It's Tough to be a God
Sunset Shimmer was walking down the middle of an empty street. This was not quite accurate though. The lanes where cars would normally occupy were certainly clear of traffic but the sidewalks contained a loose collection of moving people shapes.
Sunset's brain eventually caught up with this distinction in the corners of her vision and she stopped to look about. On her left was what appeared to be a normal downtown sidewalk with blurry but normal scenery of shops and various humans occupying it. Her right resembled much the same scene but with a grey tone and the people seemed less chipper.
She then stopped to examine herself and realized the was naked from her head to her navel and pony down past that.
A little huffing chuckle escaped her lips as it finally clicked. "Oh right, I'm dreaming." She recalled that she had been dozing off in her bed back at her recently (and thankfully) cleaned apartment. She took a moment to inspect herself as she realized that she'd basically turned into a centaur with her human torso attached to where her neck would normally be on her pony body. Even her cutie mark was in place on her pony rump.
"Huh, I am weirdly comfortable like this." She said out loud to apparently no one but herself. She wondered if this was suppose to be her truest self now and how a body like this would work. Would she have extra organs for both rib cages? Was her human half mostly lungs to provide the amount of oxygen a body like this would demand? She probably had two hearts at least, it would make sense. She'd have to remember to ask Princess Twilight about centaur anatomy from Equestria later.
She pulled herself away from this brief distraction as she looked back at the surrounding dream street she was on. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. This was a pretty vivid dream.
She looked back at the right side again and felt a chill go up her naked dream spine as she realized that the grey streets were a little more desolate and dystopian than she had first realized. It was all rather similar to the supposed future world she had gleaned from Tempest's memories.
She turned her sight away from the uncomfortable imagery and focused on the path before her which ended at an intersection, beyond which lay a thick cloud of fog. Sunset's suspicions doubled at the sight. "A literal crossroads?" Her eyes shifted about for any sign of a familiar blue Alicorn. "Princess Luna? Are you there?"
She waited, but there was no response. With a huff and a roll of her eyes, Sunset figured she might as well get on with it and approached the intersection. She stopped just within the square of the concrete and crossed her arms as she waited for...something.
She didn't have to wait long.
A bright light shone down from the clouds above her and a golden figure descended. Sunset held her hands up to block most of the offending light rays from her eyes while grimacing in annoyance. As the figure got closer to the ground the light faded to allow Sunset a better look.
She blinked away most of the spots in her eyes and glared at it. That glare turned into a wide eyed stare with a slack jaw to follow as she took in the sight of her apparent host.
At the center of the square and floating about half a meter off the ground was a tall, muscular, and humanoid figure. Apparently nude but lacking the detailing that would have made it indecent. His flesh was undoubtedly made of beanis material, rather similar to the artificial beanis leg that Tempest sported, and was a dull golden color in appearance. He lacked a neck or human head. Instead, there was a single golden bean that floated where the head would have been and shone as though it possessed a light from within.
His arms spread wide in a welcoming pose as he spoke in an masculine voice that carried a faint echo. "Greetings to you, Sunset Shimmer. I have appeared before you this night to deliver a message most dire. Your life has come to an important moment which could decide the fate of-"
"Oh what fresh hell is this?"
This interruption seemed to throw the Bean Man off. His arms lowered to a less certain position as the rather eyeless bean head tilted forward to apparently look down at Sunset's face. Said face was now regarding him with a scowling frown that was broadcasting a very definitive message of 'I am very annoyed right now'.
"Um... that was kind of rude."
She set her hands on her hips where her human torso met her pony body. "Do I really look like I care?"
He could see that she did not.
He raised his left hand to the lower half of his bean, as though stroking a chin. "I don't think this is how these things are suppose to go." The hand was taken away. "Shouldn't you be in a little bit of awe, or something?"
"I've seen some pretty wild stuff mister, so your going to have to put on a better light show than this if you want to 'aw' me. Not being made out of beanis would probably help too." Sunset let out an exasperated sigh. "Speaking of which, I think you've got the wrong girl anyway. I got out of Beanis Incorporated not too long ago so that I wouldn't have to deal with things like this anymore."
"Right, but I think that's part of why I'm here."
"Nope." Sunset raised her hands to signal that she was having none of it. "I don't know who worships you but it ain't me buster."
"I have worshipers?"
Sunset's frown lessened. "What, is this not about those Bean cultists?"
The bean head tilted in a questioning manner. "What cultists?"
It was Sunset's turn to be confused. "Wha-? How do you not-? Wait. Are you NOT suppose to be Beanos or something?"
"Oh. Uh, I don't really know. IS that my name?"
Sunset clenched her teeth as one eye twitch and an angry grunt came from the back of her throat. "How do you not know what the hell your name is?!" She shouted at him. "Are you even suppose to be a god?!"
"Am I?"
"Well gee, I dunno! You show up in my dream with big golden lights and looking like a Beanis Adonis! What am I suppose to think?"
The Bean Man shrunk back a little, drawing an arm in front of him in a defensive posture. "Well, yes I believe I'm suppose to be a god. Admittedly, I haven't been at this for very long so I'm still sort of figuring things out."
Even though she was still annoyed at the absurdity of the situation, Sunset allowed herself to relax a bit. She felt a little bad about yelling at him already so she decided she should try and ease things. "Look, I'm sorry. I'm just not very good at dealing with the weirder shit that's been thrown at me lately." She put a hand to her face in a thoughtful gesture. "You know what? How about if I just call you 'Adeanis', would that be ok?"
The bean head jerked up to look at her. "Adeanis?" He put a hand to his apparent chin once more to consider the name. He gave a curt nod. "Yes, I would like that Miss Shimmer." His body language seemed to perk up almost instantly. "You know what? Let's start over. We can be more casual about this and I can tell you what I came to tell you."
He snapped his fingers and a couch appeared just behind him. There was the sharp crack of a hoof striking concrete which he ignored as he sat back in the comfortable leather and held out a hand to invite Sunset to sit down with him.
Sunset wasn't having any of that though. Her body had gone stiff as a board (though, with her current appearance, it might be more like two stiff boards nailed together to form a right angle) and her eyes were wide as billiard balls as she stared at what Adeanis was sitting on.
"Why did you summon, The Couch."
Adeanis tilted his head in confusion again. "It's just a couch."
Sunset lashed her finger out at the offending piece of dream furniture. It lacked any of the cracks or questionable faded spots that the one in the waking world had and even had that fresh leather smell, but Sunset Shimmer knew it was what it was. "That is The Couch. The thing that sits in that one room at Beanis Incorporated that all my friends have had sex on at one point or another. That we can't even clean because of some weird and obscure laws. And that some of my friends continue to have sex on even now!"
He appeared to consider this for a moment or two before regarding the fiery haired pony woman again. "Wow. That sounds really gross."
Sunset's arms shot out at a 'This guy gets it!' angle. "That's what I've been saying!"
Adeanis considered the leather coated object. "How strange. I wasn't even aware of such a thing. I thought I was just willing something comfortable into this temporary existence. I didn't really focus on what shape it would be."
Sunset pursed her lips. "Mmmmyeeeeah. I'm sure it's just something to do with your obvious association to beanis in general. Your whole theme if you get my meaning."
"I'm not certain I do but I can ponder on it later. Now then, shale we get back to why I appeared to you?"
Sunset stayed where she was and raised her hands in a defensive posture. "You can tell me from over there, please? I'm sorry, I just really don't want to sit on that." She also really didn't want to risk touching Adeanis's skin, but she kept that to herself. She'd probably been rude enough as it was.
He nodded at her in a show of acceptance. "Right. So as I was saying Miss Shimmer. Your life has come to an important moment that could decide the fate of the future."
"The fate of the-" Sunset stopped. Her head snapped around to look at the right side of the street again. The side resembling the dark future from Tempests's memories. The one she had been observing only a few minutes ago. She turned back to Adeanis and face palmed herself at her own stupidity. "Of course that's what this is about."
Her hand slid down to reveal a miserable face to Adeanis. "Please tell me you're not serious. I'm not even sure I really believe the whole mess about the shitty future."
Adeanis shrugged at her. "I'm sorry, but you just are. Everything depends on the paths you choose in the here and now."
A frustrated growl reverberated in Sunset's throat as her eyes rolled hard enough to try and escape her head, which they almost did since she was still dreaming after all. "Of fucking course it is."
She took a moment to rub her face and let her frustrations out with another round of throaty growls. Admittedly, it wasn't as if she was alone in her various adventures. Some of if not all of her friends were always there with her. But it almost always seemed to be up to her to get everyone's shit together to make it all work out.
She let her hands slide from her face once again, ready for the next piece of prophecy from her golden bean man. "Ok, so is there anything useful you can tell me, like maybe how to stop the bad future from coming?"
Adeanis's posture shifted back to an uncertain one. "Eh, well yes. Disaster can be avoided. All can be made right. But it depends on you, well, I feel as though you won't like the answer."
"Just rip the band-aid off please. I'm sure I can handle it."
"Right. Well, basically you just need to get laid and everything should work itself out."
There was very solid silence that rolled into the next moment as Sunsets expression turned neutral and she stared Adeanis down in sheer disbelief. This was particularly uncomfortable for Adeanis since belief was something of a lifeblood for a being such as him and the antithesis of it was practically venomous.
To his relief, the stare was eventually broken as Sunset blinked at him and drew a pinkie finger up to her ear to try and clear out some dream wax. "I'm sorry, but could you run that by me just once more? Because it sounded like yet another obscenely stupid thing added to my life."
Adeanis helplessly shrugged his shoulders. "It's just as I said Miss Shimmer. You just need to find your sexual encounter and go through with it. More or less."
She leveled her furrowed brow at him. "That can't be it. That's way to vague and obscure. You gotta give me something else."
"That's not really how it works. Prophesies are meant to be vague and obscure. It helps the hero to, you know, fill in the gaps as they go along."
"But that's dumb. Like, really dumb! I'm just suppose to go out and fuck some stranger and everything will be ok?"
Adeanis waved his arms frantically. "No! Nonono! Not just some stranger! More like um, well it's meant to be more significant than that. One of those 'You'll know when the moment is right' sort of things."
"But that's still dumb! That can't be all you can give me!"
"Oh I dunno. Seems like a pretty straightforward prophesy to me!" Said a new voice from behind her.
Sunset's pony half kicked back on pure instinct, nearly planting a hoof right into the peach skinned womans gut. "Gah! What the hell are you doing here Somnambula?" Sunset shouted at the ancient ghost who haunted her apartment and could apparently enter her dreams.
The chipper dead woman seemed unaffected at Sunset's reaction as her gaze drifted over to Adeanis on The Couch. "Oh I just noticed you were restless in your sleep and thought I would check it out." She sauntered over to the tall bean man and sat down beside him. "And who might your new friend be? You don't have dibs on this one do you?"
The golden god was feeling a little more comfortable with this new woman. "Oh! Hello Miss. I'm Adeanis and I was just giving your friend here a rather important message concerning the well being of things to come."
"You don't say?" Somnambula brushed a lock of seaweed green hair out of her face as she looked him over. Licking her lips like a predator with a fresh piece of meat. "So, are you Monotheistic?" She asked as one hand started exploring his chiseled beanis frame.
Sunset couldn't believe what she was seeing right now. No, that wasn't right. She could perfectly well believe what she was seeing, she just didn't want to. "Are you for real? You're just going to jump on him right here and now? What am I saying? of course you are."
There was a sudden squishy sound of what could only be described as wet beans being shoved through a tube. Sure enough, Somnambula had found what she was looking for as her fondling hands had coaxed out a big golden beanis from Adeanis's crotch.
Said bean man seemed honestly shocked at this new development. "Oh my! I'd no idea I could do that."
A long drawn out gasp filled the air as Somnambula stared at the new addition with an open mouth and a bit of drool. "Make me your wife and I will make you a whole new pantheon!"
Sunset's hand clapped together and made the universal 'peace out!' signal as she turned about. "Nope! I'm done with this!"
She was very glad she had turned around to walk off as the very audible sounds of someone trying to slurp down a melting ice cream cone began to fill the void.
Adeanis's voice tried to call out to her. "Miss Shimmer! Wait! You need-oh wow, you're very good at that aren't you? I mean, Sunset! You need to remember what we talked about! This is all very important! Oh my me!"
Sunset only heard about half of it, and of course it was the half she really could have done without. She broke out in a gallop down the evaporating street, slapping her cheeks all along the way to force herself to wake up-
=================
Sunset jerked awake. She was lying face-up in her bed. Her sheets were a tangled mess about her and her face hurt a bit from where she had apparently been slapping herself in her sleep.
Her brain lurched through the fog of sudden wakefulness and recalled the dream. The awkward Bean God. His message about the coming disaster and the questionable manner in which Sunset could avoid it. Even that last bit where Somnambula had showed up like a cat in heat and behaved like one too.
She lay there for a moment, straining her ears and hoping that she wouldn't suddenly hear the horny ghost's moaning from beyond some ethereal wall. Thankfully, she seemed to have been spared that indignity.
Eventually Sunset's nostrils flared as she took in a deep breath, glaring at the ceiling the whole time, before letting it out. "Fffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck my life..."
Time to save the fucking world again.