They say that you should always be yourself, unless you can be Batman.

I mean, what else was I supposed to do with all the wealth I could handle?

I lurked in a dark shadow atop a building in Las Pegasus. It hadn’t been easy to find a shadow, either, as lit up as the place was.

Tin Mare and Libby orbited overhead doing recon. I’d ensured Libby wasn’t armed. Las Pegasus was not a place to have loose robots distributing lethal weapons.

I’d come to the city to get Twilight's attention to force her to come back from Silent Hill. That would make it look like I was competent and responsible at running a school.

I mean, I guess I was. I’d lasted this long. I just didn’t like the job. Not to mention being rich enough to choke a horse made me kind of bored of it.

I tapped my earpiece. “Tin Mare: outgoing call to Trixie.”

She put it through. After a few rings, Trixie picked up. “What is it, dad?”

“Do you still have contacts with the Flim Flam Brothers? They’re in Las Pegasus, right?”

“I think so.”

“I’ve got a little offer for them. A university for friendship, distance learning special. Self-accredited, non-transferrable, all applicants accepted without precondition.”

“Ooh, I don’t think they could resist that.”

“More importantly, I don’t think Twilight could resist it.”

Trixie told me how to contact the Flim Flam Brothers and hung up. I stepped from my shadowy perch and dropped down to a darkened alley below, landing with a thud that cracked the pavement in my custom nighttime power armor.

As much as Twilight and Yona had wanted to come, there are some things that you have to do alone. Also, both of them would probably have frowned on the creation of a bogus friendship school to create a shadow rival to our own.

As I came up out of the shadows, I changed into a quick disguise. I put on an orange and purple hat and carried a cardboard box. I found the apartment building Trixie had indicated and stepped inside, heading upstairs. At the correct door, I knocked.

“Who is it?” said a voice.

“FedEx. I have a package for you.”

“What’s in the package?”

“Not my business. I’m just the delivery guy here to give this to you.”

“What?”

“FedEx going to give it to you.” Knock knock. “Open up the door.”

They did.

Then, upon seeing me, they immediately slammed it shut again.

“Well, that wasn’t very neighborly, especially considering what kind of deal I’ve come to you with.”

“Nothing good ever comes out of working with you, Valiant.”

“Hey, you’re the scammers. I’m just the guy who doesn’t care about the wellbeing of others. While I’m being extraordinarily introspective here, I’d like to point out that I wouldn’t have come to you guys if this was something I wanted to do myself, and I’m prepared to make it worth your while.”

They cautiously opened the door again and I walked inside.

Putting the box down, I opened it to reveal a stack of lesson plans, curriculum, and cash. “I need you to start a friendship school.”

“We heard about the one Twilight Sparkle dared you to run,” said Flim.

“So are you trying to pass it off on us?” asked Flam.

“No, I’m setting you up as a puppet rival.”

That got their attention. I showed them a poster to advertise the new school. Why waste your time at a friendship school that’s just a school? Learn everything they teach and more at Friendship University.

I explained a little more of how I wanted them to run the place, finishing with, “And I want you to paint a big FU on the side of the building.”

“So the point is to draw Twilight’s attention,” said Flim.

“Well, we can certainly do that,” said Flam.

“Twilight is one of those people that always has to be right. So, you know, make some flashy claims that sound really cool but aren’t quite outrageous enough for most people to actually look them up.”

Flim grinned. “How long do you think we’ve been doing this?”

Flam looked thoughtful. “So do you want to reach out to the Equestrian Education Association? Recognition from them would really get Twilight’s goat.”

I considered it. “Yeah, but it would also make me look bad if you guys were recognized above us. Plus, the EEA would only accredit you if you had a racist pony-only curriculum, and I know you guys wouldn’t turn down tuition from anyone regardless of species.”

I added, “But, we also have to keep this place’s origin super-secret. No one can know that I’m behind this. That’s what’s going to make it work to lure Twilight back here.”

They agreed and I left the apartment.

Back down on the street, I stopped to look around. It was Las Pegasus, after all. Since I was here.

There was a donut shop on the corner, and that seemed like a great place to start. I walked in and had a seat at the bar.

A diamond dog hurried out of the back room, looking perturbed by something. “Be right there,” he said, or I think he said. He wasn’t so great at enunciation. At any rate, he was right there and I told him what I wanted.

He hurried around, getting my donuts and going back into the back room. Some kind of argument started.

I was almost finished when he came back out. They were really good donuts. “How did you like everything?” Once again, I’m guessing what he actually said.

“It was good,” I said. “Do you make them?”

He smiled. “Yep.” His face fell. “I just wish I didn’t have to make them for my old lady.”

“Her?” I asked, nodding towards the kitchen door. She must be a bitch.

“That’s right.”

“Tell you what.” I put my business card - the one for the school - on the counter. “You’re a hell of a baker. If you’re looking for a new job, look me up. I’m Valiant, by the way.”

“Chuck.”

We shook.

Back out on the sidewalk, I grinned. As good as the donuts were, I could only imagine what he could do with less stress and also working with Pinkie and Baby Cakes, the home-ec teacher we’d captured. The submarine was going to turn into the world’s best bakery, in addition to the original school of friendship.

I kept walking. A mare stepped out from an alley. She was reddish in color, with black hooves, and white ears and tail. “Hey big boy,” she said.

“No,” I replied.

“Come on, I’m that easy,” she said.

“So?”

She fell in step beside me. “They call me Foxy.”

I’d already met the hound, so this must be the fox. Not that they were related or anything, but I thought it was an interesting coincidence.

I kept walking. “I don’t care. Leave me alone.”

Distracted as I replied to her, I didn’t see too very large thugs step out of an alley ahead and block the path.

“Out of the way,” I said. “I have places to be.”

“Nah,” said one. “You need to be where we take you.”

“You’re coming with us,” said the other one. “You gonna learn.”

Oh shit, they were from the EEA.

I sighed and pulled out my Desert Eagle. To my surprise, despite their size, the two of them were faster than I could have ever believed and knocked it away before I could pull the trigger.

I jumped backwards, reaching for my backup switchblade. They two of them also pulled knives.

Fast as they were, I was on my guard now and the three of us went back and forth in mêlée à trois. I would have gotten cut a few times, too, if I wasn’t wearing my power armor.

Yes, I’d even been wearing it under the FedEx uniform. It’s called a disguise.

However, when they eventually got me into a clinch, and turned me upside down, I was done. The suit’s jump-jets would only fire me upwards, and, well, I was upside down. Lifted clear of the ground, I was deprived of both traction and any innate earth pony magic. Plus, being in the suit I couldn’t throw fireballs.

The eye lasers I was still developing.

“Tin Mare!” I radioed.

I heard her coming, but the two thugs jumped with me down a manhole before she arrived.

“Scanning sewer network,” she said. Plans for the tunnels began to appear in my HUD.

That didn’t help, though, when I was still being carried by some of the most athletic ponies I’d ever encountered.

They got me down to some place fairly deep within the sewer network and put me down, after wrapping me in a literal ball of logging chains that was fixed to the concrete floor.

It was only then did Chancellor Neighsay appear.

“It is the time of your final reckoning,” he said.

“But I’ve still got one of your seven superintendents to go,” I pointed out.

“I’m the seventh,” he said.

“I’m actually kind of disappointed,” I said. “That’s kind of a letdown.” I paused. “Wait, you originally claimed there were seven. You’re putting out false information? Some teacher you are.”

“It’s not about facts,” he said. “It’s about policy.”

He went on, but I had tuned him out. Instead, on a circuit inside the power armor, I said, “Tin Mare, patch a call through to Merry May.” She did so, and when Merry answered, I said, “How fast can you get to Las Pegasus?”

“Who is this?”

“I’m a talent scout. I saw you in the Das Booty video. I’m interested in hiring you.”

“Oh, well, I’m probably two days’ travel away.”

Shit, not nearly soon enough. “Well, let me get back to you.” I hung up. “Tin Mare, new plan.”

I switched back to the external speakers. “Let me stop you right there.”

Neighsay had been in the middle of explaining his master plan. I’d been recording it to listen to later, though as loose as he was with the truth that probably wasn’t going to be important.

“Since you went gay after being smacked around by a huge penis, I guess that explains these two guys,” I said, gesturing as much as I was able to the pair of enormous thugs that had brought me down here.

“They’re the muscle to back up my brains,” he said. “We’ve perfected ways to imbue all kinds of knowledge, even negative knowledge. It’s well known that the opposite of a nerd is a jock. Therefore, we can reverse the process of learning and teach jocks to their pinnacle. These specimens are the result of more anti-school than you would believe.”

“Again, some teacher you are.”

“What are you even doing in Las Pegasus?” he said. “Don’t you have a school to run? Bad as you are at it?”

I had to get him off that line of conversation, lest he discover my plan. “Actually, in the spirit of not doing things right, I’ve come to Las Pegasus for a little project called Operation Chastity.”

“Oh really?”

Tin Mare was listening and initiated the plan as I kept talking. “You see, back in my own world there was this big war. They had a plan to destroy enemies’ dams with bombs, and it required very special bombs, the kind that would skip to their target.”

It was just about this time that Tin Mare started dropping bombs down the open manhole cover.

From below, we heard them clattering around the pipes and getting closer. I subtly turned on the power armor’s infrared laser and aimed it at where the chains held me to the floor.

The first weapon to arrive hit right where I wanted and exploded. Being in power armor, the close range blast knocked me across the chamber, but I was safe. I managed to get my bearings just in time for the second bomb to arrive. I pointed the laser at the pair of thugs.

To my dismay, one of them actually caught the bomb. So instead of aiming the next bomb at him again, I just aimed it at the previous bomb. He wasn’t very smart, and wasn’t expecting that. The explosion killed them both.

There was one more bomb on the way, and I turned, looking for Neighsay. To my surprise, though, Foxy appeared. “Hey, you left so suddenly, I decided to see if you were all right.”

Neighsay grabbed her by the throat and pulled her close to him. “You wouldn’t kill an innocent civilian!”

I laughed.

“Oh, you like it rough?” said Foxy, looking up at him.

“Don’t worry about it; he’s gay,” I said.

“So’s spaghetti until it drys out.”

While he was trying to debate that, the bomb arrived. Foxy caught it. Not intentionally. Not with her hooves. It didn’t explode, but Jesus I wish it had. I did not need to see that kind of stretching.

I mean, I guess she was telling the truth when she said she was really easy but holy shit.

Neighsay used my distraction to escape.

I walked over to Foxy, trying to keep my eyes off her and the bomb. She smiled up at me. “Could you maybe help me out? I’m stuck.”

“So I see.” I sighed. This would have been so much easier to just write her off as civilian casualties. But I talked to her, so now I kind of owned the problem.

I wasn’t about to solve it myself, though, so I hoisted her and the bomb and walked up out of the sewers. Tin Mare was waiting and we loaded up.

On the way back, I called the sub. “I’m going to need some EOD support when I get back.”

“What kind?” Cordoba asked.

I thought about who might be willing to help and who I was willing to scar for life when they found out. “Still working on that.”

Operation Chastity was a terrible name.

Author's Notes:

I hope you enjoy Chuck and Foxy. They're limited-time characters for joke in a couple chapters.