> Lust and Betrayal: A Day in the Life of the Flower Trio > by Super Trampoline > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1 > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lust and Betrayal: A Day in the Life of the Flower Trio One day, Roseluck decided to build a giant robot. But this was not just any giant robot. This giant robot was special, for you see… The robot, which Roseluck had initially named K-2364, as Roseluck thought it was normal to attach a series of numbers to the end of a single, declarative capital letter when naming your own robot. She had seen that in the movies and on TV, but after some contemplation over her choice she came to find that something simpler would be more desirable. So she named it Tom. She didn’t even know where she got “Tom” from. How do you get Tom out of K? But the name stuck nonetheless. Anyway, this robot was special because it had special flower growing powers. Lily Valley and Daisy didn’t like this, because automation lead to job loss, as everypony knows. Equestrian society had such low unemployment specifically because giant robots named Tom weren’t taking everypony’s job. So Lily Valley and Daisy hatched a plan: The first step was to make sure Roseluck and her fancypants robot were separated. There would have to be a distraction or obstacle to keep the two apart, and since this counted as grunt work in the minds of both gossipy mares it obviously fell into Daisy’s hooves. She was the unimportant one, and she could risk getting injured. Possibly dying. So Daisy trotted up to Roseluck. “Say Roseluck, have you ever heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?” “What is this, a crossover?” asked Roseluck, genre-savily. “I thought not,” said Daisy. “I guess we’ll have to do this the hard way.” And she punched Roseluck in the face. Meanwhile, while this was happening, Lilly Valley took to conversing with Tom, which, as she would find out soon enough, was more difficult to carry out than she originally anticipated. She forgot to read Pony-Robot Relations for Dummies, now available in paperback for the reasonable price of $19.99 at your local Barnes & Noble. One should not blame Lilly for not reading this manual, however, as Equestria was one of the few countries the aggressively militaristic and arguably fascist Barnes & Noble Empire had not yet invaded. Lily Valley didn’t know how to speak BASIC or C++ or any of those high-falutin programming languages, so she ended up having to draw pictograms in the dirt to convey her thoughts to Tom the flower-growing robot. As she did so, Lily felt as if she were talking to a small foal, or, if she were to be meaner about it, a very metallic and nerdy idiot. The truth was, if anything, the other way around, as Tom got the impression that he was the one conversing with an idiot. He did after all operate on a different, higher plane than us simple creatures of flesh and blood (and friendship and magic). To him we may as well be ants. Ants whose jobs he was rendering obsolete. But not for long. For you see, everypony knows the way to outsmart a robot is to challenge it to solve a very, very, very difficult problem. Lily Valley had challenged Tom to solve the Reimann hypothesis. Tom was pretty sure he could do it, but it was going to take a while. A long while. Meanwhile... Daisy, being a strong earth pony, whacked Roseluck with such force that she knocked the other mare out. It was time for the second part of their plan. For her part, Daisy used her limited knowledge of bondage techniques (learned from some shibari classes she had taken in San Franciscolt (full of kinky fucking hippies)) to tie up Roseluck’s legs and drag her back to her house. This sight gave many passersby the wrong idea, although in this case Daisy was thankful for the misunderstanding. By the time Roseluck awoke, she found herself tied to a chair, interrogation style, and this gave her the wrong idea. “Oh god, first impact play, and now torture? Daisy, you have no idea how wet I am right now. As in, I’m dripping in sweat. Not any other kind of wetness that might push this story from teen to mature.” “What? No!” Daisy was caught off guard enough by this that she almost forgot why she had even brought Roseluck here. “Why does everypony assume this about me? Is it because of that one time at band camp...?” She thought back to that episode, which the censors at Hasbro refused to let air, and for good reason. It was an animatic for an alternate script to “Slice of Life,” and it would haunt everyone involved for the rest of their natural lives. And unnatural, artificially extended lives, in the case of [REDACTED]. The horror, Daisy thought, as if sensing deja vu for no reason that was apparent to her. Where were we? Oh yeah, so Roseluck was getting the wrong message from this, and Daisy wasn’t having any of it. “Roseluck, you idiot, I kidnapped you because your robot is stealing our jobs. Now I’m going to go destroy it! Bwahahaha. Okay actually you know what the evil laugh thing really just doesn’t suit me. I’m more of a quiet smirk-kind of mare.” “Huh,” Roseluck said calmly. “I didn’t take you for that type. I always assumed you were like Inspectah Deck to Lily’s Ghostface Killah.” “Who’s Inspectah Deck?” “Exactly,” Roseluck smirked, trying to wiggle out of her binding, like an action hero of sorts but failing. “Okay, these are pretty tight. Did you take bondage classes or something?” “Yes, I mean no. I mean, yeah? The one time...” Daisy didn’t think it was possible to get so frustrated with somepony you held captive, but she still had much to learn, evidently. “Ugh. Look, you’re tied up; I’m going to go destroy your robot.” “No!” shouted Roseluck. “You can’t kill Tom. I-I-I… I love him!” “How is that supposed to dissuade me?” Daisy asked, unfazed. “There’s a saying where I come from, Roseluck—” “We’re from the same town.” “There’s a saying that goes like, ‘You hurt the ones you love.’. And I love you too much to watch you throw away our livelihoods with this dumb giant robot. Goodbye, Roseluck. The next time you see me, your robot shall be done for.” “NOOOOOOO!” yelled Roseluck, but Daisy’s house had good insulation so nopony could really hear her. Suddenly, like the beginning of a terrible grimdark story, there came a knock at the door. Daisy shoved her hoof in Roseluck’s opened gob. “Hey, can you quick your yelling for a second?” She then pulled her hoof out, leaving Roseluck with a dumbstruck expression as Daisy went to the front door, and opened it to see Rarity before her. Rarity looked like she had an idea as to what was going on, but wanted to not pry about it. “Am I interrupting anything, ladies?” Daisy thought very carefully about her next words. “No, you’re not, Rarity. Is there something going on? A giant monster attack?” “Oh no, nothing like that,” said Rarity. “In fact there is a wedding happening next week, and the bride and groom have released this info on pretty short notice, but I hear the ceremony will be just lovely.” Roseluck finally decided to say something. “Anypony we know...?” “Oh!” Rarity took out a slip of paper, neither mare could tell from where, neither wanting to know, and read from it very slowly. “Lily Valley and... Tom?” Rarity gave pause. “That name sounds familiar for some reason. But isn’t it nice that one of your friends is getting married?” Everything was silent for an uncomfortable period of time. Daisy and Roseluck looked at each other, then at Rarity, then back at each other, then back at Rarity... and this went on for a while, until Roseluck finally said: “Does this mean Lily and I will be in-laws?” (laugh track)