. Everypony turned at him with puzzled looks.
“Doc,” Derpy said, “I don’t think you’re supposed to laugh in this kind of situation.”
“Yes, I believe it will only make your position worse.”
“You’re supposed to be scared,” Carrot said. “Because of the coffee. It’s for you.”
Turner rolled his eyes, still smiling a little. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Look at how scared I am. It’s just that…” He tried to suppress a chuckle. “What Vinyl said.”
“Did I say something funny?”
“Bon Bon,” replied Turner. “She’s in need of some Bon Boning.”
Silence.
Octavia facehoofed. “Vinyl.”
“Yes, I’m on it.”
Carrot Top observed Vinyl force-feeding that coffee to Turner. He was struggling a lot against it, so almost half the contents of that cup ended up falling on the armchair and on Turner’s chest.
“That coffee is pretty hot,” she said, poking Derpy on her side. “I see the steam.”
“Well, Doc brought that to himself,” Derpy answered. “A little burn on his tongue won’t kill him.”
“I guess.”
Silence. Well, relative silence. Turner’s muffled screams were still there, after all.
“I kind of want to see him giving the lecture now,” Lyra said. “I wonder if he’ll be able to talk.”
Carrot frowned. “So we’re going to go to that thing then?”
“Well, it’s open to the public, if I remember correctly. Doc?”
“OH CELESTIA MY TONGUE HURTS MY CHEST HURTS EVERYTHING HURTS AAAAAA—HMPHBRBGRRRBLBLBLBLBL!” Vinyl closed his mouth with the cup of coffee and forced him to drink again.
“Yeah, it’s open to the public,” Derpy continued. “But he didn’t look like he had trouble talking.”
“We have to work on that.” Lyra turned to Carrot. “Go buy some more coffee, would you? As hot as possible. Lots of caffeine.”
Carrot raised an eyebrow. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
“Because I don’t want to do it, and it’s a task so easy that even a mentally handicapped pony like you could do it.”
“Oh.” Carrot looked at Turner, who was still struggling against the coffee Vinyl was pressing against his mouth. “But I wanted to go with Derpy!”
“With Derpy?” Vinyl looked at the pegasus. “You’re going somewhere?”
“We were thinking about doing so, yeah,” Octavia said. “You see, Turner here wants to concentrate, yes?”
“Uh-huh.”
“BHJRABJRBHBAMY TONGUE IS ON FIRE! STOPAAGBHAGRBHLBRLBRLBGGG—!”
“Sorry, the cup slipped for a second.” Vinyl used her magic to hold Turner’s face a little better. “That’s it. You were saying?”
“We want to distract Turner with cutie marks,” Carrot explained. “Tavi and Derpy have found the communicators!” She pointed at the white box Derpy was holding. “We’ll talk with him and he won’t be able to concentrate. Or something.”
“Yes.” Vinyl looked at Octavia. “Can somepony who didn’t suffer from prenatal oxygen deprivation explain this, please?” She looked at Turner, who had already finished the coffee and was trying to talk. “And you, shut up.” She closed his mouth with magic. “Tavi?”
“Well, truth be told, Carrot got the basics,” Octavia said. “I know that Turner has a personal interest in cutie marks, seeing how his talent…” She waved a hoof. “And he wants to concentrate.”
“Tavi thinks she discovered something interesting about cutie marks the other day,” Derpy said. “She was telling us so before. So we’re going to investigate what was all that about, and we’ll tell Turner every single detail.”
“He won’t be able to ask questions, though,” Lyra said. “That, plus the caffeine, plus physical pain? Yeah, I think he won’t be able to concentrate on anything.”
“Wow.” Vinyl raised an eyebrow. “Cruel. What do you think, Turner?”
“I HATE ALL OF YOU!”
“I take that as a seal of approval!” Vinyl closed Turner’s mouth again, sat down, and clapped her hooves. “Well then, we have a plan. Derpy and Octavia will go… Where are you going again?”
“Do you remember that guy I slept with a couple days ago? Tall, slender, very funny?”
“No.”
“Well, we’re going to see his wife.”
“Oh.” Vinyl bit her lip. “Ouch.”
“Wait. If he’s married, how did you sleep with him?” Carrot asked. “Shouldn’t he… wait a minute. Lyra?”
The unicorn turned to her. “Hmm?”
“Did you insult me?”
“What?”
“You said I was dumb!”
“What are you talk—Ah. Yeah, I said you were mentally handicapped.” Lyra nodded. “Took you a while, huh? By the way, Vinyl also said you were stupid, but she used smart words so you wound’t get it.”
“Wait, what? Lyra! You ass, you betr—AAAAAARGH!”
Thump!
Too late. Carrot Top had already tackled her.
The hottest cellist in Canterlot observed how her three friends fell to the floor and started punching each other. Carrot had the upper hoof at first, tackling Vinyl and Lyra at the same time, somehow. Lyra soon started throwing hits here and there, but poor Vinyl could do nothing but scream and try to run away. Try.
“Well, that will entertain them for a while,” Octavia said. “Do you mind putting one of those in Turner’s ear, Derpy?”
The pegasus just smiled at her and flew to Turner, who was looking at the fight with his tongue out, like a dog. “Come here, Doc,” she said. “Ah, does your tongue still hurt?”
Turner just glared at Derpy.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“You don’t mind me taking Derpy for a walk, right?” Octavia said, smirking. “We’ll contact you whenever we find the cutie mark thingy.” She got closer to him. “Although we both know that you don’t really care about cutie marks, right?” she whispered. “I’m doing this for a completely different reason. I’m pretty sure Derpy and I can talk about something very interesting for her.”
Turner opened his eyes wide. “No. Fuck, no. Don’t you dare to…!”
“To what?” Derpy said, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, you’ll find out. You see, I need to talk with you,” Octavia said. “Right Turner?”
“YOU—”
“Well, Derpy, time for us to go!” Octavia took her pegasus friend by the shoulders and pushed her to the corridor. “Come on, come on! Goodbye, Turner!”
The stallion’s face was so priceless that Tavi was still laughing by the time she and Derpy were on the street, walking towards the southern part of Canterlot.
“Gargh!” Vinyl finally got away from the tornado of legs and teeth that was Lyra and Carrot’s brawl, feeling a stinging pain in her right leg. “Fucking idiots,” she muttered. “Thank you for your help, by the way—ah? Where did those two go?”
Nopony answered. Then again, that was hardly a surprise: Carrot Top and Lyra were too busy fighting each other to talk with her, and Turner still had his mouth magically shut. As for Derpy and Octavia…
“Hey, Turner,” she said, freeing the stallion’s jaw, “where are they?”
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” Turner stuck out his tongue, which Vinyl realized was far redder than usual, and gasped for air like a dog that has ran a marathon recently. “CELESTIA FUCKING DAMMIT, VINYL! I CAN’T FEEL MY FRIGGIN’ TASTE BUDS!”
“Yes, that coffee was hot,” she agreed. Behind her, Lyra tackled Carrot so hard that she flew all the way to the table, causing a giant mess in the whole hall. “Woah, careful you two!”
Lyra smirked at her. “Hey, it’s not my fault. She’s the one who—UGH!”
Bad idea to talk right at that moment. Carrot wasn’t the kind of mare who got knocked out by just a table—she had woken up, and the moment Lyra had looked away, she had punched her so hard in the face that the mint unicorn rolled her eyes back and fell to the ground with a heavy thump!
“Hah!” Carrot said. “That will teach you!” Then she turned to Vinyl. “Now it’s your turn!”
“Now, girl, don’t get all hot-blooded at me, because we have work to do.” The DJ beamed a bright smile at Carrot and approached her. “Look, we both have done things that we regret, right? But we are here for a reason.” She pointed at Turner, who was gasping like a dog. “Him.”
“THERE’S AN INFERNO OF PAIN ON MY TONGUE!”
“See? He can still talk,” Vinyl said. “We are here because we need to take care of him, right? Because he screwed us big time with the tracking devices.”
Carrot glared daggers at Vinyl.
“Don’t give me that look, Top.” She pointed at the unconscious Lyra on the floor. “You already knocked her out, right? I’m pretty sure that you don’t feel like hitting me too, because—wait, is that blood?”
Carrot looked. “Yes.”
“Woah.”
“A lot of blood.”
“It’s certainly making a mess.”
“It goes away with vinegar and bleach.”
“Still, we should probably bring her to the hospital.” Vinyl raised her glasses a little to take a peek at Lyra without those purple lenses in the way. “I’m pretty sure that’s a severe concussion. Where did you hit her, exactly?”
“Left side. Right in the temple.”
“I’m guessing slight brain damage then.”
“Probably.”
“So, she definitely needs a hospital.”
“I have a very hard right hoof.”
Silence. Turner was still gasping for air and whining in pain.
“So anyway,” Vinyl said, turning to Carrot again and walking a little away from Lyra, “Turner here is the priority. If you knock me out, then you can’t go down to buy more coffee!”
Carrot Top frowned. “I need to go buy more coffee?”
“Turner?”
“OH, CELESTIA, NO, PLEASE DON’T DO THAT TO ME!”
“You definitely need to go buy more coffee.” Vinyl put a hoof over Carrot’s shoulders. “Now, my dear and obtuse friend, if you do something to me, then who will take care of Turner? Lyra is out of commission, and we can’t leave him alone. We both know that he might do something nasty, even if he’s all tied up.” She sighed. “I’m really sorry, Topsie, but we all have to make sacrifices now and then.”
Carrot made a pout. “Hm. I guess you’re right…”
“Exactly.” Vinyl nodded. “Now, what if you go down, buy him another coffee, forget that I called you an idiot and—?”
“CARROT, IF YOU DON’T KNOCK HER OUT YOU CAN STILL HIT HER AND GO TO THE CAFETERIA!”
“TURNER YOU FUCK—”
Thump!
Too late. Carrot Top had already tackled Vinyl. Again.
“Okay, Octavia, be serious now: what was that all about?”
“I was messing with Turner, of course!” she replied with a smile.
“Octavia…”
The hottest cellist in Canterlot had been laughing her incredibly sexy ass off for a surprisingly long amount of time. Both she and Derpy had left Turner’s house five minutes ago and were walking to the southern part of the city at the moment. They weren’t exactly alone in the streets—one could never be in Canterlot, the city was too crowded—but they were enjoying a relative peace. “Relative” in the sense that there was no way Octavia could walk into a place with more than two males without attracting more gazes than stars that were in the sky. “I mean it,” she said when she noticed that Derpy was frowning. “You know he’s very interested in cutie marks.”
“And you know he couldn’t care less about it at the moment.” Derpy rolled her eyes. It was quite an interesting sight, as the left one always went clockwise while the right one prefered to roll counterclockwise. “They can’t hear us now, so you can drop the façade, thanks.”
“Oh.” Octavia made a pout. “Was it so obvious?”
“I’m sure that Vinyl and Carrot totally bought it. So yes, it was obvious enough for any pony who’s not stupid.” Derpy snorted. “Come on, what did you want to tell me?”
“Hmm.” Tavi looked at the sky. “You know, I was actually telling the truth.”
A pause. “What?”
“I did find something interesting about cutie marks the other day. I was actually going to tell you all today.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.” Octavia sighed. “Of course, it was also an excuse to talk to you, but you have to appreciate the elegancy of what I did, right?” She licked her lips seductively. Not like she was trying to seduce Derpy; it was just that she had very tasty lips. “And say whatever you want, but I do think that this is going to claim Turner’s attention.”
“He’s been hysterical for twenty four hours straight,” Derpy said. “Believe me, he won’t care.”
“Well, you know him better than I do,” Tavi said. “Which reminds me… I think I should turn this thing on. Come here a minute.”
“You can turn this on from here?” Derpy stopped walking when Octavia approached her to mess with the communicator in her ear. “I thought they were controlled by the computer?”
“They were at first,” Tavi said, finishing with Derpy’s device and working on the one in her ear, “but Turner changed it. Not being able to turn it off almost killed him that night, remember?”
“Oh, yeah. He passed out because of the noise.” Derpy frowned. “Wait, when did Turner do this?”
“I…” Octavia finished with her communicator, and the sound of two ponies fighting came through it immediately. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk about, if only because Turner doesn’t want me to do so. I went to his house on my own a week ago, you see. We stayed awake all night.”
“What the…?”
“OCTAVIA, NO!” Both Tavi and Derpy flinched when Turner yelled at them at the top of his lungs through the communicator. “SHUT UP!”
“Ugh.” Octavia shook her head. “Turner, you’re deafening us. Lower your voice.”
“I WILL LOWER MY VOICE WHEN YOU—!”
“You know I can tell Derpy everything about that night, right?” Tavi interrupted. “So, yeah, shut up.”
“FU—yes. Ahem. Sorry.”
“That’s better.”
Derpy’s frown became even deeper as she approached Octavia, their muzzles only a couple inches away. “Okay, what did exactly happen that night you’re talking about?”
“Absolutely nothing!” Turner said. “Nothing at all!”
“What he said,” Octavia said with a smile. Then, she winked at Derpy and formed the word later with her lips, without making any sound. “Now you’re going to be a good stallion and your voice will be low and calm, right, Turner?”
“Yes, Ma’am! Now, what if you two come back here and don’t talk at all? I’m completely sure that—”
Derpy raised an eyebrow. “You’re blackmailing him? Using me?” She opened her wings a little. “I’m not sure I like that, Tavi. I’m starting to get a little angry here.”
“Controlling stallions is second nature to me, filly.” Octavia pushed Derpy away and kept on walking. The pegasus followed her far closer than needed, still frowning like a mare that just discovered her fiancé is seeing Octavia behind her back. “Relax. Turner and I are just friends, right?”
“Absolutely! We’re such good friends that I want you at my house! Right now! Please?!”
“In fact, we’ve been friends for a very long time. I met him before you did, after all.” Tavi swung her tail and brushed Derpy’s muzzle with it. “Anyway, we were supposed to talk about cutie marks, right? I was—”
BOOM!
“OH, CELESTIA, MY BRAIN!”
Octavia blinked. “Turner, are those three still fighting, by any chance?”
“Lyra is actually unconscious. You know, you can see for yourself if you come back!”
“And Vinyl is alone against Carrot?” Derpy huffed. “She doesn’t stand a chance.”
“Well, tell Carrot to be careful,” Octavia said. “I don’t want Vinyl to develop any serious injury.”
BOOM!
“AGH! MY OTHER BRAIN!”
“...It might be a little late for that, actually,” Turner said.
BOOM!
“OH MY DEAR LUNA, WHY AM I STILL CONSCIOUS?!”
“You know?” Turner’s voice was shaky, Octavia thought. It sounded as if he was trembling. “I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I really think you should come back…”
“Actually, I think we shouldn’t,” Derpy said. “Octavia has to explain a couple things yet, right?”
BOOM!
“ALL I SEE IS BLOOD AND PAIN!”
“Well, I think that’s it!” Carrot’s voice came a little muffled, as she wasn’t talking directly to the communicator. “I’m off to buy more coffee!”
“At least we can talk without background noise now,” Octavia muttered. “Is Vinyl okay?”
Silence.
“Well, she is,” Turner said. “That’s the important thing.”
“Tavi.” Derpy hadn’t closed her wings yet. “Explain. Now.”
“Hmm.” Octavia smirked. “Well, you know that green stallion I hooked up with a week ago? At the bar?”
Derpy raised an eyebrow. “Can you be more specific?”
“The night Vinyl and Lyra hit the karaoke.”
“Oh, yeah. I remember.” Derpy smiled a little, although her frown didn’t disappear. “I slept at Carrot’s that morning. You went off with a green stallion?”
“Yes. And the other day I met his wife in a pub. I recognized her from the photos on the walls, you see. And…” Octavia turned around to smile at Derpy, “turns out she’s a painter.”
“Look, I don’t care.” Derpy shook her head. “I was asking you about—”
“The thing is,” Octavia interrupted, “that she was trying to work on a musical design. Accidentals; pretty simple. The poor mare didn’t know a lot about music, though. She couldn’t tell a flat symbol from a sharp one, and I kindly helped her because my heart is pure and I can’t stand seeing a fellow pony suffering.”
“Of course.” Turner hiccuped. “Oh, Celestia, my stomach is killing me. What was that coffee?”
“I don’t see why this should interest me, Octavia,” Derpy said.
“Well, that’s because you haven’t heard the whole story.” The hottest cellist in Canterlot swung her tail again. “You see, two days after doing that, I saw that picture again.”
“And?”
“And it was decorating a little filly’s flank,” Octavia said. “That mare was designing the cutie mark.”
“Hello, Bon Bon!”
“Oh, for crying out loud. Now I gotta deal with you?!”
Carrot Top smiled. “Yes!”
“Fucking amazing. Let me guess: next one is Lyra.”
“I don’t know. Maybe if she stops bleeding?”
The cafeteria was still completely full with ponies, and at least five of them were close enough to Bon Bon to overhear their conversation. Nopony even flinched at the mention of blood, though. Bon Bon was pretty infamous in the store, and they were used to weird stuff happening around her—and that was mostly the reason why it was so successful. Everypony in Canterlot knew who Bon Bon was, and everypony hated her. So, if the cafeteria was always so full even with her as a waitress, then the coffee had to be spectacular, or that’s what everypony seemed to think. Bon Bon suspected that was one of the two reasons why she hadn’t been fired yet. The other one was that Lyra knew where the manager lived, of course.
“I’m totally sure there’s an amazing story behind that,” Bon said, “and you can’t imagine just how much I do want to know about it. Like, I can hardly wait for that fantastic moment when you explain it to me and totally don’t waste my time because I’m at work and that’s not important at all.” She sighed. “I love seeing you guys when I’m in here, did you know that? And by ‘love’, I mean—”
“Doesn’t matter. Give me a coffee,” Carrot interrupted. “The same one you gave to Vinyl. We’re taking care of Turner!”
Bon Bon blinked. “...Yeah, I didn’t know that. I, uh, it’s not like Vinyl explained it to me, you know. After all, that mare is just so—”
“You didn’t know?” Carrot titled her head to the side. “We’re forcing Turner to pay back for what he did!”
“I—”
“But anyway, give me the coffee.”
Bon Bon frowned. “Did I mention that I love how you’re always coming here and forcing me to waste my time with your stupidity? After all, it’s not like you can make a coffee on your own. Oh, no. You need to come here, because otherwise you wouldn’t be able to piss me off, and Celestia knows that your entire existence has no meaning if you don’t—”
“Oh, you’re right.” Carrot nodded. “We can make the coffee ourselves!” She turned around and headed for the door. “Bye!”
“What the—wait!” Bon slammed her hoof against the counter. “Oi! Don’t go away, you bloody cretin! I already made the stupid coffee!” And she actually had; with a quick movement, she took the cardboard cup from under the counter and put it on the wooden surface.
“Cool!” Carrot came back and took the coffee. “Wow, it’s hot! Thanks!”
And then she headed for the door again.
“Oh, yeah, good idea. Go away without paying me.” Bon Bon said. “Asking for a coffee in a coffee store and not giving a single bit in exchange? You’re a genius. That’s the best idea I’ve ever heard. I now realize I’ve been doing this wrong all my life. We should put you at the head of the Kingdom and let you fix the economy. So, yeah, go away without paying me. It’s not like you’re looking like a fucking dumbass or anythi—”
“Wow, thanks!” Carrot Top said. “Although I don’t think I could fix the economy on my own…”
And then she left the cafeteria without even turning around.
Bon Bon stood there, just looking at the door, for a couple seconds.
“YOU MOTHERFUCK—”
“Er… Miss? Can you please help me get my kitty out of that tree?”
Carrot Top looked at that filly. She was, without any doubt, the most adorable little filly she had seen in her life. Her eyes-to-paws ratio was off the radar. Something impressive, Carrot thought while looking at the little filly’s hoofsies. Something very impressive.
“Kitty?” Carrot put the coffee on the ground. “What kitty?”
The little filly gave her that particular smile that only adorable fillies can give and pointed at one tree at the other side of the street. “That one, Miss! The poor thing is trapped on it, and I can’t reach it!”
Carrot Top frowned. “You want to reach the cat?”
“Yes, Miss! Thanks, Miss!”
“Oh, well.” Carrot smiled back at the foal. “It’s no big trouble.”
“Thank you very—wait, what are—AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
As Tootsie Flute flew across the street, driven by Carrot Top’s incredibly strong toss, she learned two things. First: you gotta word your sentences a little better sometimes. Second: next time an unknown adult grabs you out of the blue, run for your life.
Luckily for her, she grabbed the tree branch in time, so she didn’t fly right into the brick walls to end her days as a quite adorable stain on it.
Hey, at least she could grab her kitty now. A shame she was too busy hugging that branch as tightly as possible. That tree was obscenely tall.
A mare that paints cutie marks. Now, that was interesting, Derpy had to admit it. Usually, she would have been interested.
Usually.
“Tavi, I don’t give a crap,” she said. She could hear Turner gasping through the communicator, and then berated herself internally. “A damn, I mean. We’re not here to talk about cutie marks.”
“Oh, but we are!” Octavia giggled. “Aren’t you interested, Turner?”
“I’m so incredibly hooked by this conversation that I want you to keep talking about it. All the time. While you come back. I don’t know if you’re getting what I mean here.”
“Hmm.” Octavia sighed. “A shame that Derpy wants to talk about something else. Right, Derpy?”
“No!”
“Yes.” Derpy nodded. “Now, if you don’t mind cutting the…” She coughed. “If you don’t mind changing the subject back to what we were talking about before…”
“FUCK, NO!”
“But of course!” Tavi walked towards Derpy and touched her ear. “But of course, this is not about cutie marks, isn’t it? So Turner doesn’t need to hear anything about it…”
“OCTAVIA, DON’T YOU DA—”
Turner’s voice stopped all of a sudden. Then, Octavia messed with her own communicator and grinned at Derpy. “If this doesn’t drive him completely nuts,” she said, “then nothing will. Aren’t I brilliant sometimes?”
Derpy didn’t say a word.
“Oh, please.” Octavia rolled her eyes. “You know that I’m right. I bet he’s yelling at—”
“Octavia,” Derpy interrupted, “I’m going to ask you once more about that night. And I hope that the reason why Doc is so nervous about me knowing about it is because you were planning my birthday.” She squinted her eyes. “Because if that’s not the case…”
“Derpy, my dear.” Octavia shook her head and kept on walking, with Derpy following her by her side. “You don’t need to worry. Absolutely nothing happened that night.”
“Allow me to doubt that.”
“Well, you don’t need to.” Tavi raised an eyebrow. “I’m telling you the truth. I went to Turner’s to ask him for advice, and then I tried to prove something I had been thinking about. He reacted in a…” She laughed. “I’ll say ‘adorable’ way. Turner can be very adorable sometimes, right?”
“Octavia…”
“Look, Turner is my friend.” She frowned at Derpy. “I can go to his house without asking you for permission. He’s not yours, you know?”
“I called dibs on him.”
“Of course you did, my dear.” Octavia stopped for a second, then crossed the street. Derpy followed. “You smelt his pajamas earlier, for crying out loud.”
“Yes, I did.” Derpy huffed. “And guess what? I’m not bothering to stop doing that. Because Doc is so fucking naive that he doesn’t get my advances, no matter how hard I try. And I know that you love being single, Octavia, but I do not.” She frowned. “For Celestia’s sake, I’ve been in love with him for years, and you know it. I haven’t done anything crazy because he’s a good pony and I don’t want to scare him off. I have changed my lifestyle for him. And now I hear that my best friend, who knows all this, has done something to him and now he’s all embarrassed. Excuse me if I’m angry!”
Octavia frowned back. “You’re being a hypocrite.”
“Oh, I am? Look at how many fucks I give!” Derpy raised her hooves to the air. “They’re fucking falling from the sky!”
“Derpy, you—”
“I what?” Derpy bared her teeth. “What are you going to say? What can you say?!”
“You know, you’re offending me here!” Octavia stopped and pushed Derpy away. A couple ponies looked at them, but nopony stopped. “What the fuck are you implying? What kind of pony do you think I am?!”
“I know the kind of pony you are! That’s the bloody problem!” Derpy ran a hoof through her mane. “I’ve been after him for years, and now you do this! Can’t you limit yourself to married ponies in a pub?! You need to go after Doc?!”
“You know, you’re not the one to talk here!” Octavia snorted. “Are you even hearing yourself? Glass houses, Derpy! You can do whatever you want, but Turner can’t? What you are doing is not healthy!”
“I don’t care about it being healthy,” Derpy hissed. “I couldn’t care less about that. Doc is mine. That’s all I need to say.”
“You—”
“Have you ever been in love?” Derpy shook her head. “No. Have you ever been obsessed with somepony? Do you know what it feels like? Doc is literally the most important thing in my life. If any mare tries to go near him, I’ll scare her away.” She looked at Octavia. “If a friend of mine does that, I’ll kill her. Simple as that.”
Silence.
They stood there, looking into each other’s eyes, for what felt like hours to Derpy. Then, slowly, Octavia lowered her gaze.
“You don’t need to do anything,” she said. “He refused.”
Derpy said nothing, but the cold tingle of light in her eyes disappeared.
Octavia turned around and sighed. “I’m not saying sorry for what I did,” she said while starting to walk again. Derpy followed. “He is not yours, no matter what you say. And I still think that way of thinking is unhealthy.”
“I don’t care. You’re an asshole.”
“Figures.” Octavia didn’t look back at her. “I’m still not apologizing. I might as well explain why I did that, though.”
“OCTAVIA, DON’T! SHUT UP! DON’T SAY A WORD!”
No answer. No background noise, either. The communicators were off.
“OCTAVIA, YOU BLOODY IDIOT!” Turner tried to break free from the ropes, unsuccessfully. “TURN ON THE STUPID THING! AAAAAAAARGH!”
“Turner, shut up,” a weak voice said. “Please.”
He blinked. “Wait. You’re still conscious, Vinyl?”
“Apparently.”
Vinyl Scratch was a mess. Surprisingly, she wasn’t a bloody mess, but she sure didn’t look like she could move a lot. She was laying right in front of Turner, face against the floor. Her sunglasses were a couple meters away from her, somewhat unbroken.
“Well, that’s amazing.” Turner sighed. “Can you please untie me? I’m kind of in a hurry.”
“I… actually I don’t think I can,” Vinyl answered, her voice muffled. She wasn’t moving her head. “I think Carrot punched my nervous system away.”
“Welcome to the club. What were you screaming about, Turner?” Lyra asked, walking into the room. Well, maybe walking wasn’t the best way to define what she was doing. It was a weird mixture between a limp and a crawl, and she was still bleeding—drops of red were falling down the right side of her head. “I just got up,” she said when she saw the way Turner was looking at her. “You woke me up with your screaming.” Then she coughed and covered her mouth with a hoof. “Oh, Celestia. I’m going to puke.”
“Welcome to the club,” Vinyl said.
Lyra sat down, resting her back against the wall. “Carrot won this one, I guess.”
Turner sighed. “You’re not untying me either, right?”
“Nah.” Lyra laughed softly. “Not like I could do that even if I wanted, anyway. I feel dizzy.”
“Fucking beautiful,” Turner spat. “Listen, I know that you’re hurt, but can’t you help me here? This is important!”
“You’re so selfless.”
“Time Turner, unselfishness is thy name. Burf.”
“Don’t puke on my floor.”
“No, but really.” Vinyl grunted and moved her head to the side to look at Turner. Her left eye was completely black. “Why were you insulting Tavi?”
He raised an eyebrow. “You look like a panda bear.”
“That sounds like dodging the question. Lyra? Did that sound like dodging a question to you?”
“I taste blood.”
“Yep, you were dodging the question.”
“I love the taste of blood.”
“Oh, for Luna’s mighty gonads.” Turner looked to the ceiling. “Why is Carrot taking such a long time?!”
“I can’t wait for that,” Lyra said. “I’m so biting her ear off when I see her.”
Vinyl frowned. “Can you even walk?”
“No. But I’ll try.”
“Spectacular.”
“You know, you’ve somewhat managed to make the coffee thing look good in hindsight.” Turner frowned at the two semi unconscious unicorns. “I need to get away from here as fucking fast as possible and my only companions have turned into retards.”
“I would like to see you take that hit without dying,” Lyra said. “Anyway, what was that thing about Octavia?”
Turner huffed. “She’s driving me nuts! That’s what’s happening!”
“Yeah, that was kind of the plan.”
“But she’s doing it on purpose!”
“Still part of the plan.”
“It’s not about the cutie marks, right?” Lyra coughed. “You wouldn’t get so hot-blooded about cutie marks.”
“Wait, what?” Vinyl tried to get up, but failed. “Oh, Celestia, my legs are not answering me.”
“Tragic,” Lyra said. “They will work again in a couple minutes. I taught Carrot that trick.”
“No, but really.” Vinyl grunted. “Weren’t you yelling about cutie marks? Wasn’t that a sore point of yours?”
“Yes, fifteen years ago.” Lyra snorted. “You’re an imbecile, Vinyl.”
“And you should have been drowned in holy water when you were born, yet here you are.” Vinyl rolled her eyes. “Ouch. Anyway, what was the screaming about?”
Turner sighed. “Are you going to stop asking?”
“No.”
“Nah.”
“Do you even care about it, or you’re doing this just to annoy me?”
“Annoying.”
“It’s about Octavia, so I care.”
“How romantic.” Lyra coughed. “You’re so fucking cute sometimes, Vinyl.”
The DJ blinked. “You got brain damage, didn’t you?”
“Your voice sounds funny.” Lyra giggled. “Turner, the yelling.”
“Hey, I think Carrot broke her.” Turner struggled against the ropes again. “Oh, Celestia, where the fuck is she?!”
An orange mare stood in the middle of a random street in Canterlot, holding a warm cup of coffee, and looking to the left and to the right with a confused expression. A keen-eyed observer would have thought she was lost.
“Where the fuck am I?!”
A keen-eyed observer would have been right.
“You know, we aren’t letting you go until the time of the lecture comes,” Vinyl said. “Why are you so eager to escape now?”
Turner sighed. “Because it’s important.”
“You know, I’m getting tired of this,” Lyra said. “Turner, I’m going to be honest: I don’t really care about what you are going to say. But explain yourself, or I’m going to punch your liver.”
Silence.
“Why his liver?”
“He knows.”
“You know?”
Turner gulped.
“Woah, he knows!”
“‘Course he does.” Lyra coughed again. “Ugh. I think my vision is less blurry now. Am I still bleeding?”
“Yes.”
“Profusely.”
“Then I guess I need to stop that.” Lyra got up, not without trouble, and limped-crawled to the kitchen. “I can still hear you from here!” she yelled once she was gone. “Talk!”
“IF YOU CAN WALK, THEN YOU CAN UNTIE ME!”
“I’ll untie you if you talk!”
Vinyl frowned. “You will?”
“No.” Lyra appeared back at the hall, this time holding a sheet of paper against her wound. “But he can at least hope, right?” She looked at Turner. “Now, I’m going to ask you one more time.”
After hearing that, Turner made the mistake of looking straight at Lyra’s eyes. Bad idea. She had that look. His blood ran cold.
And then, Turner sighed. “Octavia is going to tell Derpy about something I don’t want her to know,” he said. “Something I really, really, really don’t want her to know.”
“I’m incredibly shocked by that revelation.” Vinyl looked at Lyra. “Aren’t you incredibly shocked by that revelation?”
“I’m speechless.”
“I hate you so much, girls.”
“Yeah.”
“Of course.”
“You can’t even imagine how much I hate you.”
Lyra raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that you’re tied to a chair and I can use magic, right?”
Silence.
“Did I mention how much I love you today, Lyra?”
“Can you please tell us what got you so upset?” Vinyl asked. “How many times do I need to repeat myself?”
Turner blinked. “Would you say that you’ve never repeated a question so many times in a row in your life?”
“What?”
“Would you?”
Vinyl frowned. “I… guess?”
“So…” Turner grinned. “We could say you’re repeating that question so many times you sound like a… scratched vinyl record.”
Silence.
“Okay.” Lyra threw the bloody paper sheet she had been holding against her temple at Vinyl’s face and approached Turner. “Hold this for a second.”
He gulped. “Uh. What are y—?” Punch. “ARGH! MY MUZZLE!” Punch. “ARGH!” Punch. “OH, CELESTIA, MY LIVER!” Punch. “ARGH!” Punch. “PLEASE STOP!” Punch. “MY LIVER AGAIN!” Punch. “ARGH!”
Lyra blew on her hoof to cool it down. “That’ll teach you. You’re lucky I can’t do anything else like this.”
“I…” He coughed. “I think I’m going to puke…”
Lyra rolled her eyes. “Welcome to the club. Now, talk.”
Turner gulped. Part of him wanted to keep the whole thing a secret. Part of him.
“We’re waiting,” Vinyl said.
He sighed. “Octavia tried to seduce me, but I said no.”
Silence.
Absolute silence. Lyra stood there, looking at him with a blank expression. Vinyl blinked a few times.
“Lyra?”
“Yes, Vinyl?”
“Do you mind buying a coffee? Carrot is not coming, and I feel like torturing him a little.”
“Did you know that Vinyl was the one who introduced me to Turner in the first place?”
Canterlot was a huge city. Octavia and Derpy had been walking around for a long time now, and Tavi wasn’t really sure if she was going the right way. After all, she had been in that house only once in her life, at night, while slightly drunk, and guided by a stallion that wasn’t exactly trying to teach her the way.
Derpy was still walking behind her. Octavia didn’t look back, but she could hear her hoofsteps perfectly. “Yes,” the pegasus answered. “Of course I knew.”
“I’m still wondering why the hell she did that. You see…”
Tavi raised an eyebrow. Useless, as her friend wasn’t looking at her face, but the thought behind it was what mattered. “Uh-huh.”
“You’re the most worthless, idiotic, evil, machiavelic, and downright awful pony I’ve ever had the disgrace to meet.”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “I’m trying to tell you a story.”
“I know. I’m just offering you my insight on it.”
“You don’t want to hear my excuses, do you?”
“Well, at this point, it’s either this or punching you,” Derpy answered. “I don’t feel like punching you.”
Tavi smiled. “Wow, thanks.”
“Yet.”
“Hm.”
“So yeah, go on.”
Tavi sighed. “Okay. You see—”
“You monster.”
Octavia stopped and turned around. Derpy was looking at her with a… particular face. She was frowning, but at the same time it was clear that she was trying to raise an eyebrow and close her eyes a little, just like Bon Bon did when she was being… Well, when she was being Bon Bon. So the end result was that Derpy looked like she was really trying not to sneeze and very constipated at the same time. “Are you seriously going to do that all the time?”
“I don’t know.” Derpy kept walking, and Tavi rushed to get on her level. “Did you try to fuck Turner?”
“I—”
“Then yes, I’m going to do that.”
Octavia frowned. “I’m not going to apologize, no matter how often you interrupt me.”
“And I’m not going to punch that pretty face, no matter how often you act like a bitch.” Derpy gave her a fake smile. Octavia could tell because she was showing way too many teeth. “And I’ve just realized you’re like that all the time, so you better thank me!”
“I only tried to seduce him once.”
“Yes, that’s one too many times.”
“I—!”
“You ogre.”
“Okay, that’s it!” Tavi stomped the ground to make her exclamation a little more dramatic. “Can you at least go back to being jealous? I prefer working with Lyra-Derpy than working with Bon Bon-Derpy!”
“My, how tragic. I am so...”
“Okay, you know what? Fuck it.” Octavia sighed. “I’m sorry. There.” She glared at Derpy. “I’m going to accept that Turner is yours and I’m going to act as if trying to ask a friend for help is a bad thing, just because you’re too much of a bitch to be a normal pony in this kind of situation. Happy? You win!”
Silence.
“You’re still an awful pony.”
“For crying out loud, Derpy!” Octavia yelled. “Is it so hard for you to show a little empathy now and then?!”
“Usually, I do that.” Derpy licked her lips. “However, I’m too busy hating your guts at the moment. I’ll try again tomorrow, if you don’t mind.”
Tavi rolled her eyes. “Do you want to know why I kissed him, or…?”
“Why would I? I already know.” Derpy swung her tail a little too hard, hitting Octavia’s flank. “Doc is hot. You realized that. Then you stopped to think about my feelings and the result was something along the lines of ‘fuck Derpy, I’m a traitor after all!’ and then went to his house.”
Octavia snorted. “Yes. Yes, that is exactly what happened.”
“I knew it.”
“I included the sentence ‘I am a traitor’ in my line of thought.”
“Of course.”
“Because, you know, I was just trying to be evil. I would have twirled my mustache while doing so, but I don’t have one.”
Derpy nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“My actions have absolutely no excuse or reason behind them.”
“Yes, they have.”
Tavi raised an eyebrow. “Oh, now they have?”
“Yes.”
“Them being?”
“You’re a douchebag.”
“Would you please stop insulting me?”
“Hey, you tried to shag my property.” Derpy raised her snout to the sky. “Excuse me if I’m irritated.”
Silence.
“You’re not angry anymore, are you?”
“I’m so furious I could bite off your head.”
Tavi smirked. “You’re not angry.”
“You’re a stupid, evil, devious, horrible, hateable, downright-abominable mare and we are no longer friends.”
“You’re just happy because Turner rejected me, but you’re trying to hide it.”
Derpy smiled back. This time, she showed just the right amount of teeth. “Isn’t he just dreamy?! I’m still pissed off at you, though.”
“You’ll get over it.”
“I’ll get over it. You fiend.”
“Oh, hey. We’re finally here.”
“Well, I totally wasn’t expecting this, but now that I see you’re here I realize that I should, because wow this is going to be amazing. l. I don’t know how I’ve made it through the day without you. You’re such beautiful, pleasant company that I am looking forward to the incredibly long time you’re going to stay here, being as unnecessarily obnoxious as possible, scaring away the customers and just making my fucking day.”
“Hello, Bon,” Lyra said, leaving a trace of blood on the ground as she walked to the counter. “Gimme a coffee.”
“Well, congratulations. You’re making a bloody mess on the floor. You’ve been here for less than three seconds and you’ve already managed to disgust me, annoy some random guy that will need to clean that shit later, gross out the customers, and make me hate you even more than usual! You girls are on a roll today!”
“You sure are feeling cheery this morning, huh.” Lyra rested her front hooves on the counter. Bon Bon immediately got a paper sheet from under it and pressed it against the unicorn’s temple. “Now shut up and give me a coffee.”
Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. “Twenty bits.”
“It’s fifteen bits, actually,” Lyra said. “And I don’t have money. Give me a coffee.”
“No, really? Wow, I’ve been doing this wrong all my life! It’s not like—”
“I said shut up,” Lyra muttered. “Anyway, did you know that Octavia almost fucked Turner?”
“My, I’m so glad you’re telling me this.” Bon Bon sighed. “You know, it’s the little things that make life worthwhile: the smell of rain in the morning, the smile of a little colt on his birthday, and you telling me useless shit about Time Turner. Of all the ponies in existence—No, of all the living beings in existence, you choose to talk about him.” She looked to the roof. “There is literally an endless list of stuff we can talk about, but you chose Time-fucking-Turner, asshole extraordinaire, because both Vinyl and you are so desperate to be as not-annoying-at-all as possible that you make a conscious effort to go out of your way to bother me. Because I’m completely sure that you care about Turner.” She glared at Lyra. “There’s absolutely no chances that you’re talking about him just to piss me off. You’re such a wond—”
“I don’t see no coffee here.” Lyra tapped her hoof on the counter. “I’m pretty sure I asked for a coffee.”
Bon Bon squinted her eyes, then put the hot cup of coffee she had been hiding until that particular moment. “Twenty bits,” she repeated. “Of course, you have no money, because you—”
“So yeah, apparently Octavia tried to seduce Turner, or something like that, and now he doesn’t want Derpy to know about it.” Lyra grabbed the cup with her magic and used her hoof to press the paper sheet Bon Bon had given her against the right side of her head.
“Uh-huh.” Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. “So we can say we’re dealing with a… Two-Timing Turner.” Punch. “Ouch.”
It takes talent to look adorable when you’re terrified. Sure, if you have big eyes and a little pointy horn that can’t do magic yet, and you’re a lil’ chubby but not chubby-chubby, more like not-really-chubby-but-she’s-so-cute-we-need-to-use-that-word-because-it-makes-you-think-about-cute-things chubby, then you have some advantage. Still, Tootsie Flute managed to look desperately lovable while hugging that branch and looking at the ground with the same intensity a normal pony stares at the flank of that particular teacher that you know shouldn’t be hot, but damn son, he’s hotter than lava.
So, yes. Tootsie Flute was an impressive filly, all right. Her mind wasn’t working at full capacity, because hot teachers aren’t exactly healthy things for little foals to think about, but nopony could blame her. The tree was scary.
Thing is, Tootsie Flute wasn’t a stupid filly. Most ponies think that the cuter a pony is, the stupider she is going to act, and when one is in Canterlot—and not talking about Fleur de Lis—chances are that opinion is right. But Tootsie Flute knew how to learn from her mistakes.
So far, she had learned that not every adult is helpful when one needs help with getting kitties down trees. She still needed help from an adult, though, so she had to be careful about who she should ask next time.
Problem is, nopony walked through that street except for very bad adults, or so it seemed.
From up that tree, Tootsie Flute saw another pony crossing that street. A mint green unicorn mare. She made sure not to ask for help. By her side, her kitty just looked at her with confusion. But Tootsie still didn’t ask for help.
Why? Well, there were a bunch of reasons. For starters, the mint green unicorn was holding a cup of coffee with her, and Tootsie Flute had learnt that coffee-cup-holding adults weren’t good at helping little fillies. That mare also had a very scary face—her eyes were colder than ice, she was frowning a little, and she was walking in a very particular way. The kind of way that made one think about murder and warfare. Well, she wasn’t exactly walking, Tootsie Flute thought. It was more of a… craw-limp thing? She was walking like a war veteran crab, that was it. Nopony in her right mind would ask a war veteran crab for help at getting down of a tree, that was for sure.
Oh, and she was covered in blood. That, too.
So, Tootsie Flute chose not to ask that particular mare for help. However, she was sure that, had that unicorn been a little less bloody, she would have given her a chance, if only because Celestia, that tree was very tall.
By her side, the kitty was already getting used to the idea of living in that tree for the rest of its life.
There’s a funny thing about coffee that not a lot of ponies know: its effect is not immediate. Caffeine is a drug that helps you concentrate, that’s true. It also helps you be active and less sleepy. However, it’s effects are usually psychosomatic, at least at first. A cup of coffee takes from thirty minutes to an hour to affect a pony, and it’s pretty weak at the start. It’s also not as good as many think at keeping you awake—an apple is actually better for pulling an all-nighter than three cups of coffee.
Turner knew all of this. It’s hard to have a doctorate and three master degrees without knowing how coffee and sleep-deprivation works. The only pony in Canterlot that had put more all-nighters than him was Octavia, but that was more related to her stamina than anything else. So, at first he wasn’t exactly nervous about the coffee affecting him.
Then again, he wasn’t stupid either—caffeine is a mind-altering drug. Sooner or later, it would affect him. It was just more of a long-term thing. He would worry about it later.
In other words: he was completely sure that the reason why he was trembling so much wasn’t the caffeine.
“Now,” he said when he saw that Vinyl was actually getting up, albeit she was having difficulties, “I’m completely sure that you’ll be able to talk about this like a rational pony.”
“Of course.”
“So you are not going to attack me or anything.”
“That would be so wrong.”
Turner licked his lips. “Because, of course, I didn’t do anything with Octavia. It was, in fact, the opposite. I rejected her!”
Vinyl took a step towards him, grunting. She was frowning a little. “Yes, you did. Even though you flirt with her all the time.”
“I don’t think it actually counts as flirting, as I merely state the obvious,” Turner replied. “Now, being completely objective here, you have absolutely no connections with Octavia, relationship-wise, so you shouldn’t be angry at me.”
“Indeed.”
“And, still keeping the objective view in front of us, the fact that I had absolutely no control of what was happening and the way I reacted, you should be, in fact, thankful and not angry at all.”
“Yes.” Another step.
“And… You’re not being objective here, right?”
“Nah.”
“So you’re mad at me instead of acting like a rational pony?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re going to hit me.”
“Uh-huh.”
Turner sighed. “Figures. At least—”
At least, what? Nopony would ever know, as the providence seemed to smile at Turner for once. The communicator in his ear went on, and Derpy’s voice, sweeter than ever, interrupted his words. “Doc! Can you hear me?”
“Derpy?” Turner looked at Vinyl, who had stopped mid-walk and was just standing there and frowning at him. “Uh, yes. I… I can hear you.”
“Good!” Derpy giggled. “We’re already there, you know? At the mare’s place.”
“Uh.”
“Octavia said that you need to hear the whole thing, or else you won’t be distracted!”
He blinked. “Derpy?”
“Yes, Doc?”
“Do you mind repeating that?”
“Octavia said that you need to hear the whole thing, or else you won’t be distracted.”
Turner’s left eye twitched. “Y-you’re dropping a couple of hers when you say her name.”
“I’m what?”
Vinyl blinked. “She’s what?”
“She…” he gulped. “Her voice sounds deeper when she says Octavia’s name. She’s dropping a couple hers when… well, what I said.”
Silence.
“Doc, I don’t even know what to say here.”
“That’s bad even for your standards, Turner. It doesn’t even sound like—”
“Cut me some slack, Lyra punched me hard in the face and it’s difficult to make a good pun with that name,” Turner grumbled. “Anyway, um, Derpy? Are you feeling okay? Did...” Turner sighed. “What did Octavia tell you, exactly?”
“Oh, she told me nothing. Right?”
“Yes, we’ve only talked about girly stuff, like finances,” Octavia said. “Now, I’m going to knock at this door, all right?”
Turner frowned. With Derpy being so happy, chances were that Octavia had told her something. However, the pegasus’ reaction wasn’t exactly what Turner had expected from her. Maybe Octavia had told her something else? Or maybe she hadn’t told her the whole story. “Okay?”
“Well then.” Vinyl gave him a weird look when he said this. “You do that. I guess it can be interesting?”
At that particular moment, Turner couldn’t have cared less about the whole cutie mark deal. He was too busy trying to guess what Derpy knew about that night to pay any attention to what happened after Octavia knocked on that door. Vinyl’s situation was exactly the same—she was thinking about what Turner had said, and trying to get some extra information from Octavia’s words.
A shame. If only they had paid an attention—if Vinyl had realized that she had heard that voice an hour ago, or if Turner had got the odd part of the conversation—a lot of stuff wouldn’t have happened. For starters, chances are nopony would have ended up being kidnapped one month later.
Knock, knock, knock.
The mare who opened that door was named Sunny Rays, and she was a yellow pegasus with a pink mane. She didn’t even blink when she saw two unknown mares, one of them with a wall-eyed stare, waiting at the other side of her door. “May I help you?” she asked.
“Yes,” the earth pony answered. “My name is Otavia Philharmonica. I helped you with a musical design not so long ago, remember? Three accidentals…”
“Oh!” Sunny Rays smiled and nodded. “Yes, I remember that! You made my day. I had been struggling against that thing for hours.”
“Yes, Octavia is a wonderful pony,” the gray pegasus said, her voice suddenly dropping at least three octaves.. Sunny Rays flinched a little. “The thing is, we have a little question about that design?”
“Hm?” Sunny Rays frowned. “Question?”
“Yes.” Octavia nodded. “You see, two days after helping you with that design, I saw the same picture in the flank of a little filly. We have a personal interest in cutie marks, you see? And we were wondering… What was that picture for?”
“Well,” Sunny Rays said, “I was designing that filly’s cutie mark. Isn’t that obvious?”
Silence.
The pegasus blinked. “You… You did that? Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s what I do for a living. I work at the Cutie Mark Factory.”
Silence.
“Excuse me?”
Sunny Rays rolled her eyes. “Dear Celestia, nopony ever knows anything about my job.” She turned around and pointed at her flank, where she had the picture of a brush and a palette with a bunch of colors. “Do you think this thing designed itself?”
“Uh…” Octavia licked her lips. “...Yes?”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Magic?”
“Well, there’s magic involved,” Sunny Rays said, “that’s for sure. But mostly, cutie marks are a bureaucracy thing.”
“...Bureaucracy?”
“Look, it’s the government we’re talking about. Lots of paperwork involved,” Sunny Rays rolled her eyes. “In fact, technically, my boss is Celestia herself. Heck, the Cutie Mark Factory is right next to the castle!”
The pegasus shook her head. “Wait a minute. You mean that cutie marks are done by Celestia?”
“What? No!” Sunny Rays sighed. “Look, Celestia founded the factory, but she doesn’t work at it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And… you create cutie marks in there?”
“Yes. A place named ‘Cutie Mark Factory’ is not likely to create bowties, I think.”
“But… Aren’t cutie marks, like, what tells us why we are special?”
“Well, yes. They kind of are.” Sunny Rays frowned. “Look, I don’t really know how this thing works, okay? I just follow orders.”
“But—”
“A foal discovers her talent,” Sunny Rays interrupted, “and the factory gets a note that says, I don’t know. ‘Derpy Hooves has discovered that she really knows how to scuba dive’. Then they call me and tell me that I need to design something about scuba diving. And I draw bubbles.” She crossed her legs. “Then I give my boss the design and he gives it to the foal.”
Silence.
“With, dunno. A spell, I think. Or something like that. I think Celestia is the one who casts it, but I have absolutely no idea. I’m one of the drawing ponies, y’see.”
“What the hell?!” Octavia pointed at her flank. “Are you telling me that some random pony drew this when I realized I was good at the cello?!”
“Yeah.”
“How, in the name of Luna’s mighty gonads, can that be possible?!”
“Hey, it’s not like it’s a secret,” Sunny Rays said. “It’s right there in our Constitution.”
Silence.
“Our Constitution.”
“Yes.”
“It says that the government chooses our fate.”
The pegasus raised an eyebrow. “We have a Constitution?”
“Look, the government doesn’t choose anything. It just gives you a nice picture for your butt,” Sunny Rays said. “Look, it’s simple, okay? We get an announcement when somepony does the right thing, we’re told some kind of talent, then we draw the thing, then we send it to the foal the next time she does the thing. Simple!”
“You know, Celestia herself wrote it,” Sunny Rays said. She didn’t like how those two mares were looking at her at all. “You can just ask her. Or go to the factory. It’s not like it’s a secret. It says ‘CUTIE MARK FACTORY’ in neon lights, right above the door.”
“That’s…” The pegasus shook her head. “They didn’t teach me this in school!”
“Well, blame your teacher. What the heck do you want me to say here?” Sunny Rays asked. “Anyway, that’s it. Did you want anything else?”
“Uh… Well, not reall—”
“Then, if you excuse me, a filly discovered that she’s exceptionally good at betraying ponies that trust her, so I need to design something to represent that without making her look like the evil monster she is.” She smiled. “If you need to know anything else about my job, be sure to ask! I’m home almost every day!”
And then she closed the door.
If only Vinyl had realized that she had heard Sunny Ray’s voice somewhere else—at the cafeteria, as she had been the mare talking to Bon Bon when the DJ had arrived—or Turner had realized that somehow Sunny Rays knew Derpy’s name without being told, then Octavia and Derpy would have knocked at that door again, or at least they would have done something useful.
Instead, they just stood there, looking at the door with a puzzled face, and then turned around and walked to Turner’s without thinking about Sunny Rays ever again.
Thus, Sunny Rays was free to go back to the main room of her house—which was completely empty except for the single cage with a dove in it that laid in a corner—and write a letter:
The mare at the cafeteria was the one we were looking for, and I’ve made contact with Octavia Philharmonica.
I believe I can locate them all by the end of the day. I’ll send Feathy with more news later.
Then she folded the letter into a tiny scroll, opened the cage, and gave it to Feathy the dove. “Be sure to come back as soon as possible once you’re done,” she said, patting the bird’s head. “I’ll give you a treat if you do that!”
The dove chirped gleefully, Sunny Rays opened a window, and then Feathy was gone.
Once Sunny Rays was left alone, she smiled in a creepy way, like a clown who just realized just how incredibly terrifying he is and can’t wait to test his horribleness with the nearest child that approaches him, and then left the room through the same window Feathy had used.
Neither Octavia nor Derpy ever realized that Sunny Rays was following them.
“...Well,” Octavia said, after turning off the communicator, “that was… interesting.”
Derpy didn’t say a word.
“I mean, I sure wasn’t expecting something like this. The government. Figures.”
“I’m still baffled by the fact that we apparently have a Constitution…”
“Yes, that was also—”
“…You monster.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Hey, Bon Bon!”
“Oh, for Celestia’s sake, not you again.”
“I got lost while going to Turner’s!”
“You’re as brilliant as ever, aren’t you?”
“Yeah!”
“You know, I would say that talking to you is exactly like talking to a rock, but then again, a rock would probably have more interesting answers.”
Silence.
“But rocks can’t talk! Bon, you’re so silly.”
“I hate my life so much.”
Lyra entered the room just in time to see Vinyl moving away from Turner with a puzzled look on her face. “You too?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “You know, Turner, I would say you’re getting pretty lucky with the mares of this gang lately, but then again, we’re talking about Octavia and Vinyl.” Without missing a beat, she walked towards the tied stallion, lifted the cup, and put it against his mouth, forcing him to drink. The room was immediately filled with Turner’s screams of pain. “I doubt that getting them can be seen as ‘luck’.”
“Lyra,” Vinyl said, frowning, “I would rather kiss Bon Bon than Turner.”
“I doubt it.” Lyra smirked at her. “Not even Bon Bon would kiss Bon Bon.”
“Well, yeah. It was a figure of speech.” The DJ sighed and rested her back against the wall. “Anyway, I was just listening through Turner’s communicator. Octavia and Derpy got to the cutie mark mare.”
“Absolutely interesting. Don’t you think, Turner?”
“WHY ARE YOU STILL DOING THISBARBGLABHBGHRLAHGLRBHLRGGG—”
“Mostly because I’m bored.” Lyra pressed the cup a little harder against Turner’s muzzle. His hind legs were shaking like crazy, she noticed.
“Turns out,” Vinyl said, “that cutie marks are made by the government, of all things.”
“Sounds retarded.”
“Because it is retarded.”
“And so another of our amazing adventures ends, and we’re all wiser than when we started it,” Lyra said. Then, she got the cup of coffee away from Turner, as he had drank half of it and spilled the other half on his chest and legs. “Turner, you okay?”
“I FUCKING HATE YOU ALL!” Punch. “ARGH!”
Lyra lowered her hoof. “The only reason why you can still talk is because I want you to look like a fool at the lecture.”
“Anyway, now that the cutie mark crap is over and Octavia can’t hear us,” Vinyl said, frowning, “you need to explain a couple things.”
“I DON’T NEED TO EXPLAIN SHIT!”
“You almost fucked Octavia,” Lyra said. “I guess you can talk about that, for example.”
“SHE WAS THE ONE WHO TRIED TO FUCK ME SO I DON’T SEE WHY I NEED TO EXPLAIN ANYTHING!”
“Why are you even screaming?”
“BECAUSE MY FUCKING TONGUE IS ON FIRE!”
Vinyl sighed and massaged her temples. “You know, I’m not exactly in the mood for this foolery, Turner.”
“I THINK I HAVE THIRD-DEGREE-BURNS ON MY MOUTH AND I FEAR I’LL NEVER BE ABLE TO TASTE FOOD AGAIN!”
“Yes, but I have real problems.”
“I WILL PEE ON EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER LOVED!”
“I think we kind of lost it,” Lyra said.
“YES, YOU KIND OF CROSSED A LINE WITH THAT LAST COFFEE!”
“Hey, look at his legs. He’s shaking.”
“Maybe it’s the coffee?”
“NO, IT’S BECAUSE I’M HAPPY! YOU SEE, I’M LIKE A DOG, I JUST WIGGLE MY ENTIRE BODY INSTEAD OF RESTRICTING MYSELF TO THE TAIL!”
“Okay, I have a headache,” Lyra said. “I’m calming him down.”
“How are you…?”
Punch. “OH MY FUCKING—” Punch. “I’M GOING TO—” Punch. “YOU ARE NOT—” Punch. “OH CELESTIA THIS IS SO—” Stab. “AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” Stab, stab. “I’LL STOP I’LL STOP I’LL STOP SCREAMING JUST—” Stab, Punch “AAAAAaaaaaaaagggggg….”
Silence.
“...Lyra?”
“Yes?”
“I think he’s unconscious.”
“Yes.”
“And there’s a little bit of blood in there.”
“Hmm.”
“And with ‘a little bit’ I mean ‘a huge fucking lot’.”
“To be honest, most of it is mine.”
“How can your horn be so pointy anyway? Mine is pretty round at the tip.”
“Natural selection.”
Silence.
“So… do we need to clean all the blood or…?”
Vinyl was interrupted by the sound of the main door opening. Both her and Lyra stood there, looking at the corridor, until a pony showed up.
Bon Bon.
Who looked at Vinyl (resting her back against the wall, with one black eye and bruises all over her body, her glasses long gone), Lyra (with so much blood on her head that her entire mane looked crimson instead of white and green), and Turner (tied to his seat, unconscious, beaten up, and covered in coffee and blood), and facehoofed.
“Oh my fucking Celestia.”
Lyra frowned at her, wiping some of the blood on her face away. “Hey, shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Carrot Top is covering me.”
Meanwhile, at the cafeteria, Carrot Top was beating the everloving crap out of a stallion who had complained about his coffee just a little tiny bit too much.
“I’m sure she’ll manage.”
“Well, you’re the best fucking mare for the job,” Vinyl said. “We need to wake up Turner so he can tell me about what happened that night with Octavia. And then I might knock him out again.”
“Yes, because I’m going to help you,” Bon Bon said. “That’s literally the reason why I came here. So I can help you with your useless drama and hear all the wopey-dopey crap about your crush because you’re so incredibly mature you totally don’t need to know everything Octavia does. I would call you pathetic, but then again, that would be complementiing you. You’re beyond pathetic. You’ve not just reached the limit, the final frontier of patheticness, you’vee crossed it so hard that scholars will forever study your case, and the words ‘Vinyl Scratch’ will be remembered as a synonym for utter, absolute worthlessness.
“Okay, but buy me a ring first. I’m not an easy girl, Bon.”
“I fucking despise you.”
Lyra snorted. “Why the hell did you come here, if not to help us with whatever we were doing?”
Silence.
Bon Bon frowned. “...Just help me move him to the fucking bathroom.”
“So are you going to act like this all the time?” Octavia asked, looking at Derpy. The pegasus had the biggest smile ever on her face. “Insulting me and stuff?”
“Well, not in front of Doc, of course,” Derpy said. “You worthless sack of dirt.”
“Come on, you’re not even mad!”
“You still deserve punishment.”
Octavia rolled her eyes. “Turner rejected me because he knew I wasn’t really interested in him,” she said. “And I don’t think I would have gone all the way through. I know that he’s really important to you.”
“Sorry, I can’t hear you over your hypocrisy.”
“I’m just saying he’s all yours. He’s always been all yours. Stop insulting me.”
“No.”
“Oh, Celestia.” Octavia glared at Derpy. “You’re even crazier than I thought.”
“And you’re a fucking traitor.”
“Douchebag.”
“Monster.”
“Nutjob.”
“Bon Bon.”
“Lyra!”
Silence.
“You know that sex can happen without any kind of ‘deeper connection,’ right? Hell, you and I had an affair and I doubt Turner cares.”
Derpy raised an eyebrow. “I’m not Doc.”
“Yes, sadly. Apparently he’s more mature than you.” Octavia sighed. “Look, I had gone through pretty heavy stuff that day, okay? I needed a little venting, and my experience tells me that breaking a bed while screaming is awesome for venting. So I asked Turner, because I had every right in the world to do so, and because he just happened to be there.”
Silence.
“The thing that I don’t get,” Derpy said, “is why was Turner so scared.of me finding this out. You still haven’t told me the reason for that.”
Octavia sighed. “He’s just too prudish,” she lied, “in his special way. He can’t see sex the same way I do, so he got really embarrassed by my question. I guess he’s just afraid you’ll think he’s a tail-chaser.”
“Aw.” Derpy giggled. “He’s so cute.”
“Yes. Cute. That’s exactly how I would describe Turner. Cute as hell.”
“You sounded a little sarcastic there.”
“Me? Sarcastic? Madness.”
Being unconscious is not exactly bad. For starters, you don’t feel pain. Yes, it’s a little weird, because everything is dark and you feel like you are sleeping even though you aren’t sleeping. Really, the only bad part of being unconscious is waking up.
And boy, waking up when Bon Bon is the one in charge of helping you is even worse.
So Turner returned to the world of the living because his head had been unceremoniously dunked into a bathtub full of insultingly cold water. When the icy feeling, similar to getting a lot of very tiny needles poking your eyeballs, came to him, he woke up instantly, and pulled his head out of the water.
He fell backwards and discovered that he was in his bathroom, surrounded by the three worst mares he had ever met. He screamed, partially because of the shock, partially because of the pain, and partially because of the surprise, and then he stopped and gasped for air because he remembered that one needs oxygen to live.
“You’re welcome,” Bon Bon said, patting him on the back. “But please, continue screaming. It’s the perfect way to answer to me saving your life. My, it’s incredible how—”
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU EVEN DOING HERE?!”
“She left Carrot Top at the cafeteria,” Lyra said. “We’re sure she’ll manage.”
At the cafeteria, at least twenty ponies laid unconscious on the floor, forming a mountain with their bodies. On the top, an orange mare was standing on her hind legs while looking at the rest of customers with a crazy grin.
“I don’t k-know. M-maybe it h-has to do WITH THE FUCKING BATHTUB F-FILLED WITH ICY WATER Y-YOU BUNCH OF PSYCHOPATHS!”
“Are you seriously going to yell again?”
“N-no. S-sorry.”
“Anyway,” Vinyl said, shaking her head, “you better tell me now what happened that night, and why were you so afraid of Derpy finding out.”
“Oh, Celestia.” Bon Bon looked at Lyra. “This is going to be so fucking interesting. I can’t wait to hear everything. I’m sure I’ll—”
“Shut the hell up.”
“L-look,” Turner said, trying not to bite his tongue, “I-it’s simple. S-she was g-going through some s-shit I don’t know a-about…”
“You don’t know about it?” Vinyl raised an eyebrow. “When did this happen?”
“L-like a w-week ago.”
“Oh. Okay, that makes sense.”
“What happened a week ago?” Lyra asked, looking at Vinyl. “Something bad?”
“She had a very bad day,” Vinyl said. “I can tell you the details later, I guess, if you care about it.”
“Oh, please, do that.” Bon Bon sighed. “I’m—”
“No.”
“I fucking hate you, Lyra.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
“T-the thing is,” Turner continued, “that s-she kissed me, okay? T-that’s it. I p-pushed her a-away, and then w-we just t-talked. End of the n-night.”
“You know,” Vinyl said, “that would make sense, if it wasn’t for the fact that you were absolutely terrified of anypony finding out.”
“YOU T-TRIED TO KILL ME W-WHEN YOU FOUND OUT!”
Silence.
“He has a point,” Lyra said.
“I can see why he didn’t want Derpy to find out either,” Bon said. “I mean, it’s not like that mare is completely obsessed or anything. Oh, no, far from it. She’s the most mentally stable pony that ever walked Equestria. I mean, she only has, how many? Seven different diaries full of drawings of Turner?”
Lyra shook her head. “Nine, actually.”
“Nine? She only showed me seven.”
“The other two are hidden. They are a little more risqué. She’s good at anatomy, I can say that.”
“D-dear Celestia,” Turner said, massaging his temples, “p-please shut up.”
“Well, I guess I get why you hid that from us,” Vinyl said. “I… guess I shouldn’t be angry at you either. You did nothing wrong.”
“P-perfect t-time to discover that!”
“Then again, I still find it hard to believe you said no.” Vinyl sighed. “It’s Octavia we’re talking about.”
“S-so? I don’t want to s-shag her,” Turner replied. “W-what’s hard to b-believe about it?”
Silence.
“N-no, really.”
Silence.
“I’m serious!”
Silence.
“S-STOP LOOKING AT ME L-LIKE THAT!”
“You’re a fucking pervert, Turner,” Vinyl said. “You’ve always been, and you’ll always be.”
“I-I can look at t-the menu, I just d-don’t order.”
“What?”
“I don’t w-want a relationship, okay? Of a-any kind.” He sighed. “P-plus, I don’t w-want to hurt D-derpy.”
“Yes, because you two are so together,” Bon Bon said. “You’re the most perfect couple I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”
“N-no, we a-aren’t.” Turner gulped. “B-but, you know, s-she’s obsessed about me, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Yep.”
“Absolutely.”
“So I d-don’t want to h-hurt her.” He shrugged. “Simple as t-that. I’m n-not interested in her t-that way, but I know that i-if I ever get interested in a-anypony—and that’s a h-huge if—then it’s probably g-going to be D-derpy.”
“Fucking hell,” Lyra said, “you and your mommy issues.”
“A-and of course, I don’t w-want Derpy t-to know that.”
Vinyl sighed. “I can see why.”
“Yeah, Derpy would explode if she heard that last part.”
“A-are you happy now? C-can I go?”
Silence.
“Yeah.”
“Sure.”
“I wanna see you fucking up the lecture.”
When Tootsie Flute arrived home that day, her parents noticed that both her and the kitty looked a little more traumatized than usual. The filly somehow managed to turn that into more adorableness, but the cat just looked exactly like a cat that’s been trapped on a tree for far too long while seeing horrible adults being unhelpful.
Which, incidentally, was what had happened.
However, Tootsie Flute was finally home. Because, in the end, a mare that wasn’t holding a cup of coffee had finally shown up, and when Tootsie asked for help, she was prone to get a ladder from a house nearby and get her and her kitty down.
The mare had been a cream-colored earth pony with a two-colored mane, pink and blue. Her cutie mark were three pieces of candy.
“She was very cool!” she told her parents. “She even bought me a cookie because she said I was in shock!” Tootsie giggled. “She was the nicest pony I’ve ever seen!”
When Derpy and Octavia arrived at Turner’s, they found Bon Bon, Lyra, and Vinyl hanging around the hall, eating Turner’s food. “He’s taking a shower,” they explained when Derpy asked about him. “He has to prepare for the lecture.”
“I thought we didn’t want him to do that?”
“Oh, don’t worry. He’s not calming down anytime soon.”
Derpy and Octavia looked at the bathroom door. Octavia coughed. “May I ask why?”
“Lyra stabbed his leg.”
Silence.
“Repeatedly.”
“For fuck’s sake, girls!” Derpy ran to the door and knocked on it. “Doc! Doc, can you hear me? I’m coming in there!”
No answer.
“Never mind, I’m coming anyway!” She turned around and glared at Lyra before entering. “I thought we wanted him to mess up the lecture, not to physically hurt him!”
“Yes, we did both things,” Vinyl said. “You’re welcome!”
Derpy shot them another murderous glare before opening the bathroom door and entering the room. Once she disappeared, Octavia sighed. “This has been a very bad idea.”
“You told her?” Lyra asked. “About your one-night stand?”
“It wasn’t a one-night stand,” Tavi replied. “Just a kiss. Nothing else.”
“And I’m pretty sure it’s the most intelligent thing you’ve ever done.” Bon Bon snorted and walked towards Octavia. “I’m actually surprised Derpy didn’t kick your flank.”
“You’re assuming she told her,” Vinyl said. “And, by the way, Tavi?” She frowned. “Turner? Really? Of all the ponies in Canterlot, you had to go to Turner?”
“You had a gig that night,” Tavi said, sighing. “Look, I’m not proud of what I did, okay? And I didn’t tell Derpy.”
“Of course you did.”
Octavia glared at Bon Bon.
“Look,” Bon said, “I’m completely sure that the most sensible thing would be to shut the hell up and never tell Derpy.” She raised an eyebrow. “So of course you told her.”
“I hate you so much.”
“The feeling is mutual.”
Silence.
“Wait a minute,” Vinyl said. “Did Derpy just go into the bathroom?”
Derpy freaked out a little when she realized that the bathroom floor had blood on it, and there was so much steam in there that she couldn’t see a thing. But she flapped her wings twice, the steam went away, and she saw that Turner was okay… more or less. He was standing right under the shower, eyes closed, drops of hot water falling all over his body. He had a lot of bruises, but nothing too extreme.
Derpy blushed a little and took a step towards him. “Doc?” she asked, yelling a little so her voice could be heard above the sound of falling water. “Are you okay?”
“Hmm?” He opened his left eye and saw her there, looking at him with a worried expression. “Oh, you’re back?”
“Uh-huh. Did Lyra really stab you?”
“Yes. Apparently, I was yelling.” Turner sighed, and only then did Derpy notice he was shaking a little. “I lost consciousness, and then they got scared. I was trying to relax.”
“You lost consciousness?” Derpy hopped into the bathtub and grabbed a bottle of shampoo. “Here, let me help you with your mane. You’re covered in coffee.”
“Thanks.” Turner took a step aside, and Derpy walked under the running water with him. She got soaked in seconds. “Helping me when I was tied to that fucking chair would have been better, but I guess that shampooing my mane is not bad either.”
“Hey, it’s your fault for doing that stuff with the tracking devices.” Derpy put some shampoo on Turner’s head and started working on it. “Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.”
“You left me alone, with Vinyl, Carrot, and Lyra, while tied to a chair.”
“Eh, Carrot was supposed to keep you safe.”
“Yes, she did a great job.”
“Come on, don’t be so grumpy.” She smiled. “I’m sure you’ll nail that lecture.”
“I can’t feel my tongue, Derpy.”
“Eh, you’ll find a way to work around that. By the way, can you believe what we found out about cutie marks? Maybe you can go to the Factory and ask about yours…”
“Holy crap,” Lyra said, pressing her ear against the bathroom door. “Are they seriously showering together?”
“No.” Bon Bon, also trying to hear what was happening at the shower, rolled her eyes. “They are not. They’re having dinner. It’s just that they are doing that in the bathroom.”
“This is so fucked up.”
“So.” At the other side of the room, sitting at their usual places, Octavia and Vinyl were observing Lyra and Bon Bon. “You and Turner.”
“For the last time: nothing happened.” Octavia sighed. “See? This is why I didn’t tell you. I knew you wouldn’t let me live it down.”
“You went after Turner.”
“Oh, Celestia, stop sounding so disappointed.”
“And he rejected you.”
Octavia facehoofed. “Look, I know it wasn’t exactly the peak of my lifetime, okay? I was regretting it not five minutes after—”
“Tavi, that is literally the most pathetic thing I’ve ever heard.” Vinyl ran her hooves through her mane. “I mean, seriously? Getting rejected by Turner? I can’t even start to describe what is wrong with that picture!”
“Look, what is done is done.” Tavi raised an eyebrow. “Besides, he rejected me because of Derpy, not because I’m less than him.”
“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.” Vinyl shook her head. “This is like… Like…”
“Don’t even try,” Bon Bon said, turning to them for a second. “Asking for romance in Time Turner, consciously looking forward to enter a relationship with him, is already pathetic. But when the second most useless piece of crap in the entire universe tells you you’re not good enough for him?” She snorted. “There’s no allegory whatsoever. You can’t compare shit to that.”
“Why the hell are you being so hard on me?!” Octavia crossed her front legs. “I don’t see you telling that to Derpy, and she goes after Turner all the time!”
“We do tell her that,” Lyra said, still pressing her ear against the door. “Bon Bon and I wrote it on her birthday card. Hey, I think they’re talking about us!”
“Fucking beautiful.”
“And speaking of Derpy…” Vinyl looked at Octavia. “Did you tell her?”
“Hm. Part of.” Octavia sighed. “I told her what I did, and how Turner rejected me. I didn’t tell her about the reason why he did so, or what we talked about.”
“You talked about things’”
“Yeah.” Octavia scratched her muzzle. “A lot of things, actually. He was working on the communicator, and he gets surprisingly serious when he does that. We mostly talked about Derpy.”
“Figures.”
“And he refused to tell me what he whispered to her when we rescued Carrot,” she added, absentmindedly. “In fact, he was surprisingly evasive about it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Bon Bon frowned at her. “Where did that come from?”
“Hm?” Octavia looked back at Bon. “Well, we talked about that night, among other things. So I asked him.”
“About that night…” Vinyl bit her lip. “What did he tell you?”
“Incredibly cute on your part to realize that,” Bon Bon said.
“You know? In the end, I think I kind of envy what those two have,” Octavia said, looking at the door. “Sure, it’s fucked up, but still. Both are lying to each other because they want the other to be happy: Derpy acts like an innocent child, Turner acts as if he didn’t see through her lie… It’s kind of pretty, don’t you think?”
“No.”
“No.”
“It’s too fucked up.”
Silence.
Octavia frowned. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Soon, all of them left the house and went to the university, where Turner gave a lecture that would be forever remembered, if only because he started puking and eventually passed out after five minutes.
That day, everypony learned a lesson.
Time Turner discovered that caffeine poisoning is a thing, that he had to be more careful with what he did with his friends, and that Vinyl was exactly as jealous as he had thought.
Derpy learned that Turner was even more of a gentlecolt that she had ever thought, and that she couldn’t really trust Octavia, at least with the important things.
Vinyl learned that, after all, love is complicated and revenge was sweet.
Bon Bon learned that she hated everypony. Not like she didn’t already know this, but it was nice to remember it once in a while.
Lyra (re)learned that stabbing a guy tied to a chair was fun, and that Derpy and Turner showered together now and then and they thought it was normal. They had been doing that for a long time, in fact.
Octavia learned that she wasn’t very good at planning things.
Tootsie Flute learned that judging a book by its cover is perfectly okay when you’re judging ponies that you ask for help.
Carrot Top learned that working at a cafeteria was very fun.
