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TACO was miserable. Too many cookies. Far, far too many cookies. His super sweet not-wife, Sugar Delight, was just too good of a cook. He was ruined, and laid down like a beached whale on the sofa. "Ohhhhhh," he groaned to no one in particular, "this is the worst indigestion of my entire life. I should have never had those three dozen cookies."

The worst part was that he was too bloated to properly thank her. TACO's notoriously amazing bedroom skills just didn't work as well when he could barely move. "Unnnnhhhhh," he groaned louder.


Sweet Surrender heard the zombie-like noises coming from the other room, and he peeked his head out to see what was happening.

Well, this certainly was not good. Dad looked horrible. His skin had turned a pale shade of pink... well, a more pale shade of pink, and he was sweating and cursing. Overall, it was safe to say that TACO was sick and sad.

Surrender knew it was his and all his siblings responsibility to make Dad feel better. He was a pretty cool Dad to have, and it was a bummer to see him this upset. But how? That was the question. Surrender wasn't really good at anything. He didn't have any talent like everyone else in his family. But one thing he could do was wrangle phonies together. So he set around the house, knocking on every sibling's door and telling him to meet him in the kitchen for brainstorming.

Candy Dandy had been busy twisting pipe cleaners into fantastic shapes when Sweet Surrender had knocked on her door. She offered the bright red one a last twist before prancing to her door and hearing his plight. Or more specifically, their father's plight. She giggled, hearing him moan from the living room behind what her brother was saying.

Her giggles continued until she too entered the kitchen. Bohemian Raspberry was already there, and she stared at her sister while she mimicked the sounds that her father was making. Neither of them sounded good.

"What's wrong with Dad?" she asked, taking her place at the table next to her pink sibling. "Is he sick?"

She was a bit confused about what Boho was saying. But then, she was talking about zombies and albatross, whatever those were. She tilted her head to one side. "What the heck is an albatross?"

At least she had stopped rolling on the table. "Is that why he is groaning? Because he is thirsty?" Well then why didn't he just come in and get a drink. Candy Dandy decided that she needed to see her father for herself, so she hopped down from the table and snuck to the door, pushing it open gently. TACO was there on the couch, looking as if he were going to give birth. Candy Dandy gasped, closing the door. She rushed back to Boho, sitting back down.

"His stomach is all stuck out! What if he swallowed and alien!?

At the mention of aliens, Bohemian Raspberry swung her head to face her sister, grinning madly. "If he DID swallow an alien, I totally have a rock opera to write! But we gotta save him, because I'll need him to sing his part." She wandered over to the fridge and began to pull jars and bottles out of it. "To answer your question, dear sister, an albatross is a large bird. Iron Maiden sings about one in their cover of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I think there's a vinyl copy of that album in my room, if you wanna listen." Climbing up on the counter, she fished around in one of the tall cabinets for a glass. Choosing a nice tall one, she began to pour the items she'd pulled from the fridge into the pilsner. Grape juice, lemon juice, milk, chocolate syrup, a pickle, two raw eggs, and some of the special cough medicine that her parents said she wasn't allowed to touch until she was Old Enough all went in. She topped the concoction off with a liberal helping of whipped cream from an aerosol can and a cherry. After a moment's deliberation, she added more whipped cream then sprayed some in her own mouth for good measure.

"Maybe he's so thirsty he's too dehydrated to come in. I think this is called an Old Fashioned and it's supposed to be good. Hopefully it'll kill whatever he's accidentally swallowed. I'm gonna take this in to him. Prestige, Candy, if I get all alien'd up too, I want you guys to take care of my record collection." The little filly saluted her siblings, then carried the drink in to the ailing TACO.

"Daddy? I made you a drink to cure you of the alien babby that's in your stomach," she said, gently placing the glass on the coffee table and then stepping back to observe the patient's reaction.

Bohemian Raspberry was only disheartened for a moment that her 'cure' didn't work. She'd once heard her father say that artistic inspiration could come from anywhere- even magazines that he kept under the bed that she wasn't supposed to look at- so finding it in a bloated parental unit wouldn't be too unusual, right? She raced back into the kitchen, grabbed a pen and paper, and then scrambled up to the top of the couch, sitting on the back of it and staring down at her dad.

She thought for a moment, tapping her chin with the pencil, then scribbled some words on the pad. "I need to take myself out of the game for a little bit here. I tried a drink, that didn't work. So I'm gonna brainstorm on both fixing Dad and writing this rock opera and maybe you guys should find that pink stuff that Mom promises isn't liquid bubblegum. Pepto something or other." Boho wasn't actually too concerned if her siblings were paying attention to her; she was in the zone, artistically, and she figured that her father would understand.

As she wrote, she began to narrate the... story, if it could be called that. "Ok, ok, bear with me on this. So our dad's a rock star, only in this version of the story, he's, like, from Mars. Yeah. He's a spacephony. And his ship's the U.S.S. Fondu- no, Fondoom. And he's gotta stop the evil aliens from taking over the galaxy, but they've got him and there's a spy and the REAL heroes of the rock opera are gonna be the intrepid Marshlings who are gonna save their dad and, like, punch some aliens and there's an epic love saga between the Alien Queen and our dad but in the end she has to die because she's an alien. Actually, I don't wanna be a Marshling, I wanna be the NASA commander and the characters I base on you guys can be either NASA guys or Marshlings, it's up to you. Also, there's a pinball wizard and his name is... Cookies, and this whole thing is his fault" The filly was nothing if not ambitious. "I'm gonna try singing a bar or two now... here goes. We have to rescue our dad from the spaaaaaace aaaaaaliens, or else his stomach will explooooooooode! Then a guitar riff... no, wait, a drum break... ooh, and then some narration... The good ship Fondoooooom is no pleasure cruise... We have to save our dad or it'll be covered in alien juice!" Whatever an insane rambling cutie mark looked like, it seemed as though Boho was destined to get it.

She certainly wasn't going to get a "Nurse your sick dad back to health" cutie mark, that was for sure.

Jar of pink stuff? Were they looking for that tube of scented body lotion that dad kept on the night stand? Sweet Surrender was told to not eat that once before. Even though it smelled like strawberries, and said that it tasted like strawberries, apparently it was not really strawberries in liquid form. He wasn't sure how that would help right now.

He did like the idea of a rock opera though. While not as musically gifted as his siblings or half-siblings, Surrender tried his best. He grabbed plastic storage containers, pots, and a tipped over trash can, and began to pound out a beat using some wooden spoons. It was kind of off, and not very good.

Clank, plop, bang, .... pause, clank, plop, boom, bang, clank.

He used Candy's idea, and continued singing the verse that Boho started in a faux-operatic voice, "Coooooooookies! The vile cheater! He made the Alien Queen fall in loooooooooooooove because he was good at pinball. But it was a liiiiiiiiiiiiie! He made the table tilt!"

....pause, bang, bang, clank, boom.

Did she say they were going to make a rock opera?


Awesome.


Candy jumped down from the chair immediately, eyes sparkling. "I know where he keeps it!" she practically shouted, galloping into the bathroom connected to their parents room. There was a drawer that they were told not to mess with. Well, actually, there were a lot of drawers and closet spaces they were told not to mess with. Something about "Mommy and Daddy's fun stuff." Candy thought it was mighty strange that grown up would hide stuff that was fun. But this drawer was one where she knew what was inside.

Bottles and pat of pressed powder were stacked inside. Colors from the entire spectrum of eyeliner and lipstick were piled up. She looked around and found a small basket, probably one that her mom used to deliver sweets. She started to pull things out and into the basket, asking Boho things like "Do you think we should use this color?" or "Which one of these should we take?"

Candy Dandy returned, the basket in her mouth filled with colorful makeup. She hopped unsteadily onto a chair and placed the basket on the tabletop, saying "C'mere Sweet! You get to be Dad because you would totally be the best one for the part!"

She started unloading the basket, lining up the eyeliners, foundations and other cosmetics up in neat little rows.

"Who gets to be the Alien Queen?