Chapter 150

“You don’t think it looks weird?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Nah,” I replied. “I think it looks good. The red totally reminds me of a fruit rollup. It looks a lot better than mine.”

She curled a lip. “Better than yours?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’ve always thought that lady parts look a lot better.”

“Eh… I dunno,” she replied, looking down at her phone. “At least yours gets to wear a cool helmet.”

I let out a chuckle, tipping my head back to rest it against the wall.

I was sitting up at the head of her bed, still naked. Rainbow Dash was lying on her belly further down the bed, her powdery-blue backside facing the ceiling while her bare feet swung playfully in the air.

After taking a moment to absorb the moment --because I really wasn’t expecting to spend the morning hanging out in the buff with Rainbow Dash-- I let out a sigh and looked down at her, studying that colourful ponytail of hers.

“So Dashie,” I began, “you never answered my question.”

She looked up at me, arching a brow. “What question?”

“When we were just getting started; I asked you what had changed. Why you were able to look past your apprehension about me and my age.”

She paused for a moment, caught off-guard by the question. Then she rolled her eyes and sighed. “OK, look; before I say anything I just want to apologize for how I treated you back then. I don’t know why I was so creeped out by how old you are, it was just… I dunno. I was just being immature, I guess.”

I shrugged. “I get it. You wouldn’t be the first one to feel that way about me.”

“Well, still…” She sighed.

“So why’d you come around?”

She looked up at me for a moment, chewing her lip. “Um… well, back then, I couldn’t shake the idea that we were twenty-six years old, and you were, like, a couple thousand. And the idea that Fluttershy and you…” --she grimaced slightly-- “were gonna… ugh… get it on; it just made me queasy. Think about it! You’ve had your dick inside women who are now basically dust--and have been for, like, EVER.”

“That dust is way more satisfied than other dust, though…”

“Yeah, but…” --she smirked slightly as she spoke-- “it grossed me out, man. I didn’t know how Flutters could do it--and I was even more confused when everyone else started jumping on the Golden wagon.” She paused once again, ruminating. “But… after I got turned, even though I was really mad at first, I started to feel differently about age and time, especially when I started thinking about Fluttershy.”

I cocked my head. “Flutters? What about her?”

“Well…” She rubbed her nose. “You think about how old she was when she turned, and now, a year later, she’s twenty-seven, but… she’s still exactly the same as she was back then. She’s still living in a twenty-six year old body, and she always will be. And you’re the same way. And now, I am, too.”

“Right…”

“So, like, as time went on, I started to feel less like a ‘twenty-six year old,’ and more like… a ‘forever year old.’ Like, I don’t really have an age, I just am. And so are you. I don’t feel like you and me are that different anymore, and now you don’t seem that weird to me.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “It’s hard thing to try to tell someone: that there’s a difference between being a certain age and how long you’ve been around. When you don’t age, those become two different things.”

“Exactly!” She pointed at me. “God, I’m so glad someone else understands that--though, I guess if anyone would, it’d be you.”

“OK so, what about what happened here today? How’d that come about?”

“Um…” Dash furrowed her brows and scratched her ear. “Well, for a long time, was still just kind of ‘meh’ about you. I mean, I’ve always thought you were good-looking n’ stuff, but that was about it. It was that… magic, or whatever that was, a few weeks ago, when I kinda felt the urge. And I couldn’t shake it, either.”

“It’s kind of still there, just so you know.”

“No, I know. I just… I couldn’t stop fucking thinking about it. It was like an itch I that couldn’t be scratched, no matter how much porn I watched or how many times I diddled myself.”

“Heh, diddled…”

“Even today,” she said, gesturing to the front room. “You showed up at the worst possible time; like, I’d been watching porn for fucking hours.”

“I bet you’re glad I showed up now, though.”

A little smirk crossed her face. “Just a little.”

“So with the time thing, does the whole ‘I fucked women who are now long dead’ thing still bug you? That’s not really the same hang up.”

“Eh… I can live with it. I mean, you shower, so… I’m kind over it.”

“I would have thought it was kinda cool,” I said. “Like, now you can say you got banged by the same dick that could have banged Cleopatra.”

Her brows went up. “You banged Cleopatra!?”

“Well, no… but I banged chicks from the same era.”

Dash snorted and shook her head. “For fuck’s sake, Golds,” she chuckled. “But no, the weirdest thing about banging someone as old as you is that… you can’t really tell you’re that old. Like, you look just like any other person out there right now.”

“Oh… yeah, people generally looked exactly the same back then--they acted the same too, it was just the lifestyles that were different.” I reached up to run my fingers through my hair. “I’m guessing by the haircut I was a soldier even before I turned; generally speaking, most men had longer hair back then, but soldiers had to cut it short so your enemies couldn’t grab onto it during battle. Mine’s not cut very evenly though, which is why I tend to keep it on the messy side.”

“Huh,” Dash nodded. “It must have been crazy to live back then.”

“People nowadays take a lot for granted, that’s for sure.” I reached my hand out to her. “Here, can I see your phone or a sec?”

“Sure,” she replied, holding it out to me.

I took it and began tapping away at the screen while Dash, folded her arms and rested her chin on them to watch me.

“It’s kinda funny seeing you use a smartphone,” she said, smiling.

“Yeah…” I replied absentmindedly. Not even I was immune to the zombification these devices caused. I turned the phone around and handed it back to her. “Here. This is an example I wanted to show you of how little humans have changed over the centuries. I want you to look at this picture and tell me how old it is.”

Rainbow Dash took the phone and furrowed her brows. “Hmm,” she thought aloud, rolling onto her back to expose her breasts, as well as that fuzzy, red lightning bolt. “Uh… I dunno. It looks like a Calvin Klein ad or something… like, from the nineties.” She slid one foot upward, raising a knee and waving it side to side as she studied the image. “I’m gonna guess, since you’re talking about people from long ago looking the same as now, that this is older… like from the 1960’s. Or the forties.”

I shook my head. “That guy’s name is Lewis Powell. He was one of the conspirators in the assassination of President Lincoln. That picture was taken in 1865.”

She looked up at me, eyes wide with surprise. “Whoa, seriously!?”

“Yup,” I nodded, before raising a finger to make another point. “Well, that picture was digitally coloured, but yeah. It’s cropped, too; he was actually in handcuffs in that shot.”

Dash brows went up. “This is after he got captured?”

“Yeah, not too long after. We were on a ship when they took that photo, hence the metal backdrop.”

“Whoa, hang on,” Dash said, closing her eyes as she waved her hand at me. “You were there?”

“Yeah. Who d’you think he was giving the stink-eye to in that picture?”

She looked at the picture again. Then she snorted and shook her head. “Yeah, actually… you must have been there; I’ve seen Rarity give you that exact same look.”

“I guess I have that effect sometimes. But no, seriously, I was there that night they went to the Surratt’s house to talk to Mary, and he just happened to show up --you know… wrong place, wrong time kind of deal-- and we got ‘em both in one lucky swoop. They both hanged for it eventually, along with a few others.”

“Wow,” she said, still studying the picture. “For conspiring to kill the president?”

“Not just that, but they tried to kill the vice-president and the secretary of state--but obviously only succeeded in killing the president.” I replied, folding my arms and leaning back against the wall. “He was a Confederate soldier before that--the guy in the picture there; he even fought in the Battle of Gettysburg, and he got wounded there or something. I can’t remember what he got up to after that, but after the war ended, he met up with Booth and they started putting together their plot of kidnap Lincoln, which failed, so they tried again with the assassination.”

“Huh. He fought at Gettysburg, eh?” Dash looked up at me. “Did you fight in the civil war?”

“A little. Not at Gettysburg, though; I was too far away at the time. I could have been there for the Gettysburg Address, which was a few months later, but I decided not to go cuz I didn’t think it was gonna be that big a deal. Boy, was I wrong.”

“Wait, what happened at the Gettysburg Address?”

“That’ was when Lincoln did that speech that starts with: ‘Four score and seven years ago…’”

Dash’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit! You could have seen that speech in person and you chose not to!?”

I shrugged, shaking my head with a defeated look on my face. “Who knew it would turn out to be one of the biggest events in American history?”

“Pfft! Yeah, man. You tooootally shit the bed on that one.”

“One of the many things I wish I could go back and change,” I replied, looking down as I picked idly at the sheets.

“So what side were you on?” she asked.

“Union,” I said, glancing up at her.

“That’s the North, right?”

“Yeah. Yankees.”

“So you were on the side that was trying to free the slaves?”

I let out a sigh. “Well, that war was about a few different things, but yeah, for me personally, it was about slavery. It just… UGH!” I sat forward suddenly, putting my hands together to emphasise my point. “Look, Dashie: I’ll tell you right now --and you’ll probably encounter this one day yourself-- but if there is one pet-peeve that I have, that I keep seeing repeated over and over again throughout history, it’s fucking slavery. It is one of the most idiotic ideas humans have ever come up with.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty bad,” Dash agreed. “No one deserves that kinda life.”

I shook my head. “It’s not just cuz it’s inhumane, it just… it doesn’t work the way people think, no matter how many times they try it--and believe me, EVERYONE’S tried it. Here, put it this way: it’s easy for people to look at it and say ‘hey, free unlimited labour! This is a great idea!’ Ah, but it isn’t,” I explained finger raised. “I mean, maybe if you were a king of something, and you had some slave servants to feed you grapes and wash your ass n’ stuff, that might make sense, but as an economic platform, it is pure garbage--especially in an industrial place like the US.”

I raised a hand to begin counting on my fingers as I continued. “Look, let’s say you want super cheap, or even free labour; you go buy a bunch of slaves. Great! Now what? Remember, they have to be well enough to actually be able work for you. That means you have to pay to house them, clothe them, feed them, look after them when they’re sick or injured, you have to look after their newborn babies, you have to take care of them when they become elderly--it costs a lot more than you think. Now, what do you think would be cheaper? All that, or just paying someone an hourly wage for a day’s work?--Then they go home and look after themselves. They’re not your problem!”

Rainbow Dash scratched her forehead. “Wow. I never really thought of it like that; it kinda makes sense, though.”

“It makes perfect sense,” I replied, leaning back against the wall again. “Why do you think the North was historically more prosperous? No slavery! Not to mention, there’s the fact that it’s a gigantic humanitarian nightmare; I mean, in terms of productivity, who d’you think is going to be more productive? Someone who’s imprisoned and being forced to work his entire life, which in the end is a massive waste, or someone who is actually being compensated for his work and has the freedom to do what he wants?”

Dash sat up partway with her legs curled to one side, leaning on the opposite arm. “Obviously the guy getting paid.”

I threw both hands in the air. “Right!? Man, when I started hearing talk of them bringing slaves over, I… fuck. I was pulling my hair out, telling EVERYONE the same thing I just told you. I’d already seen it fail countless times by then, and I told every politician I met, or anyone with any pull whatsoever: don’t. Fucking. Do it. It won’t work. But do you think they listened to me?”

“Ugh… obviously not,” Dash grumbled.

“No.” I sighed, looking off into space.

After taking a moment to look down at her sideways-drooping breasts, Rainbow Dash glanced up at me. “You seem pretty passionate about it though; I guess that’s a good thing.”

I looked back at her. “Yeah. Trust me; you’ll encounter the same kind of infuriating crap as the years go on. Human beings have a very annoying habit of repeating mistakes.”

“Huh… well, still. I’d hate to be any Confederate soldier who treid to go toe-to-toe with you. Heh!”

“Yeah…” I reached up to scratch my forehead. “Ugh… that war was such a goddamn mess. I was glad to see it end, but then, just as things were looking up, those assholes went and killed the president and it all went o shit again.”

“Yeah, that sucks.”

I raised my hands and looked up at the ceiling, shaking my head. “I… Dashie, I tell you, I was so fucking done at the point, I just hopped on a horse and fucked off to the west. Spent the next decade or so hanging out with the gunslingers.”

She cocked her head, scowling at me. “That’s how you ended up in the Wild West?”

I nodded. “Yup. That’s’ where I learned to shoot. I’ve already told you some of those stories. The lawlessness out there was kinda fun, in a way. I could take my aggression out some of those guys --the ones who deserved it, anyway-- but when bad things happened to good people, like that family I was trying to bring the food to, it sort of cancelled out. Eventually, it cancelled out more and more, and things got so bad that I had to get out, and eventually I returned to the north--but I stayed away from DC.”

“Whew…” Dash shook her head. “Your stories, man. I could listen to them all day.”

“Yeah,” I nodded and looked down at myself, suddenly realising I felt somewhat exposed with my manhood flopped out like this. Drawing a breath, I stood from the bed. “I’m just gonna go grab my clothes. Hey, do you know where the dinner is this week?”

“I thought Pinkie was doing it, but I could be wrong,” she replied, lying back down again to stretch out. “Ahhh… hey uh, you mind grabbing my clothes too?”

I turned back and waved her off. “Nothin doin.”

Her head popped up suddenly, brows furrowed. “Huh?”

I paused, my eyes darting around before landing on the naked blue girl again. “Sorry. All this talk of the old days is making the lingo come back.”

“That’s totally weird,” Dash replied, narrowing her eyes at me before lifting her phone again to look at it.

“What I meant was ‘get your own fucking clothes,’” I said, turning away once more to head out of the room.

“You what’s kinda crazy?” Dash said, stopping me once again.

“What?”

“How you’ve gone from using, like, swords n’ spears n’ stuff, to guns and revolvers or whatever, and now you have sophisticated technology to fight your battles, like using smartphones to tap into the cameras n’ shit.” She held her phone above her face, swiping through the app. “Like, I’m here, laying naked on my bed, and I can see anywhere I want in the entire city; the mall, the Wondercolt’s arena, Sunset’s apartment, Carousel Bouti… holy shit.”

I was turning away when she said this, and something about the tone in her voice made me turn back yet again. “What?”

“The boutique is on fire!”

A sudden shot of tension went through my chest. “What!?”

She turned the phone so I could see it. “Look!”

I stepped closer to get a better look. Sure enough, the camera that faced the shop from the traffic pole out front showed the heart-wrenching truth: Rarity’s boutique was engulfed in flames.

“Shit!” I staggered back a step to turn away, but was unable to peel my eyes from the horrific sight. After forcing myself to turn away, I darted down the hallway, shouting. “Dashie, send Rare a message, then get your fucking clothes on! We gotta go right now!”

*****

Not twenty minutes later, Rainbow Dash and I were outside of the boutique, unable to get very close to it as the area had been blocked by emergency vehicles. We’d been joined already by Sunset and Pinkie Pie, who had both left their apartments to join us. Sonata, who was now living with Pinkie, stayed home as she was not yet physically prepared for any real excitement.

Rarity, who’d remained at Fluttershy’s for the day, took considerably longer to arrive. Rainbow Dash’s message alerting her of the fire was the first she’d heard of it, which led us to believe that the blaze had just started--not that it mattered, sadly; as soon as Dash and I arrived on the scene, I knew the boutique was beyond salvation.

It was nearly forty minutes later when Rarity car sped onto the scene and screeched to a halt in the middle of the street. The driver’s door flew open and the fashionista stepped out, her eyes wide with horror, her skin reflecting the orange hue from the blaze. After covering her mouth and taking a moment to absorb the reality of it all, she broke into a run while Fluttershy stepped out of the passenger side, her mouth covered as well.

Rather than approach us as expected, Rarity pushed right past us and charged straight for the burning building. Sunset and I both reached for her when she slipped between us, but were too slow to catch her; Dash was ready to give a hot pursuit to stop her, but I put my hand in front of her to hold her back, nodding at the firefighters and surrounding crowd when she gave me an irritated look.

“Not in front of everyone,” I warned.

After glaring for a moment, Dash breathed a sigh of frustration, her shoulders slumping. Fluttershy joined my side to watch helplessly as Rarity charged her way inside the store, the firefighters calling after her as she ducked in through the broken glass of the front door.

The shy girl gripped my hand, prompting me to look over at her; the look of terror and helplessness in her eyes was heartbreaking. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the worry she must have felt for her girlfriend right then.

I squeezed her hand in return, but it didn’t seem to offer much comfort. There was little we could do, standing there on the street with the oppressive heat beating our faces, beams of light from the afternoon sun cutting through the massive brownish-gray cloud of smoke that billowed into the sky above.

“Come on, Rare, don’t do anything stupid,” Sunset grumbled aloud, shaking her head as she watched the alarmed firefighters pointing and shouting out orders about the crazed woman who’d entered the inferno.

Just then, however, the fashionista re-emerged. Her clothes and face were smoke stained, her hair frazzled; watering eyes had caused her eyeliner had run down her cheeks, and her hair was a frazzled mess. She stood there for a moment, looking devastated, exhaling a cloud of smoke from her mouth and nostrils like an elegant dragon.

When she noticed a pair of firemen approaching, she quickly put on a phony spell of coughing and shook her head, jogging away from them while waving them off. “I’m fine! Leave me be!” she shouted as they changed course to pursue her.

“Ma’am, you need to be checked out!” they shouted through their helmet speakers.

She approached the group and circled behind us to hide from them, while I put my hand out to signal them down. “We got her; she ‘s fine,” I said.

One of the men shook his head. “She needs to be checked out. There’s a lot of smoke in there.”

Indeed, the smell was horrendous; there was a wide range of materials in the place that didn’t exactly burn very cleanly.

“OK, we’ll take her to the hospital,” I suggested.

He pointed down the street. “There’s an ambulance over there, they’ll look after her.”

I nodded, and the two men, having little other choice, returned their attention to the fire. I turned to face Rarity, who stunk horrendously of smoke. “What the fuck was that all about!?”

“I… I-I couldn’t help myself. I’m sorry!” she cried, fresh tears gushing down her blackened cheeks. She slammed herself against Fluttershy next, wrapping her arms around the shy girl and squeezing her tightly. “It’s gone, darling, ALL of it! The place is destroyed! All of my life’s work, going up in smo-ho-hoke! How did this have happened!?”

Fluttershy held the fashionista tight, struggling to fight back the tears. “I know. I’m so sorry, Rare!”

Pinkie Pie latched onto the back of Rarity, adding to the embrace. Rainbow Dash joined the group hug next.

Before Sunset had a chance to join in, she felt a buzz in her pocket. Huffing, she stopped to fish her phone out to see who it was. “It’s Twilight,” she said to me as she read the text. Then her eyes widened. “Oh shit…”

“What is it?” I asked, standing beside her so I could see the screen.

“Look,” Sunset replied, showing me the message.

TWILIGHT: I just heard about the fire, so I went back in the city footage and found this:

Below that was video box. When Sunset pressed play, it showed the boutique before the fire had started. Aside from the dull, orange flicker growing in the front windows, nothing was happening at first, but after watching for a few seconds, I noticed something very peculiar: from around the corner of the building came a woman, running down the sidewalk with a long black garment under one arm, wearing tight pants with a loose leather belt and a light-coloured vest, with a pair of big ponytails that bounced as she ran along, each one sporting a light-coloured tracer that ran its length.

Another message popped up.

TWILIGHT: Tell Rarity I’m sorry

I looked at Sunset. “Isn’t that, uh…?”

She nodded. “Aria…”

“Who?” came Rarity’s voice from the side, causing Sunset and I to spin around to face her.

“It’s uh…” Sunset fidgeted and chewed her lip, clearly reluctant to tell her friend about the image, lest she lose control of her temper.

I sighed and shook my head. “Just show her, Sunny.”

Swallowing, Sunset handed the phone to Rarity, who reached out to take it as the others released her from the hug. We watched in silence for a moment as the fashionista viewed the footage, feeling the heat of the flames on our backs.

It was obvious when she saw it. Her eyes widened when she saw the figure running from her store, and her jaw clenched tightly, her fingertips trembling violently, barely able to hold onto the phone.

“Rare?” Sunset said, grimacing.

“That bitch…” the fashionista whispered, lowering the phone and turning to watch her store burn to the ground.

The rest of us watched, not know what to expect.

After staring vacantly into that blaze, her eyes reflecting the dancing orange light show, she faced Sunset and I, speaking in a very calm, low voice. “She tried to take my little sister, then she took my livelihood.” She paused, huffing deeply before continuing. “I will find her… so help me god. And when I do, I shall skin her alive!”

As she spoke, an electric blue light began to emit directly from the fashionista's skin, and she levitated from the sidewalk, her feet hovering a few inches from the concrete.

Sunset's eyes widened suddenly, and she quickly stepped forward to grab the fashionista to pull her back down. "Rare, NO! Not in front of everybody!"

It was too late, however; a beam of blue energy emerged from her forehead, tapering to a point roughly ten inches long. Her hair began to grow rapidly, a massive indigo coil that extended down behind her back, nearly reaching her feet.

The other girls had joined Sunset in trying to hold the fashionista down by then, but despite this, the situation worsened when small objects began to rise from the ground: little rocks, bits of garbage and the like began to float around us at knee height, prompting me to move in and pull her downward.

Luckily, after a quick look around, it appeared that most of the people present were focused on the fire, so I turned to Sunset and the others.

"We gotta get her outta here before someone sees this shit!"

"Ya think!?" Sunset fired back.

I looked to my left, noticing Rarity's car parked several feet away. "There! Get her in the car!" I said, pointing toward the vehicle, just as it began to creak and it's front wheels began to lift from the ground, along with a garbage can that was chained to a nearby light post.

Panicking, I faced Rarity, whose eyes were ablaze with a blinding glow. "Come on, Rare, get it together! We can't do this here!"