Batter Up!
In Sunset Shimmer’s opinion, corporate sponsorships were ruining the Blood Dome.
Honestly. Look at that stupid bastard, with his Astidas-branded armor and helmet. Armor! And he was defiling the traditional pre-match brags by talking about his sponsors!
“And let me tell you, Butcher!” the putz yelled, pointing his warhammer at Sunset. “I’m going to take this hammer and crush you! Just like the refreshing taste of an ice-cold Chuengling crushes thirst. Mmm, yeah.” He angled his hammer, letting the light catch the logo it bore.
Defiling the tradition! It wasn’t an old tradition—the Blood Dome was about a year old, and Sunset had only been in it for six months of that—but it was a tradition, dammit!
Whatever. Sunset was one of the old stalwarts. She didn’t have a brand deal, she didn’t even have armor, and she certainly didn’t need the microphone that the other guy had. No—what Sunset Shimmer had was a bat, and what the bat had was a nail through it.
Oh, and she had a kickass black leather jacket, but that wasn’t armor. Like an old friend of hers might have told her, when it was time to show up to a melee of brutal mayhem, a lady might as well look her best.
And a red pendant, hidden under the jacket, but no one had to know that.
It was her turn for the boast. She stepped forward and pointed her bat and spoke the same five words she said to everyone: “I’m gonna fuck you up.”
Her teeth were bared. So were his, but she was better at it. She could smell his fear, and so could the crowd: they hadn’t cheered for him, but they roared for her.
“Round one,” yelled the announcer in an egregiously manly voice. “Ready? Set!” And then, the horn.
Both contenders ran forward, the dust kicking up under their feet.
It was a simple stadium. No goals or goalposts on either end. No terrain like a baseball field—no raised mounds. Just two people, in a giant dusty circle, trying to beat the absolute shit out of one another. It felt good. It felt pure.
(It used to feel pure. Damn you, Chuengling beer.)
Sunset let the putz swing first, sending his clumsy steel hammer toward her head. She ducked easily, and the weapon was large enough that he couldn’t reverse its momentum in time before she slipped inside his guard. Holding the bat with both hands like a policeman’s truncheon, she smashed it into his stomach. While he was still off balance, she swept his leg with her own and planted her hand into his face, smashing the back of his head into the dusty ground.
Her geode flashed.
The crowd roared its approval. Sunset wasn’t paying attention: she was getting everything she needed out of him. All of his strategies for trying to hit her; all the weak points he was trying to conceal; even his name, which she hadn’t paid attention to during the pre-game. Crimson Tunic, apparently.
Something in the back of Sunset’s mind stirred. She’d used to be a people person. She was trying to smash the snot out of this poor guy, and she hadn’t even learned his name? What was—
Tunic kicked at her. She must have waited too long; the blow landed, sending Sunset back, pinwheeling her arm as she tried to get her balance. She managed to stick her bat behind herself, planting it in the dirt, stabilizing her.
He got to his feet, wheezing a breath. “Not bad,” he said. “They said you were fast. I just wanted to confirm before I did this.”
He hefted his warhammer again and charged. Sunset got her weight on the balls of her feet, waiting for what would happen next—
Just as he reached her, Tunic pressed a hidden button on the warhammer. The head fell off, leaving just the staff—a trick that had probably won him a lot of fights. He swiped out with it, the staff far faster than the warhammer had been.
If only Sunset hadn’t known what was coming. Unfortunately for Tunic, she hopped out of the way of his faster blow easily. He growled, and swung around again, manipulating his quarterstaff with some skill—but she was more than equal to it, dodging each attack with practiced ease.
She let him back her up a few yards, just enough to let the crowd get a little antsy—maybe their golden girl was on the back foot!—before she brought up her bat and swung a homer, just as he was swiping at her.
Wood struck steel, and the two put their weights into winning the clash. Tunic couldn’t just pull away—Sunset had trapped his staff with the help of her nail. She stepped forward, grabbing one end of his staff, and kicked high. Heel first.
The impact landed. He staggered back, his face bloody. “You,” he hissed, and spat out what might have been a tooth.
“Maybe some of that nice sponsored armor should have covered your face,” she called back. It was more for the crowd’s benefit than his, and judging by the cheers, they seemed very happy to be catered to.
Tunic wasn’t done. With a bloody smirk he pressed what must have been another secret button on his staff, and—it split down the middle.
Sunset blinked. She’d missed that, somehow, while reading his mind.
And oh no, he was really fast now. With both halves of his quarterstaff—eigthstaffs?—whirling in a deadly dance, he was actually forcing her back this time. Not just for show. Sunset actually had to block with her bat several times.
But he had twice as many weapons as her. And at last, as she was blocking one of his batons with her bat, Tunic smashed the other one into her hip. She cried out in pain, and swiped back at him with her weapon.
He dodged the clumsy attack easily, and moved in for the counter—
The horn blared.
Tunic snorted. The sound came out wet through his injured nose, and a gob of blood hit the dirt. Sunset turned around and trudged back to her end of the stadium, hissing each time she put weight on her bad hip.
Her coach waited at the wall. “Great job out there, Butch!” he yelled, ever an unemptying font of enthusiasm. “A couple more good hits to the face like that and he’ll fold like an accordion!”
“There are other instruments you can make analogies to, Cheese,” she muttered, sitting in her chair.
Cheese made himself busy by getting her water bottle and an ice pack for her hip. “What can I say, I like what I like! Now, he’s got a trick weapon—good for him, but he’s open while it’s changing. Wait for that, and then polka his eye out!”
Sunset groaned in a good natured sort of way, in part because the ice on her side felt really nice right now, and took a long swig of her unincorporated water bottle.
The same could not be said of her competitor’s water.
“And what’s this?” yelled the announcer. “Crimson Tunic is drinking his water, except—is that water at all? And what’s he drinking it out of? It looks an awful lot like a—can Iron Will say this on TV? Do we have the eight second delay?”
The jumbotron at the top of the stadium was showing a close-up shot of Tunic. Attendants scurried around him like mechanics at Nascar, but he was the picture of smug calm. And in his hands, he was squirting fluid into his mouth from a—
Sunset’s vision went all red. She stood up jerkily, and the pain from her hip was nonexistent. “Now hang on, Butch,” Cheese Sandwich said, and she felt him grabbing at her shoulders, trying to get her to sit back down. “Don’t get upset, now—”
“That’s right,” Crimson Tunic said, wiping his mouth, letting out a little ah of refreshment, and displaying an award-winning smile. He adjusted the microphone sticking out from his helmet before continuing. “The new Hydronis! Packed with a secret blend of proteins and electrolytes to make it ten times more reinvigorating than leading competitors—you’ll believe it’s magic! Get yours today, from Beanis Incorporated!”
Beanis.
The word echoed in her head, except it wasn’t exactly an echo, because echoes got quieter as they repeated. This word seemed to keep getting louder.
Beanis. BEANIS. BEANIS!
“Butch?” Cheese Sandwich asked. “You’re looking kind of angry….”
The horn blared. Sunset walked forward.
“Up for round two, ‘Butcher’?” Tunic said, right before her bat went for his knee. The two collided with a sickening crack, and the latter bent in all the wrong ways.
Tunic screamed. Sunset swung her bat again, this time to smash his wrist. He dropped his reconstructed warhammer.
The next blow was at his head. He fell.
It had taken six seconds. The crowd wasn’t even cheering.
Sunset leaned down over him, feeling her face contort with fury. Tunic was gasping with pain. She reached for his microphone and yanked it off his helmet, then leaned closer.
“Promote this.”
And Sunset Shimmer shoved the microphone down his throat.
“To victory.”
Sunset and Cheese clinked their bottles together, then drank. Sunset finished first, slammed the bottle on the counter, and leaned on that counter with both elbows.
Cheese wasn’t trying to race. He put down his bottle of Chuengling, then took a draught from his cup of water. When he was finished, he looked at her—
“I’m not having more than one,” Sunset muttered. “Celestia, Cheese, I’m not some kind of alcoholic.”
“Wow! That’s not even close to what I was going to say.” He laughed. “I was gonna congratulate you, Butch. That guy never had a chance.”
“Thanks,” Sunset said, dully.
She looked up at the strip club’s TV. On it was a post-match report, showing Crimson Tunic being wheeled from the stadium to an ambulance. Blood stained his head, a respirator mouth covered his face, and he had a cervical collar; nevertheless, the reporter was saying he was expected to recover.
Sunset’s heart was racing, she noticed. She shook a bit like a wet dog, then sighed, sitting up a little straighter on her barstool. “Sorry. Feeling a little jumpy after the fight.”
“But I thought those fights were supposed to help you let off steam?”
Before Sunset could respond, Cheese was continuing, as if switching songs in a fast-paced musical medley: sometimes she could hardly get a word in edgewise. “Anyway, accordion to the higher-ups, people like you, but the Invincible Butcher isn’t gonna sell seats for long. They were wondering if you could—”
“Take a dive?”
“Absolutely not! But maybe drag it out a little more, at least?” He patted her on the back. “If you know you’ve got the poor guy, at least let him get some moves in before you dismantle him. Make it a little more suspenseful.”
“I do this for me.” Sunset slammed both elbows on the table, hiding as much of her face as she could amid her arms. “If they want longer fights, the ‘higher ups’ need to send me better….”
She frowned. “According to the higher-ups—you didn’t say ‘according’, you said….” She grunted and punched him in the shoulder, unable to hold back a grin. “You son of a bitch.”
“My mother was a saint, and how dare you.” He punched her shoulder right back, chuckling.
It was a nice punch, and Sunset rubbed the bruise it left. It was doubly nice because while she knew someone else who made jokes, had poofy hair, and smiled as naturally as breathing, that girl wouldn’t have punched her shoulder or helped her beat the tar out of random dudes in an arena. It was nice to have that differentiation.
Nice to have that distance.
A rousing cry from the strip end of the strip club caught her attention, and Sunset glanced over before she could help herself. A male stripper dressed in nothing but tight jeans was gyrating to the beat, paired up with some young lady wearing even less. The patrons surrounding the stage were screaming for more—or, rather, less—and flung wadded-up Fijian money at them, as well as more usual dollar bills.
Sunset grunted and held her hand up, blocking the view. To her left, though, Cheese Sandwich’s eyes were glued to the spectacle. Another differentiator from the other girl; she would have joined in. She jostled his shoulder. “You old pervert.”
“Can’t help it,” he laughed, eyes twinkling as he glanced her way. “But you never partake, do you?”
“I’m not wired that way.” Weirdly easy to say, that was.
She raised her hand and waved, calling the bartender over. He smiled and pulled out a pad of paper without saying a word; in Sunset’s experience, Terramar had always been a bit shy. Weird family situation. She hoped it worked out for him. “Two orders of wings, please? Thanks, ‘Mar.”
Cheese rolled his eyes as Terramar jotted down her order. “For someone who’s not ‘wired that way’, you sure do come to the strip club after every match.”
“Because the food’s cheap, and it’s good.” Sunset frowned. “And actually, that’s weird. The whole point of a strip club is—don’t walk away, ‘Mar, listen,” she said, holding out a hand to stop him. “The whole point is, everyone’s only there for the entertainment.”
Terramar watched her with a squiggly little frown of unease on his face. “Which means,” Sunset continued, “you can afford to have shit food and drink and charge outrageous markups for it, like a movie theater. How are you guys making any money?”
She leaned forward. “If you want, I could take a look at your accounts, see if I can’t—”
She froze. She sucked in a breath, then consciously leaned herself back. “Sorry to bother you, ‘Mar. Ignore all that stuff I said.”
He scurried. Sunset let out a big breath, then looked over at Cheese Sandwich, whose mouth was hanging open. “Where the hay did that come from, Butch?”
Sunset let out a groan. A guttural one, rolling over every ridge of her throat. “Forget it. Just old habits coming to bite me in the flank.” She snorted, eyes focused on the bar in front of her, and now she noticed all the obscenities carved into it—and, of course, a penis. Ever present, inescapable. Because penises were so funny, right?
They really needed to replace this thing, she mused. Throw out the old wood, maybe burn it somewhere, and get something shiny and new. “That’s why I came to paradise,” she mumbled. “It’s why I came somewhere where I can vent in a healthy way.” She noticed Cheese looking at her with a curious, sad expression, and she cracked a smirk. “Healthy for me, I mean. And as for the others, well, they sign waivers, right? We’re not barbarians at the blood dome.”
Cheese just kept looking at her. Middle of his life or somewhat after it, always there with a pun—the details of his life came easily to her head as she looked, as if they were part of her blood, and being pumped up the same way—and he wanted kids but could never find someone to settle down with, or even stave off the wanderlust for that long.
She knew all this, saw it on him as casually as the laughter lines by his eyes, and she hadn’t used her geode once to do it—but she still didn’t know why he was doing fights in the Pacific. Why he was sticking around someone like her.
“Hey, change the channel!”
Terramar had just come out, bearing buffalo wings, and one of the other patrons at the bar had taken this opportunity to lean forward and jeer at him. “Change the channel, you little shrimp, no one wants to watch the news!”
Terramar gulped and grabbed the remote, pressing the button. A rather sober discussion on economics was replaced by bright colors, a catchy theme tune, and—
“Captain Beanis, she’s our hero,
Bringing erections up from zero!”
“Hey, yeah!” The man laughed excitedly. “My kid watches this! It’s great!” The screen showed a heroine who seemed to be receiving her powers from five distinct Beanis Inc. products. The credits rolled with the theme song, showing the episode’s director as one J. Montage.
Sunset felt her heartbeat in her eyes. “Hey, ‘Mar?” she said, keeping her voice entirely even as Terramar set down her wings. “Can I actually have another Chuengling? Not in a bottle—in a big, heavy mug.”
It was the kind of even tone that suggested a great deal of effort behind keeping it that way. Terramar complied immediately, and within ten seconds a glass stein of beer was plonked in front of her. Nice and frosty, and with a good head at the top. Terramar was a good bartender.
“We’re the Beanis kids! You can be one too!”
Sunset picked up the mug and hefted it in her hand. Then she stood up, dumped the beer onto the floor—
“Cause buying Beanis Products is the thing to—”
—and hurled it at the TV screen. The glass of stein and screen shattered, and with a shower of sparks, the feed went dead.
Even the strip club music seemed to go silent. Sunset’s attention focused like a laser on the man who’d demanded a channel change—the man whose kid was a fan of Beanis. “Holy shit,” he said, his face going pale. He tried to back up, but stumbled and caught the bar for support. “You’re Butcher. The Butcher.”
She walked toward him, and he backed up until he ran out of bar to hold onto. He fell on his ass, staring up at her, fear in his eyes. This felt nice. This felt powerful. This felt—
Familiar.
Sunset choked. She clutched at the bar, heaved deep breaths, shut her eyes tight. When she opened them, she saw Terramar and Cheese staring at her too—along with everyone else in the bar. Cheese had that sad look in his eyes again, but Terramar looked terrified.
Sunset looked away from both of them. She reached into her pocket, fumbling with her wallet, and yanked out a huge wad of bills. She slammed it on the counter. “For the damages,” she said, staring at a point on the wall. “Plus some extra. You’re a good kid, Terramar.”
She turned around and walked toward the door. “Cheese,” she said.
“Butch?” Cheese said, and she heard footsteps behind her.
She held up a hand, and the footsteps stopped. She couldn’t bring herself to look back and meet his eyes again. “I’m going back to the hotel,” she said. “You know where to find me.”
Something was wrong with her vision. Sunset looked around frantically in the blank mindscape.
I can see why Twily likes you.
Something was around her eyes, like glasses—and they were getting hotter.
Sexy. Savage. Stubborn as hell.
Sunset screamed, bringing her hands up to her face in a futile attempt to protect herself. It was hopeless. Her eyes were on fire, melting out of her skull, and everything was going black.
But you’re nowhere near as smart as you think you are.
Sunset bolted awake and screamed, her heart beating at a mile a minute.
She sat in her comfortable hotel bed, panting with panic. What had that dream been? Even as she tried to remember it, it vanished from her mind, as if she were trying to pick up sand in a sieve. Something about… glasses?
Sunset gritted her teeth, forcing her breaths to go slower. Regardless of what the contents of the dream had been, she knew that there could only be one cause. The same thing that had ruined so many of her days before, months and months ago.
Sucking in another breath, Sunset threw off the covers, went to the room’s desk, and turned on the lamp. Once she was finished wincing from the harsh light, she grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, and started jotting down sums.
If Beanis was here, in her paradise, then she couldn’t stay. That much was clear. The question was how to leave, and where. If it could penetrate—she growled and smacked her own head at the unintentional wordplay—into Fiji of all places, then there probably wasn’t anywhere on the planet that would be safe.
At least, nowhere with civilization.
Sunset chewed the end of her pen. She couldn’t go back to Equestria—Beanis was there, too. Last she’d remembered, Princess Twilight was proving an avid customer, and there had been days where Sunset couldn’t step into her castle without a clothespin for her nose, because the smell of jizzamole had been so strong. So that left one option….
A quick series of searches on her phone, and Sunset had it. A simple canoe, a tent, various tools, and the address of one nearby deserted island—as well as enough supplies to help her get started, at least until she’d figured out how to hunt and fish. She could go there, live out the rest of her days, and never see another penis again.
The only thing was, she’d cut herself off from her (considerable) funds back in her normal life: those were all tied to Sunset Shimmer, and she hadn’t wanted to risk someone making the connection. So she’d have to rely on her Blood Dome winnings.
A few quick calculations on the paper, and Sunset had the answer: two more wins. She’d just need to beat two more challengers, and she’d be set for life. It wouldn’t even take her a week.
Sunset’s heartrate was back to normal. She turned off the lamp and returned to bed with a smile on her face. It wouldn’t be long now.
The new challenger was dark-skinned—almost black, but maybe green if Sunset squinted—and had red hair. More noticeable were his shirtlessness, his two scimitars, and his focus. He stared across the stadium at Sunset, as if she occupied the entirety of his mind.
He also didn’t have any coaches, and as far as Sunset could tell, no sponsorships.
“Who’s this guy?” Sunset said, tilting her head with a slight smile. She sat at the other end of the stadium, idly tapping her bat on the ground.
“Well,” Cheese said, handing her an ice pack for her hip—still a little sore after two days. “You know how you said you wanted better challengers? I talked to the higher-ups, and they were having trouble finding anyone, and then this guy came straight outta nowhere!”
“What do you mean, out of nowhere?”
“As in, he’s never been in the Dome before. He was able to impress them, though, so he got in. They said he was, like, some sort of assassin.”
Sunset frowned. Assassin. The word seemed vaguely familiar. And not just because, like, it was a relatively common word in the English language.
“Not just that,” Cheese said, crouching down in front of her, “he said he wanted to fight you specifically. Wanted to take you down, or bring you in, or something. You ever seen this guy before?”
Sunset squinted. Something about him seemed familiar, but… “I’ve never met him in my life.”
“Well, he seems to know you.” Cheese looked into her eyes, and for once he looked serious. “Be careful out there, Butch.”
“Of course. You know me.”
“Of course I know you. That’s why I’m saying it.”
The horn sounded. Sunset got to her feet, picked up her bat, and bounced it on her shoulder as she walked forward. The challenger approached as well, dragging his scimitars on the ground. His abs glistened in the sunlight, and Sunset heard appreciative sounds from the ladies (and some of the men) in the audience. Whoever this guy was, he’d be able to get any sponsorship he wanted. So why didn’t he want one?
“Contestants,” the announcer yelled, “make your brags!”
The challenger raised one of his scimitars and bellowed—no microphone attached to his face. “I am Pharynx!” he yelled. “Member of the Assassins! And I am here for you, Butcher—if you want these fools to believe that that is your true name!”
Sunset stopped bouncing her bat. She frowned.
“You may not want to admit it! You may want to hide yourself away in this land of sunlight! But dark forces are moving—shadows from your former life, shadows black as midnight!” Pharynx stepped forward. “You cannot run from them forever! You must return!”
He bared his teeth. Some of them seemed to be pointed. “And if you won’t come back of your own free will, then I will bring you in by force.”
The crowd cheered. Then, Sunset stepped forward. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
Pharynx squinted.
“Look. If you…” Sunset couldn’t help a disbelieving laugh. “If you want to use words to describe… actual things? Then maybe we can talk about whatever in Eque—whatever in the world you’re actually trying to say. But for now—”
“I knew it wouldn’t work.”
Pharynx growled and rolled his eyes. “I told them, just be blunt, but no. They said I needed to try to intrigue you. Note to self: tell Q that going grandiose doesn’t help…. All right.” He stared her in the face. “Beanis is doing some weird shit and we need your help to stop it. That was way easier.”
“Oh.” Sunset blinked a few times. “Well, in that case.” She held out her bat, pointing it at Pharynx. “I’m gonna whup your fucking ass.”
Pharynx shivered. “Say that again.”
“Um. I’m gonna… whup your fucking ass?”
He shivered again, and let out a little groan. It sounded like a groan of pleasure. “Again,” he moaned.
“What.” Sunset’s jaw hung open a little. “What are you—”
“Bad news, Tempest isn’t available. She won’t even be able to walk straight for a few hours.”
“How was I supposed to know product-testing and security guard work were so incompatible?! I swear, between this and the assassins it’s like she’s never around when I need her.”
“I’m sorry, but… assassins?”
“It was nothing important.”
“The word ‘assassins’ makes it sound important.”
“They were less hired killers, and more extreme anal fetishists. Don’t give me that look, I tried to avoid the topic but you made me explain it! If you say anything else about it, it’s a dollar in the jar!”
Sunset blinked. For the first time in almost a year, she felt like she was missing something from her former life. Specifically, the jar. “Oh, we are not doing this,” she said, holding her hand over her eyes. “We’re not doing this, we’re not doing this….”
She sucked in a breath, then let it out as a growl. “Okay, change of plans.” Her bat had been sagging: she held it up again. “I am going to whup every part of you except your ass.”
The crowd was cheering and laughing. Sunset ignored them: she was listening for the announcer’s voice, and it came momentarily. “Round one. Ready? Set!” And the horn sounded.
Pharynx rushed in, and it turned out that those muscles weren’t all he had going for him. Sunset tried to get inside his guard, but he was too careful; she had to reverse her direction as a scimitar sliced at her out of nowhere. She danced back and gritted her teeth, trying to keep track of both blades as they sang through the air.
He was fast. Too fast for her to lay a hand on him—and as she tried anyway, he swung his sword with lightning reflexes, and she got a slice along the arm for her trouble. Sunset gritted her teeth through the pain.
If he knew who she was, did he know about the geode? Was that why he wouldn’t let her touch him?
No time to think about it now: Pharynx stabbed at her with his swords, alternating each time, and with incredible speed: Sunset found herself circling him and barely dodging the points. “Heron style!” he yelled.
Sunset struck at what stabs she could, but her bat was slower than his swords. She had to back up.
And then he was grinning. He stopped his attack, and took a step back, and then hurled one scimitar into the air. Before Sunset could think about why he might do that, he hollered and charged forward, holding his remaining sword in both hands.
She clashed her bat into his sword several times, gouging grooves into the wood. He was stronger than the last challenger she’d fought: she panted, and held the bat with both hands, and pushed all her weight into each blow, and if she didn’t do any one of these things, she knew he’d overpower her.
Something glinted above her. Sunset realized almost too late, and shoved her weight forward even harder, not quite in time. The scimitar that Pharynx had thrown came down like a particularly sharp meteor, and Sunset cried out in pain as it slashed across her back, through her jacket.
In the momentary distraction, Pharynx slipped under her guard, grabbed the sword from where it had embedded itself in the sand behind her, and slashed. Sunset rolled forward, just barely dodging the strike. When she got to her feet and looked back, she could see bits of her red hair that hadn’t missed the attack.
The pain. She couldn’t help but grin: she hadn’t had a fight like this in a long time. “You ruined my jacket,” she said, pointing her bat at him.
“Your jacket won’t be the only thing ruined if you don’t come back with me!” Pharynx snarled, clanging his scimitars against each other to produce sparks and a hell of a noise. “You know what they got up to while you were there to restrain them. What do you think they’re doing without you holding them back?”
Okay, this was less fun than being slashed across the back and losing blood. Sunset’s grin fell into a frown. “Not my problem.”
“Oh, that’s where you’re very wrong. It’s everyone’s problem. And I’ll open your eyes to that—” He ran at her again, without warning. “—even if I have to cut off your eyelids to do it! Tasmanian Devil style!”
He was nothing if not descriptive. As he was about to reach her, Pharynx gyrated, spinning like an ice skater if that ice skater was holding two swords. Sunset backed up, looking for an opening, but she couldn’t read him well enough to find one: each sword came at a different angle and height, and if she tried to reach toward him she might get her hand chopped off.
And then her back hit the wall. Uh oh. The sword swished toward her.
The horn blared. Sunset looked up instinctively at the noise; when she looked back down, the tip of Pharynx’s scimitar hovered an inch from her chest.
He snorted, then swung each sword in a circle before tucking them through his belt loop. “You can’t win this.” With that, he walked away toward his corner. Sunset heaved a breath, feeling her heart beat all the louder for not having been skewered. She jogged to her corner as well.
“Ow,” Cheese said.
Sunset sat down heavily in her chair. “How bad is it?”
“You’re not gonna pass out from blood loss, but it’ll leave a heck of a mark.” Cheese was doing something behind her back, and before Sunset could ask what, she felt the sting of adrenaline hydrochloride being smeared down her back.
She hissed. It was a good pain. “When we’re done with this fight,” she said through gritted teeth, “give the higher-ups a thank you from me for finding this dude. He’s really good.”
She chuckled, staring at Pharynx, who rested on the bench as casually as a commuter coming home from work, as if he wasn’t in a fight to submission. He didn’t have any coaches, and judging by the appreciative noises from the crowd, people liked his style.
“Celestia,” Sunset said, letting out a little moan, “I bet this is what other people think sex feels like. If he does win, it’ll almost be a shame to have to disappoint him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I don’t care what he says. I’m not going back to Bean—to my old life, even if I lose.”
“Well….”
She twisted around, wincing at the pain in her back, and stared at Cheese. He had the sort of awkward grimace on his face that a father might have, one who was explaining to his paraplegic daughter the trouble with her plans to become a ballerina. “What?” Sunset said.
“It’s kind of in the fine print of those waivers… you can stipulate conditions for winning the fight. And he put down that if he wins….”
Sunset bolted to her feet and rounded on Cheese. “It’s legally binding,” he said, half under his breath.
“Are you kidding me?” Sunset grabbed the front of his shirt. “And you didn’t tell me because?”
“I figured he’d made it pretty clear! Don’t you read fine print?”
Sunset smashed her bat into the bench. “All right, then work with me here. How do I beat this guy?”
The horn sounded. “Not with your usual strategies,” Cheese said, talking very fast: Pharynx was already standing up. “You’re going to have to think outside the box!”
Sunset narrowed her eyes and stepped forward. Not all the way to the center of the ring, though.
“Round two! Ready? Set!”
Another blast of the horn. Pharynx took off running toward her. Outside the box, huh?
Sunset reached for the end of her bat, yanked out the nail, and tossed it in the air. “Batter up!” she yelled, striking it as it came down. The nail shot forward, and Pharynx didn’t react in time: it embedded itself into his forehead.
It hadn’t done something silly like penetrate his skull—it wasn’t nearly deep enough for that—but the hit brought his charge to a halt. He blinked as blood started coming down toward his eyes. “That’s Slugger style!” Sunset yelled, to general cheering from the crowd. “Let’s go, you furry fandom jackass!”
She ran at him as he grabbed the nail and pulled it out of his forehead—which was probably a mistake: the blood ran more freely without it in the way. He slashed at her again, but he was clumsier now, and she was able to dodge and elbow him in the solar plexus. He crumpled backward, winded.
Or so she thought. As she smirked and wound back her bat for a coup de grace, he dropped one sword and stabbed the other one forward, changing momentum in an instant. She had to lean to the side to keep her face from being shish-kabobed. His other hand came up to strike her, palm-heel first, in the throat.
Sunset choked. The quick burst of contact was telling her information, but with her gagging and breathless, she was in no state to process it. He struck hard with his sword, and as she clumsily blocked with her bat, the impact sent it spinning out of her hand. And now her wrist was jarred too. Great.
The next thing Sunset knew, Pharynx had moved in, swept his leg under hers, and sent her crashing to the ground. She saw stars and tasted blood. And he stood above her, smiling triumphantly, raising his sword for the final blow.
“Wait,” Sunset gasped. “I thought you wanted to bring me back to help you.”
He frowned, his momentum stopping momentarily as he raised his sword. “Yes. Why?”
“How am I gonna do that if you chop my head off?”
The blade froze about a foot from her throat. Pharynx frowned deeper. “Good point.”
Before Sunset could respond, he shoved the sword deep into the sand, so that its edge was a millimeter from the side of her neck. Then he picked up his other sword and did the same thing on the other side of her neck. “I will be right back,” he said. “Don’t move.”
He stood straight and walked off, in the direction of Sunset’s fallen bat.
Which meant that Sunset had time to think.
She sucked in a breath, wincing as the motion put the sides of her neck in contact with the blades. They were shoved deep in the sand: she wouldn’t be able to pull them out and free herself in time. She’d gotten an inkling of his fighting style when he touched her, but it would be meaningless as long as she was pinned.
Outside the box.
Well. There was always one ace up her sleeve.
Sunset closed her eyes and focused, and thought as loudly as she could. Wherever you are, whoever you’re fellating right now… I own you. And I know I haven’t really made use of that fact before, but this is a goddamned emergency. So get your undead derriere the hell over here!
She heard the sound of Pharynx stopping, and then the sound of him picking up the bat. She tasted sand in her mouth.
Any day now.
The swords shot out of the ground as if fired by geysers. Sunset kipped up to her feet, just in time to see Pharynx—who was approaching her, carrying the bat—freeze. His eyes widened in shock. “How?”
Sunset grinned. “Don’t be too surprised, Pharynx. Anything goes in the Blood Dome.” Behind her, she heard the sounds of the blades falling, but not the sounds of them hitting the ground. Which meant that someone had caught them. “Took you long enough, Somnambula!” she yelled.
“I was in the middle of a lovely conversation with Flash!” she yelled back, and Sunset glanced behind herself to see an adorable pout on her face that kind of clashed with the instruments of death she held. “You are very disruptive!”
“You’re the one who gave me ownership of your soul, so deal!” Sunset pointed dramatically forward at Pharynx. “Now give him hell!”
She charged forward with a cry of, “ORA!” Sunset frowned. What on Earth was Flash letting her watch?
But now Pharynx was on the back foot. He bobbed and weaved more competently than Sunset had, but even so, Somnambula was forcing him to back up—perhaps he couldn’t see an opportunity to counterattack a ghost.
This continued for almost twenty seconds, until Pharynx swung the bat out in desperation. It passed right through Somnambula, and right into Sunset’s grasp.
Before Pharynx could react, Sunset yanked him forward, and slugged him in the gut with the other hand. He retched with the blow.
She grabbed his neck with the other hand and chokeslammed him to the ground. “Now,” she said, planting her boot on his chest as he tried to rise, “let’s see what you really think—”
Please step on me, Mistress.
She immediately let go. “Dude, gross!”
He laughed. “We can’t help our natures, Sunset Shimmer.”
Sunset growled and kicked him in the head. There was a thunk, and then his eyes closed, and he stopped moving.
The crowd roared. “And it’s incredible, ladies and gentlemen!” the announcer roared, as Sunset started paying attention to him again; somehow he always got out of focus during the fight. “Butcher’s done it again after impossible odds! But what Iron Will wants to know is, who is the mystery fighter who’s come to her aid?”
Sunset heaved breaths, and glanced down at her bat. She’d need a new one: this one had been notched to hell. She grunted and picked it up anyway. “Thanks for the assist,” she panted, glancing at Somnambula.
“Assist?” Somnambula snorted with the most adorable pout. It was easy to see why Flash liked her. “You assisted. I did the work!”
“That’s very easy to say, Miss ‘Can’t Be Hurt By Swords’!” Sunset held out her bat, waving it through the ghost’s body as if stirring a pot of Somnambula soup. Somnambula made a little angry noise and zoomed sideways. “What, you don’t like that?”
“That’s extremely disrespectful in my culture!”
“Your what?”
“Do you see any other undead Egyptians around?” Somnambula opened her arms wide. “No? Then I get to decide what my culture is, and I don’t like it when you do that!” She zoomed forward and bopped Sunset on the nose, which was a bit like… a bit like no simile Sunset could think of, actually. It was cold, though.
Sunset laughed. “Wow, Nambs. You’re almost making me—” And then she stopped. The thought of saying the M word made her feel far, far colder than any touch of the undead could. She wouldn’t miss the old times. “Thanks,” she managed. “Please don’t tell Flash I’m here.”
Somnambula snorted. “Of course not.”
“Thanks again—”
“I mean, I’m not going to tell him what he already knows! That would be very stupid and redundant!”
Sunset stopped in the middle of her sentence.
“That’s him over there!” She pointed over Sunset’s shoulder, behind her, and Sunset turned around to see… well, it was a big crowd, so it took her a few seconds, but eventually her gaze focused on one blue-haired guy waving enthusiastically, wearing a godawful Hawaiian shirt with a dolphin pattern. “Ooh! You two should meet for drinks!”
One glass of beer, and one of water, hit the counter. “Thanks, ‘Mar,” Sunset grumbled.
It was just the two of them. Cheese hadn’t come, citing personal reasons. Everyone else in the bar had cleared out when the Butcher showed up, still holding her battered bat. And even Somnambula….
“Where’s Somnambula?” she asked.
“Apparently helping you win a fight to the death was too much effort. She told me she was going to the beach, taking some vacation time.” Flash took a swig of water, swallowed, then paused. “Heh. Somnam Bueller’s Day Off.”
He laughed, and elbowed Sunset, and Sunset didn’t respond. “Come on, that’s funny,” he said. “Because it’s like—”
“Why are you here, Flash?” Sunset’s tone of voice cut across his explanation like a train plowing through an unfortunately stopped car.
Flash looked at her, a little incredulous. “Isn’t it obvious?”
Sunset took a drink, staring right back at every inch of him and his godawful Hawaiian shirt with the dolphins on it.
“You know it’s been almost a year since you skipped town, right? Because if you weren’t keeping track, we were. Or at least I was. Did you think no one was worried about you?”
“Thanks. But no thanks.” Sunset plonked her bottle on the table. “I’ve been enjoying a relaxing vacation, as much as I can. How did you actually find me, by the way?”
“You’re on TV.”
“Oh, right.”
“Your opponents have sponsorship deals. It’s big business. I’m relatively certain that one of them has a deal with—”
“Don’t—” Sunset held up a hand “—say the B word.”
Flash frowned at her. “I was going to say ‘us’. But seriously. You changed your name but you didn’t even, like… wear a wig? A mask?” He glanced down at Sunset’s shoulder. “A different jacket, even?”
“The Dome wasn’t that big when I started.” Sunset shrugged. “I kind of became the big draw for the audience, and things kind of exploded from there.”
“Heh. Look at you.” He jostled her shoulder companionably. “Making success stories happen wherever you go, huh?”
“For everyone except me.” Sunset held her hand out expectantly. Terramar put another beer in it. She sucked it down in a single gulp. “What do you want, Flash?”
“To have a drink with an old friend?” He turned on his stool to look at her, his eyes painfully honest. “To make sure you’re not getting yourself hurt somehow—”
Her fist slammed the bar. “Bullshit. Are you trying to drag me back, like that asshole at the Dome?”
“Okay, first of all, I have no idea who that guy was. And second….” He took a deep breath. “Full disclosure time: Twilight wants you back. You’re her best friend,” he added as Sunset groaned, “of course she wants you to come home. But I swear, I only came to see how you were doing.”
Sunset sighed, and made a little nest out of her arms on the table, plopping her head amid them like an egg.
“The only trouble is,” Flash said in a rather less conciliatory tone, “I’m not liking what I’m seeing.”
“What.”
“Sunset, you’re in a job where you take a baseball bat and hit people until—”
“People who’ve signed waivers.”
“—and hit people,” Flash said a little louder, “until they fall down, and then they have to go to the hospital. And I’m supposed to be okay with that?”
“It’s my way of working out my anger. Everyone’s got their coping strategies.” Sunset didn’t make eye contact. Her voice was—and she hoped Flash would notice soon and take the hint—dangerously level. Taut as a piano string.
Flash let out a little bark of laughter. “Wow, what a word choice. Working out.” He drank some of his water. “Exercising it, like a muscle. Making it stronger. Which is what’s actually going on, Sunset!”
“Shut it. It’s healthy.”
“It’s not healthy—are you kidding?” His voice rose gradually in volume. “Do you remember the last time your life revolved around hurting other people to get what you wanted?” He was shouting by the end.
“Don’t you dare go there,” Sunset said, turning her head.
“How can I not?” He laughed again, with even less humor in it this time. “Criminy, Sunset, you weren’t like this for years. You were happy. Is one year of vacation all it takes for a factory reset?”
The piano string broke.
“Don’t you fucking talk to me like that!” she yelled, bolting to her feet so violently that ther stool toppled to the floor. She stared at Flash, towering over him—not in stature but in anger. “You don’t get to throw that at me! Not now, not ever!”
Flash backed up.
“But sure! Let’s assume that somehow I’m the same old stupid teenager I was back then! In that case, Flash Sentry, love of my life—” the words were spoken with such derision as to become their antonyms “—let’s put our heads together and think, hmm, why’d I change from that in the first place? Why might I have changed back?”
He stared at her, grimacing but not answering. “Come on, Flash, use that little jocky brain of yours and think! The teacher’s not going to give you credit if you can’t answer the question!”
“I wasn’t a….” Flash gulped. “Your… friends?”
“Ding ding ding! A plus!” Sunset flung her hands out. “My friends, who are and have been for the past two years cuckoo for cock-o puffs, and crazy as a bunch of inmates—who are currently running the asylum, Flash!”
“Yeah, I know they’re a little—”
“And I tried, dammit! No one can say I didn’t try. The whole point of quitting the job was so that I could still be friends with them, but they just kept bringing stupid bullshit into my life! The dreams and the bean cult and, and—”
She stuttered a little. “You… you know what the tipping point was? I actually want you to guess again, because there’s no way you’re actually going to figure it out.”
He opened his mouth. She waved her hand in front of it. “Nevermind. I’ll just tell you. Rainbow Dash stuck her penis in a jar of varnish! She wanted me to help get it cleaned. I put down the phone and bought plane tickets there and then, Flash!”
His mouth seemed to be holding in trapped air. “Do you get it now, ‘Bash Plenty’? It doesn’t matter how much I love my friends, because every time I talk to them I want to bash my head against a wall until the pain stops!” She took a step forward, and then another, and another. “Because they are the most stupid, and irresponsible, and immature—”
“Rainbow and Fluttershy had a kid!” Flash yelled.
She froze.
The bar seemed so big and empty for a moment, as his words echoed off the walls. “What?” she said, and that word echoed too.
“Fluttershy figured out she was pregnant a few days after you skipped town.” Flash’s voice was calm, level. He seemed taller than her again. “She and Rainbow had a talk, and they decided to keep the baby. She got born a few months ago. Her name’s Fiz, and she’s this beautiful purple little... bundle of joy.”
He was smiling now, looking at her forehead instead of her eyes, and he seemed so happy. Sunset didn’t want to touch him in case she read his mind by mistake. “We all showed up at the hospital for them. Everyone except you.” He met her eyes again. “You didn’t even know Fluttershy was pregnant, Sunset. You should have been there for her.”
Sunset gaped. She wasn’t sure how long she was doing it. “I…” she finally managed. She gulped, and realized she’d shoved over her stool. She bent over and righted it. “I thought they were never gonna have kids.”
Flash sat back down. “I think we both knew that was gonna change one day. Maybe sooner rather than later.”
“Right. Time travel horseshit.”
“No, not—” Flash coughed. “People change, Sunset. It’s what we do. It’s what you should be doing too.” He reached out his hand. “Come on. You could… get away from the Blood Dome for a while, we could go somewhere? As friends?”
She stared at it, not sitting down. It would be so easy, wouldn’t it? Just to… grab on again.
Her eyes flicked up to the TV screen from the previous day—still shattered, with bits of her mug embedded in it. Still broken, still unfixable. Still in need of replacement.
“For what it’s worth,” she said. “If you’re worried about the Blood Dome, don’t be. I’m only doing one more fight.”
“Really?” He leaned in a bit. “That’s good!”
“And once I win that fight, I’m going to buy my own deserted island and never talk to anyone again.”
“Right.” He paused, and blinked, and said, “Hang on. No! Not right!”
“It really is the best option.” She stepped forward and didn’t take his hand—but she did hug him, and pat him on the back. She only touched his shirt, so she didn’t read his mind by accident. “Sorry. Tell everyone I said hi, okay?”
She broke off and turned around, and walked out of the bar. He didn’t move to stop her.
Sunset lay under the covers, with only her head poking out.
The digital clock read 3:24 AM.
She sighed and stared at the ceiling. One more.
“What the fuck is going on in there?” Sunset said, hunched forward on her bench. Cheese was keeping his distance. So, apparently, was the other fighter, because it had been ten minutes since the match was supposed to start and no one had showed up.
Cheese Sandwich opened his mouth, and then was cut off by the sound of an accordion. He held up his finger, then grabbed his cellphone from his pocket, cutting off the ringtone. “Hello? Well, yes, of course she’s unhappy. So’s the crowd.”
And indeed they were—murmuring in the way that meant ‘we’re willing to see what’s going on, but only for about five more minutes, and then we start throwing things’. “You’ve got someone, right?” Cheese said. A few seconds later, he let out a little sigh, half of relief and half of… exasperation? “Well, anyone’s better than no one! Send him out if he’s signed his stuff!”
He ended the call and stuck his phone back in his pocket. “Good news, uh… Butch!” he said. “They found someone last-minute!”
“All right. Who?”
“They didn’t say.”
“Mm.” Sunset stood, stretched, and sat back down. The question interested her about as much as what the weather might be like next week: distantly relevant but not enough to change anything.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer yelled at long last, “Iron Will knows you’ve been waiting a long time, but trust me when I say, it has not been in vain! Our next contestant is bigger, he’s badder, he’s buffer....”
The door on the other side of the stadium opened. Sunset looked up with a bit of interest, and had to smile: the silhouette she saw didn’t match any of those adjectives.
“... than anyone you’ve ever—oh, God, he’s a piece of limp spaghetti!”
Sunset’s smile froze on her face. The silhouette was indeed scrawnier than most other contestants, but more than that, he had spiky hair that looked a bit too familiar….
“Okay, folks, Iron Will’s very sorry, but it’s the best we could do. Give up for—that is, give it up for… Fish Pantry? Is Iron Will reading this right?”
“What?” Sunset yelled, bolting to her feet.
“Are you kidding me?” Flash yelled, looking up at the announcer’s box. “I wrote it down! I am a man and I have a name, dammit! Flash! Sentry!”
Sunset stared. He was wearing a vest that might have been kevlar, and he held a big wooden shield in one hand. It was a loaner that had probably been sitting in a back room for months. No one wanted a shield at the Blood Dome!
Flash!?
He took a deep breath. “Okay, it’s cool. You know what? This totally works. Because it means we’re both fighting under the wrong name here. Isn’t that right, Sunset?”
Sunset’s vision flashed. She stepped forward. “What the hell are you—”
“You, stop talking!” Flash yelled, and Sunset froze. “They explained the bragging process to me earlier. The challenger gets to talk first—I get to talk first. You actually have to listen to me.”
He fidgeted with his shield. “Where was I… oh right. you’ve been living a lie, Sunset! And it’s not just this dumb pseudonym you’ve got going on. You think you can be happy without interacting with people, except by pummeling them into dust?” He held up his shield. “You think going to somewhere with no one else is going to help?”
And then he let his shield arm fall. “Everyone needs someone, Sunset. Even people who don’t give any fucks.” And he extended his other arm. “I’m not here to fight you. I just want you to come home. What do you say?”
He seemed to be done talking. That was good, because if the pounding in her ears got any louder, Sunset wouldn’t be able to hear a single word he said. She raised her bat with a shaky hand. “I’m… gonna fuck you… up!”
Without waiting for the announcer, she charged, roaring as she raised her bat up high.
Flash’s shield barely came up in time to block her.
Sunset didn’t hesitate. She yelled and swung again, and again Flash was ready with the block. And again. And again. Something in the back of Sunset’s mind—something she was ignoring—told her she’d probably have better luck if she weren’t so blinded with rage.
“You’re really—hurting—my arm,” Flash grunted. “Stop it, Sunset. You won’t win, I was trained for this!”
“Bullshit!” Sunset hauled back her arm again for another strike. “We never spent a dime on security training and we both know it!”
“I went on my own after you—ow—left! Night classes!”
Sunset swung an overhead blow, but Flash angled his shield, and the bat deflected off it toward the ground. She stumbled, tensing, expecting a blow while she was open and off-balance—
Nothing. In the time she took to find her footing, Flash was only taking deep breaths. “Fight me for real!” she yelled, and went for his legs.
The crowd seemed happy about the change in tactics, judging by their cheers. Flash was having a lot more trouble blocking, having to retreat awkwardly as he bent down to cover his legs with his shield. Before long, it was trivial to smash him in his unguarded shoulder.
Flash reeled back, clutching his arm. She didn’t think she’d broken it, but it would make raising that arm a hell of a lot harder. “If you don’t fight me for real,” she said, hefting her bat onto her shoulder, “then you don’t belong here.”
“No one belongs here,” Flash panted. “This place is awful.”
“It’s home.”
“You have a—” Flash’s eyes kind of glazed over for a second. And then he started bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Now this is much more productive,” he said, holding up his arms like a boxer, not coincidentally raising the shield as well.
Sunset squinted. His tone of voice sounded different. Sort of… playful? “What are you doing?”
“Just a little something I learned from my cuckold of a husband!”
Sunset barely had time to process that before Flash—or was it really Flash?—leaped forward with a right hook. Sunset brought up her bat to counterattack, only for Flash to dodge and strike with his shield arm. Right into Sunset’s kidneys.
Sunset bent forward. She tried not to retch. “Somnambula?” she managed.
“In the flesh!” She put her hands on her hips—that was to say, his hands on his hips—and smiled. “We learned to do this in the bedroom. He has a safe word. He hasn’t used it yet!”
“I order you to—”
But Flash—Somnambula—whoever it was, they surged forward again, backhanding Sunset across the face with the shield. She tumbled to the ground, spat out some blood, and rolled to the side, still clutching her bat. Flashnambula’s kick came for where her head had been a moment later.
Sunset heaved a breath, jumping to her feet. “I order you to—”
Flashnambula leaped forward with a tiger knee, forcing Sunset to sidestep. She swung the bat, but her opponent parried with the shield, reached in, and grabbed her shirt to yank her close. “Listen up,” they hissed. “For someone who sees everyone else as immature, you are behaving like a sulking child. End this tantrum.”
Sunset got her breath back. “Stop fighting me, Somnambula. That’s an order!”
“Ngh!” Flash’s body kind of glowed and wavered, as if Sunset were looking through heat haze.
“I said, that’s an order!” Sunset grabbed Flash’s hair and started pulling.
“No!” The voice sounded different now—Sunset could hear both Somnambula and Flash, like a cheap special effect. They closed their eyes. “I’m not going to.... let you….”
Flash’s eyes shot open, and he—only he—shouted, “Mycelium!”
Somnambula’s ghost shot backwards out of Flash’s body. She stared at him, slack-jawed. “Honey, no! Why!” Sunset found herself at a loss, too—she even let go of his hair. Safe word.
“Because this isn’t about winning in a stupid fight.” Flash let go of Sunset and took a step back. “I told you, Sunset, I’m not here to—”
Sunset grabbed her bat and stove in Flash’s stomach. He bent double, spewing undigested bits of taro into the sand. “Leave now, Somnambula!” Sunset ordered.
Somnambula reached out, clearly trying to float closer, but her face was etched in pain. She screamed.
“Now!”
It was as if she were standing in a jet engine’s exhaust. Somnambula flew backward, through the wall of the Blood Dome, and out of sight.
Sunset kicked at Flash, knocking him onto his back. She raised her bat, brought it down, and he only just blocked in time—
—somewhere, some sort of incredible sound was blaring—
—but her bat still had the nail through it: she hooked the shield, pulled, and yanked it out of his grasp. It flew sideways and clattered on the ground. Flash brought up his arms to protect himself, and Sunset raised the bat triumphantly—
“That was the horn!”
Arms hooked around her shoulders from behind. Dragged her back. Sunset blinked, and the blaring noise from before finally reached her brain. A second later, she recognized the voice behind her. “Cheese!”
“The round is over, Sunset! Holster it!” Cheese Sandwich’s voice was uncharacteristically angry as he dragged Sunset back—and Sunset blinked, realizing what she’d been doing, and let him.
Raising her bat triumphantly over Flash’s unprotected head.
Blurrily, she saw Flash pushing himself to his feet. He was shaking like a seventy-year-old man with Parkinson’s as he lurched over to retrieve his shield.
Ready to bash his—
Sunset shook her head violently as they finally reached the bench, and she slumped onto it. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any tips for beating him?”
“I’m not going to tell you how to beat up on a nearly-defenseless novice, Sunset,” Cheese said. He leaned against the wall, head in hand, and Sunset couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t offering her water or anything.
“Fair enough.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and let the bat fall beside her. “I don’t know what happened. What came over me, I mean. I was ready to….” She trailed off and looked up at him. “You called me ‘Sunset’.”
“I have ears, ‘Butch’.” Cheese sighed. “I always kind of suspected it was a pseudonym, honestly.”
“You mad I didn’t tell you?”
“I’m not mad about that. But he’s right, and you know it.”
She grumbled, and glanced up at the crowd. They didn’t seem very happy—she heard a lot of muttering and no cheering—and who could blame them? Considering how one-sidedly the fight was turning out?
“One way or another,” she said, half to herself, “I’m not gonna be fighting in the Dome after today. So what are you gonna do, Cheese? Find someone else to coach? You’re good at it, you know.”
Cheese snorted. “Of course not. Are you kidding? As if I was ever in it for the coaching.” He looked down at her, frowning. “This place is terrible. I’m gonna find somewhere else.”
She frowned right back. “If you think this place is so horrible, why’d you become my coach?”
“Because….” He looked at her, and though the frown stayed on his face, there was a twinkle in his eye. “I saw a woman who was feeling down, and I thought she might need a few smiles sent her way.”
Sunset held the gaze for a few seconds more, until—despite everything—she felt a smile creeping its way onto her features. She coughed and turned away.
The horn sounded.
Sunset stood up and punched Cheese’s shoulder without looking. “You’re a good guy, Cheese,” she said. “Hope you find what you’re looking for.”
“Wish I could say the same to you, considering.” But he punched back.
Sunset stepped forward, watching Flash across the ring. Okay, she could do this rationally. She didn’t need to… you-know-what him. She just needed to KO him safely.
And if she was going to do that, she needed to get a read on him.
She raised her bat, and Flash raised his shield accordingly, but Sunset darted in and grabbed his hand—
Flash heard something that, if he didn’t know better, sounded like a desk being smashed against a wall.
Unfortunately, he didn’t know better. So he sighed and stood up, and walked to Twilight’s office, which was currently a shambles—the papers and computer hardware that usually covered the desk now covered the floor, and the desk itself was upended in a corner. “Hey, Twilight?”
She jerked her head around to look at him, and he noticed she wasn’t wearing her glasses—which were on the floor with everything else. Then the tension in her shoulders disappeared, and she slumped to the floor.
“You wanna talk about it?” He sat down beside her.
She took a few seconds. “I want to talk to her,” she said. “So much. I was looking up a lead, I thought I’d finally found her, but it just turned up dead. Some other red-haired girl posting selfies from Nepal.” She sniffed, and her voice sounded kind of quiet, like the air before a fall of rain. “I wasn’t even going to talk about genitalia.”
Flash gently hooked an arm around her. “I believe you.”
“I just….” She sniffed again, and wiped her eyes. “I really miss her, you know?”
“I know.”
Sunset broke free. Fighting to escape the memory like a diver a hundred meters below the surface. She heaved a breath and stumbled back from Flash. “No,” she whispered, looking down at her shirt, beneath which rested the geode. “It’s not supposed to do that anymore. Why are you doing this?”
Flash flinched away too. “Wait, were you in my….” His mouth opened a little.
“Shut up,” Sunset said.
“Did you not like what you saw?”
“Shut up!”
She ran forward, but Flash blocked the clumsy swing of her bat with his shield, and grabbed her hand—
An almost-empty bar. Just Applejack behind the counter and Flash in front of it, drinking non-alcoholic cider as the bean vines slithered gently around them at the end of the day. If Flash didn’t think about it, it was a bit like being at the beach and hearing the white nose of the waves.
“Work going okay?” Applejack asked.
“Yeah. You?”
“Mm.”
He drank again. To his left there was an empty stool. Even when the bar was full—during some company meetings, while buttering up investors, or the occasional party—the stool somehow never got used anymore.
Sunset aikido’d her way out of Flash’s grip. “Stop it,” she hissed. “It doesn’t—I can’t go back.”
She ran at him, but he was able to sidestep and planted his hand on her back—her jacket. The cut in it from the previous day, she hadn’t gotten it fixed yet—
Pinkie Pie and Rarity were doing some… very unusual things to each other on The Couch. Flash had his hand clamped over his eyes so he couldn’t see, but it wasn’t helping: he still heard the air horns.
He grimaced, but still stood there, transfixed. “Girls,” he said, “that might be the most ridiculous sex I’ve ever witnessed.”
The rocking noise stopped, and then Rarity chuckled. “Another dollar for the old jar, eh?”
And then the rocking noise stayed stopped. Flash dared to splay his fingers a bit, just enough to see Pinkie and Rarity both looking morose, as realization seemed to hit them. “Darn it,” Pinkie said, “now we have to do another take. Flash, get in here!”
“Wha—”
“You break it, you bought it. Get in!”
She bounded toward him, grabbed his hand, and yanked him forward.
The airhorns started again—
“Gross!” Sunset yelled, shaking her head like a mud-covered dog. She raised her batting arm—
Flash walked toward her and grabbed her in a hug.
Generally speaking, visitors weren’t allowed in the new Beanis headquarters’ maternity ward unless they were family.
But then again, weren’t they all family?
Everyone was crowded into the small delivery room. Rainbow Dash was unconscious on the room’s only chair—she’d made the mistake of trying to watch the delivery, and had apparently fainted at the sight—and Fluttershy lay in her bed with all the vigor of a sloth who’d run a marathon; everyone else was standing around the bed.
Well, almost everyone else.
“Look, everyone,” Fluttershy said, holding the maroon baby in her arms. “She’s beautiful. We’re thinking of calling her Fizzlepop.”
Tempest Shadow, standing to her side, reached forward without apparently thought, but Wallflower grabbed her hand and pulled it back. “Best not,” Wallflower said.
“Congratulations!” Twilight yelled, and Fluttershy winced. “Oh, sorry! I’m just very excited because she’s a very beautiful baby and also clearly the alternate timeline double of Tempest and—ooh, my brain feels like a shaken-up soda can right now! I’m fizzing with questions!”
“Time for that later, Twi,” Applejack said, throwing one arm over her and another over Flash. “For now, let’s just….” She laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Flash said.
“It’s just… perspective, that’s all.” Applejack took off her hat. “Look at us. Growing up, having kids, running a company already. Did any of y’all think this was how things were gonna go? Because sure as apple cobbler is delicious, I didn’t.”
Fizzlepop cooed.
“And we all stayed together, too!” Applejack said, and then she sighed. “More or less, anyhow.”
Flash looked up to see tears starting down Fluttershy’s cheeks. “Fluttershy?”
“What? Oh, I’m crying.” She sniffed. “The doctors said I might be a little emotional after the delivery, it’s just….” She seemed to want to wipe her eyes, but looked down at the bundle in her arms and thought better of it. “Today’s such a wonderful day, that’s all. I don’t want to spoil it.”
“Whuhhhh…”
Everyone glanced over to where Rainbow was, and she seemed to be stirring. “Did I….” She shook her head, then shoved herself upright. “Did I miss it? Am I a dad? Move over!”
She jolted forward, super-speeding for an instant and shoving Pinkie and Rarity out of the way. Fluttershy smiled, and raised up the infant Fizzlepop, who made a little burping noise.
Rainbow’s eyes shone. “I’m a dad!”
Sunset didn’t try to break away. Her cheeks felt wet.
“You saw it, right?” Flash said, still holding her. “How they’re all feeling?”
We miss you.
“It’s bad for me,” Sunset said, her voice wet.
We miss you.
“We can make it better. We promise.”
We miss you.
Flash let go, and the emotional load—the mental equivalent of sharing an elevator with an elephant—dissipated, but Sunset still felt the tears on her cheeks. Flash took a few steps back, and reached his arms out wide. “I’m not going to fight you, Sunset. But… it’s time.”
He let go of the shield’s handle. It fell to the ground. He stood there, shivering a little with the wounds she’d already inflicted. She still had the bat in her hand.
She raised the bat. He smiled.
She….
Dropped the bat. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I surrender.”
The crowd all around them booed, but Flash was beaming.
“Is what I would like to say.”
Not so much beaming anymore. “Beg your pardon?”
Sunset sniffed. She wiped her eyes and put on a smile. “It’s called the Blood Dome, Flash. You’re not actually allowed to surrender. Didn’t they tell you the rules when you signed the waiver?”
Flash’s brow was furrowed. “But then… if you’re not going to….”
“Yup.” Sunset kicked the bat toward him. “You’re going to have to hit me, Flash.”
The crowd booed louder as Flash bent down to pick up the bat—but stopped halfway. “Seriously? Sunset, I don’t want to hit you.”
“Yeah, well, tough luck. I’ve been beating people down here for six months, it’s about time someone gave me a taste of my own medicine.”
“This is crazy!”
“Well, yeah. Blood Dome. Come on, hit me!”
The crowd’s booing was louder than she’d ever heard them cheer. Flash picked up the bat and held it uncertainly, like he’d never seen one before. “Come on,” Sunset said, and threw her arms to the side. “I’m not gonna stop you. You wanna bring me back, right?”
“Right….”
“Then hit me! Come on, before I chicken out. Hit me! Hit me!”
Thwack.
“Celestia!” she yelled, clutching the side of her head. “You hit me in the ear!”
“You said to hit you!” he yelled, clutching the bat.
“I was thinking, like, solar plexus! Motherfucker, Flash, why the ear?”
“I’m sorry!”
“Don’t be sorry, KO me! Son of a bitch, this—”
Thwack.
BLOOD DOME LOSES STAR COMPETITOR
Can the fledgling sport survive?
The newspaper headline distantly caught Sunset’s eye, in the kiosk at the airport. It was a good thing it was catching her left eye, because she had no peripheral vision on her right side at the moment.
“Can’t believe you hit me in the ear twice,” she muttered.
“Sorry,” Flash said on her right, where she couldn’t see him thanks to all the gauze. It wasn’t the worst thing; it meant she couldn’t see his godawful shirt either.
“I’m not angry. I’m just saying.” She punched gently where she was pretty sure his shoulder would be, and felt her fist connect.
With the wrong part of his body. “That’s my face, Sunset,” he said.
“Sorry!”
“I guess we’re even, then.” He yawned, and Sunset looked toward him to see him scrolling on his phone. “Somnambula also says no hard feelings, by the way. She’s riding shotgun.” He winked, and something in the playfulness of the action told Sunset that it was the Egyptian queen, not the security guard, doing it.
Looking toward him caused something else to catch Sunset’s eye: a TV screen a couple yards away, playing a certain kid’s cartoon. Well, ostensibly for kids, anyway. “And remember,” Captain Beanis was saying to the five smiling children of varying demographics, “while friendship has many benefits, there’s no benefit more important than trust and love! So trust your friends, and remember to buy—”
Sunset rolled her eyes and looked away.
“Oh, they’re playing that again,” Flash said. She heard him stand up and then stoop in front of her. “Do you need me to get them to change the channel, or….”
“I’m fine.” Sunset let a smile come to her face, not forcing it. “If I can’t deal with it, I’ll let you know, okay?”
“Okay, sure. And, um….” He bit his lip. “If you ever feel like we’re… too much? In a more general sense, I mean. Can you find another way to destress besides running off to the middle of nowhere? Like—”
“There she is!”
The ear-splitting wheeze of an accordion cut Flash off. Sunset twisted around in her chair. “Cheese!”
“You look like some famous painter whose name I forget.” Cheese laughed and played a ‘wah-wah-wah-wahhhhh’ noise on his accordion. “Terramar says hi, by the way,” he added with a grin. “Well, he didn’t say it, but he waved. I’m interpreting here.”
“No I don’t.”
Cheese frowned. “Pardon?”
“I don’t look like a famous painter. I look like….” She fished in her pocket for a tchotchke she’d picked up at the airport, then smiled. Then she pulled out the black eyepatch and pulled it on. “A pirate!”
Cheese snorted. Good. He’d worked pretty hard to lift her spirits; she owed him at least one laugh.
“Where are you going?” Flash asked.
“Hm. Excellent question!” Cheese rummaged in a pocket and pulled out a die, and dropped it to the floor with a flick of his wrist. He bent down, looked at the die, and smiled. “Saddle Arabia!”
Sunset snorted. “They wouldn’t have let you in if you hadn’t already chosen a destination, Cheese. You can’t fool me.”
“You got me.” He raised his hands in surrender. “I actually rolled the die when I got to the airport.”
“Last call for plane to Saddle Arabia. Now boarding.”
“Whoops, that’s me!” With a shriek from his accordion, Cheese was off and running. “Bye, Sunset! Catch you later maybe!” Sunset sniggered as she watched him run.
“He’s weird,” Flash said. “Which I guess makes sense, but…. Sorry, where were we? Something about how if you’re too tired of the crazy stuff, you can always find a way to… why are you laughing?”
And indeed, Sunset was laughing. She bent forward from all her laughter, and wiped her eyes. “I thought you’d have figured this one out before me, Flash.”
“Huh?”
“I’m a magical unicorn from a parallel reality, who ran away and enrolled in high school over a temper tantrum. I helped found the world’s fastest-growing sex toy company. And when I tried to get away from that, I joined a gladiator ring in the third world.” She snorted. “See the thread?”
“Um.”
“Okay, let me put it another way.” Sunset reached behind herself to stretch. “You know those people who say they hate drama? Like, interpersonal, social drama? ‘Oh, I can’t stand drama’, those people.”
“Yeah, sure. They’re always the people who….” Flash trailed off. “Oh.”
“The people who need drama. That’s me. I’m the one bitching about all the crazy and stupid stuff, but I keep looking for it anyway, like magnetic attraction.” She leaned her head back and smiled. “You think I should try to make normal friends? Then I’d be the crazy one. I’ll just have to find a way to deal, that’s all.”
“Attention. Boarding has now begun for Flight A113 to Beanis International Airport. Now boarding our EliteFlight members.”
“That’s you, c’mon,” Flash said. He stood up and shoved a duffel at her.
Sunset blinked. What with the head wound and all, she hadn’t paid a huge amount of attention to the tickets or their destination, but…. “Beanis International?” she said. “I thought I was going back to Canterlot—oh, Celestia, did Twilight buy and rename Canterlot Airport?”
“No!” Flash paused. “I mean, yes, but you’re not going there in any case. The thing is….” He shrugged. “Look, obviously I texted Twilight once I’d found you, and once you’d agreed to come home.”
“Sure, sure.”
“And she was thrilled. So thrilled that she paid for first-class plane tickets... and gave me and Somnmabula an extra week off in Fiji, so I’m not coming with you.” He smiled and put out a hand to shake. “Enjoy!”
“Enjoy what?”
“Oh, she wants you to come see one of our upcoming projects.” He looked up, as if trying to read a teleprompter on the ceiling, or to access the memories in his head. “She said something about some sort of… Beanis amusement park?”
Sunset looked up at him flatly. “A Beanis amusement park.”
Flash looked back at her.
Sunset jumped to her feet and grabbed her bag. “That sounds like the stupidest thing ever,” she said, a huge smile on her face. “I can’t wait!”